Some entrepreneurs learn the art of entrepreneurship just through experience

Here is the video of an entrepreneur, Ryland Goldman, who is just 7 years old. He gets up early and bakes foods like biscotti, muffins and brownies. He buys coffee and juices from other sources, sets everything out on a folding table near the sidewalk in front of his school. On some days, he earns more than $100. He donates 50% of his net revenue to his school technology fund.

Last week, i visited a fund, which gives money to young entrepreneurs from small towns. One of the entrepreneur was making Chapatis for school and college canteen with his mother and family, and had approached the fund for financing roti making machine. Another entrepreneur,who was granted funds earlier, was making wax candles in a house in a tribal village. Another was making hats for Hotel Chefs in Mumbai's chawls. Another was making masalas and spices and selling it under his own brand. Another woman was making sweet packs of paper. The variety of entrepreneurship is astounding

In short entrepreneurship is flourishing. In India, as they say, the single biggest pool of employed women and men are these self-made entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs have learnt the art of entrepreneurship by 'jumping in the water' without learing to swim. They seem to grasp the business model automatically. 

For instance the revenue part of business model. Like Rylan, they automatically sense where their customers are, what do they want, how much are they willing to pay. It was the same with that Chapati making entrepreneur. He knows his customers are company canteens, college canteens, and even hotels who want chapatis not for serving, but for feeding their staff. They also learn to align the delivery model. For instance, the chapati making entrepreneur exactly knew the cost of making the chapati to the individual elements: how much chapatis he makes from 1 kg of wheat, how much gas he needs to make 100 chapatis, how much oil he requires to keep the chapatis soft and so on. So when we talked about using a roti making machine, we knew what is the additional cost of making the roti and how much will he have to sell if he still has to earn money.

On the other hand, i also teach a short course of 'entrepreneurship' to ITI students ( 12 session course of 1 and half hour) who pass their ITI from the trade of plumbing, electrician, AC mechanic, or Four wheeler servicing. They have the right mindset of the entrepreneur, also gather the skill set of the trade, but lack the principles of entrepreneurship. They typically gain this understanding by working with someone and start their own self-owned enterprises. Some succeed and some fail. I meet many such entrepreneurs during the course of my coaching. 

I either coach some of these hard working enthusiastic individuals to think like an entrepreneur, or i hone the skills some of these entrepreneurs by helping them articulate the learnt principles. In both the cases, i gain, because i take over some part of their energy, enthusiasm and hope which is contagious. 

True entrepreneurs are similar to Artists

Artists don't make paintings. Authors don't write books. Designers don't design logos. They extract meaning from something  that is banal. They bring a new view and make us see something meaningful in our ordinary acts. They make meaningful experiences happen. @

Entrepreneurs do not manufacture products. Entrepreneurs do not run their companies to make money. Entrepreneurs do not solve problems of human mankind. Entrepreneurs add value where there is none. Entrepreneurs find a new meaning in an obscure product or business and lend their own meaning converting ordinary products and businesses into extra-ordinary, like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs or Narayan Murthy.  

If entrepreneurs were only doing business to make money, they would be working in jobs. Why would they risk anything more? They run their own companies because they are like artists, lending their own meaning to life. We may not agree with their meaning, or may not even like the commercialisation of some value they bring, but their unique contribution to our lives is their ability to show a ' meaningful view' that we cannot see on our own. 

We see business as a commercially driven activity where money, customers and market rule. But even amidst this commercial activity, these entrepreneurs bring in something  that we cherish and value in life. Observe these entrepreneurs bringing in completely different set of meaning to their business ventures. Steve Jobs brought in design, Narayan Murthy brought in values in business while Ricardo Semler brought in a new way of 'democratizing business without managers' in the most difficult economy of Brazil.

After they do it , we wonder how we missed it. When Richard Sears made his chain of retail stores, no one knew that it could spawn a new way of shopping. Or when Ray Kroc, at the age of 52, started Mcdonalds, we thought it is so simple to do it.  Or when Larry Page & Sergie Brin started Google with no revenue model for their technically excellent 'search engine', we thought that business cannot be done with technical excellence alone.

For every famous entrepreneur we hear, we also know many others who are doing the same at a smaller scale and size. We do not hear about them in newspapers, but i meet plenty of them in the towns and small cities. Whatever their scale or size, every entrepreneur, if he is true to his being, brings this meaning to an otherwise mundane activity of business. Like Mumbai based dabbawallas helping normal man eat their home food at a rate that was not affordable. Like an entrepreneur who teaches a graduate class to pass the toughest civil services exam with a success rate of 80%. Or a tyre puncture repairer, who repairs a tyre and gives a guarantee after his repair. Or an entrepreneur who manages websites of schools on build and operate basis. Or a corporate trainer who synthesises spirituality with business activities and lends them different meaning. 

Salute to this rare breed of human beings, who like artists, are rare. Like artists, they flow against the current. And follow their convictions even when the society around them tells that they are mistaken. Salute to true entrepreneurs.

Both entrepreneurs and artists learn from each other

If one sees the similarity between entrepreneurs and artists, Jeffrey Davis suggests that both entrepreneurs and artists can learn a lot from each other. 

Business people can learn from artists and authors how to think differently about what they make and how to experience the meaning of life. While artists can learn from entrepreneurs how to 'sell' their work and make money from their work without deriding everything 'commercial'. 

@ Jeffry Davis in his article: Pivot your creative process and business. 

Give me a long enough lever, and I can move the entire world

Archimedes in writing to King Heiro, made the above statement.

If an entrepreneur were to ask for such a lever, what would be that lever? The lever would be called Conative traits. These traits enable us to find our passion, discover purpose of our life or find meaning of life that enables us to connect with our work differently. Why is this important for an entrepreneur in today's century? To answer this question, we will have to understand the second law of career success

First law of career success on inputs states that
      Developing Talent = Using A

• A stands for using a single ability or skill or even trait like passion or willpower. This list of abilities and traits will differ depending on which book you are reading 

Second law of success on Inputs states that
     Developing minimum Talent = Using 'CA + CAT + COT' .( these are minimum abilities required to ensure that you will not fail. It does not ensure success)

•  CA Stands for Cognitive abilities, CAT stands for character traits like self regulation and creativity, and COT stands for conative traits like purpose and passion. All three are required to find and nurture minimum your talent. And synergising these three qualities is more important. Not just making them 1+1+1 =3, but making it 1+1+1 = 5.

Please see the earlier blog to understand why all three qualities are required  to excel in your life.

Why conative traits act like a lever for an entrepreneur? 

As we have seen in this blog, conative traits are important for a corporate professional mainly to take quick work-related decisions. But for an entrepreneur, conative traits act like a lever by which they can change the entire world.

Conative traits enable an entrepreneur to go beyond 'money' and 'profits'. By finding the meaning of 'work' in his life, an entrepreneur can express his desire to contribute to the lives of others, either by introducing something new that improves the quality of their lives or by showing people that something thought to be impossible is in fact possible. Steve Job did by using his passion of design. Narayan Murthy did this by finding different meaning of 'capitalism'.

Anthony Tjan trying to find the common qualities of billionaires believes that it is their purpose that defines them. He believes that "purpose is neither something soft nor something overly lofty. Instead, purpose is the bigger why of a business". He has categorised purpose into three categories: a>Making the world more beautiful. b> Making the world more fun and c> Making the world more efficient and smart. Please read the above link to see his examples of entrepreneurs and how they are using these three different type of purposes.

Worse still, if entrepreneurs fail to develop conative traits, they fall in the money trap. Money, instead of becoming means, becomes an end. Money, instead of enabling experimentation and exploration, ties them to tested and obsolete ways of doing business. All the joy is sucked out of the work, and entrepreneur starts seeing work as drudgery. The very purpose of entrepreneurship is put at question.

Conative traits, on the other hand, help you see beyond money and make your choices without thinking of money. There are various possibilities. For instance, you will do something what Vinay did. Vinay focused on nurturing his passion. This enabled him to take several counterintuitive decisions like partnering with others to share work, without worrying about sharing the profits of his innovative product development. Or, like Kanpreet, you will be able to mix and match your abilities in the way that suits your development of talent.

Conclusion

Finding meaning or purpose of life is therefore not an empty exercise of discussions for an entrepreneur. For him, it is way of increasing his options and growing himself and his enterprise to unthinkable heights. If you are entrepreneur, you will need to learn the tricks of developing your conative traits. Please use some of the tricks that were mentioned in this blog. See movies. Read interesting literature. There is no need to read serious books in philosophy, ethics or aesthetics. Read biographies. Read the journey of other individuals like Bill Watterson. Engage with people who know more than you on this subject. And most importantly; find a mentor or coach who can show you the path. Because, with conative traits, you can make a big difference to the world. 

How can you learn from experience of other entrepreneurs?

Today, we are going to understand the Experience rule of Second law of success. It states : To excel in life, we must learn faster than our own experience alone can teach. If we are forced to learn from our own experience, then we are doing catch-up all the time. We have to wait for failures to happen, because we are poor at learning from our own successes. We therefore have to find a way to learn from other's experience. 

How can we learn from others experience? It requires a mind of a detective who is trying to find the keys to unlock the power of excellence. Because an entrepreneur has to unlock the key of entrepreneurial excellence, he has to learn from the experience of other entrepreneurs. To learn from experiences of other entrepreneurs, he must go through these four steps: Adopt an angle or a view, dig deeper in understanding the specific path of someone else's experience from that viewpoint, find what he can adapt (instead of adopt), and then dig further to find how to adapt.

Let us see understand these steps in more details by observing work-life path of Pradeep Lokhande, a successful entrepreneur who converted a business idea into an interesting company, Rural Relations. For more information, see this background of his venture in this article by Dileep Padgaonkar. From this article and his website, you will perhaps observe the following data:

Pradeep Lokhande (PL) has come from a small town, Wai, near Pune. He did his graduation and then MBA in Pune. He worked for Johnson and Johnson as a sales representative for just two years. And then he decided to use his 'rural connection' to tap rural market for FMCG companies. His journey of identifying the right villages - population of 2000 to 10000 - has been described. Wiith his innovative marketing techniques — such as providing height charts to schools and posters listing tips on health and hygiene to panchayat offices — and by recruiting young boys and girls from the village itself to reach out to potential customers, he found a business model that helped him generate a sustainable revenue.

What can you learn from this PL's story of an entrepreneur? 

You will learn that PL has innovatively used his rural connections to lead FMCG companies to sell their products in this untapped rural market. You may realise for the first time, that 'rural market' can be tapped. This is just data. No useful learning happens unless you take an angle.

Angle of  'how to discover a business model' for a new business idea 

Angle in a camera is like clicking a 'hill' from a specific view. Only when one takes an angle, one can learn. In this case, when you can take an angle " What steps did PL take to convert his idea in a business model?", you are ready to learn.

However, to answer this question, you will need far more information from PL than what is available above. Here i can help you. I had listened to PL's interview in a program in Nashik. For instance, after listening to his interview, i could observe five distinct steps in his journey of converting his idea into a business proposition: 

• Step 1: PL left J&J business in 2 years. But he did not start this RURAL RELATIONS immediately. Instead he started his C&F agency with a friend which he ran for 3/4 years. In other words his idea of tapping the rural market must have come in this 3/4 years, while doing 'field work' of going to retailers and understanding the problems of selling it in rural areas, as a C&F distributor. 
• Step 2. When PL decided to tap the rural market, he wrote many self-paid postcards asking people in villages ( like sarpanch and others) to send details like number of shops or brands sold in the village. This took him several failed attempts and consumed his 2 years or so. 
• Step 3.  With his initial data on some 100 villages in Pune district ( or it could be some other districts also), PL approached a FMCG company, which he perhaps knew from his role of C&F distributor. That company gave him some work ( i am not aware if that work was paid or unpaid !) 
• Step 4. With the feedback from step 3, PL built a business proposition and approached a big FMCG company, HUL( Hindustan Unilever). He promised HUL that he will place HUL's  product promotional material ( product hampers and cutouts etc)  in his select list of identified villages. With this promotion, the sale of HUL products will increase. His value offering to HUL was ' By investing in placing your promotional material in the right village and place, your sales will increase'
• Step 5: This generated 'good enough revenue' increase for HUL which enabled PL to justify the cost he may be charging to deliver the promised value. PL found his business model that will deliver the promised value

Until you know the challenges involved from step 2 to step 5 in PL's experience, you cannot use PL's experience to launch your own business idea. But , after understanding these steps, you are ready to ask some more questions to PL to fill the details. Only when full picture is available, you are ready to adapt PL's steps to convert an idea into a business model. Without any understanding of challenges involved in the steps and the duration, many entrepreneurs just jump with a new product idea with 'unrealistic' expectations and falter. You can avoid this failure, if you take the effort to fill the gaps in PL's experience, and learn.  

On the other hand, if a would-be entrepreneur is meeting PL for an interview, his angle may be 'How do i get a business idea'. He will find his answer in Step 1. He will ask more questions to PL on step 1 to find out how PL got his idea from his customers, vendors and competitors in those 3 years. He will understand why PL spend 3/4 years in understanding the market, before entering the market. He will avoid jumping in a new venture without understanding the market, and learn from PL's experience.

Summary

When you want to learn from others experiences, you must therefore act like a detective who is meticulously finding needle in the haystack in step by step manner:

• Determine the angle of learning- In the above example, we explored only one angle of a existing entrepreneur: the angle of 'discovering a business model' for a new idea.
• Find questions that will be useful to ask;  This is the most important step that is ignored. Thomas Edison used to say that ' Half the problem is solved when you ask the right question'. For an entrepreneur, who wants to ask questions to PL on 'finding a business model', he must first read on internet the typical questions entrepreneurs face, weigh them visavis his experience, and decide on the 'questions' that must be asked. 
• Find the right person to ask the question : We often ask our questions to the 'available' person, not the right person. Sometimes you are asking the right question to a wrong entrepreneur, or asking a wrong question to a right entrepreneur. 
• Find what you can adapt from the answers, and dig deeper until you find the right answers of how to adapt. 

Now you will  understand and appreciate the mechanics of learning from others experiences. If you do not understand these four steps from learning from others experience, your learnings ( Work hard, or set a goal) are so superficial and generic they are practically useless. When you fail to learn anything useful, you stop asking questions to another entrepreneur. You think that it is of no use. And once you stop asking questions, you learning completely stops. You have set yourself for 'eventual' failure !

Conclusion

Learning happens only when a clear angle is taken, because angle enables one to generate the right questions to ask. If, as an entrepreneur, you are trying to understand, how to delegate, that angle will help you generate the right questions ( from your quick research) to ask another entrepreneur and become 'better at delegating'. If you are trying to find ways to increase your business size, you will generate the right questions to ask PL on how he increased his market from 1 state to 8 states. If you are trying to attract good employees in your company, you will generate the right questions to ask PL on how he attracted the right talent to work in the village ( which is perhaps most difficult !) and learn from his experience.

Once the right question is framed, the second important bottleneck in learning is finding the right person to ask that question. Right person is the person who has gone through that experience and is willing to talk. More often, that not, entrepreneurs are action-oriented individuals. They are unable to 'articulate' their thoughts.These entrepreneurs, although rich with experience, cannot sometimes transfer their knowledge. On the other hand, business consultants are the right persons to articulate, but do not have the rich experience of an entrepreneur. Learning from other's experience therefore also involves finding the right person or persons to ask the questions ! 

Three mistaken stereoptypes of an entrepreneur

Daniel Isenbergy, author of Worthless, Impossible and Stupid has listed down three interesting and wrong stereoptypes of an entrepreneurs.

1. Entrepreneur are not always innovative

The author has given a very nice and crisp definition of what entrepreneur does. He says that " An entrepreneur creates value. He creates a value that is recognised by the market." Sometimes, to create a value, he has to innovate. But, most of the time, he need not innovate.

I have been meeting entrepreneurs and coaching them from last 3-5 years. I was surprised to notice that most of the entrepreneurs i have met are not innovative. They sometimes start the venture with a very novel idea. But once that idea is established, they are just in the 'routine' of doing the same 'business' over and over. They forget that money was a side effect of their desire to do something novel. Instead of making money work for them, they start worrying about 'losing' the money. Once this happens, the zing in their life goes. And they become a business man ! You can see this people in entertainment field. There are very few like Aamir khan, or Abhay Deol, or Imtiaz Ali who never forget that 'Money is the side effect of business'.

2. Entrepreneurs are not always experts

With the advent of of VC industry, there are many entrepreneurs who start a venture because they can create value. We seem to have forgotten this. Steve Jobs was an entrepreneur who did not design his first computer, he was a person who could dare to create value where none could see. We have forgotten that this hugely daring and optimist breed, which Daniel Kahneman says are the lucky people we have in our society, is becoming extinct.

The author notes that  50% of the entrepreneurs started their ventures in an area they knew nothing about. He shares a very interesting insight about the 'expertise of entrepreneur'. He says that 'Knowing something too well can come in the way of being an entrepreneur'. And when you meet big experts who are researchers and professors you realise how true is the author ! So if you are an entrepreneur, do not pursue expertise in one area of focus !

3. Entrepreneurs need not be young

Today, with advent of VC and intrapreneurship in companies, you will find entrepreneurs starting their first venture even in late 30's.

But young entrepreneurs are more to be seen, because they have less to lose. Their ignorance of market reality paradoxically makes it easier for them to take the risk. On the other hand, their lack of market common sense can make them prone to failure.

For instance, i met a daring entrepreneur , Unmul, who at the age of 19 has started coaching classes for 12th science students. The classes ran well in a small town. So he decided to come to a large town and launched the same coaching class, not realising the customer differences between small place and big town, not understanding the difficulties of transferring the local reputation to the new town, and without understanding the changes required in business model. The new business naturally went into lot of trouble !

Actually, for young entrepreneurs like Unmul, there is a easy method to avoid this mistake. If they can find a mentor who can help him see these pitfalls, they can channelise their energies far more productively. But in the desire of not wanting to meet people who 'object' to them, they also miss the pearls of wisdom. 

Do strategic and execution audit of your business

In a family managed business ( family managed business can range from 10 crores to 500 crores), it is often very important to get an objective perspective of the business so that the right priorities are set.

As the processes and systems in these companies are not well set, these companies often lack the wherewithal to 'scale up' the business. More often that not, the 'weak chain in the link' is not the execution, but the strategy that has not been planned properly. And sometimes, the issue is not the strategy nor the execution, but the divergent directions of family representatives that often pull the company resources in different directions.

A strategic audit of such a business, competently and objectively done, often guides entrepreneurs in providing directions in four areas that can make a difference of success and failure for the business:

1. Is the strategy of the company right ?

Often the business, when it commences, has a set of competitors, regulations, substitutes and customer segment to deal with. But as the industry grows and matures, the strategy has to be modified radically, or just  tinkered a bit. This is true for all types of business, but value propositions in some businesses require more frequent reviews. For instance, businesses in service sector, retail sector, like software require frequent reviews because these businesses face lot more upheavals than the others.

Sometimes the strategy requires a review, because a company is caught in a business that is becoming less attractive every day. Here the company should quickly review its strategy and alter the direction, if necessary. Sometimes, the company also does this review to identify, what is called the sweet spots in the businesses that can multiply the company's results in geometric proportion. For example take this example of construction business. 

2. Is the business model of the company right?

Having a right strategy is not enough to run a business. One should also have the right business model to succeed. Business model, as we have discussed earlier, is the right combination of nine components ( 4 revenue, 4 inputs and one value proposition) that are appropriate for the company's size and ambitions. More often that not, entrepreneurs tinker only with one component which often does not produce any result because these nine components are correlated with each other.

3. Are the resources appropriately placed in the different sections of the business?

In a family managed business resource allocation - of money, key people, and time - is often a bone of contention as different owners in the family have different viewpoints of a business and therefore tend to direct companies in different direction, sometimes directly in conflict with each other. Understanding the strategy and business model enables family owners to align themselves with each other without interpersonal conflicts and egos. This alignment enables family managed business to unlock its true potential.

4. Is the company executing the strategy appropriately?

This review should naturally be done, only after one is certain that strategy is right for the organisation. Otherwise a company may support a wrong strategy, and despite executing it well, may still fail.

This execution review will point out the gaps in the organisation that are causing the organisation to produce less-than-desired results. The gap could be in processes or systems, or could be the professional capacity of key people, or in the 'alignment' of people with the 'direction' of the company. These gap identification enables the company to take appropriate actions.

Finding the right review consultant is a big bottleneck

A good strategic and execution audit of business can help a business quadruple its revenue and profits. I have also observed, that although the need of review is felt by the business , they cannot find the right consultng agency which is competent, cost-effective and reliable.

Finding the right "review" consultant for a small and large business is tough because of two factors. One, large consulting companies, who have the expertise, are very expensive to hire. Morever, these large consulting firms also are 'unaware' of the 'dynamics of small companies' because of which their recommendations are not practical and doable. On the other hand, finding small consulting firm is troublesome, because the small consulting firms lack the knowledge base although they may have the experience of dealing with small business.

Of course, with the right help and guidance, finding the right review  consultant is possible. 

Is your business model sustainable?

Here is a very good video of a business model of Nespresso, a subsidiary of Nestle, selling coffee at a premium rates. It is a very good 'real-life' example of how different component of business have to be 'tied' together to create a viable and profitable business model. Individual components such as - revenue stream, channels, or value proposition - do not matter much; what matters is how they are 'integrated' together in one piece.

Interestingly, the nine individual components are bifurcated into two separate streams:

• 4 Revenue side components that includes revenue stream, type of customer relationships( new or repeating), distribution channels and customer segments and another is 
• 4 Input Resources components ( or what we earlier called servicing side of business in an earlier blog) which includes key activities of the business, key resources to do those activities, key partners to help you do deliver the business promise and the resulting cost structure and 
• Component of Value Proposition which ties Revenue with Resource  ( i.e costs) components together and determines the profitability of the business 

In an earlier blog, we had seen how the clash of investment of time, money and resource between acquiring a customer and servicing the customer ( between the revenue and input components, in other language) can make a business model unsustainable. 

Advantage of a putting the business model on one page

Once you put your business model on one page like Nespresso, then you can see how individual components correlate, how the correlation is affecting both sides - revenues and resources - simultaneously, and what to do to increase the profits, or deepen the customer relationships. It is a like snap shot of the entire business that can help you find the best available leverage in your business.

Have you mapped the business model of your organisation on one page? If you have not, it is time you do it. 

Four skills that entrepreneurs lack

I recently saw a study of serial entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs had started multiple businesses and experienced both success and failure. It is interesting because the survey also compared the characteristics of entrepreneurs with a control group.

The survey found that entrepreneurs possess five skill.They excel in five soft skills and fare in them much better than the control group of corporate professionals. These skills, by their nature, develop slowly over time. These are the five skills:

1. Persuasion: Persuasion for this study was defined as the ability to persuade others to join the mission. So the presence of this skill is not surprising.
2. Leadership: Leadership was defined as having a compelling vision for the future.
3. Personal Accountability: has been defined as willingness to take responsibility for personal actions.
4. Goal orientation: in this study was defined as focusing all the efforts on a goal or objective.
5. Interpersonal skills: They include communicating, building rapport, and relating well to people from different backgrounds and communication styles

But the surprising part of this survey is the lack of four skills that entrepreneurs do not possess. Here are the four skills that entrepreneurs lack.

1. Lack of Empathy: This is surprising because entrepreneurs typically solve problems of people when they come out with their new ideas. This suggests that entrepreneurs have empathy at an intellectual level. They expect returns from understanding others problems, which people with empathy typically do not expect.
2. Inability to manage themselves: This is not so surprising, because entrepreneurs are so busy managing their enterprises that they do not have time to manage themselves.
3. Inability to plan and organise:  Lack of this skill is also perhaps due to the above reason. They are unable to manage their calendar, organise their meetings, and keep their office neat and tidy.
4. Lack of capacity in Analytical Problem solving: Lack of this skill is surprising. But hindsight  suggests that this may be due to their 'action orientation' and wanting to 'get things done' yesterday. They constantly hear others who block their ideas and therefore they perhaps tend to dislike analytical problem solving that will slow down their decision-making

This survey also suggested that good entrepreneurs somehow find a way to negotiate the lack of above skills. For instance, entrepreneurs find someone to fill the gaps in second and third skill by having someone to take care of their time management and meetings. Similarly, good entrepreneurs find someone to manage their employees - either their friend or a loyal employee - who perhaps has more empathy than them so that they can retain their employees. To compensate for their inability to solve problems analytically, successful Entrepreneurs find partners who can execute their strategy well.

As an entrepreneur, do you lack any of this skill? And what are you doing to compensate for it?. 

Diagnostic thinking is critical for entrepreneurs

Please see this interesting video of Ranjay Gulati, Harvard Professor, on the importance of diagnostic thinking. He has given a brilliant example of how doctors can get misled by 'problem symptom' and rush to a 'solution', instead of taking a pause and 'diagnosing' what could be the problem. As entrepreneurs are highly action oriented people, they are also prone to this 'jumping' from problem to solution.

When entrepreneurs jump from problem to solution, they make three mistakes:

1. Do not observe all the 'variables' that are also causing the symptom. For instance, when an employee is not able to 'do the work as per the instruction', we simply assume that 'employee is tardy' or 'non committed' or simply ' avoiding work'. We do not wait and wonder if we gave incomplete instruction, or we forgot that the employee does not understand 'the technical word' which we used while giving the instruction.
2. Use the 'available' evidence, instead of using the 'right evidence' : Daniel Kahneman, the Noble Prize winning psychologist, calls it the effect of Type 1 fast and unconscious mind. For instance, if the employee has made a similar mistake in the past of not following the given instructions, we quickly use the 'available evidence' and label the employee as 'lazy', ignoring the evidence that 'he had been given too many actions to be taken without any guidance of prioritising them'
3. Hasty actions cause more unintended consequences, further confusing the 'problem symptom': Our past actions contribute to today's symptoms. But we forget this variable in the heat of the unfolding events. For instance, because we 'scolded the employee' infront of other employees for his past mistake, the employee felt 'victimised' for the mistake he tried to avoid. So now, he is already thinking, " If my best actions cannot help satisfy my boss, what is the use of putting your best'? You have unknowingly sown the seed of 'carelessness' in the employee and now expect him to 'overcome' the hurdle and do something different for you. 

Here are three ideas to avoid this natural tendency to jump from problem to solution, and instead do a diagnosis before taking up an action:

• Take care of the initial interactions with a new employee, vendor or customer: Because of 'unintended consequences of past events', initial interactions are critical in guiding our actions and solutions. Therefore, in the initial stages of a long relationship, use the pause button a lot more to collect evidence before jumping to any conclusion. This will enable you to avoid the mistakes of 'accumulated past'
• Always take a pause in an interaction where the other person has 'low unequal power': Subordinates, children, ( and even spouse) have low power in any event. In all such interactions, we tend to oversimplify the event, look at the available evidence, and swiftly jump to the conclusion. Push a pause button and do a diagnosis before coming to a solution in such unequal-power interactions.
• Become aware of your heuristics ( our thumb rules) while interacting with people: We all have heuristics like 'Labour wants more money for less work', or 'Customers want everything free', or 'Late employees are not committed' or 'People who cannot do a good job are not willing to take a responsibility' and so on. We use these heuristics to form a quick conclusion and become blind to notice other evidence that is contrary to the heuristics. 

What are you doing to ensure that you do not jump from problem to solution?