I’m going to forewarn you that I’m in a weird mood for many reasons. One, I’ve been having some fun health problems that have resulted in me being overly tired. Two, I’ve resumed my college habit of drinking red bull to compensate for the overly tiredness. Three, I’ve never lost my childlike propensity to get ridiculously excited around the holidays – often to the point of making myself sick. So there you have it, I’m a raging mix of tired paired with hopped up on red bull and holiday spirit – they should make cages for people like this, but instead I’m writing a blog!
I’ve been reading The Entrepreneurial Mindset by Ian MacMillan and Rita Gunther McGrath as part of a redesign of the Innovation Toolkit application. The toolkit is based off of much of the framework laid out in the book. I really like the premise of the book because it reminds me of what I was saying about uncertainty in a past blog post: Change: It’s as Easy as … Oh wait, it isn’t.
Here I am on this blog always preaching about our dear friends, chaos and uncertainty, and how we should embrace them with open arms while I’m walking around with three big gaping unmet needs for peace, order, and clarity – yet I suppose it’s another matter of perspective. I like peace in my immediate vicinity (world peace would be lovely too), I like order in my surroundings and even more preferably in my own head, and I like clarity in my daily interactions and interpersonal relationships. Achieving the peace, order, and clarity that I need for myself will help me better cope with the lack of peace, disorder, and uncertainty that are a party of being a human.
Oh UNCERTAINTY! That scary little fact of life that we are always trying to reduce to the smallest amount possible. Thank you Ian MacMillan and Rita Gunther McGrath for reminding me that once again, it’s all about perspective!!
This book summarizes the practical implications of our accumulation of experience, research studies, and active teaching and working with business organizations attempting to deal with uncertainty and with entrepreneurs learning to launch and grow their businesses… The primary thrust of the book – that uncertainty can yield tremendous opportunity when looked at in the right way – has long been a topic at the heart of the academic study of entrepreneurship. (MacMillan and McGrath).
Read those words again – uncertainty can yield tremendous opportunity when looked at in the right way.
The book then goes on to lay out a framework in which entrepreneurs can educate themselves as much as possible in order to make the best assumptions to deal with the uncertainty, and even how to capitalize on the uncertainties that a competitor may fail to anticipate.
Because you don’t know for sure what they will do, you have no choice but to make assumptions about competitive reaction. Assumptions are just that – you can’t be sure that the competitors will act as you expect. Nor can you be sure that the markets, products, distribution, or supply system changes that you intend to introduce will pan out as you hope. The more uncertain the project, the more you must rely on the best assumptions you can make for your decisions… In effect, you can be certain only about the uncertainty, which pretty much guarantees that the outcomes of your new initiative will be different from what you have planned.
I liked that piece of truth … you can only be certain about the uncertainty. What I really like about the framework in the Entrepreneurial Mindset is that it helps people to REALLY think through every context as you plan to launch a product or service. Context is so important (especially from a systems thinking perspective!!) and understanding context can really help us prepare for uncertainty…. all the while we try to accept that “we can only be certain about the uncertainty.”
