The Entrepreneurial Myth

Labels: Business on Monday, December 7, 2009 at December 07, 2009

I am a Money Magnet! We are Money Magnets!

Last month, I visited Cebu city after more than a year and I was surprised to see that they have their own Fully Booked bookstore already! To celebrate my first visit there, I bought a copy of "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It" by Michael Gerber.

Into the first chapters, I already got hooked as I learned about the technician, the manager, and the entrepreneur. Continue reading this article to know more about the Entrepreneur Myth.

Michael Gerber wrote that most small businesses aren't actually started by entrepreneurs. In fact, he wrote that most small business owners actually are technicians. He defined technicians as people capable of doing the technical work involved in the business. These are individuals who started working for somebody else until one day they decided to start their own business. According to Gerber, the problem with this setup is that these individuals tend to assume that if they understand the technical work of a business, they also understand a business that does that technical work. When in fact, the technical work of a business and a business that does that technical work are two totally different things.

I definitely agree. Knowing how to do something to start a business is totally different from running that business. The author then presented that there are actually three types of individuals involved in a business and that these personalities are present in each one of us. These are:

1. The Entrepreneur

2. The Manager

3. The Technician

An Entrepreneur is the visionary in us, the dreamer. He turns the most trivial condition into an exceptional opportunity. He lives in the future and constructs images of "what-if" and "if when." He pushes for change which the manager and the technicians might not necessarily agree with.

The manager is the one that plans and brings order and predictability in the organization. Where the Entrepreneur sees the opportunity in events, the Manager sees the problems. His main focus and drive is to bring order to the organization.

The Technician is the doer. He is happy as long as he is working. He is not so much interested in ideas as in learning "how to do it." Trying new things that probably doesn't need to be done at all can frustrate and annoy him.

Given the presence of these three conflicting personalities in us, it is therefore crucial for us to control each personality and attain balance so that our businesses can continue growing and be successful.

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