Entrepreneur and the Conductor - 6 Areas of Symmetry - Part 1

On reading an article published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, I was immediately struck by the tight similarity between the entrepreneur and the orchestra conductor. Now, I am not the first to notice the parallel between orchestra music and dynamic business as The Music Paradigm demonstrates in the way it mixes the conduct of the orchestra with the conduct of business.

"The Music Paradigm uses a symphony orchestra as a metaphor for any dynamic organization, particularly one dealing with a period of exceptional challenge or change: a merger, a restructuring, new leadership, change initiatives, stretch performance goals, and many more. The interface of the musicians with the conductor is similar in many ways to the relationship between an organization and its leaders. The conductor may be viewed, for example, as a CEO or team leader, and the instrumental families (strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion) may be business units or teams. Together, they find the best solutions for working together and producing an effective outcome." The Music Paradigm is the brain child of Roger Nierenberg

So detailed below is the article written by Miles Hoffman about a conductor of an orchestra delivering a successful performance, but adapted by me for an entrepreneur of a founding team delivering entrepreneurial success for a commercial enterprise. In large part I have simply replaced conductor with its entrepreneur equivalent. The original article relating to conductors was published by Houghton Mifflin Company and entitled "The NPR® Classical Music Companion: Terms and Concepts from A to Z by Miles Hoffman and National Public Radio" Copyright © 1997

The Entrepreneur as Conductor

The entrepreneur directs the planning and implementation of a new venture via either a strategic alliance, networking cluster, founding team, venture partners, or other commercial group. In the most general terms, an entrepreneur's job is to shape a commercial opportunity; to form ideas about the most compelling way to exploit the opportunity and to lead a group of diversely skilled individuals in such a way that those ideas are realized. Entrepreneurs often serve as the "innovative directors" of their organizations, as well. An innovative director's duties include choosing the opportunity and key resources and hiring (and firing) the professional and technical support.

In shaping a commercial opportunity, an entrepreneur has many specific responsibilities, which are similar no matter what kind of group he or she leads. (In this discussion, venture partners is assumed for the sake of convenience.)

Their responsibilities (entrepreneur/conductor symmetry) may be grouped as follows:



Accuracy - The entrepreneur must ensure that the business model and plan are faithfully carried out. At the very least, this means making sure that everybody is following all the right strategies and tactics.

Ensemble - The entrepreneur must make sure everyone works together, in precise timing and commercial coordination. The entrepreneur is also responsible for giving "cues," directions, emphasis, or statement that indicate (or confirm) the right moment for a key individual player or group to make their appropriate play.

Tempo and dynamics - Again, the entrepreneur's job is to ensure the realization of the business model and plan, but also to interpret those intentions, which means choosing general levels of roll-out pace and emphasis as well as supervising all the fine shadings, which affect the shape and coherence of commercial phrases or passages.

Quality of service - The entrepreneur is at all times responsible for the kind of service the venture partners produce. Whether its personalised, structured, informative, lay back, forced, experience based, pick & pay, intense, complete, minimalised, after-sales orientated, or "individualised" the venture partner's service should always suit the target market.

Balance - The entrepreneur must make sure that what should be delivered is delivered, that different but simultaneous commercial "positions" are at the proper emphasis levels relative to their importance, that one aspect, key player, or group of stakeholders doesn't inadvertently overwhelm any others.

Style - The entrepreneur must elicit from the venture partners an overall character of performance that is best suited to the entrepreneur, the commercial environment, and the opportunity.
An entrepreneur does a large part of his or her work - perhaps the largest part - away from the public eye, in market research and modeling. It is in the many hours of researching the market that an entrepreneur learns about an opportunity in detail and formulates his interpretative ideas, and it is in modeling that the entrepreneur communicates those ideas to the venture partners - in both written word and presentations - and sees that they are brought to fruition in the planning stages.

Entrepreneurs have varying styles and techniques of planning. Some are operational, some are holistic; some talk quite a bit and some talk very little; some spend considerable time going over every detail and others never do much more than have the founding team go over all the elements of the business model a few times.

"Leadership is having the insight to find out what makes individuals tick and then having the skill to make them" PB

For more on the characteristics of an entrepreneur, see the link below.

Peter Baskerville
Facilitator, Entrepreneurial Education
TAFE Queensland
http://knol.google.com/k/peter-baskerville/characteristics-of-an-entrepreneur/14j3i4hyjvi88/15#

Entrepreneur and the Conductor - The Good and the Bad - Part 2

The question remains: What makes a good entrepreneur?

Innovative imagination, intelligence, and judgment certainly come first, since there's no point learning how to communicate with the venture partners in the absence of commercial ideas that are worth communicating.
An entrepreneur must also have confidence in his ideas and the self-assurance and personal presence to lead well, to be completely convincing, even inspiring, in the role.
Good business acumen is essential, both for judging overall qualities and for pinpointing specific problems within large and complicated launch issues. A well-trained "entrepreneurial outlook," too, or "mind-set," is very important for studying markets and for "seeing" market gaps just by looking at consumer behaviour and reaction.
In order for a venture partners to feel at ease and confident enough to operate freely and in symmetry, an entrepreneur must also demonstrate a rock-solid sense of outcomes. Market offers must be consistent and steady, operational mistakes rare, and co-ordination complexities handled securely.
A good entrepreneur also possesses a certain physical conviction, or at least presence, which translates into a clear directions and commercially meaningful decisions.
A good entrepreneur must be at ease facing large and complex forces and coordinating their efforts, and he must know how to run an efficient, well-organized launch plan. It may seem a simplistic thing to say, but with a good entrepreneur, both the opportunity and the founding team implementing it should be better prepared after the planning process than they did before.
Like all good innovators, a good entrepreneur must also have a flair for performance, the ability to remain in control and yet bring a little something extra when it counts the most.
"Groups are lead to achievement by good leaders, supported all the way by great leaders but achieve their own success with the very best of leaders" PB

Bad Conductors/Entrepreneurs

... and bad entrepreneurs?

Some are unimaginative or uninteresting, even if they're technically competent. Others are just not very gifted - they have difficulty communicating commercial ideas, either physically, verbally, or both.
Some may even put on quite an extravagant physical show (complete with presentations and graphs that look great in Powerpoints), but without necessarily communicating much that's commercially relevant or useful to the members of the venture partnership.
Other entrepreneurs are unprepared or undependable, and in fact they get in the way. They're uncertain in their directions and decisions, and they make mistakes.
In their market research and modeling they may be disorganized or inefficient, which means they either allot their time poorly or use it poorly. They may mistake little problems for big ones and vice versa, or they may not even notice problems. And when they do notice them, they may not known how to fix them.

Summary - Entrepreneur and the Conductor

The general public tend to see entrepreneurs in a very glamorous light. After all, these people wield authority over lots of other people, over great commercial forces. An entrepreneur stands alone, high on a podium, and calls forth innovative futures with a decree from his mouth. The image is one of great power. In the modern mythology of entrepreneurs, in fact, one of the figures occupying a prominent place is that of the glorious tyrant of days gone by, the business giant who treated venture partners disdainfully, even cruelly. There have indeed been such figures - some of whom left behind legendary reputations and vast commercial empires - and there are those who claim that the tyranny was worth it for the fabulous commercial results; that it was all in the service of great business. But is it really necessary for entrepreneurs to be unpleasant, intimidating, or tyrannical in their behavior toward venture partners in order to achieve the highest standards?

The answer is no, and the number of wonderful entrepreneurs who are, or were, perfectly pleasant and polite proves the point. Yes, entrepreneurs need to be sure of themselves. Any leader needs to radiate confidence in order for others to follow him with confidence and enthusiasm, and the entrepreneur that venture partners tend to respect the most are those who "know what they want and know how to get it."

It's worth emphasizing that the best entrepreneurs respect the venture partners they lead, and are respected by them in return. Venture partners are certainly cynical enough when it comes to entrepreneurs of meager skills, but their cynicism is quickly replaced with enthusiasm and admiration in the presence of entrepreneurs of true stature and accomplishment.

For more on the characteristics of an entrepreneur see link below.

Peter Baskerville
Facilitator, Entrepreneurial Education
TAFE Queensland
http://knol.google.com/k/peter-baskerville/characteristics-of-an-entrepreneur/14j3i4hyjvi88/15#