Test Yourself: Are You A Manager Or An Entrepreneur?

 

Growing a flower or owning the land? Insights from corporate America.

“Do you want to be the manager who is brought to a large company and manages it, or will you be satisfied with just being the one who started the company?”

That was the answer I received from one of the MBA students in Chicago when I asked “if I’m an entrepreneur, will you recommend that I joined your MBA program?”.

I have recently returned from a study trip to the US. We’ve been to NYC, visiting companies like Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, hedge funds, and other corporate America firms (as well as Columbia Univesity). We then visited Chicago, going through a 3-day MBA workshop at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB). The peak of the tour was a visit by Sam Zell, to whom we presented our ventures (I presented Altrena Internet Investing), received an interesting talk and eventually got to chat with him personally over dinner. I compiled a list of insights from that tour. Here’s one of them.

The biggest issue is the difference between being a manager and being an entrepreneur. Sure, a great entrepreneur who is uncapable of managing is not so great, or as Zell told us: “being an entrepreneur is not an excuse for being a lousy manager”, but it seems that there is a tradeoff between them when you want to master either. You can’t be professional in both.

I guess the best way to know if someone is this or that is according to the stage of the company they run. Entrepreneurs are there from day 1 (or a couple of months before that). They transform an idea into a business, create value from zero and in fact, realizing a dream. At some point, it’s time for the professional manager to kick in. You will see them leading companies that are already “established & mature” in some form or the other. The managers “run” what the entrepreneurs “started”. Entrepreneurs strive for market recognition, managers fight for a market share.

So what do you do to become a professional manager? You ace your MBA in one of the top ranked business schools in the United States, you join one of the leading financial or consultancy firms and push your career towards senior business management.

What do you do to become a professional entrepreneur? You start your own business, fail, then start another one (maybe study some business in between), fail, start another one, and so on.

Either goals require different personal qualities; while the manager has to be more strict and meticulous, making sure tasks are done on time for the interest of the bottom line, the entrepreneur has to be more visionary, charismatic and resilient to changes and downfalls. However, they both have to be bright, leaders, sharp, diligent and have the traits of the other at some level.

But it’s not only different people. It’s different worlds. While entrepreneurs try and grow the most conspicuous flower, either by finding a “unique flower formula” or by locating an isolated hill, so that people see it (and hopefully buy it), the financial world owns the land, the water and the fertilizers. One cannot live without the other.

As for me, I’m happy with being “just the one who started it”. The world of growing flowers is the only place where I can turn vision to reality, and enjoy creating.. anything.