How to Harness Entrepreneurial Rage
When you reach your breaking point, decide enough is enough, and it's time to do something!
The word entrepreneur has become synonymous with Start Up CEOs, however I believe the entrepreneurial spirit can be a key part of any business leader’s toolkit; whether that business is your own or a larger organisation that you are a part of. To me being an entrepreneur is being someone who has an idea, and knows how to make it happen; which are key skills as a technical leader.
There are many ways in which “entrepreneurs” come up with ideas, some will some from seeing an opening that you can fill; some may come from a life or work experiences where you identify improvements that can be made; and some may come from being so fed up about the situation in front of you that you decide, enough is enough, I am going to do something about this.
The last point is what I call “The Entrepreneurial Rage”; which, when harnessed properly, can be an exceptionally powerful tool.
What is “Entrepreneurial Rage”?
To expand on the definition a bit further, entrepreneurial rage is best encapsulated by the frustration that you may experience from a situation or a process being so bad it gets you angry or annoyed. This may start as a small annoyance; but once you notice the problem, you start to see it more frequently and the frustration builds each time. After a while, you reach a breaking point and decide: ENOUGH! Either I am going to keep complaining or I am going to do something to try and make the situation better. The entrepreneurial flame is ignited from the anger towards the situation: also known as “Entrepreneurial Rage”.
This can be a powerful method of identifying opportunity, because unlike the other sources of entrepreneurial inspiration, you are motivated to do something because you are most likely affected by the problem; or at the very least truly passionate about it since it annoyed you enough to make you want to act.
Case and point: The Technician’s MBA. This substack you are reading was conceptualised from my own entrepreneurial rage; I was frustrated that there was not anything I could use as a technically minded person to learn key business concepts. So, I decided to stop complaining and do something.
Enough is Enough
Like I said earlier, I believe that entrepreneurship is not solely confined to the realm of start ups and it can happen inside of larger businesses too; in either case whilst “rage” has been the catalyst, you have to now harness the flame to deliver value and not get blinded by the passion.
Especially in larger businesses, technically minded people who can see a better solution can be frustrated by situations and want to act. However, we have to act in a way that doesn’t cause other people to shy away or disengage; we might be passionate about the problem, that doesn’t mean everyone else will be too.
In a future post we will discuss the general topic of “Change Management” which is fundamentally how we can manage the delivery and deployment of new ideas into businesses. To make sure you don’t miss that post, if it isn’t live already, why not subscribe? It would help us grow and I would greatly appreciate it.
Harnessing the rage as fuel for action
So how do we harness the passion to ensure that we can deliver a solution that alleviates the frustration? Here are some key steps that I use that help turn the rage into action; and allow the frustration to be processed so at the end you can make a determination about the next action with a level head. I’ll give examples relating to how I came up with “The Technician’s MBA”
1. Write the problem down 🤬
On a sheet of paper, whiteboard, or any such solution, write the problem you are facing. Do it with the emotion and frustration that you feel towards the problem in front of you.
I am fed up with the lack of available resources to help people learn key business concepts without having to pay exorbitant amounts.
From my own experience, and I have several notes like this, it can also help to get the problem off your mind. Writing the problem down can be a cathartic exercise, especially if you feel like you are going to build a plan to rectify it.
2. Write why it is an issue 😡
Now, underneath this, write why this is a problem.
I am fed up with the lack of available resources to help people, especially technicians, learn key business concepts without having to pay exorbitant amounts.
This is a problem because:
We complain that technical people don’t understand business, but don’t train them.
Businesses don’t listen to technical people because they don’t speak the language they understand to drive action.
We cause issues throughout the technical hierarchy, because the team get frustrated because they can’t do things that they want/need and the leaders aren’t equipped to handle this.
Through doing this you start breaking down the issues, which especially for large scale problems, help you to identify paths and solutions. It’s like the old joke “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”
3. Write the benefits of solving this problem 😤
Right now, you have a rant; which is fine! Now we want to turn this rant into an opportunity, which we can do by identifying benefits from solving this problem.
4. Sleep on it 😴
There are very few problems that require us to take immediate actions. We always have more time than we think. So with our problem and benefit statements written, we should take time and allow ourselves the ability to come back to the problem with a clearer head.
Sometimes, in the cold light of day, we may realise that the benefits aren’t actually what we think they are and: we don’t have a solution or we have more benefits than we thought. You captured the key points whilst the passion was at its hottest, now it is time to think like a business leader and form a plan, or shelve the idea for another day when the situation is better to drive the change you want to see.
5. Read the statements and make a plan 🙁
Now, think like the leader you are, or you want to be, and make a plan that can be actioned. At this stage it doesn’t need to be the most detailed business plan in the world, but it needs to be enough that you can start showing to people and getting second opinions.
6. Talk it through with key people 😑
Every viable, solvable, and deliverable problem should benefit more than you. Moreover up until now, most likely, you have been going through this individually; now it is critical to talk this problem through with key people who can help you identify things you may have missed, or whether this is a viable course of action to take.
Importantly, you should always speak with passion, but by now you should not be speaking with anger; if you approach people angrily they will be unlikely to want to help or engage.
Not everyone will agree with you, and nor do you want them to; you should look to talk to people who may be sceptical to refine your plan or help you decide whether this is viable. Only talking to those you think will agree with you is a bad strategy when making key decisions.
It is key that you neither blindly ignore or blindly follow what other people say; you seek alternative/additional points of view to make a better decision. Sometimes that may be to take no action, or to start putting your plan in motion.
7. Start taking action 🙂
With a sense check and a plan in place it is time to start taking action. Prioritise only the key features for now, so you can test your solution early. This may accrue “tech debt” however you want to make sure that you are actually providing the value that you expected.
We have a post about this called “The Cycles of Discovery and Innovation” that have some key points that are worth looking at during this stage.
https://thetechniciansmba.substack.com/p/the-cycles-of-discovery-and-innovation
8. Review, refine, repeat 😀
The last step is to make sure your plan remains valid, you provide the value you are looking for, and you are making progress. If you aren’t, or you have learned things along the way that require a different approach, never be afraid to make alterations. In the worst case, you might realise that this doesn’t provide the value or solution you thought; in those cases never be afraid to reassess and stop if necessary.
You must not let the rage blind your better business judgement, use the rage like fuel to fire, but you must be able to control it otherwise that rage can lead to avoidable mistakes. This is why I placed the emojis next to each section heading to show that as you make progress you are turning that initial rage into fuel to support your ambitions; and through action you can feel more positive about the situation you find yourself in.
The key thing is, actions taken in anger are never going to be well thought through, or as good, as calm decisions made with reason and judgement. This process is good at managing this transition, because throughout this journey you need to make sure that you are making progress and not being blind to the fact that it might not be working.
Never die trying
Sometimes you will be able to make things better, sometimes you won’t; however, the key thing is never to be so blinded by your frustration that you can’t see if something isn’t working.
If you succeed, fantastic! You have realised the benefits you set out, and maybe even more by the law of unintended consequences - a post all about this is coming out soon!
If you don’t succeed, or don’t achieve everything you wanted; that’s sometimes how it goes. It doesn’t mean you never will, or than you haven’t made changes for the better; but you will have learned from doing, and you almost certainly have achieved more than by doing nothing.
At the very least, you have addressed something that is frustrating you, probably developed skills along the way, and at the very least helped release some frustration that may have been clouding your judgement; a lot of people regret not doing something, but fewer people regret trying to do something.
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Grand. Thanks for your time.