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“You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique. You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech.” Martha Graham, pioneer of modern dance
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“You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique. You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech.” Martha Graham, pioneer of modern dance
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A certain degree of ego defense drives us to achieve. But we can't allow that drive to begin acting on its own initiative. If this ego derailment occurs to you, entrepreneurship and all its adjacent forms may present a moral hazard to you.
Stamp this impulse out every time it occurs, lest you be forced to choose between solving for ego and solving for the selling/delivering/scaling/leading/learning of our business. Speak against emotional investment that doesn't connect with return to human or financial capital, with a story formed ahead of time. Entrepreneurs (or intrapreneurs) are what they are for a few key reasons:
To be clear, a certain degree of self-belief and even self-centeredness is beneficial to entrepreneurship. A new business faces many forms of resistance; sometimes a bit of stubborn self-aggrandizement can bridge a gap in engagement from external sources. But if a person is inclined to perceive slights readily in interpersonal relationships, and to respond to them with proactive efforts to vindicate their value or control risk, their project will be integrally imbued with those personality traits as much as any others. If the project owner treats their work as an amplifier of this unhealthy personal narrative, the venture insulates the person from risk and consequences of adverse personality responses. Until it doesn’t. The problem picks up right where the healthy self-concept leaves off. Success in building a business or asset provides fertile ground to our worst traits, because they hides their seeds among those of the heroic narrative in which we frame our efforts. The personal brand becomes the dominant mode of personality, and either pride or frustration defend the personal brand without self-awareness. In the shadows of the heroic journey of entrepreneurship, toxic ego purports to cultivate knowledge and imperatives kept hidden from our unfeeling detractors. But what’s actually happening is that the "ego defense industrial complex" is entrenching itself as the venture’s most important stakeholder. Ego for its own sake is ultimately choosing to allow their preferred weeds to choke off their growth rather than emergent ones from elsewhere. This leads to a harvest of thoughts and actions we’d previously have never countenanced. That harvest will almost surely show itself penny wise and pound foolish in view of business and personal goals, unless you—along with your support systems, use the preparation of information in your life to equip you for the moments in which the ego's needs diverge from those of the true value of your organization. Our Operations & Program Management practice deals with the challenges of business practice by dealing with the motivations and information available to businesspeople. We believe that information design is what aligns motivation and incentives so that key activities align the outcomes of delivery, capture, and customer goals. To tell us more about your goals, and discover how McMath Solutions can help you Make your Market, contact us today to schedule a strategy call.
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As a businessperson, you’ve taken the obligation to stand before someone who has their own goals and needs, and to assure them that you can help bridge the gap between present and future. You desire to bring something real to bear both on the gap itself and on the customer’s understanding of it—nothing hidden behind cliché or sophistry. We know you take the promise to maximize customers’ time and money as seriously as we do. That’s why we treat thought leadership as another means to earn the trust your dreams will place in us.
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Make Your Market Today!
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