“My Way” Can Get in the Way

By John A. Haas
Management Strategies Group

Entrepreneurs are focused and intense, devoting their total energy and effort to achieve goals. They know their product or service, their markets and how to reach them. They are confident they can exceed their business plans.

What the Entrepreneur Sees and Expects

From start-up, owner-managers see the goal and just “do whatever it takes” to get there. Obstacles? Find a way over, under, around or through them! Employees should envision and embrace the opportunity, and then full-speed ahead to make it happen.

The entrepreneur is demanding--everyone should put in 100%+ effort all the time; work 15-hour days as they do. The attitude is: ‘Don’t they see and value what we have here and can accomplish? Stay late; come in early; get it done! Get that customer, ship that product, make our numbers.’

What Employees See and Experience

Key staff join believing in the owner-manager and the mission; want to work in a small, growing company; understand the risks; want to be part of a winning team; and expect rewards for their success. They respect the owner’s passion and expect him or her to lead the charge.

With growth comes organizational complexity. People do their jobs and exercise the independent thinking, problem solving or decision-making they believe is expected or needed. Communications become more difficult and can be incomplete. Mistakes occur in these dynamic organizations, things happen quickly, people are busy. Formal procedures are seen as unnecessary bureaucracy and either not created or ignored.

What’s Going On? Culture

I’ve found that entrepreneurs are often quite unaware of their impact on their organizations! Whether they realize it or not, their every action and word sends messages throughout the organization. Employees wonder: did this or that event please or anger/frustrate the boss? Was employee X right in taking action or should X have first checked with the boss? Will the boss second-guess or support decisions made by managers? How do we deal with issues where we think the boss is wrong?

The owner-manager dictates and determines the organization’s operating culture. This is a fact, not a choice. Entrepreneurs can view culture as vague and unimportant, but it exists, and it can be shaped to best fit that enterprise and its employees.

Owner-managers who seek and listen to input from trusted staff will shape a culture of shared risk, accountability, teamwork and focused effort. Those that don’t will find operational issues “delegated upward,” fostering a culture of dependency and ultimately paralysis as they get in their own way.

Winter 2005 -Volume 15, Number 1

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