Ethics and Values: January 2008 Archives

In the discussions between our Belmont entrepreneurs and the ideablob.com team last evening, the topic centered on the value of getting multiple perspectives when facing a decision -- of seeking wise counsel from people with experience and expertise. Seeking counsel is one of the practices that Mike Naughton and I talk about in relation to the virtue of prudence in our book about being a good entrepreneur titled Bringing Your Business to Life (due out later this spring). Prudent entrepreneurs are good stewards of the resources available to them for their businesses, including investment and other start-up capital, employees' labor, customer trust, and so forth.

Seeking counsel is never more is never more important than when considering whether to launch a new business and how to best position it for market entry. Aspiring entrepreneurs should not seek out only those who act as cheerleaders to their dreams. Find people with expertise and experience who are willing to bluntly tell you the flaws and weaknesses in your plans. My students call this being "Cornwalled" when I offer my honest assessment of their ideas and plans. I always encourage them to seek more perspectives than mine. More than once I have failed to see the wisdom of a new business idea!

One of the things I like about ideablob.com is that it is creating a forum that dramatically widens your circle of people who can offer counsel on new ideas. Many of the people who frequent the site are passionate about entrepreneurship.

Seek wise counsel on your ideas from several people with different backgrounds. Listen to their counsel -- never argue. Reflect on all of what you here and look for common threads that you can use to make your idea stronger. It will improve the odds that your idea is really a good business opportunity, that you will position it properly when you launch, and that you will realize the success that you dream of.

Entrepreneurship on steroids. That is what I call entrepreneurs who are consumed with raising as much money as they can, as fast as they can. When we confuse the means (raising capital and securing other needed resources) with the ends (building a sustainable business), we see entrepreneurship run amuck.

The goal of entrepreneurship is not simply to find the next big thing to lure venture capital or make a mad dash to a public offering. It is to create a venture that creates income and wealth for the entrepreneur and allows the entrepreneur to pursue other goals in life through this economic activity, be it creating more jobs in a better place to work, offering a better product to the customer, or making the world a little better place. The goal of entrepreneurship should be to build a good business -- with legs -- that will help build this entrepreneurial economy.

So on this theme I offer you one of the funniest, albeit somewhat depressing due its truth, videos I have seen in a long time: Here Comes Another Bubble v1.1 - The Richter Scale via YouTube.

(Thanks to Bruce Schierstedt for passing along this gem!)

In my days as an entrepreneur I would often joke with my entrepreneur friends that we should start a "3:00 a.m. Club". It seems that most of us were always awake worrying about something or other in our businesses in the middle of the night. I seemed to wake up right about 3:00 a.m. with spreadsheets in my head (just to date myself a bit, they were Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets).

Well, someone has now come up with a term for this particular entrepreneurial affliction -- "sleepworking."

According to the 2nd Annual Staples National Small-Business Survey, more than half of small-business professionals said that work has actually become part of their dreams. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said that they “sleepwork” (i.e. dream about work), and nearly 70 percent of those “sleepworkers” report they wake up and put their “work dreams” to action.

The survey also revealed that 98 percent of U.S. small-business owners and managers are working during their time off -- including nights, weekends and vacations -- and nearly 54 percent expect to work even harder in 2008. This is not good news. I am on a personal quest to find a verb that describes entrepreneurship so we can stop defining ourselves only by what we do in our work (see this recent post for my rant on this issue).

Other results from this survey also give us something to think about:

- The car remains a favorite place to work, with 72 percent saying they make business calls while driving and nearly 40 percent saying they get their best ideas behind the wheel. I think I get stuck behind these people every morning on my way to the University.

- Slightly more than 38 percent cannot remember the last time they took a vacation. If this bothers you at all, please see this essay on why a good vacation is so important and how you might really make one happen.

- If given a choice, nearly 52 percent said they would accept comparable business results in 2008 if they could have twice as much free time. There is hope!! But wait... 48 percent said they would work even more hours if they could double their company’s sales. Fifty-two percent make New Year's resolutions for their business. Of those, 58 percent said they resolve to increase business, while only 21 percent said they want more time off.

Folks... I love entrepreneurship and free enterprise as much as anyone, but not ahead of my family and my health.

Here is a New Year's Resolution for all entrepreneurs. Slow down, just a bit. Enjoy your successes in business, but never at the expense of your health, family, faith, and friends.