I was recently listening to a lecturer discuss how risk-taking is an integral part of “the entrepreneurial mindset.” He was very inspirational. Unfortunately, he was also flat-out wrong. There has been a lot of research into the psychological qualities of entrepreneurs. What has it concluded? There is no “entrepreneurial mindset”–entrepreneurs are a very diverse group. But especially among lifelong entrepreneurs who have experienced multiple successes, there is no evidence that they are any more risk-taking than anyone else. In fact, they do everything they can to mitigate risk.
My point, however, has nothing to do with entrepreneurs. It has to do with conventional wisdom. We intuitively (or culturally) want to believe that entrepreneurs are a special breed of person. That way, we have an excuse to be an entrepreneur if we deem ourselves “that breed.” Or we have an excuse *not* to be an entrepreneur if we aren’t “that breed.” Either way, we get to shift the responsibility for the decision to our personality type, rather than our decisions and efforts. That makes the very notion of an “entrepreneurial mindset” attractive, as a flexible rationale we can use for all kinds of stuff.
A lot of conventional wisdom is similar. The American myth that CEOs are somehow to credit for the entire performance of their companies, for example, is unsupported by any data whatsoever. W. Edwards Deming, the statistician who created the Total Quality movement, said that no more than 10% of a company’s performance could be attributed statistically to the CEO, and then only in highly unusual cases.
The problem is that our minds aren’t very good at understanding complex things. For 100,000 years, our minds weren’t able to do much beyond farm. Then we invented the scientific method, which was the first time we had a rigorous way to separate our intuitive-but-wrong ideas from the nonintuitive-but-accurate ways the world really works.
There is a lot of poorly-done science in the works. There is also a lot of excellent science, which is why we live 2x as long as our ancestors, in comfort, with electric lights and polar fleece.
Especially in the human potential fields–self-help, business leadership, etc.–there is a substantial body of research about how people and human systems actually work. Much of that research has even been popularized and published in books accessible to everyday people.
Before jumping on the pleasant, inspirational stories propagated in our cultural myths, take the time to read some of the research-based books on the topics. You can even go further and read the studies the books are based on. Some of the science (or the way it is being interpreted) may be ‘iffy,’ but some may be solid. And you may learn how the world *really* works, which will only make it easier for you to create the life you want.
(*) this is what I did for the Get-It-Done Guy episodes on visualizing for results. “The Secret” doesn’t work. They’ve done controlled experiments to find out. But some slight tweaks in the visualization technique *has* been shown to boost results. Not because of a deep spiritual principle, but because the right visualization gets people motivated and moving to make their dreams come true.
Stever, I really appreciated what you had to say here. I’ve never had the guts to take on creating a whole new company — I couldn’t mitigate the at-least short-term risk of poor cash flow, for one thing — but I’ve turned out to be very entrepreneurial as a library manager, and I’ve been successful at it. (Hint: The key is working smarter, not easier.) I work with a lot of discouraged adults who have been out of the job market a while, and spend a lot of time urging them to not depend on the conventional wisdom, which says they’re unsuccessful and unwanted and have years of striving ahead of them. I haven’t been up front with people about The Secret and similar gimmicks, but I tend to have a fairly live-and-let-live attitude about spiritual practices. Your post puts entrepreneurship at the same level as leadership: A valuable practice that can be learned.
I liked this article because it was about getting down to the underlying principles of why things happen. I read a lot of books and material too, so I can learn the “easy” way instad of the “hard” way. People often tell me I’m wasting my time reading and should “just do it.” Which I disagree with, I’d rather learn what I can first.
This is kind of related to another point that I hope you do an article. In big companies, people often absolve themselves of responsibility to think about something claiming it is the job of “another department.” Yet it isn’t hard to figure out the principles involved, and at least form some draft thoughts so you can move things forward rather than getting caught up in beuracracy. I do this well, which is important since I’m always working on multidisciplinary problems, but most people around me don’t do this at all, hence, they get stuck.
Loved this article, thanks Stever! I wrote a similar blog article about how common Goal Setting practices may be making us fail. Research suggests that the key is being dissociated from the goal
http://www.confidentfuture.com.au/blog/goals-may-be-making-you-fail/
Intuition is a gift that all humans are fortunate to have. it is like searchlight with keeps up from stumbling upon our own inabilities to progress from one stage of our lives to the other. It is this same intuition which spurs development and make the difference between poverty and prosperity.
I am in full agreement that it is not always “right”, but it allows us options which in turn allows for growth and development. I also think entrepreneur are a special set of people, with this a special gift to harness, hone and utilize their intuitive thoughts to create and develop businesses. Though everyone has intuition, the difference with entrepreneurs, is their innate ability to convert ideas to business.
There’s a great deal of research on entrepreneurs that suggests they are not a special breed of people and do NOT have innate abilities to convert intuition to business. That’s one of the myths that turns out not to be true when you actually go out and interview entrepreneurs to learn about them. Check out the book Just Start from Harvard Business School Press for a popularization of some of the research into what makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial. Also check out http://effectuation.org.
“Before jumping on the pleasant, inspirational stories propagated in our cultural myths, take the time to read some of the research-based books on the topics. You can even go further and read the studies the books are based on.”
THIS is why I started my own business working as a freelance librarian for nonprofits and small businesses. Before make organizational/business decisions based on something they THINK is true, when they really should invest time in looking at the research first. That’s where I come in — with a masters in library science and almost 10 years of experience, I connect people with the right information in the right format at the right time. I connect nonprofits to evidence demonstrating why their planned program for helping others may or may not work, according to those who’ve scientifically tested those ideas. I connect small businesses to research showing that a particular marketing idea may or may not successful based on what has already been tested and published. Nonprofits and small businesses can not afford to spend valuable resources implementing a plan that is likely to fail. It is much more cost-efficient to have someone research your assumptions before you finalize your plans.
YAY!!! Librarians ROCK! I spoke at a conference of medical librarians and got to know them. If you ever go in for surgery, make sure you have a librarian accompany the surgeon to the operating theater, to insure he/she is up-to-speed on the latest research
[Actually, I am not sure that's a joke.]