A successful entrepreneur far, far from home.

It’s 6:00 AM and 7 below zero as my wife and I get into a cab headed for CVG on our way to some Southern warmth.   At least once every winter we stay at a Northern Kentucky hotel to avoid the ‘wintry mix’ of chaos guaranteed to occur the night before and the morning we’re scheduled to leave.

Our cab is a late-model Audi. Since we’ve both owned Audis for years, I’m already feeling comfortable as our driver asks us which airline we’re flying.

I notice his accent but can’t quite place it and ask him where he’s from.

Serbia.

Serbia. That bombshell of a word explodes in my mind, spewing out its shrapnel of hellacious images: Civil war, ethnic cleansing, mass graves and countless other unspeakable atrocities committed by man against his fellow man.

Creating Value Out of an Internship

“An apprenticeship is the most logical way to success. The only alternative is overnight stardom, but I can’t give you a formula for that.”            — Chet Atkins

Interns will begin to descend upon companies in just a few weeks and many companies are ready and many may not be. We just launched an organized internship program this year rather than have individual managers hire their own interns. First, we interviewed all of the managers who would have potential internship slots: Operations, Marketing, Quality Assurance, HR, Safety and Supply Chain. The intern program wants to achieve these three goals:

1. Provide a meaningful work experience to give insight into our business and our industry so that the intern may decided to join us fulltime after graduation
2. By providing a meaningful work experience, we hope to get value out of the internship by the work that gets completed, but also innovative ideas that will be generated by a fresh set of eyes on our business.
3. Transform the interns into ambassadors for our company when they return to campus to recruit new management talent for the future. Because we are a B2B company, our profile is not on a lot of college student’s radars when they are looking for a career – yet we have many opportunities in marketing, supply chain and operations.

Create. Succeed. Rinse. Repeat.

Before you break an arm patting yourself on the back for being an entrepreneur, consider these folks:

Elon Musk, Thomas Edison, Sir Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey,

Wayne Huizenga, Benjamin Franklin, Jerome Lemelson and Geroge Bernard Shaw.

They’re serial entrepreneurs.

A special breed of entrepreneur for whom creating, growing and sustaining just one business wasn’t enough. While you and I created, grew and sustained a single business, serial entrepreneurs created, grew and sustained an empire of businesses. Where we stopped, they started … with an extraordinary passion to achieve unlimited success in as many ventures as possible.

To Struggle or Not to Struggle

During the first week of my entrepreneurial leadership classes at Miami, I introduce a definition of leadership – “Leadership is the art of convincing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations” (Kouzes and Posner).   My first question to the students always is “which words or phrases really pop out at you.”   Their response is almost always “struggle.” Why? From their perspective, a leader is a positive person and struggle is a very negative term. And so, this begins an interesting but intense discussion around the merits of “struggle” in one’s life.   Usually, I win the discussion because ultimately I refer to such admired leaders as Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jesus, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln and point to how their struggles shaped their legacies.

Refer again to the “leadership” definition. Often glossed over in the definition are the two words preceding to struggle – to want. Leaders convince employees, peers, vendors, partners, etc. to want to struggle with them. Just envision the difference in the result when people want to struggle. The project or the work is completed with a sense of urgency moved by passion and desire for the outcome. Entrepreneurs generally know how to create this environment because their employees see them struggle every day to experience breakthrough in their business. Their daily example encourages the people to want to struggle for the start-up’s successful launch.

Conversely, corporations today have difficulty moving their employees to struggle for the enterprise. A 2013 Gallup poll found that only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. This means that only one in eight workers is committed to struggling in their job and for the enterprise. Why? Corporations have very few leaders to model the way. Without the leader igniting shared aspirations, employees will become frustrated and disillusioned in their work. The lack of effort shows up in their mediocre performance. They have no desire to struggle or deliver discretionary effort in their job and for their company. This will not be disrupted until bosses become leaders and motivate their people to extraordinary performance.

So, how can leaders gain a commitment from their employees and ultimately, develop an edge against their competition? Consider the following actions:

• Learn how to inspire shared aspirations. Even, your top performers need to know what they are struggling for. If you fail to clarify the vision, your people will exit the boat and you will be left paddling by yourself. Find a way to get your team on the raft with their oars in the water.

 

• Breakdown your organization into smaller, entrepreneurial units. Model the behaviors you expect so the business will excel. Work alongside your team. Encourage ideas from your people. And, of course, do something with the ideas.

 

• Spend time watching other leaders work their magic. Focus on how they engage their people. Listen to how they communicate with them. Watch how they listen intently to what they are saying and provide a related response. View how they encourage them and reinforce their efforts. See how they treat their people with dignity and respect. And then sit back and watch how the team gladly struggles for shared aspirations.

 

Just be a LEADER and your people will want to struggle along with you.

 

 

Rapid Innovation

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”  – Steve Jobs – founder of Apple Computer

In my office I have a picture of Steve Jobs on one wall and Steve Blank facing him on the other. Mr. Jobs certainly needs no introduction, but Mr. Blank is not a household word around the Midwest as he is a veteran of 8 Silicon Valley tech companies and teaches at Stanford and Berkeley.  Steve Jobs believes customers can’t know what they want — we have to invent it for them.  Steve Blank, however, believes that you must find out what your customers need, and solve their problems. Which Steve do you follow?

Tips From A Conservative Entrepreneur

I was a late bloomer.

It took me 37 years to finally become an entrepreneur!

When I graduated from college in ’69 (that’s 1969, not 1869), there was a recession going on and the only place that offered me a job was Sears, Roebuck in Chicago … writing catalogue copy for the automotive department–specializing in mufflers, tailpipes and tires.

Pretty glamorous, eh?

About 4 months of that grind was all I could take, so every night I cut out pictures from magazines, pasted them on the cardboard backing from my laundered shirts and typed in my headlines and copy for what I thought would be good ads.

To Grow as a Leader, Stop Making Decisions

We often praise leaders that stand at the center of decision-making. We marvel at the technology CEO who personally chooses buttons for a new phone, the actor who also produces and directs his next film, and the pro sports coach who negotiates the power to “buy the groceries” as general manager. It makes for a good story, but often a horrible organization. Most successful leaders get there by minimizing the number of decisions they make.

For entrepreneurs, the day is filled with decisions small and large. It is a function of the habit of being the decider from day one, but also comes from the personal pressure of owning the company. For those who start a business because they think it’s good to be the king, this model is great. For the rest of us who are striving to build a sustainable, scaling business it can mean disaster.

Three Key Questions Every Entrepreneur Needs to Answer in 2015

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein

In the last few days, have you asked yourself, “Where did 2014 go?” Time is the most precious resource that any entrepreneur possesses. Although, time can seem to possess us instead of the other way around.

While the New Year prompts reflection about time, it also raises the specter of how we create value for our customers over time. The ongoing challenge for entrepreneurs is not only creating value at the outset of the business, but continuing to add value for customers today and into the future. The transition from one year to the next also brings into focus the nearness of the future. Tomorrow begins today.

Ordinary or Extraordinary – No Decision

Ordinary – a word everyone disdains, but a condition most people accept. Crazy – maybe. Recently, I had invited a student to my office for a coaching session. After a few pleasantries, I informed the student that he was having a “very ordinary” semester. This statement didn’t faze him in the least. Concerned, I followed with “why doesn’t this assessment upset you.” He retorted “how much harder would I have to work for extraordinary and will it be worth it.” My only response was – “you don’t want ordinary ever to be associated with you.”   After a long pause and no response, I scratched my head and ended the coaching session. Ordinary or Extraordinary – why would anyone choose to be ordinary?

Ordinary is fraught with complacency. Complacency is dull and easy. Extraordinary requires effort and passion. Personal effort and finding your passion is always hard work. Complacency seeks the status quo; it desires to be comfortable. There are no challenges waiting for ordinary. In fact, no challenges are being sought by ordinary. They want to burrow in and wake up every day to a routine of mundane tasks. And ordinary is painstakingly pleased with their tenured skills and expertise. Leaving themselves and others behind is an ever-present reality for this large group of people. And there are so many ordinaries walking aimlessly around the business world today.

You Know It Don’t Come Easy

 “Got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues

And you know it don’t come easy”

Ringo Starr penned these words for his first solo hit back in 1971 which made the #4 spot on Billboard pop charts. The song highlights many parallels between the music business and startups. Founders all must pay their dues, forgoing the easy road or the obvious choice so they may “swing for the fences” with their startup.

Young founders have a difficult time understanding this because prospective investors want to know how the startup is going to become a home run. The main reason investors invest their money in startups is to get that home run. The opportunity to have a huge ROI on your investment (to cover all the lesser returns) is part of the emotional makeup of early stage investors.