{"id":1995,"date":"2009-04-06T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T14:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/04\/entrepreneurial-ambiguity\/"},"modified":"2009-04-06T09:00:23","modified_gmt":"2009-04-06T14:00:23","slug":"entrepreneurial-ambiguity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/04\/entrepreneurial-ambiguity\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurial Ambiguity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Inc.com is celebrating its 30th birthday with some fascinating articles including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inc.com\/magazine\/20090401\/in-times-like-these-you-get-a-chance_pagen_2.html\" target=\"_blank\">an interview with Jim Collins<\/a>.\u00a0 The interviewer asked for his definition of entrepreneurship which involves a paint-by-numbers vs. blank canvas analogy.\u00a0 However, the follow up question and answer was notable:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>It has to do with your ability to handle risk, no?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not risk. Ambiguity. People confuse the two. My students used to come to me at Stanford and say, &#8220;I&#8217;d really like to do something on my own, but I&#8217;m just not ready to take that much risk. So I took the job with IBM.&#8221; And I would say, &#8220;You&#8217;re not ready for risk? What&#8217;s the first thing you learn about investing? Never put all your eggs in one basket. You&#8217;ve just put all your eggs in one basket that is held by somebody else.&#8221; As an entrepreneur, you know what the risks are. You see them. You understand them. You manage them. If you join someone else&#8217;s company, you may not know those risks, and not because they don&#8217;t exist. You just can&#8217;t see them, and so you can&#8217;t manage them. That&#8217;s a much more exposed position than the entrepreneur faces. But there&#8217;s lower ambiguity on the paint-by-numbers path: very clear but more risky. The entrepreneurial path: very ambiguous but less risk. Of course, the truth is that it&#8217;s all ambiguous, anyway. If you think you can predict the future, you&#8217;re crazy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That ought to get your mind racing this Monday morning.\u00a0 As being someone on both sides of the proverbial fence, I know exactly what he is saying.\u00a0 The key component to managing risk is seeing\/knowing the risk.\u00a0 Ignorance of the risk is tolerable to those who don\u2019t possess the entrepreneurial spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inc.com is celebrating its 30th birthday with some fascinating articles including an interview with Jim Collins.\u00a0 The interviewer asked for his definition of entrepreneurship which involves a paint-by-numbers vs. blank canvas analogy.\u00a0 However, the follow up question and answer was notable: It has to do with your ability to handle risk, no? Not risk. Ambiguity. People confuse the two. My students used to come to me at Stanford and say, &#8220;I&#8217;d really like to do something on my own, but I&#8217;m just not ready to take that much risk. So I took the job with IBM.&#8221; And I would say, &#8220;You&#8217;re not ready for risk? What&#8217;s the first thing you&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/04\/entrepreneurial-ambiguity\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[1303,1306,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-1995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-management","category-team-management","tag-entreprenuer","tag-inc","tag-jim-collins","tag-starting-a-company"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-wb","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":410,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/11\/ceo-turnover\/","url_meta":{"origin":1995,"position":0},"title":"CEO Turnover","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We first posted about CEO turnover in this post. Now BusinessWeek comes along with an article titled The Great CEO Exodus. CEO's get a bad rap about their compensation packages, but it is not an easy job. Now consider the pressure being exerted on these leaders: Not so long ago,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Trends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Trends","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/trends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1453,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/people-need-more-feedback\/","url_meta":{"origin":1995,"position":1},"title":"People Need More Feedback","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Wall Street Journal offers Avoiding Conflicts, The Too-Nice Boss Makes Matters Worse...you can see where this is going. \"In a knowledge economy, where work is more complex and interdependent, people need feedback more -- what they particularly need feedback on are on things that are difficult to give: one's interpersonal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1557,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/what-is-a-flexible-work-strategy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1995,"position":2},"title":"What Is A Flexible Work Strategy?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently the answer to that question depends upon whom you ask.\u00a0 From an older RecruitingTrends.com article: Furthermore, executives' innate understanding of what defines flexible work strategies varies. While the largest percentage (45%) define it as pertaining to time, 31% view it as something to do with an employee's location, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Team Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Team Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/team-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.recruitingtrends.com\/newspics\/ExecutivesDefin_0327.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":179,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/07\/recruiting-the-younger-generation\/","url_meta":{"origin":1995,"position":3},"title":"Recruiting the Younger Generation","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"July 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I just caught up to some reading on Workforce Management's website. Ready for the Big Time captivated my attention. The author references a company where candidates are hired similar to an NFL-style draft. You have to register at the site but it is free. The article is quite long but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1307,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/11\/it-is-review-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":1995,"position":4},"title":"It Is Review Time","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It is that time of year again...no, not Christmas - employee reviews.\u00a0 This topic is of great interest to us in that we help companies on-ramp new sales hires.\u00a0 One of the key aspects of onramping is regular meetings or reviews.\u00a0 That is management 101. Yet, it is surprising how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2164,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/11\/a-hazy-shade-of-forecasting\/","url_meta":{"origin":1995,"position":5},"title":"A Hazy Shade Of Forecasting","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The stresses of this economy are affecting entire sales departments from the leadership down to the trenches.\u00a0 One piece I have noticed is a distinct aversion towards customer relationship management software.\u00a0 Interestingly, the resistance is coming from sales managers. What I believe I am seeing are sales managers with less\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Leadership&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Leadership","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/leadership\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1996,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995\/revisions\/1996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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