I have become addicted to the phrase that ‘somethings cannot be taught, but they can be learned.’ Entrepreneurship is one of those things. An entrepreneur cannot be taught to become one, but they can learn.
When I first joined Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL), one of the common catchpoints was ‘acting like an owner.’ I soon learned that across the corporate space, it was a way to describe an employee that moved with both freedom and responsibility. It’s almost two qualities that are hard to build in the same person. Those who seem to have freedom tend to disregard responsibility.
I call this kind of employee, the Enterprising Manager (EM). EMs are rare. Out of 100 employees, perhaps 10 will be close to being EMs. The question is, how do you hire EMs? How do you spot them before the system kills them? I stumbled on an answer. Quite frankly, it’s something I have been trying to express, but when I read it on Paul Graham’s website, I knew this was the exact idea.
Graham says there are two ways to run a company. First, you can run it on Founder Mode, moving fast, breaking things, unlocking constraints, and not being locked to tradition. The Second way is to run a company on Manager Mode, following the right frameworks, the mental models and moving in a slower but sure way. Founder Mode is not taught in business school, neither are most people who go to business school aware of it. Founder Mode is the kind of if you know, you know.
The EM in an organization could be said to have the Founder Mode syndrome. Where others see blocks, she’s often seeing solutions. She asks more of ‘what if’ questions. Now, I must warn, there are people who think they have the EM in them, and it always brings disastrous outcomes. People who break rules for the sake of breaking rules. People who act mean for the sake of appearing eccentric and different. I am not talking about the fakes to this founder mode. Founder Mode also comes with a lot of intellectual humility. But when it comes to unblocking challenges, EMs or Founder Modes have no respect for status-quo, they find a way to make things happen without digging risky holes. I must emphasize this. Because employees tend to think risk taking is about going in blindly and creating even bigger risks.
EMs will still calculate all the risks the same way at owner would. But they will move fast without much fear of breaking things. Because their conscience is clear, they know when to jump and really jump high to make things happen. EMs get things done. EMs know what the optimal path in any given situation is. They won’t be stuck waiting for permission when there was an issue that needed action within the hour. They know when to take certain steps and explain later. They are not bound by these rules, they know why every rule was drafted and thus know which ones can be broken and which ones must never be broken.
Ultimately, the kind of people that Ortega Group targets are Enterprising Managers. They have a sense and feel for business, thus, they don’t just occupy a role, but they can tell what more this role can add to the entire organization. They know when to pause on their role and fast-track on another role or function or department. Thus, they know when to slow down on somethings, and go fast on another. They know that the little things are little and the big things are big.
This article won’t teach you how to become an Enterprising Manager. But it will make you aware if you are already one. However, it will also set you on the path of learning to become one. One learns to be an Enterprising Manager by becoming one, by putting themselves in situations that require them to become one. An Enterprising Manager knows how to wear the different hats in a company. They can wear a Human Resources hat, they can wear a Finance Hat, they can wear the Technician’s hat, they are not bound and imprisoned to one perspective. They are able to marry perspectives, again, they think in the overall picture, they have a systems approach to thinking. They think in systems and webs and not just in folders.
The next step change in management in Uganda is about identifying Enterprising Managers, nurturing and cultivating cultures that enable them to thrive. Most corporate systems exist to stifle and kill the enterprising manager. Well, they also sometimes come off as abrasive and controversial. Controversial because they ask the questions everyone is afraid of asking. They are immune to group think and all the biases that arises from crowd-settings. They are not afraid of traveling the lonely path with certainty that it’s the right path. More than ever, EMs are in short supply, and organizations that seek growth must go back to the table of seeking these people. EMs create the future of organizations, they create possibilities, they live at the frontiers, and in a world of increasing randomness, organizations need EMs to act within randomness, to see the order within the chaos.
If you are an EM, share your experience on whatsapp: +256781754358.