Appleton Greene & Co Global – Are entrepreneurs born or made?
Entrepreneurial Leadership by Appleton Greene & Co Global Orlando Washington DC San Francisco Singapore Aerospace Defense Technology Chemicals Energy
We’re always excited and pleased with how leaders emerge, but where do they actually come from? All successful corporations need successful leaders and the art of identifying potential leaders, nurturing them and providing them with the opportunity to shine, requires a very specific set of skills. Good entrepreneurial leaders do not all graduate from Harvard or Yale. Neither do they all come from one specific department. Some of the best entrepreneurial leaders work their way up from the shop floor, indeed every corporation will have “sleeping entrepreneurial leaders” just waiting to be discovered. Their attributes invariably include: intuition; innovation; ambition; determination; compassion; delegation; motivation and resilience. There are established methods that are now deployed for the evaluation and assessment of these attributes and those corporations that are proactive about implementing these methods, will ultimately have more entrepreneurial leaders at their disposal. Entrepreneurial leaders come from all backgrounds and a variety of different departments, with different skill sets, different personalities and different experiences. The answer to the question is that some entrepreneurial leaders are born and some are made, but both need to have the opportunities to succeed. A corporation’s responsibility is to identify suitable candidates, either internally or externally and then provide them with the necessary knowledge and opportunity. – Appleton Greene & Co Global
Vision and dissatisfaction with the present
Appleton Greene & Co Global – Leading change depends on a defined dissatisfaction with the present, a vision for how things should be, and a clear idea of the first steps that need to be taken. Three clear examples are as follows: Firstly, Bill Gates started with a vision first, radical for the late 70’s, that software itself was a business and articulated his dissatisfaction with the fact that it wasn’t. He envisioned that software would change the world; encapsulated in something that now seems quaint: A computer in every home and on every desk running Microsoft software. He saw the potential of PC’s and importantly, the potential of software as a business, and didn’t hesitate to take the first steps of building software for the computer market of the day. He expanded and seized opportunities as the industry grew. Secondly, Nikhil Sethi, who worked as a product manager at an internet start-up company. He had to build a complicated spreadsheet to help manage a social media ad campaign. He was dissatisfied with that solution, and he incubated the idea that became his successful start-up Adaptly; that helps companies build and manage social networking ad campaigns across networks. Thirdly, Patrick Awuah, the President of Ashesi University College in Ghana. Patrick’s vision started with a dissatisfaction with the present. Patrick was born and raised in Ghana; and educated on a scholarship at Swarthmore. After living in Seattle and working at Microsoft, Patrick visited Ghana, and was dissatisfied with what he saw. He had a vision that seemed grand, found a private university in Ghana, one that would educate the next generation of African leaders, taking the best of what he got from his liberal arts education with the practical skills needed to succeed in Ghana. He’s been wildly successful and it’s been far from easy. He and his team and 7 sets of graduates in the last 10 years of operation have started businesses, new non-governmental organizations, and helped take existing organizations in new directions. He built a campus that now serves more than 400 students as well as it’s local community.
Knowing and taking advantage of your unfair advantages
Appleton Greene & Co Global – Dr. Saras Sarasvathy at the University of Virginia has coined the term “effectuation” to talk about how entrepreneurs use their unfair advantages to build their enterprise. A cooking analogy explains the concept—you can cook from a recipe by buying the ingredients and making the dish; or you can cook by looking at what you have in the cupboard and determining what can be made with what you have. Effectuation is the later. In Bill Gates case that meant starting with BASIC and extending to operating systems when the opportunity presented itself, and then into productivity and server software. In Adaptly’s case, it meant Nikhil Sethi using the knowledge he had from his internship, recruiting a co-founder from his university class and using them to solve the problem. For Patrick Awuah it meant using his time pursuing his MBA at Berkeley to engage others at the institution in helping with the business plan and campus design; as well as using his connections at Swarthmore and University of Washington to put the curriculum together. His colleagues at Microsoft also proved a useful network for doing his initial fund raising.
The ability to get people on board and add to the vision
Appleton Greene & Co Global – Good entrepreneurs are always recruiting talent, advisers, investors and customers. Josh Hernandez, the founder of tap.me is terrific at this. As he started to build his business he constantly sought out people in the gaming, start-up, and advertising communities to get advice and build his vision. He also used this network to win initial customers on the game and brand side. Bill Gates made his vision known to the industry, and wasn’t afraid to enlist support from hardware OEM’s like IBM, including engaging in joint development, in order to put his vision into action. Nikhil Sethi used his vision to build his initial team while at Northwestern, and built on his vision using the contacts he made in the dream it ventures program to acquire customers and investors. Patrick Awuah recruited donors, and a like-minded management team, many also educated Ghanians abroad who wanted to make an impact in their home country.
Flexibility to adapt, openness to feedback, and the ability to learn
Appleton Greene & Co Global – One of the biggest issues with entrepreneurs is learning how to listen and judge feedback. No one should be arrogant enough to feel like they have all the answers; and founders who aren’t open to feedback, and don’t use it as a way to develop and learn are not backable, even if they have many other great attributes. Bill Gates showed the ultimate in adaptability by being open to supplying an operating system to IBM. Unlike Digital Research, Bill Gates was open to providing an operating system when IBM came calling, even if he didn’t have what they were looking for already built. Bill was also consistently focused on understanding new trends and incorporating those ideas into his vision. He is also a master of using real options to manage uncertainty. At the end of the 80’s it was unclear which operating system would move into the future; so he simultaneously made a big joint bet with IBM, continued to develop windows, revised DOS, and made an investment in SCO to have an alternative if UNIX emerged on the platform.
Persistence and execution
Appleton Greene & Co Global – Entrepreneurs have a long term vision, but are also relentlessly focused on the activities that get them to their vision in the here and now. At Microsoft in the 90’s, the company was known as a place that would persist if the first versions did not work out. Nikhil Sethi just pushed harder than anyone else. He was focused on building the company. In fact, when he applied to dreamit ventures, he did it without telling anyone. It was clear that he would crawl over broken glass to get the company started. Patrick Awuah has shown persistence in multiple ways. Key to his approach is a focus on Ashesi’s core value around ethical behavior. When he encountered asks for bribes for small things he needed to get done to put the college in motion, Patrick held firm and in each case was eventually able to appeal to people’s greater sense of good to get them to act responsibly. Patrick also focused on getting started, using rented buildings and beginning the inaugural classes before a campus had been built.
Mr. Judith BS is an Accredited Senior Consultant (ASC) at Appleton Greene
Appleton Greene & Co Global – Mr Judith is an approved Senior Consultant at Appleton Greene and he has experience in management, information technology and marketing. He has achieved a Bachelor of Science Systems and Nuclear Engineering. He has industry experience within the following sectors: Aerospace; Defense; Technology; Chemicals and Energy. He has had commercial experience within the following countries: United States of America; Belgium and Singapore, or more specifically within the following cities: Orlando FL; Washington DC; San Francisco CA; Brussels and Singapore. His personal achievements include: leadership development for disruptive environment; complex issues resolved; innovating research to product cycle; mentored hundreds of startup companies and developed large real estate projects. His service skills incorporate: leadership development; team building; entrepreneurial development; lean startups and project management.
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20 Consulting Service Examples
There are currently some 650 Accredited Consulting Services (ACS) provided by Appleton Greene worldwide. Here are 20 examples.
01. Business Administration
02. Business Development
03. Business Optimization
04. Crisis Management
05. Customer Development
06. Energy Management
07. Entrepreneurial Leadership
08. Investment Consulting
09. Marketing Optimization
10. Marketing Transformation
11. Process Excellence
12. Product Management
13. Risk Analysis
14. Soulful Leadership
15. Sustainable Development
16. Transitional Growth
17. Value Innovation
18. Retirement Planning
19. Change Strategy
20. Product Lifecycle
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For further information about the Entrepreneurial Leadership service, please CLICK HERE.
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