How to become an expert entrepreneur

The traditional romantic belief about entrepreneurship is that it starts with writing an excellent business plan and raising lots of money. These stories usually end with a hockey stick growth and a retirement at the Bahamas.

Don’t get me wrong. Writing a business plan is a great way to start a company. However, it is not the only way. There are also other strategies that expert entrepreneurs apply. That’s what the book Effectual Entrepreneurship is about.

If you are in for an academic perspective on entrepreneurship, here are my key learnings on the theory of effectuation.

Learn to deal with uncertainty

They say that predictions are hard, especially about the future. This joke illustrates how long-term plans and forecasts have limited value when starting a venture, especially in a new market where there are no historic data.

You can also identify the most important risks and prepare for potential mitigation scenarios. That will give you at least a feeling of control, but is that enough? Life is full of surprises.

Maybe you don’t need to predict the future. Expert entrepreneurs have strategies in place that control an unpredictable future. That is the core promise of effectuation.

History learns that many ventures were not pre-conceived. Even with a business plan in hand, businesses are not created on paper. Their plans evolve all the time. That’s why the founding team and their ability to course-correct that business plan is equally important.

Expert entrepreneurs know what they control in uncertain circumstances and they don’t try to predict what they can’t control. Hence, their focus is on controlling inputs, not on estimating the outcomes of their efforts.

Start with what you already have

Traditional entrepreneurship starts with defining a goal and then accumulates all means to achieve that pre-determined goal. But did you know that it can also work the other way around? What if you would first identify what you already have?

Think about. Most likely, you know a lot of people. You may have lots of knowledge gained through formal education and experience (on the job, or in life). And, you are someone with values passions, hobbies and interests. (I hope.)

If you first identify all these means, then you can imagine a multitude of possible destinations. In other words, you can get started right away.

Know what you can afford to lose

If you risk little, the impact of a failure is limited. So, when starting a venture, you need to know what you can afford yourself to lose.

Money is usually the first thing people want to protect. Depending on your aversion for risks, you may want to protect your long-term savings and your family home.

Next to money, there is time. Any hour you invest in one venture, is an hour you cannot put into other opportunities. But since time is endless, it’s a very different currency than cash. You can always spread your efforts over time and start slow.

Finally, there is also the opportunity cost of not starting a venture. In that case, you may be stuck forever at your dull office job.

Search for win-win partnerships

Creating partnerships with other entrepreneurs is a great way to extend your means. At the same time, it will limit your affordable losses. If you think win-win, every supplier or customer is part of a potential partnership.

In that sense, it’s important that you don’t hesitate to ask what you need. You always got a “no”, you can often get a “yes”.

Another great question to form partnerships is: “What would it take for you to work together?” Instead of focusing on a specific ask, you’ll open a totally different conversation. You may go far beyond what you had initially in mind.

Embrace all surprises on your journey

One thing is certain: you will encounter lots of surprises on your entrepreneurial journey. Don’t fight them, adapt or even better: leverage surprises to your benefit.

When something unplanned happens, it may impact your means and end-goal. That original end-goal may not in reach anymore, but you can also look at it with the glass half-full. Maybe this event created opportunities for new outcomes?

Surprises are also not always events but also new information (e.g. about your market) that you gain or new people that you encounter. So, be open for new experience and exercise that muscle to frame new opportunities.

And much more

There is so much more in Effectual Entrepreneurship, like the chapter on the balancing act between ownership, equity and control, or the ideas of entrepreneurial culture and venture identity. And then there are dozens of case studies, research references and questions for reflection. That makes the book ideal for usage in entrepreneurial education but also for any would-be entrepreneur.

Many thanks to Bart Derre who pointed me into this direction:

In any case, this book gave me a lot of food for thought. I am now going to look in my fridge and check out the ingredients I have left. I am sure there are a multitude of dishes that I can make. I just need to figure out which one.

Framing Innovation in Corona Times

“Fall in love with the problem, not with the solution.”

I was reminded about this huge design cliché when reading Frame Innovation during the Covid-19 outbreak. The author of this totally non-cliché book is Kees Dorst, a professor of Design Innovation in Australia and The Netherlands.

In his book, Dorst describes how modern problems are open (no boundaries), complex (many elements and relationships), dynamic (change over time) and networked (across organizations).

That sounded a bit like the virus outbreak we are experiencing now, right? In any case, it’s a problem that everyone is now “in love with”.

For these modern problems, all we know is what the desired outcomes are according to Dorst. However, the elements (people, things) and their relations (connections) are unknown. Therefore, traditional problem-solving techniques (like the inductive or deductive reasoning) don’t work. Elements and patters of relations emerge through a process of what Dorst calls “design abduction”.

Phew, that was a lot of designer lingo.

Let’s use the example of contact-tracing for patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus to turn the abstract into the concrete.

The anticipated outcome is clear: avoiding a further spread of the Covid-19 disease by patients that were recently tested positive. On the what and how to reach this outcome, there a lot of vocal (and self-proclaimed) key opinion leaders, but there is no unanimity in the public debate.

So, let’ me be audacious and apply the key steps of the frame innovation process here and see where it brings me.

Archeology

The first step of frame innovation is to investigate the depth of the problem and look at any earlier attempts. In this case, one could study current practices for tracking tuberculosis or ebola. Or, one could investigate emerging technological solutions like contact-tracing apps or physical distancing wearables.

Paradox

At the core of really hard problems, there is paradox of two or more conflicting statements. Stating the paradox often demonstrates why the problem is hard to solve. Here I took a stab at the paradox with a few statements:

  • “Because people that tested positive may have infected other people, the government wants to know who they had close contact with.”
  • “Because people that tested positive feel stigmatized, they don’t want to share who they had close contact with.”
  • “Because people that tested positive are concerned about their privacy, they don’t want to give the government insight in their whereabouts.”
  • “Because people without symptoms don’t know if they are infected, they have no reason to ask for a test.”
  • “Because newly infected yet untested people may not experience any symptoms, they need to isolate themselves.”

Context & Field

In the next two steps of the frame creation process, designers study the current practices of all key stakeholders/decision makers and then radically widen the context to a very wide intellectual, economical, cultural and social space, mapping power, interests, values and practices.

Oh wait, that would assume (1) a high degree of transparency and (2) a profound integrity for the res publica of those key stakeholders and decision makers. That would certainly be challenge in my country ?. Let me assume for the sake of this example that miracles can happen in Belgium.

Themes

The ever-widening concentric circles of context and field will point to the key themes in the paradox. These themes uncover the deeper factors that underlie needs, motivation and experiences of all players in this wider field.

In my example, public health, privacy and economy would be self-evident themes, but we could also look beyond the obvious and think of techno-optimism, de/centralization of power or citizenship.

Frames

When common themes emerge, we can turn to the central step of the frame innovation process: the reframing of the problem situation. Every frame is a new way of looking at the problem, generating new insights and ideas for all stakeholders.

In the case of contact-tracing, I noticed that our prime minister was making an appeal for citizenship, something that is not typically Belgian. (We are known for our creativity with rules, especially tax legislation.)

One example of a frame leading to this appeal could have been:

“If the problem of contact-tracing is approached as if it is a problem of failing altruistic behaviors, then citizenship could be a central theme in the government’s communication strategy.”

Here is another example:

“If the problem of contact-tracing is approached as if it is a problem of trust in the regional and federal authorities, local community representatives could participate in contact-tracing.

Futures

In the process, you create first dozens of possible frames before you seek realistic and viable solutions. This is the moment that design abduction takes place. The “what” and “how” are getting concrete.

For example, from now on all ruling Belgian politicians will call for citizenship and become role models themselves (i.e. no lockdown barbecues or parties anymore, just to name something).

I know, I know, this is a hypothetical example, but I hope that the attentive reader of this article can apply some layers of abstraction and understand the process I aim to illustrate.

Transformation & Integration

After a critical evaluation of what can be done on the short and long term, organizations participating in the frame creation process collaborate on implementation roadmap. In the ideal situation, the newly discovered frames are integrated in the way of working of those organizations beyond, meaning that they are applied beyond the original problem situation.


You can see me referencing the long-term during a crisis situation and you will understand the ironic catch where I got trapped into. Politicians and policy makers are improvising, and their furthest outlook is two weeks.

I do believe that the frame innovation process would be an ideal method for solving the complex, open, networked and dynamic problems that we are now dealing with. However, this requires all stakeholders to let go of their current thinking and to be open to embrace new frames. Will our politicians and policy makers ever be ready to do so? ?

KEY Training

Compliance training: love it or hate it? At Janssen, I hope it’s no longer a necessary evil ?.

To achieve this, my team and I had to marry the insights of Learning & Development with the requirements of Quality & Compliance. And yes, buzzwords like “design thinking” were beneficial.

I just wrote an article on our endeavor for the ? Quasar magazine of the Research Quality Association (RQA).

Scratching the surface on compliance training

What can you do on a Sunday? Well, I read a whitepaper on compliance training from the well-known eLearning Guild (you’re aiming to transform compliance training, or you’re not ?). I agree with suggestions to make compliance training more engaging, but I am missing essential points. Here we go.

My main criticism is that the concept of risk is not mentioned once (did I miss it?). For proper compliance training, one must very well understand the risk for non-compliance. Compliance training is there to mitigate risks, despite having checks & balances in procedures .

Okay, there is a relation between compliance and people’s behaviors. Typically, human errors provoke non-compliance. So, you just need to drive the right behaviors ? Well, even if people demonstrate the prescribed behaviors, the quality system can still be flawed.

Then, there is scale. Too often, compliance training is seen as the annual safety or anti-harassment training. In high-risk industries (eg pharm, aviation) people undergo +50 compliance courses per year. No one wants 50 engaging compliance games.

Also, let’s stop framing compliance training as coming from HR or Learning & Development. Compliance training in high-risk industries is rather driven outside HR or L&D than within. In my case (pharm), quality & compliance is in the driving seat.

At some point, I will need to share all my thoughts a bit broader. Stay tuned.

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On middle management and design thinking

How can you gain support from middle management for design thinking?

That is what we discussed at a virtual Innovation Roundtable a few weeks ago. Here are my takeaways.

We used the Beckard-Harris Change Model to come up with some suggestions:

  1. Dissatisfaction with status quo. Before people want to embed design thinking into their business, they need to understand that their current practices no longer work. One may use innovation ambassadors to share experiences and success stories. Also, clear rewards and recognition are important.
  2. Vision of a preferred future. People find it often difficult to relate to a mission. Involve middle managers to make that vision more concrete. Sometimes, you need connect with each person individually so they understand what’s in it for them.
  3. First steps to achieve the vision. You need to provide people a way to make first move. Instead of promoting mindsets, it may be more helpful to translate this into concrete behaviors. Also, you need to remind people about being customer-centric. Finally, innovation culture starts with hiring the right people and for that HR needs to be on board.

Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash

Do’s and don’ts for conferences in 2019

I love conferences. I always look for new inspiration and connect with people from other companies and industries. It is key for my role as innovation ninja at Johnson & Johnson.

The funny thing is that those so-called innovation conferences and design events are hardly innovative. They all look the same. So, if you preach disruption but cannot put it into action, why would I bother about your conference or event in 2019?

Continue reading “Do’s and don’ts for conferences in 2019”