In November 2020 we outlined the importance of developing an entrepreneurial strategy. It’s a subject that’s tackled early in The Icehouse Owner Manager Programme and making sense of it could be the single most important thing an owner does to achieve success...
Entrepreneurial Strategy? It’s a fluid definition. Harvard Business School calls it a ‘practical and systematic approach for how to undertake the process of exploring and evaluating the core choices that entrepreneurs need to make as they translate their ideas into a reality.’
Wiley Online Library gives it a more active dynamic twist. ‘Entrepreneurial strategy is characterised as strategy involving widespread and more‐or‐less simultaneous change in the pattern of decisions taken by an organisation.’
What is it, and where do you get one? Do you even have such a thing as an entrepreneurial strategy? Either way, establishing, or re-establishing, your individual entrepreneurial approach can set you up for success. Remember the first day you came up with the idea for your business? You asked yourself some of the toughest questions; ‘who am I?’, ‘why am I here?’, ‘what can I learn?’
Developing good habits
As the business growth journey continues, it’s easy to lose sight of your origin story. You might not even have had one in the first place. Moreover, it’s natural and understandable to develop ‘bad habits’ within your organisation, make ‘wrong’ decisions or simply lose your way. It happens more often than you think, and it’s not your fault. This is what happens when you run a business.
It’s imperative to work on your business and not ‘in’ your business; to step back, reset, and reflect and recreate the magic which got you started. The Owner Manager Programme is all about exploring new ideas around the areas of fine-tuning, opportunity, platforms for growth and the future. You find out how to run your business better with immediate and relevant changes, to get it performing more efficiently and productively.
Setting your entrepreneurial strategy is one of the first things you can do to make the above happen. You can do this by heading back to the very beginning and really getting to the core of your business model. Does it make sense? Does it work? Do you even understand it?
An entrepreneurial strategy also empowers you to answer some cool questions, too. What do you do well? What is the future you want to create for yourself, your family and your team? How are you going to win?
- Define your vision, purpose and values
- Create a strategy and core organisational processes
- Get the right people in the right place doing the right things
- Develop leadership and execute and commit
Business growth is significantly limited and maximised by the capability of those running the business and, in the vast majority of NZ SMEs, that person is also the business owner.
Academic and practical learning
We’ve written before that ‘the best owners are objective and agile; quick-thinking enough to understand that there are smart ways to fix problems, and that obstacles are easier to overcome with a little bit of assistance.’
The Owner Manager Programme combines the best in academic teachings and practical learning to offer unique and lasting ownership experiences, based on immediate and relevant advice for your business.
Your entrepreneurial strategy gives you a template to make your own choices and excellent business decisions based on your natural commitment, energy and drive – with a little bit of modelling and academic learning sprinkled in for good measure. What could be better than using your personal entrepreneurial strategy as a template for success?
For information on how The Icehouse programmes, workshops and coaching and advisory services can help your business, click here.
For more business ownership and leadership advice, check out more of our blogs.
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