There is an inherent fear for people that aren’t entrepreneurs. They believe that hiring an entrepreneur will somehow infect the rest of the staff and cause them to defect. While this may be true to a degree, there is so much more your company can gain from having an entrepreneur in its presence. Here are my go to lessons learned.
Be More
Entrepreneurs expect more than ‘that’s just the way we do it here’ as an explanation. The best thing about having an entrepreneur in your shop is that they push you to understand why you do things the way you and if there is a better way. This is called innovation and managers shouldn’t be offended by it or scared of it. While these people can be a huge pain in the butt, their intentions are often in the right place. They see you as someone who can make a difference and are genuinely interested in how that can happen.
Insubordination isn’t a dirty word
Entrepreneurs will more than likely bristle at being told they have to do something a certain way and there is a reason for that. Entrepreneurs solve problems and all they are asking for is the trust to get the task done. Micro managing is symptomatic of insecure management and generally that makes for a volatile relationship with an entrepreneur. All the great things accomplished in business were accomplished through insubordination, remember that.
They want to learn
We entrepreneurs are a funny breed. We continuously walk the line between expert and wide eyed kid. We live in a world where everything is amazing and when we find something new, we want to learn everything about it. The thing to remember about entrepreneurs is that we are working people too. We are the ones that will work retail to be able to build our dreams. We aren’t some wide eyed person with a trust fund supporting us. We do the work, we put in the time. Take advantage of that work ethic.
They will leave
The final lesson is the most important; if they aren’t challenged they will leave. Entrepreneurs need to feel like there is a battle that they are fighting and that they have been given the resources to win. If they are blocked at every turn and stopped at every idea, they will leave. They will leave because they have to be useful, they have to be needed and they have to be as, Harrison Wright in Scandal says “gladiators in suits”.
