Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Looking at an entrepreneur as a farmer!

Many aspire to be entrepreneurs and start firms that eventually become part of their "identity", i.e. an entrepreneur acts as if there is no distinction between the firm and the individual running the firm. You might have possibly guess where I am heading to in this blog...So just hang on...

While an entrepreneur is the one who grows and manages the firm/enterprise, it is very important for an entrepreneur to be able to distinguish oneself from the firm. 

As an analogy, we could look at the entrepreneur as a farmer who passionately tills the soil, sows the seed, takes sufficient care to see the crop grow and finally harvests the crop. An interesting question to ask here - what would happen if the farmer begins to think that the crop he grown and (s)he is one? Yes, you may not be willing to harvest what you have grown!

A sense of attachment to the firm, with the ability to detachment is a key to being able to act in the best interest and with the right spirit. It is the attachment, which is the passion aspect of an entrepreneur, helps put in all the energy and enthusiasm one holds towards the hopeful dream into action; but the detachment enables one takes an arms length view of the venture at hand and decide with potentially the best interest what is to be done.

The key, thus is really to look at the process of venture creation and growth with a "farmers" mindset than being the crop itself!!! What say?

There are interesting extensions of this attempt of being able to equate the firm one sets up to plants; I would love to explore this aspect over the next few blogs. Stay tuned is your are interested in thinking about this.

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