The (E)ntrepreneur – (PaEi) style
Are (P)roducing and (A)dministrating enough? No. Every manager should be able to (A)dminister. But is the reverse also true? Is every (A)dministrator a manager? No. Beyond (A)dministering, an organization must also be capable of planning what work to do next, deciding what direction it should take as it acts to address change. This is the role of (E)ntrepreneuring.
The (E) role analyzes changes in the environment as they affect the organization. Whereas (A) involves systemizing and implementing plans that have already been determined, (E) must generate a plan of action for what the organization should start doing now because planning is not what you are going to do tomorrow. It is what you should be doing today in light of what you expect tomorrow to be.
A metaphor I find useful for the (E) role is “the ability to see through the fog.” The creative person will look into the fog and see pieces of information appearing and disappearing, and all at once 56 Ichak Adizes, The Ideal Executive something clicks. He sees a big ear, then a big trunk, then one big leg, and he concludes: “Aha! There is an elephant there.”
The non-creative person waits until the fog lifts, until the sun is shining and it’s totally clear. Then he will go and touch the elephant, and even smell the elephant. And still he is not quite convinced: “OK, maybe it’s an elephant!” This person has not added any information or created anything, while the creative person, using his imagination, has filled in the blanks in the information fog.
Returning to the railroad analogy I used above, it is the (E) role to determine which stations to close and which new stations to open; whether to add or subtract the number of cars on each line; and to decide how often the train should stop at each station. It is the (E), in other words, who will guide the organization as it deals with changing realities.
(E)ntrepreneurship is not confined to the business world. In addition to business (E)ntrepreneurs, who try to exploit the monetary opportunities of the market, there are social (E)ntrepreneurs, who initiate cultural and political change, and educational and artistic (E)ntrepreneurs, who satisfy aesthetic needs and generate new ones. All are of tremendous value to society.
Since change is inevitable and constant, the (E)ntrepreneurial role is also essential to good management. It makes the organization effective in the long run. If there is no one to perform the (E)ntrepreneurial role in an organization, that organization will eventually lag behind its more creative and proactive competitors.
In my book How to Solve the Mismanagement Crisis, in which I first presented the (PAEI) model, I identified the person who performs the (E) role, whose code is (paEi), as an “(E)ntrepreneur.” That book was written almost 30 years ago. Since then, in studying these codes in greater depth, I have changed my mind.
A (paEi) is not quite an (E)ntrepreneur. To be an (E)ntrepreneur, who creates organizations and develops them, one must be strong in the (P) role as well. A focus on (E) alone is not enough.
A person who focuses mostly on (E), whose (P) orientation is adequate but not strong – (p) – I now call a Creative Contributor. This is the manager who has plenty of ideas – some good, some bad. But he has lots of them, sometimes non-stop. He is like the kid in school whose hand goes up even before he hears the end of the question. He is the person in a meeting who does the most talking. Whatever solution is proposed, he has another option.
This manager adds lots of energy to meetings. He is not merely focused on what the discussion is about and what the goal is. He is not without some sensitivity to what others are saying, and he is capable of paying attention to details. But without a strong (P) focus, he is not the person to say: “Let me lead, let me do it.”
Without a strong (P), he will be constantly moving from one idea to the next, without finishing anything. He will not be capable of building an organization.
Management style
To be (E)ntrepreneurial, a manager must have two major characteristics. He must first of all be creative, able to visualize new directions and devise strategies for adapting the organization to a perpetually changing environment. He must have a feel for the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, and the imagination and courage to identify strategies in response to such changes.
And yet being creative is not sufficient. Some people are very creative but are not (E)ntrepreneurs.
Faculty members at business schools often fit this profile. Why? Because they are only creative. They may even be prolific in their creativity, as measured by the number of articles they publish. And the focus of their creativity may even be (E)ntrepreneurship, or how to make money. Nevertheless, if they do not have the second characteristic I believe is necessary for an (E)ntrepreneur – the willingness to proact, to walk into the fog, to take risks, to follow a vision – they cannot be (E)ntrepreneurs. They will not succeed at making money even if they wrote the book on how to do it.
It is risky to follow a dream in the fog. There may be dangerous pitfalls; and when you finally get to your destination, you may find that where you are is not where you wanted to be. So an (E)ntrepreneur not only has a vision; he is also willing and able to risk what he has in order to get what he wants.
Both qualities, creativity and the willingness to take risks, are necessary for (E)nrepreneurship. If a manager is willing to take risks but lacks creativity, he might be more at ease in a Las Vegas casino than in the corporate world. If he is creative but unable to take risks, he may end up as a staff person, a consultant, or a business professor – someone who can identify a course of action but does not undertake it himself.
The (E)ntrepreneur knows what he wants and why he wants it. He is creative – but in the service of a goal. He has an idea, a purpose, and he can translate that idea into reachable and achievable outcomes. His creativity is focused on how to make that outcome a reality. He is a no-nonsense person, creative and focused. Ideas without results annoy him, and results that are not born out of big ideas are a waste of time.
The focus of the (E) role is on what needs to be done next. What are the emerging needs; who are the next generation of clients that the organization will have to satisfy? Thus, the (E) role, if fulfilled, makes the organization effective in the long run.
The roles
Make the prganization
In the
(P)rovides for client needs
Functional; thus effective
short run
(A)administer
Systemized; thus effcient
short run
(E) entrepreneur
Proactive; thus effective
long run
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