Developing an Entrepreneurial Team

Businesses are facing challenge, How to develop risk taking ability among their leaders & develop entrepreneurship among the team. In today's VUCA world, post-pandemic, it is more important. Who is responsible for this culture where leadership & employees fear to take risk? How to make them realize the cost associated with it? How to train them? How to create Autonomy & entrepreneurship as the competitive advantage of the organization? This article discusses this important aspect of leadership.

Tom Peters & his co-author/researcher from McKinsey identified eight principles those are followed by the successful organizations. These principles make them maintain their strong position in the industry & feature in the Fortune-500 list. Above image enlists those factors.

Everyone loves autonomy at work. But very few understand that this privilege goes with the responsibility of entrepreneurship.

Autonomy without entrepreneurship is like a car without gasoline. When a team works as if they are the owners of the organization then they can be given with the freedom in the form of autonomy. As suggested by Henry Fayol in fourteen principles of management, Authority & Responsibility must go hand in hand.

Entrepreneurship is a sense of responsibility and autonomy is ecosystem provided for such a responsible attitude.

Autonomy is freedom. It is freedom to act. But autonomy has become like a vacuum cleaner at Indian homes. For us, it is an aspirational gadget but we hardly put to the use. Autonomy by design, is also susceptible to misuse. Autonomy at work it is like a trade-mill at home. It has a decorative & esteem value & always misused for everything other than doing exercise. Management introduced audit system to put checks & balances on autonomy. But the audit culture is killing the risk taking ability of the teams.

Most of the managers treasure autonomy as pride possession but they either don't use it or misuse it due to lack of entrepreneurship.

What is Entrepreneurship? It is about taking ownership of the mission & goals which are risky & challenging. Risk taking & taking onus are two key elements.They get combined to carve a leadership. Taking onus is making critical decisions & initiating strong actions those can go either way. Great leaders keep risk with themselves & distribute rewards to the team. But when a coin flips on the wrong side, the team shares the risk.

Entrepreneurship expands your employment universe & provides a satisfaction of doing business. It is fun people enjoy while playing an adventure sports like bungee jumping. You know that you are safe,a rope tied firmly to your foot will save you from any possible disaster but still enjoy the thrill.

Entrepreneurship is about enjoying the thrill rather than fear of unknown.

How are they different? Entrepreneurship at work is an attitude to do business rather than performing just the duties specified in the Job Description. Such a team respects systems & processes but when it comes to choosing between systems and business, they choose later. The last line one can hear from such team members is, "it is not my problem." For a team with entrepreneurial spirit, all problems are everyone's problems. Customer complaints are as sacrosanct as the national anthem; everyone stands up leaving whatever work is being done. Team with entrepreneur attitude is different in all aspects of the business. They have a different perception & perspective. They look at the broader picture & don't miss woods for trees. They respect the hierarchy but don't get entangled in it.

Team with entrepreneurial approach work as huddle rather than a structure.

Great organizations are products of the great contributions & also great sacrifices of its team. Maturity to understand that 'when the organization is losing, I can't win' is called entrepreneurship. Factoring in risk while chasing the mission is entrepreneurship. Good employees understand the relationship between efforts & returns. They develop entrepreneurship when they understand relationship between risk & return.

Fate of the leader & his team is always connected strongly to fate of the mission.

Target Superstore is one of the largest chains of stores in the USA We were shopping at Target store. My daughter saw a special deal on ladies hoodies. They were placed on a separate rack besides the hoodie rack. There were only a few colours and specific sizes but great discount of 50%. Fortunately, my daughter could find a couple of hoodies and she was so happy to take them to the cashier for billing. The cashier scanned the first, it showed discounted price. When she scanned second hoodie full price was displayed on the cash machine. My daughter immediately objected & insisted for the discount. But cashier politely said there wasn't any discount on the second piece. It wasn't from the special discount rack. My daughter was annoyed & she insisted that hoodie was taken from the special rack. She refused to buy and expressed a strong displeasure. The cashier felt her anger and understood that she was talking the truth. She scanned the hoodie and entered an authorization code by calling supervisor. The hoodie was sold to us at discount. We were delighted. Thereafter, every time we go to Atlanta we go to that store & buy loads of things. The cashier at Target demonstrated entrepreneurship and hooked the customer for life. She sensed the feelings of her customers realized the merit in their demand & obliged.

Entrepreneurship is about looking at the customer life time value rather than the cost of a transaction & short term profit.

How to bring the culture of entrepreneurship? That is the biggest challenge. Companies have to create a culture conducive to risk taking & innovation. Mistakes must be pardoned so that the team shall not have the fear of failure. If anything goes wrong the analysis must be done to figure out whether the actions were wrong or intentions were corrupt. Only the corrupt intentions must be punished. Wrong actions should be highlighted and taken up for punishment. Listen to the video interview below. Mr Ajit Jain talks about his risk seeking attitude which was nurtured well by his organization Berkshire Hathaway & owner Warren Buffet. Mr Ajit proved his character in a way that nobody doubted his intentions. See how warmly Warren Buffet talks about him. Such understanding & personal chemistry at senior leadership is conducive to the organization culture wherein people don't fear to make bold decisions. The very nature of their insurance business wants them to take risks. They grew only on account of their risk taking ability nurtured by the top leadership.

Consulting, Law & Accountancy firms: Pioneering Entrepreneurship and Autonomy Consultancy, law, and accountancy firms have perfected an art of creating entrepreneurship as an organization culture. The term ‘Partner’ refers to a senior position within a consulting or financial services firm such as KPMG or Deliotte. These firms were set up as partnerships in which partners shared the profits. Name remained even though firms were incorporated as companies. In addition to advising clients, partners are also responsible for developing and managing client relationships,identifying new business opportunities, contributing to growth and development. The partners have to make sure financial targets are met, and that the right team is in place to meet the needs of their clients.

Dhirubhai Ambani left inheritance in terms of entrepreneurship. He provided a fishing-net rather than the fish.

Why could Mukesh Ambani carry forward legacy of Dhirubhai while other family managed businesses in India couldn't? There are many reasons but primary reason being Dhirubhai's training that imparted entrepreneurship. Dhirubhai was a great visionary who understood the importance of imparting risk taking attitude before providing autonomy.

Tatas are another best example of fostering entrepreneurship among their team. JRD Tata provided free hand to the leaders he created. He provided them autonomy & never interfered in their company affairs. Tata executives like S Mulgaonkar Russy Modi, Ajit Kerkar, Xexus Desai, etc. were the products of the risk taking leadership culture that was fostered by J R Tata. Mr Ratan Tata truly inherited JRD's legacy by practicing entrepreneurship while performing his duties as the group chairman. His decisions to take over Jaguar-Land Rover & Corus steel were pursued to be risky decisions by many.

When Walmart founder Sam Walton passed away, Walmart was $50 billion company. The entrepreneur team made it $500 billion company in the next 25 years.

Sam Walton nurtured entrepreneurship by providing autonomy to his team. Today Walmart is there on 11,000 locations globally. This scale can't be run without having a culture to take risks & exercise autonomy with responsibility. The latest example is Alibaba of China. This customer centric company needs employees who take risks & exercise entrepreneurship. Such companies serve employees so that they serve their customers well. Sam Walton used to say, "serve your employees rather than they serving you." Serving employees involves providing them freedom & experience that they are running their own business.

Jack Ma say, "recruit people who are smarter than you. Don't tell them what to do. Smart people should tell you what to do."

How to develop entrepreneurship? Is the real task. Recruiting right people who can take risk is important. Dhirubhai always preferred employees who had past experience of doing their own business. He knew succeeding in business in India takes a lot of other factors but the ability of such people to take risk is important even while they work for others. Jack Ma realized best way to develop risk taking ability of people is by catching them young. The average age of Alibaba employee is 29. Rewarding well thought & planned efforts should be rewarded & not just rewarding the success.Failure should not cost people their careers rather risk averseness should.