The 83 secret steps to success

Before you complain about false advertising, let me assure you that there are not eighty-three steps to entrepreneurial success.  But if I was a relatively famous individual, and I published a book with this title, you might be tempted to read it.  Because if there were indeed a definable set of steps to success, and you were an entrepreneur working eighty-three hour weeks to accomplish your goals, you’d pay good money to discover them.

Many a business self-help book has been sold with the promise of revealing the distinct recipe to reaching the end of the rainbow.  While the hyperbole is seldom justified, most of these books do have value.  There are tips and tools and ideas that can illuminate thinking, offer new perspectives.  But like recovering victims of violent crimes, the study of healing can threaten to become one’s new full-time obsession.  The pursuit of the Secrets to Success replaces actually taking the actions necessary to succeed.

I’ve had the good fortune to meet a lot of business leaders over the last few decades, and have conducted an informal field study of over 1200 companies to date, since becoming an entrepreneur myself in 1989.   A pattern has emerged over the years, describing some of the many essential ingredients for success in entrepreneurship.  And the definition of “success” I would offer is:  that the entrepreneur is someone who has risked their own assets on the effort, is still an entrepreneur after at least 10 years, has failed completely at least once in a business endeavor (closed the company doors), and in total has provided a relatively reasonable return for shareholders over time (even if only herself) as compared to other possible investments.

From my experience and observations, the first factor, (and quite possibly the most important), in entrepreneurial success is simply taking action.  A decision is not a decision until there is a material change in behavior related to that decision.  A plan is only potential unless acted upon.  Long hours spent studying the problem is a wasted investment unless there is some tangible result associated with the study.  To be sure, there is much to gain by understanding a problem well before you make a decision.  But if you’re not done with the book by the time the decision must be made, finishing the book is the wrong choice.

My first real mentor in the land of corporations, Lou Paglialonga, explained this principle which I didn’t understand fully until many years later.  He said, “Stan, starting and growing a business is a matter of inertia.”  He continued, “It’s like building a vehicle.  It’s only useful if it’s moving.  Sure, you have to design it as best you can, put the financial ‘gas’ in the tank and pick a direction.  But until the wheels start to move, it’s just a big paperweight.”  I asked him how you get the “vehicle” moving, and he replied, “Decide and act.”

As I tried to digest his analogy, I thought of how difficult it was to get a stalled car moving from a dead stop, as you attempt a jump-start.  But once it’s rolling, it’s a lot easier to make steering adjustments and add speed.  In fact, you could be headed in the wrong direction by 180 degrees, but it may be the only direction you can get momentum in.  You can try to circle back once the wheels are turning and the engine fires.

So I asked Lou how one could confidently take action based on decisions made with incomplete information.  He said, “We all do it every day.  We decide to take a particular freeway route, take action to steer our car in that direction, assuming that the roadway will be passable and get us to our destination within the time period we have to travel.  We make decisions about who we should hire, based upon a few hours of interaction with the candidates and possibly some examples of their skills.  We have to make these leaps of faith.  If we wait too long to pick the route or offer the job, we simply guarantee that we won’t get there on time or fill the position.  The proper mindset for decision-making in business is not complete confidence.  It’s a willingness to take action, knowing that waiting for complete confidence is never justified.”

Lou’s message was that action was more important than accuracy, in creating and growing a business.  So while the student of entrepreneurialism is reading the tenth book on entrepreneurialism, the successful entrepreneur has taken ten actions, three of which were bone-headed, six were decent and one was really good.  The successful entrepreneur is therefore a person whose ego can survive the mistakes, and who makes more good decisions than bad.

The successful entrepreneur knows that evidence trumps theory every day.

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