Great entrepreneurs are more likely produced by their genes than by business schools, according to a new CEO survey released by Compas Inc.
While business background, charisma, and innovation are all important attributes, they pale in comparison to a strong personal drive to succeed, according to the survey of CEOs from midsized, entrepreneurial firms.
The CEOs were asked to rank, in order of importance, 13 attributes they felt were important to success in running your own business. The qualities related to the personal charisma, drive, intelligence and innovation.
According to the survey, persistence in the face of difficulty is the most important attribute for entrepreneurs, followed by determination and a passionate belief in what they are doing.
The results don't surprise Steve Farlow, executive director of the Schlegel Centre for Entrepreneurship at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is a strong believer that successful entrepreneurs are born, not made.
Great, so now we’re looking for the aggressive s.o.b. gene. What these folks are presumably saying is that decades of efforts by educational psychologists and business professors to reduce successful entrepreneurship to a technique that can be passed on through a well-taught curriculum have failed miserably and so, being 21st century kind of guys, they conclude it must be “in the genes”. They don’t seem to have even paused to consider how minor little details like successful fathers and/or demanding mothers may have a role in professional achievement, which is strange because everyone sure is quick to blame them for any failures.
2 comments:
Peter, it's only the mothers who are to blame if their children turn out to serial killers, not fathers. Children who turn out to be a credit to their community get their on their own steam, mothers never, or seldom, get any credit.
Actually, "efforts to reduce successful entrepreneurship to a technique that can be passed on through a well-taught curriculum" have succeeded spectacularly.
It's just that such "taught" entrepreneurs tend to be successful on a modest scale, that of a small business.
But in the U.S., such success stories literally surround virtually every American: They're known as "franchises".
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