Fine line between entrepreneurial vision and illusion or even delusion
In dealing with entrepreneurs we often find the enthusiasm to live their vision absolutely infectuous and even in times of adversity some entrepreneurs manage to live their vision and believe in it’s positive outcome no matter what, some at the risk of being delusional and living an illusion.
Now if you are the employee or the private partner, you may be thinking ‘I always said that’ and ‘see I am right, didn’t I tell you’. Before you start your gloating conclusion, we would have seen a lot of very successful entrepreneurs over the years and they all talk of having to hold onto their vision despite the naysayers and despite challenging economic or business times. So to be clear we don’t want to promote for any entrepreneur to give up on their vision, but we do want them to check whether they are creating it or just living on the edge of delusion without a practical plan.
A delusional person equally has total belief their ideas will become reality, the only problem being they have no backbone or basis to back up these ideas. The visionaries of the entrepreneurial world do have a map even if at times it may be a rough map and the route may change, they have done their research and have valid information to indicate that they are on track. It would be considered irresponsible for an architect to build a house without plans, but entrepreneurs with delusional natures think it’s perfectly fine to build a business without a plan.
In tough economic times it is even more important to believe in your vision, because now the negative people will be out in force telling you that you will not survive and we are sure from talkign to our clients that even the most succesful at times contemplate whether they should keep going. In order to keep your vision real, the key is to establish some ground rules and basics you work towards. It includes having an end game plan or cut-off point where you decide it has been enough or time to sell up or close. We believe some minimum basics to ensure business viability need to be covered, so that your company can still pay bills and then an active sales plan on how you will be growing and what the targets are, after that a case of focusing on selling as much as possible with minimal resources.
Expenditure of great companies is minimal and well managed. Their key resource is always it’s people and they make the turnaround effort to keep the entrepreneurial vision alive. Great companies invest in people and have a strong culture all geared towards the vision and the key role of the entrepreneur is to keep the dream alive and motivate those around him to feel the same. This may mean stepping out and leading from the frontline when those on the front line are losing faith, or spending time in the back office to make sure all runs smoothly there.
In stormy times, the boats that make it through have usually put reefs in the sails, tighten the ropes and sailed a conservative course only to pick up the pace once safety has been found again, their focus is on the telltales and the compass to help the skipper stay on course.
The question is: are you living the entrepreneurial vision or delusion? No matter what the answer is right now, make a plan and then implement it as if your life depended on it.
We wish you a profitable vision