CEO entrepreneurs move at hyper fast speeds

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman works with Little Rock-based Arkansas Capital Corp. to promote entrepreneurship development around the state. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

Entrepreneurs are unique species and it doesn’t take long to discover when you are in the presence of a real entrepreneur. While there are many small business owners engaged in starting, growing or maintaining their business, an entrepreneur is doing all that at hyper fast speeds. The entrepreneur’s mind is five steps ahead and five steps behind at the same time.

Likewise, being a successful entrepreneur requires the business leader to accomplish a lot in as short amount of time as possible. This puts the business owner in a position to have to make a lot of decisions often with incomplete or little information with which to base those decisions. In the start-up process, the number of decisions and the lack of information needed to know seem endless, which scares most people.

Mark Suster noted: “Entrepreneurs make fast decisions and move forward knowing that at best 70% of their decisions are going to be right. They move the ball forward every day. They are quick to spot their mistakes and correct. Good entrepreneurs can admit when their course of action was wrong and learn from it. Good entrepreneurs are wrong often. If you’re not then you’re not trying hard enough. Good entrepreneurs have a penchant for doing vs. over-analyzing.”

Likewise, entrepreneurs are the ones who make things happen in business through the non-stop decisions that are made. At times, entrepreneurs accomplish the impossible, yet other times show how fragile businesses are through unfortunate results. In all, entrepreneurs are the ones that make things happen.

However, if the entrepreneur starts to grow the company, he/she will need to learn to let go of some of the decision making. It does not take long for the CEO entrepreneur to realize that corporate structures and hierarchies can get in the way of true business growth and progress. For many CEO entrepreneurs, the intent is not to stunt the growth of the business. When the entrepreneur tries to maintain the decision making role, actions and opportunities may disappear while waiting for one person to make a decision.

Five key signs that the entrepreneur is getting in the way of his/her own business due to staff not being empowered to make decisions include:
• New business opportunities do not materialize.
• Staff procrastinates on progress of projects due to needing key decisions resolved.
• Staff morale dips due to aggravation with decision makers.
• There seems to be too many decisions to make for the business on a consistent basis.
• The company starts to stagnate rather than grow.

As the business leader, it is the entrepreneur’s responsibility to establish a business that can grow, empower the employees and maintain the big picture so that the business can  prosper. Toe stepping and hurt feelings can be mended, but a lost contract that could bring big profits is lost forever. Establish a business that builds trust and is ready to focus on making money not deciding on who will make the decisions.

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Stockman can be reached at [email protected]