Entrepreneurial Engagement

Taking a side road off the main Employee Engagement Avenue.

By definition(s), the title phrase is redundant. The entrepreneurial style or personality is the epitome of engagement. Consider…

Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to the type of personality
who is willing to take upon herself or himself a new venture or
enterprise and accepts full responsibility for the outcome . (Wikipedia)

A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.(Answers.com)

A person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. (Dictionary.com)

All other definitions of entrepreneur that I found include the words business and risk.

I can’t imagine taking a risk either starting or running a business and not being engaged…at least if one’s goal is success.

But how is an entrepreneur’s engagement different from an employee’s (or a manager’s) engagement?

Here are my suggestions:

Enthusiasm. Taking on the responsibility and risk of running a business (department, project, product) and expecting team involvement to succeed, a significant amount of inspirer, motivator, and cheerleader can be expected. Hard to imagine an introverted entrepreneur.

Creativity. Whatever the venture being undertaken, it has major novel aspects: new product, new strategy, new business, new location. To succeed with what is new demands new ideas and new approaches. Hard to imagine same ol’, same ol’ entrepreneurial spirit.

Resource Awareness. Too much is to be done, too much is at stake for the efficient entrepreneur to do it all himself. (Even if he thinks he should.) More and more the real meaning of “resource awareness” may be “outsource awareness.” Hard to imagine an entrepreneurial venture not following a lean approach for speed and achievement.

Energy. With so much at stake, no matter how well she delegates,
the entrepreneur must possess and demonstrate unflagging energy. Hard
to imagine laid back commitment.

Macro-view. A venture’s success is determined as much (or more) by what goes on outside–in the economy, the marketplace, the customer’s mind, the promotional schema–as by what happens within. Hard to imagine an entrepreneur hot aware of the Big Picture.

Micro-view. It is not(!) contradictory to above points about Resources and Macro-View to say the entrepreneur knows the bits and bytes of the business. Attention to detail–especially during early development–can be the deal-maker…or breaker. Hard to imagine an entrepreneur who doesn’t do a little bean counting.

So, consider this question:

How much of this Entrepreneurial Engagement would benefit any employee? And so, benefit the employees’ job, department, company?

Expect more about building the entrepreneurial mindset into your organization’s employee engagement definition and effort in future postings.

Performance management success comes from the C.O.R.E.