Since the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) of 2008, around the
world, optimism in business has not swayed to sparks of excitement or any exuberance
of self-deception. The danger in this
situation is the default neglect of patterns that may merit risk-taking. The
joke as it were is on us again. We now defend passive behaviors in the guise of
safety. There are a wide variety of start-ups that merit our attention. I have
had the fortune to mingle with a variety of small and medium sized enterprise
who have in them the distant drum frequencies of a distinctly vibrant future,
on the edge of sustainable enterprise design considerations and employees wiser
from the delight of authentic service.
I am naming just a few to buttress readers' sense of reality.
Consider Rajeev Pathak,
for example, ex-Wipro. He rushes from village road to city squares between
schools of a myriad kind. Consider Vipul Redey, my
junior from school – same space, different
approach, after kicking his job at CISCO. Or consider Vinay Joshi in Pune, who is pure play
computing and analytics. All in all, am reminded of days, when I wished to
formally research the transition phase when entrepreneurs in the quest for
growth managed the ‘professionalization’ of their ventures. While
that became a difficult dream then, I am now fortunate to observe the process
from up close. Here are some glimpses from the journey for leaders,
entrepreneurs, and professionals who may wish to reflect on the dynamics of
that transition.
1.
Paradoxes Galore : Entrepreneurial
journeys are full of surprising paradoxes. Laymen may find these difficult
expectations of themselves. Let us look at some of them.
a.
Weak-Tie Strong-Network : Entrepreneurs
network relentlessly. In-person interactions with people who have complementary
capabilities and interests are a general interaction pattern for entrepreneurs. The paradox is that they ‘use’
relationships for an ‘end’ in mind, so their focus is not on the depth of the
relationship, but of the ‘value’ in the interaction. Whether they embellish the
relationship with affection, authenticity or warmth is secondary to what they wish
to accomplish in the near to immediate term. You may find it surprising how
they land up to a second interaction long after the first as if there were no
break in time!
b.
Autonomy : Interdependence Polarity : Sociologically
speaking, entrepreneurs, especially first-generation ones are social misfits,
who seek to stamp out of expectations of conformance through a journey of
individuation. They take a psychological risk of alienation, and the more
successful ones, come to depend on the society they rebel in only to seek
the support of those they first distanced themselves before.
c.
Self-Help : Formalization Paradox : Entrepreneurs are known to tie-up
informally to enable each other. However, as expansion becomes
inevitable, the remnants of bureaucracy or formalization could undermine
self-help in entrepreneurial networks too. Hence CEO forum retreats, and even
recent attempts in India to formalize expansionist modes of American style business
networks over breakfast or lunches hinge on norms and rules of membership.
2.
Entrepreneurial Orientation : I first
came across this term in the 1990s when Lumpkin and Dess made it to the Strategic
Management Journal with their pentagon like constructs. They have a process view
rather than a content view to the concept of entrepreneurship, and as such if
any among the five below are diminished, entrepreneurial orientation would
suffer. I now offer a distillation of the same given hairs lost on my head in
coming to terms with the phenomena that holds these terms up.
a.
Competitive Aggressiveness : This is
the entrepreneur’s parallel to the day job employee’s need for achievement or
the drive to acquire. It is about venturing all parts of the chain in entirety ahead of competition – opportunity,
organisation set-up and the commercial exchange between customer and the firm.
b.
Pro-activeness : This is a judgement formed
in anticipatory readiness distinct from mere initiative taking in the everyday
life of an organisation man. If it were Kasturbhai Lalbhai who revolutionised
textile manufacturing in Gujarat, today, perhaps Chiddanand’s characters in his
book The Horse that flew stand out in context.
c.
Autonomy : An entrepreneur’s autonomy is
deep grit of will rising far above mere freedom to pursue an approach to
implementing formal processes at the work-place.
d.
Innovation : Essentially of Schumpeterian
origin, any disruptive introduction into the value stream of the marketplace
was considered innovation. Today, we know that intangible process innovations
deflect economic value far in excess of algorithmic proportion than discrete manufacturing
or high-sea trading of the past.
e.
Risk-Taking : As alluded to before, entrepreneurial
risk is about going against the grain of societal trends and is marked by the
willingness to be ostracised for such deviance. Entrepreneurs run twin risks of
financial and psychological kind. Intrapreneurs count on being shielded of
financial risks. Entrepreneurs also develop the fine art of distinguishing
between impulsive hyper-activity and measured stretch of unprecedented nature. This is also distinct from much touted
risk-taking that is spoken of in professional circles as mark of exemplary
business acumen.
3.
Glimpse of a Human Dynamic : There is a
distinct relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and learning styles
of professionals. In my own research it was known to us that engineers in middle-management
cadres saw their firms as entrepreneurially oriented or not depending on their
learning styles.
To put it crisply, the phenomenon
we observed was this : If managers adapted in formal organisations such that
they gave in to context, by examining inter-personally rich learning, they saw
their firms as more organic and flexibly postured to interpret signals from
their business environment. As against this, those who retained the concept
intensive, rule, norm and logic laden learning styles laced in symbols of
organisational policy, procedure and formality, saw their firms as rigid,
conservatively postured and thus of low entrepreneurial orientation.
Well that in itself is quite a lot for a blog, I think. Am sure,
you may like to respond if you need to dwell deeper. Would you not be curious to know, for example,
what with the advent of mature angel investors, what kind of moral imagination
and deeply held beliefs are waiting to fruition in the embryonic ecosystem of
Indian entrepreneurship today? Let me give you a clue – there’s hardly any
formal academics I know of on the psycho-dynamics of such processes in India.
Economists still dominate the discourse in linear extension of a vocabulary they
gave us on ‘market’ and ‘value’.
Am looking forward to conducting research on some related
themes of ambidexterity, innovation climate and leadership in Indian firms this
year. Would you know of institutions or individuals willing to fund this
effort? Do write in.
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