Do you have what it takes to take charge of your start-up?
During my career supporting young entrepreneurs and start-up innovators, I have come across many unique ideas that are worth sharing. There is a world of innovation and remarkable entrepreneurial drive spearheading some of the most exciting developments in multiple sectors. And I believe sharing best practice and ideas can potentially drive significant commercial change and make a long-term impact.
When start-ups become successful, people tend to concentrate on the end result. For example, when people think of entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Richard Branson, they focus on the products and services. The ideas and innovative changes they instigated at the start of their careers are largely forgotten.
Why do some start-up ideas fail?
Many great ideas derive from products and services that are disruptive and, as yet, abstract. With no tangible example, many end up on the scrap heap of business ideas that never gained traction or landed funding.
Effectively dealing with disruptive, innovative, revolutionary ideas needs a unique skillset. These stand apart from the average capabilities of managers and team leaders that come with running a business. They are standalone, distinct and harder to find.
Functioning with negative capability
Recently, an article on Harvard.com by Nathan Furr, assistant professor of strategy at INSEAD talked what he calls ‘negative capability’. Co-author of ‘Leading Transformation: How to Take Charge of Your Company’s Future, Furr explains that the element that is vital, yet often missing from innovation teams, is negative capability. He defines this as the ability to function in abstract terms.
To fully understand his concept, it’s helpful to look at what are considered ‘positive capabilities’. The Bristol Business School’s Robert French outlined positive capabilities generally linked with successful general management as:
- The ability to understand complex new ideas.
- The ability to understand and manage the implementation and execution of new ideas.
- The ability to understand and manage different roles within the team or organisation in order to execute new ideas.
These characteristics are technical skills involving discipline, team leadership and organisational structure. They’re undoubtedly valuable skills for any company manager, whether for start-ups or established businesses. They’re particularly important for any company working within a constantly evolving innovative environment. However, positive capabilities alone are not enough for truly disruptive and abstract business ideas.
New ideas, by their very nature, necessitate the team or organisation being removed from their day-today-work. Following uncharted territory with no precedent or definitive guiding roadmap means that ideas can fail. This kind of change arouses natural anxiety and unprepared teams “tend to move toward avoidance tactics – defaulting known structures, which then lead to the collapse of the new project.”
It’s vital for a disruptive start-up to have team members capable of handling the uncertainty of the unknown. The skillset necessary for entrepreneurs to thrive include the ability the pivot and adapt. It takes more than simply having technical management experience. Here are three other vital skillsets:
- Thinking divergently
Individual team members must be able to think about different information and “uniquely connect new information, ideas, and concepts that are usually held far apart.” Furr calls this “divergent thinking” and says that the skills require the person to stay focused on the end game, while also processing a multitude of contrasting and new information.
Leaders who can operate as divergent thinkers automatically gravitate toward other talented people who can deal with the day-to-day operation. This frees the divergent thinking leader to collect data and collaborate effectively.
- Taking convergent action
As well as taking in the new information, these disruptive leaders “execute on new ideas in order to create something tangible.” By this, Furr means that they can assess the information and use to effectively implement new ideas.
- Influential communication
While divergent thinking and using information effectively are worthwhile skills, if the leader can’t communicate in an influential way then the idea will be left behind. A disruptive start-up business leader must “inspire other leaders and decision-makers to believe, support, and act on a novel idea or opportunity.”
Having been part of many innovative teams, and funded others, I know that great management skills are important for a start-up to succeed. But the ability to constantly come up with and instigate new ideas right the way through to the end is critical. These skills are difficult to teach, but they can be nurtured by the right kind of environment that supports taking risks and allows people to fail.
