Tag: Decision Making

The following backdrop and questions apply to this part of the series of musings and open discussion on entrepreneurs and decision-making (See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5):

Are entrepreneurs more willing to fail than other people? Does this relate to the exploration versus exploitation differences in the sense that entrepreneurs may simply continue exploring new opportunities until they find one that works? How should they trade off a willingness to walk away from a faltering opportunity against the need for persistence, on the chance that the opportunity can still be saved? Do you think this behavior explains serial entrepreneurs?

Here are my off-the-cuff thoughts on these exploratory research questions. Subconsciously and by choice of profession, entrepreneurs are generally more willing to fail than others, particularly when their entire livlihood and financial security are not at stake. This has been one of the most common perspectives that I had been ingrained with, particularly as it relates to debates on founder liquidity (and restricting it). That said, entrepreneurs (and particularly serial entrepreneurs) do not consciously believe that they will fail. They seem to generally have an attitude of "I will win".

To the decision-making question of "walking away" versus "persistence" for a faltering opportunity, I believe that entrepreneurs should consider leveraging mechanisms, such as:

• having a good principal/partner as a founder that can complement the skillset of the CEO
• seeking Board of Directors input
• having an informal "godfather" (established in advance) that the principals or the CEO can turn to for important decision points and/or when disagreements arise in the management ranks.

As to what drives serial entrepreneurs, my thinking is that appetite for creation, personality type, need for independence, promise of financial gain, and ego tend to drive the serial-types more than decision-making tendencies of "walk away" versus "persistence". That said, often serial entrepreneurs have a personal investment philosophy that in the long-run, by starting and running ventures, eventually one of them will pan out very nicely, and they will have learned from their failures and flops. Failing is an important part of the process, and I even remember an executive recruiter for Sequoia Capital commenting to me during an interview for a position in the late 90s that the major downside to my resume at the time for being venture capital associate was that I had not "founded and flopped" a business.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

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The following backdrop and questions apply to this part of the series of musings and open discussion on entrepreneurs and decision-making (See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Note that there will likely be a total of six parts for this series with a recap summary of feedback at the end):

One difference between time and money is that money can be stored (inventoried) for future use, but time cannot – it’s use it or lose it. This allows money to be fungible; you can move it around as you need it. For large companies, time can become fungible by hiring or firing workers; entrepreneurs don’t usually have this luxury. How does the inability to store time affect entrepreneurs, especially in comparison to larger companies? What does this imply for time management?

Here are my off-the-cuff thoughts on these exploratory research questions. For permanent changes in capacity (e.g., related to building new capabilities or downsizing), my experience is that hiring and firing of workers is a more painful process in a large company. This has to due with all of the process, legal, HR, budget, management alignment, etc. that cuts across many groups. The larger company, however, has more resources and a greater margin for error. Larger companies may also benefit from having some supply-side agreements in place to readily outsource to consultants or contractors, although the complexity of these contracts sometimes makes it more difficult to source specific, single resources. The upshot, off-the-cuff, is I would hypothesize that larger companies would be somewhat slower in terms of making changes to capacity, that changes can be more efficient in batches, and that margin for error might be a bit larger (on average).

Entrepreneurial firms may be more cash constrained and have less margin for error. That said, they may be quicker in terms of hiring and firing if only because there may be fewer formal processes. What may be working against entrepreneurial firms are that since resources are constrained, they may not always use HR support (e.g., recruiters) in terms of sourcing candidates. To compensate for this fact, I have often found in entrepreneurial situations that one may rely on informal networks more for the hiring process. This may provide an improved screening process for entrepreneurs. The informal networking may also have auxiliary benefits for the entrepreneur (beyond the hiring process itself, such as getting sales leads or industry info) so entrepreneurs may be able to get multiple benefits more easily through the hiring process. All-in-all from a capacity model perspective, my experience is that large capacity changes are harder in entrepreneurial firms, and margins for error are smaller. Yet changes can be quicker, more customized, and dovetail with other efforts.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

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The following backdrop and questions apply to this part of the series of musings and open discussion on entrepreneurs and decision-making (See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Note that there will likely be a total of six parts for this series with a recap summary of feedback at the end):

New research is uncovering differences in types of decisiveness – for example, someone who can’t decide which dessert they want after dinner may not be the same as someone who puts lots of research into buying a car. When does a lack of decisiveness come from the need to get more information, and when is it simply putting off a decision (procrastination)?

It is very hard to generalize. As context, my immediate gut thoughts are that, in general, there are both emotional (e.g., "in the moment") and rational factors (e.g., looking at data) that entrepreneurs need to balance in order to make good decisions. Successful entrepreneurs will tend to be those that either have good business instinct from prior experience in the industry or comparable market and have an ability to look at facts. Alternatively, successful entrepreneurs may be those that have exceptional, innate, outlier-type business instincts and abilities to judge and facilitate people which compensates for weaker abilities to in analyzing factual information systematically (alternatively they may partner with someone who has these skills). I think it would be the rarer exception for a successful entrepreneur to be someone who can only look at rational factors, but this could work in areas like the hard sciences where intellectual property and ability to appropriate profits is high.

With that as my frame, to the question "When does a lack of decisiveness come from the need to get more information, and when is it simply putting off a decision (procrastination)?" my thinking is:

• If the entrepreneurial team has a balance of experienced emotional- and rational-based decision makers, then putting off a decision is procrastination when the team cannot articulate what additional information or context would be needed to make a decision.
• Alternatively, if the entrepreneurial team is made up of primarily experienced, emotional-based decision makers, then putting off a decision is procrastination either when they have made similar judgment calls in the past with substantially less information and risk or when they do not identify what complementary resource they need to help with the decision (e.g., legal counsel).
• Alternatively, if the entrepreneurial team is made up of primarily rational-based decision makers, then putting off a decision is procrastination (presuming context such as market timing is right) either when past experience and knowledge is needed (e.g., prior entrepreneur consultation or complementary resource such as sales VP) and not sought or when excessive analysis is performed.

The basic gist is that I feel that entrepreneurs procrastinate (presuming the market timing is right) to make a decision when neither can they articulate what additional information is needed to make a decision nor are they actively seeking the complementary resource (in terms of balancing functional and emotional/rational decision-making traits) that they need to make an informed decision.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

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The following backdrop and questions apply to this part of the series of musings and open discussion on entrepreneurs and decision-making (Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Note that there will likely be a total of six parts for this series with a recap summary at the end.):

Some researchers talk about humans trading off exploration (testing the environment) against exploitation (using resources once they’re identified). For example, see link about small children’s learning behavior here. Do you think entrepreneurs are more focused on exploration or on exploitation? How does this compare to other jobs?

My off-the-cuff thinking on these questions are that entrepreneurs tend to be stronger than other workers in terms of exploration mainly because exploratory skills align with the creativity skills that entrepreneurs often have. Whether entrepreneurs focus on exploration versus exploitation, however, has to do more with what type of business is being pursued than something specific to the entrepreneur's disposition or decision-making style relative to non-entrepreneurs. For example, if the entrepreneurial business is something relatively unexplored (e.g., introducing a household device that can interface with your computer for printing paper that can be folded into edible food), then the entrepreneur needs to tap into exploration skills. On the other, an entrepreneurial business that is a copycat business (e.g., introducing a lowest-cost mobile phone provider in a new geography like Canada), well then the entrepreneur needs to focus more on exploitation (with potentially small customizations or market studies in the local market).

What are your thoughts and experiences?

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