Undercover entrepreneur: should upper management be considered as an entrepreneur?
Traditionally, or at least since the term was forged, an entrepreneur has been considered as the persons who takes risk and start a new business on his own and assuming all the risk; however from my perspective tha would be selling short the term, because at the end upper management is held accountable for every decision and project implementation within any organization, he's the one who has to watch and bring profits before stakeholders, and more often than not upper management has it's own interest as stock holders, therefore why shouldn't we considered them as entrepreneurs?
Whenever we make a decistion as upper management we have to measure both risks, costs and benefits, so besically we are on the tight rope between each other, finding yourselve between a rock and a hard place, everytime you take a stand.
The prior is nor an intend to make excuses for upper management decistions, neither support all of them, however we know that management had several components built within. On one hand, as responsibles before stakeholders, management needs to produce profits but this should not comes regadless the cost. Years ago, I remember this plant manager who was an expert increasing productivity, but the cost for that was unbearable. What he used to do was having 3 shifts and working the machinery at it's full capacity, without a planned stop for preventive maintenance, therefore it brokedown eventually; on top of that, his people skills weren't the best ones, he acted more like a tyranious foreman, so the team ended up burned out. Long term Strategy wise this was not the best approach, however in the short term it really fullfiled his own goal.
The balance between short and long term goals, risks and costs is a thin line upper management has to assess all the time. By definition, as I mentioned on the previous article, an Entrepreneur is a person who organizes and operates a business, taking greater than normal financial risks to do so. Basically by definitions an adventurer CEO would do this, therefore he should be considered an entrepreneur.
In all fairness taking higher than normal risks doen't mean they are not planned or that an entrepreneur is a dare devil, In fact I think is the opposite; even though the risk may seam higher whenever you start a new endeavour, no matter if it's personal, professional, by your own or as part of a management team, you have to be able to foresee all the different angles, ótential deviations, threats, opportunities; ok, basically I'm describing a SWOT analysis, as daring as you may want it to be.
There is no magic formula on the business world, if it were, I bet it would be bottled and sold, you may have the best product, the best marketing, the best networking, the best financial back up, the best reputation, you may have all of them or any combination, however, entrepreneurship regardless if it's on your own or as part of a greater organization, requires hard work, commitment, and above all never stop trying.
Kommentare