Most entrepreneurs have at one point in their career worked for someone else on the way to becoming business owners. As employees, they were often top performers in their particular areas of expertise.
Then one day the impulse or opportunity to parlay a skill set into an enterprise presents itself, and the pursuit of forming a consultancy or company begins.
Look at the person
One of the biggest reasons startups fail is not lack of capital, smart ideas or marketing savvy. It’s more likely because technicians, not entrepreneurs, launched those businesses. Only about 10 percent of us have entrepreneurial personalities by definition, and while that certainly doesn’t guarantee success, it does help increase the likelihood considerably.
A common organizational mission is to get employees thinking more like owners. Companies move to empower, train and incent their workers to act with vested interest in the business. This is a worthy goal — when approached correctly.
If an individual’s performance is measured against entrepreneurial benchmarks, there’s a good chance of failure. But when a team’s effort is encouraged to be enterprising as a whole, leaders will naturally emerge, and some people may pleasantly surprise you.
Spirit of collaboration
The idea is to create a comfortable yet competitive setting where employees are given equal access to training and development tools. By first establishing goals for the entire group, a spirit of collaboration arises. Then when teams within the team are created and given their own objectives, reaching them further benefits your organization.
Inside a supportive team environment, star producers will innately rise to the top and take greater ownership of and pride in their work and the work of their peers. Those disposed to an owner’s mindset will stand out as innovators and independent decision-makers, especially when given the freedom.
Rather than disturb natural order by appointing your leaders, let employees instinctively and informally elevate who they want to follow. Once identified, these managers should be entrusted with more access to proprietary information and more control over their domains and teams.
They should also become more involved in corporate strategy, product and service development, employee and customer satisfaction and all other aspects of growing the business. Provide additional coaching for your top managers to help them train the next generation of forward-thinkers.
Measure the responsibilities
Employees who are better suited for supporting roles are essential to the backbone of your operation and are just as likely to be industrious and conscientious. But by not setting lofty behavioral standards for any one person, each is made to feel important for uniquely contributing to the cause and is more likely to thrive. Imposing more responsibility than someone can handle is a disservice to the individual, company and marketplace.
The greatest thing you can do as an owner to secure the future of your business is to make yourself obsolete. Focus on advancing your team as a unified force and creating high-level pathways for talent to soar.
It’s best that your managers don’t think and act exactly like you anyway.
Eric Lofquist
Co-owner, president and CEO
Magnus International Group Inc. is an award-winning sustainable global products company.
Eric is a regional and national EY Entrepreneur Of The Year ™ whose business has been ranked No. 1 on the Weatherhead 100.
[email protected]
www.magnusig.com
(216) 592-8355, Ext. 223
www.linkedin.com/in/EricLofquist
