What is Growing Pains ?

Why this word is similar with the successful American drama in the 1990s, it’s interesting that I found it when searching in Google. I did not recognize it before that it has something to do with “organization symptoms” that usually happened in large organization. Why I need to learn this knowledge? Because I think this is related with psychological approach beside deeply understanding about entrepreneurship itself. However, it’s quite interesting knowledge, because I used to work in large company ( more than 300 employees) and I really feel about the situation that stated in the article. Thus, this article from entrepreneurial growth course is interesting to learn and I can learn from the mistake that I get from previous experience.

Now, What is Growing pains? According to Flamholtz, when an organization has not been fully successful in developing the internal systems it needs at a given stage of growth, it begins to experience “growing pains”. It can be categorize as symptoms that an organization needs to make a transition. Then, there are ten most common organizational growing pains: people feel that “there are not enough hours in the day”, people spend too much time “putting out fires”, people are not aware of what other people are doing, people lack understanding about where the firm is headed, there are too few good managers, people feel that “ I have to do it myself if I want to get it done correctly”, most people feel that meetings are a waste of time ; when plans are made, there is very little follow-up, so things just do not get done, some people feel insecure about their place in the firm, the firm continuous to grow in sales but not in profits.

Rumors also become an issue here, and I agree that the rumors can’t be a source information that the employee can rely on. It happened all the time and it will increase a significant amount of anxiety because it’s just only speculations from people who close with top management. Thus, providing information is needed, it would be better for the role of human resource manager to accomplish it.

Furthermore, recognizing growing pain since in the earlier stage would be the best thing that the manager in large organization do. The role of supervisor and manager is to penetrate the organizational culture to employee, so they do not confuse, stress, insecure in the workplace. Fortunately, there is some method that help to measure growing pains, such as using questionnaire and let employee to fill it, it’s a convenient way to survey because employee can be anonymous. After that, it needs to score, interpret the number into reliable analysis.

Before I read this article, the bigger the company and reach the highest stage of growth does not impact the internal social condition of employee. Before , I believe that the employee can get enough salary, personal reward/remuneration (income) and better social security because big company usually emphasis in employee satisfaction. Whenever them satisfied, it will boost initiative and creativity in daily activities . However, that is not only for one typical industry (homogeneous) that affected by growing pains, but every type of industries (for instance service, high-tech, low-tech, finance) will have experience in those symptoms within internal condition and will continuously increase until reach a significantly large size.

Thus, the role of good managers is needed in every level stage of growth for the purpose to reduce growing pains inside the company. Increasing sale is important, but gaining profitability should also be the main focus. Whenever the company reach high profit, the company will continuously grow and hopefully it will reduce growing pains. Why? Because the employee feel secure and feel that they are part and belong to this organization.

Source:

Flamholtz, E.G (1990). Growing pains: How to make the transition from an entrepreneurship to a professionally managed firm (pp.53 – 72). San Fransisco: Jossey – Bass Inc.

Creativity & Intellectual Property for Entrepreneur

It’s not the fist time that I heard the word of “intellectual property”, but I never try to find detail information for it. The lecture often tells me how the important to be creative is and somehow business people like to imitate our ideas. It’s not easy to protect our own creative idea because there are many criteria that should be prepared. Some myths of creativity that people who have low IQ tend to have low creativity, however it against the theory that creativity does not grow in parallel with higher IQ scores. Even though education is important to boost creativity but actually education and creativity are not necessarily interdependent. Why? Some entrepreneurs argue that modern higher education stresses logic and that tens to squelch creativity (Charles Banfe, 1991). I agree that statement while we can develop creativity skills, but the creativity can not learn easily. Everyone has their capabilities that depend of their brain or where the genes pool in. Then, regarding that creativity knowledge I would like to define why the intellectual property is needed for entrepreneur.

So, what is the intellectual property? According to article “Entrepreneurship: successfully launching new venture” stated that it is any product of human intellect that is intangible but has value in market place. It is called “intellectual” property because it is the product of human imagination, creativity, and inventiveness (Baringer,B.R & Ireland, R.D, 2006). Furthermore, how many types of intellectual property? There are four: patents, trademark, copyright and trade secret.

Entrepreneurial need to identify and aware of other competitors before protect its property. It need process and need time & cost to process it. While there are two rules of thumb for determining whether intellectual property (IP) are worth the time and expenses of protecting.
· First, the firm should determine whether IP is directly related to its current competitive advantage or could facilitate the development of future competitive advantage.
· Second, knowing whether the IP has independent value in the marketplace.

Finally, I believe creativity and intellectual property are related each other because it’s the convenience way for entrepreneur company to keep their idea legally to avoid the dispute among competitors that try to imitate it.

Sources:
Barringer,B.R. & Ireland, R.D. (2006). Entrepreneurship: successful launching new ventures (pp.278-300). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Banfe, Charles (1991). Entrepreneur From Zero To Hero. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Born or Made Entrepreneur ?

I believe we are all born with the ability to be an entrepreneur, and we do not think that entrepreneur must necessarily be an innovative thinker, but successful ones often have those interesting brain that see the world differently, which is perhaps where the gene pool comes in.

As we know, not every effort to start a business will lead to a successful company, its TRIAL & EROR. For instance, where the successful come – if it’s not rich parents and prestigious education? Some expert (Beresford) reckons it’s all to do with “drive” – they are not necessarily cleverer than anyone else but they just have the extra confidence and bravery to do the job. They also take the risk than the rest of us, but they calculated the risk what entrepreneur do have in common is a high tolerance and uncertainty in their lives. So, it’s just need to turn the good idea into reality. Take example of Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Robson Walton from Wall Mart’s, they are born entrepreneur and true innovator which are looked for the differences while other business imitator looked for similarities.

This topic are very interesting for the entrepreneurship debate, though it’s a difficult to find the answer whether it’s right or wrong. Before the debate, I think to be an entrepreneur must be someone born with high IQ intelligent, however it’s not 100% true, because they need knowledge and education to support. So, there is part where entrepreneur also learn from the mistake and they try hard to learn from their experience. Now, I believe entrepreneurship are born and made.

Which Types of Entrepreneur are you?

Team Player
A group that consist of several people, one person is the entrepreneur and the leader, two to four team players join together in a startup. The roles of team player such as provide needed interaction, share the personal financial exposure, and lessen the workload. So, lone entrepreneur or franchise team playing? The differences between those are trading off pain (risk) for gain (success). Franchising has less risk, easier to manage, however the gain are not spectacular compare to non-franchise startup.

Inventor
Entrepreneur who invents first-time products, if it’s a successful innovation there will be a significant competitive advantage. Somehow they have lack of business background but it’s not a roadblock.

Nicher
The nicher will develop product that specially design for small crevice, also fits in the small-time segment.

Exploiter
Entrepreneur who is exploiting markets segment opportunity. They are important for to the success of a startup.

Builder
The builder will build a concept which has a long way to go. They also thrives on incremental & positive growth.

Intrapreneur
Someone inside the company who discover niche opportunities & jumping to exploit to those segment. This entrepreneurial strategy works well for many firms but also there is a danger that the key employee will leave & start a company to fill the market segment.

Turnarounder
Someone whom might not seem like an entrepreneur type, they are ruthless and their objective is to save a corporate life by reversing a negative cash flow and to apply cash, planning and resources.

The type of entrepreneurs above are nothing without goodwill of a person to pursue it and try to focus starting new venture. Motivation, commitment and focus are the three important concepts to be a successful entrepreneurs. Whatever the type of entrepreneur you choose, I believe everyone is born as an entrepreneur. Thus, Don’t just wait and see other success people but try to build confidence and bravery to do that job. No Risk.. No Gain ! Windows opportunity don’t open for several time, so go for it!

Sources:
Banfe, Charles (1991). Enterpreneur From Zero To Hero. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

HOW TO BE CREATIVE?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull:
“Don’t worry about creativity. Just learn to fly real well and when you do, the magic will happen. You’ll go beyond the barrier without realizing it.”

Creative employees are valuable assets for company which possesses innovation as the main core of its business. However, the external environment such as competition among competitors sometimes make employee less creative to enhance their idea without supporting from top management. The internal condition might be the other reasons that caused stress while working at the office. Creative is for everyone and anyone, so it’s better to create “cozy” environment in the work place by supplying well office furniture design that attempt to eliminate stress and small frustrations from the daily routine. I believe that it will encourage employees to design their own offices and be creative as a part of corporate culture which concentrates on being imaginative and creative.

According to the lecture about Organizational creativity, I think “freedom” as the key point to create a conducive creativity, while top management has trust the workers not to monitor all of the task and not to control what should they do every time. Encourage employee motivation in organizational activity has positive impact on employee morale and motivation. I believe it will support the creation all employees no matter where they stand in the organization chart are able to participate in problem solving process. It is true that innovative company will be one step further than their competitors if they can achieve high level of innovation, however the company must first convert their culture into more participative. Thus, maintaining a productive creative thinking environment and satisfying is needed for the employee also the growth of company continuously.

Creative teamwork is not only good for the bottom line; it can also be an intensely rewarding experience (Leigh Thomson, 2003). I agree that the more heterogeneous a team will generate more arguments, apply a greater number of strategies, and detect more novels solutions. Thus, they will more engage in divergent thinking and learn from failure to address the problem. The threats that they should avoid are social loafing, conformity, production blocking, and downward norm setting that can kill creativity (Leigh Thomson, 2003). For instance brainstorming and brainwriting are good ways to help employee enhance their idea. Furthermore, brainwriting keeping their identity anonymously and writing ideas instead of speaking that eliminate the problem of production blocking. Hopefully, it reduces conformity since the written format eliminates the need for public speaking rather than oral brainstorming.

Finally, creativity is a tool and windows opportunity opens for only a short time. The role of employees in organization is trying to keep their idea fresh, using the opportunity to create fabulous innovation as valuable resources that the company has. It is important to put creativity as part of the company culture, so the employees feel that they were part of organization and they have self confidence and creative perspective to create something new or making anything possible.

Sources:

Banfe, Charles (1991). Enterpreneur From Zero To Hero. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Thompson, Leigh (2003). Improving the creativity of organizational work groups. Academy of Mangement Executive 17(1),96-109

Gustavsson, Veronica (2008). Lecture August 29th: Innovation and Business Creation. Retrieved 2008-8-29, from from Jönköping International Business School’s Website: http://jibsnet.hj.se.

Managing People in Workplace

Reflection from the article “What a Star – What a jerk” while people like Andy Zimmerman will always happen in a workplace. Someone who is talented, lots of energy and smart, however his attitude does not suit with the internal condition of company and it’s become burden for manager to cope with it. He tends to be the top of other employees with his inappropriate behavior and always bully his bottom line. So, what is the role of manager?

Furthermore, it starts with hiring someone new in a company. Managing people and training them are costly. According to Robert I Sutton-the author of the weird rules of creativity, hiring people who make you uncomfortable, even those you don’t like, is another way to increase the variety and creativity in what people think, say and do. Unfortunately, it does not include inappropriate behavior that can ruin the organizational objective. Should we ignore them? That big question for manager and some researcher in personality psychology suggest that people with certain traits are best able to avoid, ignore, or reject them. I disagree with this statement that will kill the character of person, the role of manager as a supervisor will be questionable and it’s against the weird rules of creativity.

As a manager, it’s their job to develop a high-performing team even Andy was somebody that has bad behavior. According to Kathy Jordan, a psychologist that manager need to have ability to manage relationship with colleagues professionally, and to coach team members on developing assertiveness and conflict management strategies. In consequence, workplace is not a kindergarten that everyone can act inappropriate way, employee is an adult that understand how to behave in a workplace. I agree that managing people need patient and it takes a lot of time to build trustworthy among them and create conducive workplace.

This reflection made me think that being a professional manager will always face with the situation that need strong emotional control to survive with the condition and professionalism in doing their job. They need plan and can inspired intrinsic motivation of their bottom line and to build synergy between them.

Sources:
Cliffe Sarah (2001). What a Star – What a Jerk. HBR Case Study 37-48

Sutton, Robert I (2001). The Weird Rules of Creativity. Harvard Business Review 94-103

Reflection of Porter’s Theory for Enterpreneurship

The knowledege of market fully needed for the enterpreneur. They must know the market niche size, characteristics and response mechanism in order to serve the niche competitively (Charles Banfe,1991). The concepts that develop by Porter (five forces) describe how the environmental conditions and resources affect firm performance. This model assumes should develop heterogeneity in an industry or group whether it has short lived because the resources those firms to implement the strategies are highly mobile. Thus, imagine that the industry has a lot of homogeneous resources and mobility exists, other firms can also imitate and implement the same strategy that will improve their efficient and effectiveness in the same way. Probably, they can not sustain competitive advantage in those kind industries. Even though the firms try to be “first-mover” in homogenous industry, this condition will follow by other firms to possessed identical opportunity in the same way. There will be no “unique” firm within the same industry. Fortunately, Porter’s theory can be a guideline for firms which want to survive within the same industry suggested to focus on firm resource heterogeneity and immobility to reach sustained competitive advantage.

How the firm uses its resources within in an industry in this fierce competition might be the big issue now days, while many firms has equal capability to use its resources in effective and efficient way. That’s the challenge for enterpreneur to bring innovative idea into the market and they do find differences while other business immitator looks for simmilarities.

Sources:
Barney, Jay (1991). Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management 17(1), 99-120.

Banfe, Charles (1991). Enterpreneur From Zero To Hero. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Encouraging Disciplined Creativity for Innovative Product

Where are the ideas come from? Is a creative idea must be a good idea? Those kind of question that sometimes happened in entrepreneur mind. A successful new product absolutely is a result from heavy doses of creativity but it occurs when there are stimuli, such as information, inputs, feedback, analysis, custom problems and association-making.

Creative ideas transfer meaning from something that we understand more to something that we understand less and its role very important for new product development in a management team of company. Ideas must carry based on a sound rationale not emotions. Indeed, disciplined creativity breeds successful idea generation.

For instance, some new product people have somehow believe that new product management is not a multidisciplinary process but rather a creative thing free-for-all. This kind of think must stop if it is successful and needed well managed new product program is desired.

So, how to avoid this problem? It’s better if there is a business leader who have strong leadership qualities and put him in charge of new product development program and make sure that top becomes the coaches and champions for the process (Kuczmarski,2000)

Sources:
Thomas D. Kuczmarski (2000). Managing New Product using the MAP ™ System to Accelerate Growth (3rd ed.). Chicago: The Innovation Press

Recipes for Successful Innovation in a Company

As we know that innovation is the key to gaining competitive advantage and it should be focus on developing new-to-the world or new-to-the market products that provide consumers with totally new perceived benefits and satisfied them.

The company that place new products as their core competencies in business strategy which also working at innovation and committed to it would probably enjoy a consistent financial rewards from it.

When this innovation should start in a company? It should start at the top level of management which is CEO must serve as the catalyst for sparking an innovation mindset throughout a company. It must be a leadership responsibility of any CEO.

The recipes for successful innovation:
· an optimistic, buoyant, and positive CEO
· a CIO (Chief Innovation Officer) committed to the leading the innovation effort
· a commonly agreed-upon new products strategy
· a balance new product and technology portfolio
· a consumer-driven development process
· several dedicated teams
· a reward structure for new product participants
· a set of innovation norms and values
· a measurement system for assessing innovation

Sources:
Kuczmarski, Thomas D. (2003). What is innovation? And why aren’t companies doing more of it?. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 20(6), 536-541