On Friday, John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing discussed the pros and cons of companies developing entrepreneurial thinking in their staff.
Its clear that some business owners and managers are going to feel threatened by this idea. How often have you heard the fear expressed that if you train your staff, you’re simply spending money on improving the skills of someone who may then take those skills to your competitors. Well, in my view that’s just a fast track to shrinking your business. Everyone knows that training is essential to increasing profits through better operations and customer service. Its just obvious. Training staff to be entrepreneurial just takes it one step further. This is not binary. Its not an on/off thing. Empowering staff to make decisions and be accountable, training them and giving them guidelines which enable them to make their own decisions, fostering new ideas from staff and giving them the ability to develop some of those ideas – isn’t that teaching them to be entrepreneurial? And if so, why would you not want employees who take responsibility, come up with great ideas, and help grow your business?
But wait. Just think about this – its when you don’t give staff the framework and support to create value that you’ll lose them. People want meaning in their work – and that sense of meaning is most significant when we feel we’ve had a part in creating it. In its simplest form, being entrepreneurial is simply the act of creating value. Your staff can create value within your business if you let them – or outside of it if you stifle them.
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Photo Credit: Jelene
Article by Vandy Massey
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