Leaping into Entrepreneurship

 Wickman provides tools, assessments, schedules/plans for the entrepreneur who’s in the midst of launching, failing to see it grow or just contemplating launching a business. This book will guide many in what it takes to start and grow. He doesn’t deal with the nuts and bolts—like registering an LLC with the state and federal governments or drafting contracts—but provides written mentoring in the book and on the website.

Self-proclaimed entrepreneurs, like Wickman, try to distinguish themselves from “mere” business owners or the self-employed lifestyle business starters who use subcontractors. He, as well as the author of “The Entrepreneurial Brain,” describe themselves as ADD/ADHD, school dropouts and discontent with the status quo. They disciple themselves after others like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, et al. When Jeff Hays in “Entrepreneurial Brain” says you need to be wired a certain way, Wickman doesn’t but does describe the passion and drive and other traits he believes are necessary to succeed. 

Contrast this approach to David Sax’s “Soul of an Entrepreneur” which celebrates those who have maintained a business for decades, even generations, sometimes without growth, sometimes launching out of necessity. Where half (or more) business fail in the first five years and most don’t survive the 2nd generation from the founder, Wickman fails to differentiate the ability to launch and grow a business from launching and surviving/thriving of a business beyond expectations. Does that take a different kind of person than an “entrepreneur” or are all people who start businesses or significantly grow an established business entrepreneurs?

This book, like his earlier one “Traction,” is a replete with checklists, worksheets and lists. He summarizes surveys of self-selected entrepreneurs as to what they would do differently and what they did to succeed. While his books are good, it’s a little off-putting to see so many in the recommended reading list. He does provide a nice summary and roadmap of the tools in the back. Unlike “Traction” whose tools and techniques were described in a different order than they would be used, Wickman puts these tools in order. Like “Traction,” the information in this book will not be new or striking for anyone who has been entrepreneurial: for example, one of his pieces of advice is not to only test market your product and service with friends and family—advice given to many entrepreneurs by their mentors.

For those thinking of starting a business, this book is highly recommended and a quick read and you’ll probably refer to it a lot in your entrepreneurial journey.

Hubs, Connectors and Other Plays to Improve Social Capital

 In a forthcoming book, “Social Capital at Work,” Burrows and Rachlin provide compelling examples of when social capital succeeds and a lack of that capital can lead to disaster. Most business books focus on financial capital and intellectual capital—and a person’s physical capital and maybe spiritual capital. But there’s a growing sub-genre of leadership treatises that deal with organizational leadership, dynamics and so on—a corporation’s social capital. Especially in a post-COVID age, when remote work peaked and all employees are struggling with how to be connected remotely, or onsite again or a hybrid of work locations. The plethora of team dynamic apps is also a new element for those generation of workers who are in their second, third or fourth decades of a career..

The authors describe eight “game plays” to grow and capture the benefits of social capital. They start with investing in people (just as you might invest in financial instruments or other capital assets). They end with notes on Artifical Intelligence. Each chapter gives you moves and action items to make for yourself and your team and your organization. It is a playbook. And as such you will learn how to “run” the play of drawing network maps to identify hubs, connectors, your “posse” and so on.

While they give voice to the importance of trust, they don’t provide a playbook for building trust. Without understanding the dynamics of trust and laying its foundation, all these plays may appear manipulative and backfire on the leader, sabotaging meaningful connections between coworkers. If the leader isn’t trustworthy, this book will not work.

Also, the reader using this book needs to dig deeper into solid corporate communication techniques. Burrows and Rachlin don’t spend time on the need for spaced repetition of aligning, mission-driven messages: repeat a thousand times and just when you’re sick of saying “it” that’s when the team will finally get “it.” Also, audience members singly need to hear different perspectives on the same message: the analytical background for the analyticals, the security and acceptance of failure in attempting change for the amiables, the immediate and intermediate action plan for the activators, and so on. They also need different media and different venues (large group, small group, one-on-one) in order to feel comfortable asking questions and expressing buy=in of the plan.

The book assumes an open door policy, but most leaders investing in social capital need to practice open tours: get out of the office and into your team’s work spaces to be available and to learn what they do, what they know, what successes and obstacles they experience. Perhaps if a social capital leader had practiced “open tour,” the stark, horrifying opening incident could have been avoided. A woman died at work and wasn’t discovered for several days. A team leader should have been making the rounds, or calling family to check on the employee. Besides the woman’s isolation at work, it’s also apparent she didn’t have social capital with anyone outside of work, where a frequency of communications (e.g. texts) and the lack of answer would have alerted a friend or family member that something was wrong. There’s more to this unfortunate accident than a lack of social capital at work. And don’t get me started on the ignorance of undercover bosses suddenly learning what the work is like in their organizations because they’ve never driven with one of their truck drivers, or waited tables in one of the restaurants or stocked shelves in their convenience stores.

For those who need to get new ideas in how to reap the rewards of investing in social capital, this book is helpful. If you’ve built trust, your teams will appreciate the new efforts.

I’m appreciative of the publisher for providing an advanced copy of this book.