Am I an Entrepreneur?

I’ve been thinking a bit about Designers, Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Leaders. I guess it started with this passage:

“Artists are by nature entrepreneurs, they’re just not called that… They have the ability to visualize something that doesn’t exist, to look at a canvas and see a painting. Entrepreneurs do that. That’s what makes them different from businesspeople. Businesspeople are essentially administrators. Entrepreneurs are by definition visionaries. Entrepreneurs and artists are interchangeable in many ways.”

—Bill Strickland

Which led me to thinking about my last post (part observation, part personal reflection), describing how ‘designers envision unseen opportunities.’ Creating is part of my DNA. From new ideas to better processes and products—I design. So in that sense, I’d say that I have the “ability to visualize something that doesn’t exist,” as described in the quote above.

But I don’t think of myself as an entrepreneur. Why not? I’m not a risk taker, which is of course the other half of being an entrepreneur: It’s not just the ability to envision unseen opportunities, but the fortitude to take the risks necessary to make that vision reality. Entrepreneurs are not afraid to take risks. Me, I’m terrified. Granted I’ve taken a few, but in those cases the risks tended to be the safest of my options (I take that back, Bright Corner was the riskiest option, but definitely more exciting than the alternatives…). But, to my point, passion doesn’t always translate into performance.

So then I started thinking about other key personalities: Managers and Leaders.

Leaders “effect desired results by positively affecting others’ actions” (thanks Don for the definition!). Some leaders are visionaries. Very few are designers. Some will take strategic risks. But not all.

And managers? Well, let’s just say one of these four is not like the others. Like leaders, a good manager will rally the troops and motivate people to action. But unlike designers, entrepreneurs, or leaders, managers aren’t necessarily visionary (not that they can’t be). I’ll go ahead and say it—a good manager should not be visionary, at least not at the macro level. I’ve worked with some brilliant visionaries, and they need managers who can anchor their ideas. Or at least a snapshot of their idea at a particular point in time. Accordingly, the mark of a good manager is the ability to carry out orders. To manage people and processes to produce a desired outcome. This is necessary, for without managers (and good workers!) the visionary people would never complete anything. Trust me, I know, as I sit on about a dozen good ideas.

To bring this full circle round, is there something the designer has that the entrepreneur doesn’t? Yes. I think (and we are speaking in general terms here!) it might be the relentless focus on details and the ‘humanness’ of whatever is being designed. My first post was about the human focus that design-minded people bring to the table, and in future posts I’ll comment on more of these distinctions.

So where is this going? I’m not sure, except to explore the similarities and distinctions between Designers, Entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Managers, and to better understand my own strengths and weakness within an organization. Or perhaps this is to explain why there is so much distance between Managers and Designers…

Cheers!