They feel they’re living on the edge, that their success will not last (their need for control and their sense of distrust are symptomatic of this anxiety) but they also have an overriding concern to be heard and recognized, to be seen as heroes.

This energy they omit can rub off on friends and family very well.

This loose-tight arrangement turned out to be very successful. So here are the side effects of real entrepreneurship. That this action jeopardized the company’s financial position—it was during a period of economic decline and all advisers advocated offshore production—made the decision more bizarre. One way to ensure the autonomy of acquired companies is to keep the headquarters staff lean to prevent excessive interference.

He feared that he was over his head and that his operation was finished.

Calvin A. Kent, Donald L. Sexton, and Karl H. Vesper (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982), p. 20.

Just use promo code SYOB99 to claim your offer. 14, no. Becoming a successful entrepreneur isn’t an easy feat. We never questioned the right of dry goods stores that began to sell clothing, nor would we doubt the propriety of dealing in any article that we pleased. Since the company’s products would be a valuable addition to his office equipment line, White had been quite eager to pursue the matter.

Down the Rabbit Hole of Leadership: Leadership Pathology in Everyday Life. He argued that he had once been burned when a competitor used his goods-in-process to manufacture a line of products that competed with his own, and he was not going to let it happen again. You are going to have to make sacrifices.

Instead of recognizing that the downturn resulted from mismanagement on his own factory floor and in his design department, he denied his own responsibility in the matter and blamed any adverse indications on the government or on customers’ malice. ], “What is your idea, Mr. Wanamaker, in doing it?”, “To do in ladies’ goods just what we have done with men’s goods—first in getting clothing for the people at reasonable prices; then in reducing the prices of shoes; then in lowering the cost of hats.

But also, just as inevitably, the president’s infatuation with his latest recruit would soon exhaust itself and disappointment would set in.

You are, after all, traveling where others haven’t gone before, giving you an unknown path full of obstacles and surprises.

There is always a “what if” and that can often blur the fine line between belief and dreaming. I’m far from ready to slow down. It’s a nice life. obstacles to entrepreneurship,

Some might say I’m a late bloomer -- and I’d have to agree.

Good performers did not stay. (Naturally, I am not thinking here of a dramatic transformation but of a gradual shift.) Consequently, some entrepreneurs I have studied have serious difficulty addressing issues of dominance and submission and are suspicious about authority. While seeking to improve you is a good thing, anything in excess can turn bad very quickly.

Always looking for a loophole can get tiring on yourself and those around you. 4. Finally, quite a few entrepreneurs I have worked with are inclined to turn the passive into the active, a characteristic that relates to their difficulty controlling their impulses and managing anxiety and depression.

Moreover, some entrepreneurs I have known have had great difficulty taking direction. Want to Get More Productivity Out of Your People? A very gifted entrepreneur, who was experiencing great stress while working out how fast to expand his business, described to me a dream he had repeatedly.

If we were just starting in business, who would consider it proper to question what business we chose to follow?”, “So we have, and we worked 16 years for it, and with the large property we now have we can do a great deal more business with no more expense for rent, taxes, gas, and only the addition of needed clerk hire.

Although as a group they are not easy to get a handle on, some characteristics seem to be common to all of them. The common heroic myth begins with the hero’s humble birth, his rapid rise to prominence and power, his conquest of the forces of evil, his vulnerability to the sin of pride, and, finally, his fall through betrayal or heroic sacrifice. Because I’m so invested in my business, I can’t help but let it get to me -- even though I know I shouldn’t. Perhaps one way of looking at the need for applause is to see it as a reaction against feeling insignificant, of being a nothing. Would Thompson, used to having things his way, follow directions and accept White as a boss? Unfortunately, though, as we’ve seen, acquisitions don’t always have happy endings. Or are you facing such a mediocre management that it will be very difficult to build a team that will fit the acquiring company’s culture?

John White’s concerns are not outlandish. Although he managed to stay on longer at this job, he disliked the working environment, felt stifled, and, finally, quit.

Occasionally, their preoccupation with control affects their ability to take direction or give it appropriately and has serious implications for how they get along with others.

It has been correctly stated that the biggest burden a growing company faces is having a full-blooded entrepreneur as its owner.”1. Freedom. The fact that you can’t turn it off. When at the top of the success wave, they imagine themselves incurring the envy of others. For me, the ability to live where I want and vacation as I please has been invaluable. 5. When this same man sold his company, he was at first quite enamored of the acquiring company’s CEO. What provisions can you make to accommodate the typical entrepreneur?

For the aforementioned reasons, you have less of yourself to give. The problem one has countering such distorted forms of reasoning and action is that behind the fear and suspicion always lies some reality. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. Most entrepreneurs’ sense of reality prevents things from getting out of hand.

Lean times. Last but not least is the single greatest side effect of being an entrepreneur. When things are going well, everything is terrific.

4. A version of this article appeared in the.

1. This behavior pattern does, of course, have its constructive side: it makes the entrepreneur alert to competitors’, suppliers’, customers’, or government moves that affect the industry.

Splitting is a tendency to see everything as either ideal (all good) or persecutory (all bad). Meeting and working with remarkable people.

But regardless of who put this idea into their minds, these people are not retiring types who take such rebuke passively; they are the defiant ones who deal with it creatively through action.

Moreover, if conflicts occur, will they be drawn out?

I answer to no one. And because, as a rule, acquiring companies do feel the need to impose their cultures on subsidiaries, entrepreneur-owners most often do leave.

While people with unbalanced personalities idealize some people and put them on a pedestal, they vilify others.

What are entrepreneurs like? Are you paying too much for business insurance?

Creative entrepreneurs possess high levels of energy and great degrees of perseverance and imagination, which, combined with willingness to take moderate, calculated risks enable them to transform what often began as a very simple, ill-defined idea into something concrete.

They also agreed that the entrepreneur could call on the president any time for assistance. Scapegoating is a method people commonly adopt to see themselves as blameless.

Du Toit raises questions about what you should look out for if you are considering taking an entrepreneur on board, working for one, or encouraging new ventures. They refuse to see what they don’t like to see and blame others.

The myth helps us see why quite a few entrepreneurs live under a great amount of tension. Malcolm’s great passion was sports, and everything related to it. Inevitably, his lavish praise would stir up enormous resentment among the rest of the staff (with the predictable spiteful consequences).

Rejection and failure are major components of any entrepreneur’s life and are part of the idea of being an entrepreneur. While we discussed how hard entrepreneurship really is, we have yet to speak of the many side effects that come with the title.

It would give him great pleasure to dwell on certain incidents illustrating the CEO’s achievements.

The cases I’ve outlined here are extreme, though; most of the relationships between entrepreneurs and their acquirers do not deteriorate that much.