Three Basics an Entrepreneur must not Forget

There may be very many areas that an entrepreneur must excel at. In my assignments with Founders/ CEOs/ Professionals , across India & Overseas as an Entrepreneur & Business Coach, I have observed a distinct noticeable approach which makes them stand out, successful or puts them on the path to success. This approach or rather approaches are in three areas. These have been termed by me as basics. I believe that an entrepreneur must work and build these basics consciously in to his way of doing business.

1. Successful entrepreneurs understand that making money and profits are functions of business. They focus instead on identifying the purpose of business. Essentially they create a vision for their business organization.

The purpose of business is to create & keep a customer- Peter F Drucker

An entrepreneur in Hyderabad managing a successful services Business engaged me as his coach. After 12 months of coaching, having achieved his business and personal goals signed up again for coaching recently. He had shared that coaching has transformed his thinking and encouraged him to think differently. Energized and motivated to achieve, he signed up for the third time and in the first session on creating goals, he defined his vision as “Creating 100 entrepreneurs in 3 years”. This was remarkably different from the goals he had set out in previous assignments. Another client in a start-up mode ( manufacturing) co-created the purpose of his business with his founding members. The energy during the course of creating the purpose and the plan over next 5 years was contagious. The founding members could establish linkage of their aspirations and feelings manifested in the defined purpose. Such co-creation and shared understanding manifests itself in focus & commitment to achieving the “dream with a plan”.

Jack Welch said “Good Business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision & relentlessly drive it to completion.

Research has shown that people work with you and stay with you longer when they understand your purpose and fully buy into the vision. Imagine the motivation of the person who works with my client when he realizes that his principal / employer is interested in the success of others. It creates a sense of transformational trust among the stakeholders including shareholders, clients, and vendors in addition to employees. Purpose of business allows for relatively faster and quick decision making as each member of team now is completely bought in & it is observed commitment grows.

“What is the core purpose of my business?” Each Entrepreneur who grows and achieves success has clearly a defined purpose and if one has not achieved desired level and quality of success, perhaps need to ponder on whether the purpose was defined well, shared and lived.

Making money / profits is the function of business & not the purpose. Revenue & Profits would accrue when we engage in any value generating activity. It cannot be the purpose though. Walmart established their purpose in 60s to be “To bring down the cost of living for an average American”. Even today their journey and actions stay on course and the money & profits keep flowing in. 

2. Entrepreneurs need to answer a question “How much salary will you pay to a person who does the role I am doing in my business”. If the answer suggests an amount which is lower than what you earn and take home, there are very high chances that you are an employee in your own business. You have a “job in your business”.

Successful entrepreneurs by any standards are always working "on their business" and not in their business. Working on the business allows the entrepreneur to start building new businesses too.

Business guru Michael Gerber says that chief executives should spend 90% of their time on strategic issues versus 10% of their time on tactical issues.

There are some things that only the business owner can do. Other things can be done just as well (if not even better) by a manager or an administrative employee.

In my coaching assignments with Entrepreneurs, I have observed it consistently. Entrepreneurs take on too much operational responsibility and tend to spend hours doing activities which either do not generate value or do not contribute to growth of business. With a defined purpose of business & awareness on “working on the business” entrepreneurs have scaled their business, expanded the footprint and built new businesses / verticals. Any role which has Strategy & Operations as key responsibilities would be drawn towards operational issues as they are mostly of urgent & important nature . Entrepreneurs may therefore struggle to scale their business as most of time and priorities are just around sustaining current business.

A question to ask is “How much time I am spending in “Growing” the business as against time spent on managing the business need of today?

Some solutions applied by entrepreneurs include hiring someone to take on operational responsibility to training existing team to take on additional tasks. Working longer probably is not the first solution an entrepreneur must look at. Breaking down bigger tasks in to small steps would let you allow others to do most of it , while you may retain the key parts. Training the people, mentoring and coaching them would also help you Grow your business.

The goal of business owners who work on their businesses rather than working in their businesses is to make more money in less time with fewer headaches and more harmony in the family. Think about it: the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life; it should not be the purpose of your life to serve your business. Ask yourself this challenging question: are you working in your business or are you working on your business? 

3. Entrepreneurs need to develop a balance between wok & life. They are chasing things all the time. They are making things happen. Let us face it, there is always the issue of work life balance an entrepreneur is challenged with. The defined purpose of business and working on business is the key to achieve a work life balance for an entrepreneur. In one of my coaching session with a Founder of IT solutions company in Hyderabad on “time mastery”, I asked “what is value of one hour in rupee terms”. He thought, calculated and stated a magnanimous amount.

Then I asked him “What all do you do in a day which fetches a value substantially lower than the amount you mentioned”. He smiled and understood but what he said later was interesting. He shared that by stopping doing those activities, he could easily save 2 hours each day. This time could either be put to “working on business” or pursuing some interests like walking in mornings, reading and learning to play musical instruments.

This client did few simple things; Hired a secretary – This saved him tons of time as the secretary would screen and redirect unconnected calls to other employees, saved him time in managing logistics of travel.

Peter Drucker says “We all tell leaders to start doing new things or doing it differently but we never tell them to stop doing certain things”

The trick is to understand value creation out of our time and if it does not, it must be stopped or at best delegated. These things will help you save at least 1-2 hours each day, could be more. Imagine value of this time.

Your greatest resource is your time – Brain Tracy

Go out now & begin .........2015 truly & create a vision ,  revisit the purpose of business, evaluate time spent “working on business” and achieving a work life balance.

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Note : Professional Coaching standards does not allow coaches to share the details / names of client’s coached unless expressly approved by client themselves. Hence the author has not mentioned the same.

Are you a Manager attitudinising in a Leader’s clothing?

I was presently surprised meeting a smart professional in Mid 30s at a Hotel reception. Memories flashed back to almost a decade back when I recruited this young man in an individual contributor role. His current role and organization validated my assessment about him way back. During the interview and thereafter in his stint with me, he always surprised me with his thinking and actions. I had always felt that he would make a great leader in future and there he was standing before me, having truly reached the leadership level.

My assessment about him, a decade back, was not theoretical. It was based on my observations “of people in leadership roles”. Please note that I have not used “observations of leaders” rather used “people in leadership roles”. People in leadership role are not necessarily leaders.

Spilled over three days at the hotel our discussions over tea, coffee & meals somehow veered towards this area. It was quite endearing that he took me through his own trials & tribulations of how each of his promotion made him question himself on his journey and progress from being a manager to a leader. His learning's and insights made me revisit some of my own observations that I would make to determine leadership potential.

So what were my observations? I call them 5 signs that you are a manager in leader’s role.

Liked Vs Respected

You are a manager in leader’s role if you want to be liked more than respected.

Leaders recognize that they have to make people do, even if they might not want to do it, to achieve the goal. Effective leaders are respected more than loved. They listen to everybody's request, they weigh the situation, they talk, get inputs and then make tough decisions. Leaders know being cordial is necessary, but that they do sometimes have to sacrifice short-term likability in favour of long-term respect.

Long Term Vs Short Term Goals:

You are manager in a leader’s role if you focus only on the short-term.

A manager spends most energy on the daily operational issues and may denounce his people for not achieving short-term goals, regardless of their long-term importance. They are found mostly focusing on things that are urgent, rather thanimportant. A Leader focus is important and he would go to any length to ensure important things get done too even if urgent issues take most of the time. A leaders focus is driven by a vision of what can be and how to make that happen.

Pride Vs Insecurity:

You are a manager in leader’s role if your team member’s achievements give you insecurity or you feel threatened.

Managers feel insecure sometimes hiring someone whom they perceive to be better than them or could outshine them. Leaders hire people who are better , who complement & supplement them and the team its with an aim to create more leaders.

Transparency Vs Secrecy :

You are a manager in leader’s role if you hold back information and share on need to know basis.

Manager exercise their power by holding back information thus undermines the performance of juniors. Leaders share it for reason of empowering the team.

Results Vs Process:

You are a manager in leader’s role if your focus is results and not process.

Process ensures longevity of outcomes, consistency & stability. Managers tend to focus on results & not worry much about process discipline or adherence. Leaders are equally focused on both and in fact educate teams of linkages of process to results desired.

Where Do You Fit in? Take a pause and think.

Are you a leader – a person with a vision of where and what the company can be ?

Are you the person who can share and win support for your vision and continue to hold the vision before your employees until the vision becomes reality?

Or, are you simply a manager in a leader’s clothes?

One reason some companies find themselves stuck on a plateau or spiralling downward into a deep gorge is that may be somewhere a manager is attitudinising as a leader, without the ability to envision the future at the end of the current business trajectory.

Get the clarity and lead yourself to your Success.

I've started , so I will Finish

One thing we all have in common is that when we manage to start something we’re more inclined to finish it. Once we begin a job or a task, only in rare circumstances do we abandon it. Most of us do agree with this but many readers may think otherwise. It is because sometimes we don't quite start to begin with. It happens to the best of us. You’ve got a huge project and a looming deadline staring you in the face, and you have no idea how to even take the first step. And here is where procrastination bites worst, with a large task in front and we try to avoid starting.

Here I would like to share the “Zeigarnik effect.” All procrastinators lend me your ears please.

A young Russian in 1920s having tea at a café observed a phenomenon which she professed could be used to beat procrastination. The waiters at the café would remember very distinctly table wise orders and servings done by them. The uniquely different observation was if the same waiters were asked to recall the orders after they have settled the bill with the customer, they could not recollect the order/ serving. It seemed that the act of payment of the bill brought a closure to a job in their mind and hence they could not recall correctly.

To validate this curious phenomenon, Zeigarnik went to her lab. She assigned simple tasks to a group of people (stacking toys in a box in some sequence) and some of them she abruptly stopped midway while others were allowed to complete. At the end of experiment participants were asked to recall the actions / tasks. All those who were stopped midway could clearly recall as against those who had completed it.

Professor Richard Wiseman extends this research finding as a technique to beat procrastination. Procrastinators tend to put off certain things because they are overwhelmed by the size or nature of job ahead of them. If somehow procrastinators can be persuaded or persuade themselves to work on an activity for few minutes, they are more likely to overcome the procrastination and complete the job.

Keen to validate this research, I went ahead with a plan to beat my own procrastination. I wanted to write blogs & articles on my learnings in various forums and on my own blog, regularly. However I was finding it very challenging to get down to writing. Even when I did write, I would stop after a month of writing 2-3 blogs. I therefore used a technique to persuade myself. This helped me to be regular and giving me that push to write every week. So here is what I did !

Reflecting at end of each day, thinking about topics to write on, I would write these on a small piece of paper and next morning put it in the front pocket of my shirt and stuck one on my workstation. I would go on with my day of discussions & coaching sessions. This kept my mind anxious as whenever I would, at least 2-3 times in a day, put my hand in my pocket, I would be reminded of an unfinished task. So experiencing these intrusive thoughts about incomplete tasks bring us back to complete them.

I started writing “ sticky notes” on my desktop and every time I would see it , which was virtually , every 2-3 hours, It felt like an unfinished job , even though I did not even begin it. I started allocating time. Rather it was a matter of squeezing in time to write the subject or opening of the article. That’s when magic started happening. Rarely would my article or blog writing and completion go beyond a day.

Sometimes all we need is to get started, because humans have this instinctive drive to finish a task once they have begun it. It’s precisely what happens when we become engaged in a story in a compelling book, movie or a TV show - “we want to see how it ends.” It may sound like a cliché, but the first step really is the hardest. As writer Ernest Hemingway said about writing a novel, “it is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.”

Try this out, it worked for me. It can for you too. Your way of developing steps to be in it “a few minutes” would be unique to you.

5 benefits of a coach to Business

Recently came across a message quoting some research that 50% of businesses which work with a mentor/ coach survive 5 years longer than those that don’t. Coupled with this data, is also a data which suggests that most businesses start-ups die within 2 years of operation.

What is probably the reason which allows new businesses to grow ,& prosper & sustain ?

In my view the success of business begins with Business education of the entrepreneur/founder. It goes beyond the textbook theories and move in to the realms of challenges and opportunities as they unfold while they plan the path and trajectory of the enterprise.

This view is validated by what is being attempted in Hyderabad (India) – called the start-up capital of India. by Founders institute (FI), Hyderabad chapter. The FI program assignments put the founders in challenging situations with all the business assignments and pressure to complete it in one week. The assignments helps to focus on the startup idea and accelerate the growth from an idea stage into a validated company in just 4 months time and teaches key practical aspects of building a successful business. I recommend that you go to the Founder Institute website at www.fi.co and read more.

Here I would like to quote from my friend Mr Diyanat Ali Blog. He is the first of the 4 graduates of FI program out of 26 who enrolled. He says “At the Institute I learnt why a company road map is crucial, how and when to approach investors and partners, how to hire and fire people, How to develop sales traction and Outreach. This is not an inclusive list and I could talk about hours about all the great advantages the Institute gives to the founders.” He further says “Another important lesson was to realize that working with good and talented people can only make your company successful in the long run. So make sure to hire the right people because Good Employees are expensive, Average Employees are very expensive and nobody can afford bad employees. The biggest lesson for me was to witness the difference between having a viable idea and making a successful company.  Execution is much more important than just a viable idea and the FI curriculum helps one focus on the execution”.

Many entrepreneurs may not have access to such a program. Some others may think that they do not need such a program as either they or their business could do well without. Realistically such programs as conceived currently are more oriented towards IT / ITES start-ups.  So, most businessmen / entrepreneurs, in other sectors tend to gravitate towards people who have done similar businesses & can perhaps guide & mentor them. Trade bodies & associations create programs and conduct trainings to help entrepreneurs of their respective sectors too. They do help but perhaps not as holistically as they should to help entrepreneurs succeed. I must state here that even mentoring is a specific discipline and requires the mentors to be trained and qualified to be effective.

Of late, there is a growing knowledge of the term business coach. Not many years back, very few people were familiar with the term or exactly what they did. Terms such as business advisors and business consultants were heard more often. Even though these terms are often put in the same category as coaching, they are not the same. When you think of a coach generally a sports coach comes to mind. There is soccer, football, softball, baseball, basketball, to name a few. Professional sports people are very familiar with the benefits of coaching.

What are some benefits of hiring a coach?

1.     Coaches through encouragement and accountability get their players or clients to work harder for peak performance. Entrepreneurs are lonely & therefore a coach works with them to provide that safe environment.

2.     Coaches enhance performance through more effective methods or skills they learned or figured out for themselves.

3.     Coaches offer realistic assessment of where you are and how to improve. Coaches are not judgmental. They are also aware & respect that you know your business & hence provide a sounding board & different perspectives when you are challenged to think out of box, differently.

4.     Coaches help to identify personal strengths and weaknesses and help you focus on what you do best. My experience suggests that over a period our beliefs & assumptions start holding us back. Coaches help you, challenge you when they sense it and help change thinking and behaviors towards a new constructive and winning belief.

5.     Coaches help you brainstorm for ideas for needed changes and help you plan how to make the change. Coaches are sounding boards. Use them well for getting perspectives & you certainly will have a better view of the situation.

The coach works with just one goal; to help you reach the greatest potential in the area of focus. The most successful people today either have had a coach or a mentor in their life. Having someone to guide in the direction of your goals and give guidance is one of the greatest decisions a person can take for self-improvement & success.

Coaches work with clients, respect his knowledge and facilitate positive changes though improved thinking. The positive changes are brought about by the transformational journey taken to reach the goals – business, life, personal.


Most coaches offer a free introductory session to help people understand coaching, the process & the way it works. Take advantage of the offer and seize the opportunity to see if you are ready to be coached to reaching your ultimate goals of success.

Three Basics an Entrepreneur must not forget .

There may be very many areas that an entrepreneur must be good at. However in my stint as a coach with entrepreneurs & business people , I have noticed that there are few areas where the successful one certainly do better than those which are not as much successful. So what are those areas ?

In my opinion, there are three areas & these can be called basics, which an entrepreneur must be aware of and work consciously building them in to his way of doing business.

1. Successful entrepreneurs understand that making money and profits are functions of business. They focus instead on identifying the purpose of business. Essentially they create a vision for their business organization. One entrepreneur whom I am coaching, after almost a year of assignment signed me again recently. This time while creating goals, he defined his vision as “Creating 100 entrepreneurs”. Research has shown that people work with you and stay with you longer when they know your purpose and buy into it. Imagine the motivation of the person who works with my client when he realizes that his principal / employer is interested in his success.

Perhaps entrepreneurs need to answer the question “What is the core purpose of my business?” Each Entrepreneur who grows and achieves success has clearly a defined purpose and if one has not achieved desired level and quality of success, perhaps need to ponder on whether the purpose was defined well, shared & lived.

2. Entrepreneurs need to answer a question “How much salary will you pay to a person who does the role I am doing in my business”. If the answer suggests an amount which is lower than what you earn and take home, there are very high chances that you are an employee in your own business. You have a “job in your business”.

Successful entrepreneurs by any standards are always working on their business and not in their business. Working on the business allows the entrepreneur to start building new businesses too.

3. Entrepreneurs are always busy. They are chasing things all the time. They are making things happen. Let us face it there is always the issue of work life balance an entrepreneur is challenged with. The defined purpose of business and working on business is the key to achieve a work life balance for an entrepreneur. In one of my coaching session on “time mastery “with a Founder/Entrepreneur, I asked “what is value of one hour in rupee terms”. He thought, calculated and stated a magnanimous amount.

Then I asked him “What all do you do in a day which fetches a value substantially lower than the amount you mentioned”. He smiled and understood but what he said later was interesting. He shared that by stopping doing those activities, he could easily save 2 hours each day. This time could either be put to “working on business” or pursuing some interests like walking in mornings, reading and learning to play musical instruments.

This client did few simple things; Hired a secretary – This saved him tons of time as the secretary would screen and redirect unconnected calls to other employees, saved him time in managing logistics of travel.

Peter Drucker says “We all tell leaders to start doing new things of things differently but we never tell them to stop doing certain things”

Please write down 10 things that you will either stop doing completely and / or delegate to others. The trick is to understand value creation out of your time and if it does not it must be stopped or at best delegated. These things will help you save at least 1-2 hours each day, could be more. Imagine value of this time. Go out now and do what you wish to do but never got down to doing it.

Remember when things go wrong, it is said, go back to basics. Ironically basics are what we forget easily and soon.

So let us begin with writing down the purpose of your business.

How would rate your satisfaction with this session?

At the end of session, when I seek feedback as a coach, I request for feedback with the question, how would you rate your satisfaction with this session on a scale of 1 to 10?

The client said 11. The rating said it all but client went ahead and said “I wanted to postpone the session as I felt that I have not accomplished actions that I had agreed to do & wanted more time. But then I thought of not postponing it & that decision was one of my best in last week”.

Client generally looks forward to sessions with their coaches for a host of reasons. Coaches are sounding board, confidantes trusted fully by clients to share their innermost fears without the risk of being judged. Clients feel surprised on being appreciated and acknowledged for seemingly perceived negatives. It encourages them to deep dive and share as they do not fear ridicule instead expect good listening, empathy & facilitation. The journey of coaching is transformational in many ways. Having recognized own beliefs and assumptions , understanding own values and behaviors in various coaching conversations leave a lasting impact & therefore enrich the client in a life changing way.

What have been your new insights in today’s session?  

Another question which made the client reflects & say “I realized I need to be challenged more. Today I felt every uncomfortable with the initial questions, almost challenged. It slowly dawned on me while reflecting and responding that these difficult questions only would make me think, act & stay focused. Now I am confident & clear”.

Coach facilitates new thinking in their clients around the challenges and concerns that they may have. Facilitating positive change through improved thinking is perhaps the definition of coaching & coaches could adapt various styles based on client’s preferences & style ranging from collaborative to challenging.

It is not just for above two examples of questions and client’s responses that the coaching is considered valuable by those who experience it. The experience transforms most; their thinking and they become more successful than what they were before the coaching.

How do you rate this blog on a scale of 1-10 in terms of giving a glimpse and idea of what coaches do & what coaching can do?

If your response is less than 7, please drop in a line to share what would you like to know more or specifically about. You may write here or send me a mail at deepak.sawhney1@hotmail.com . 

Thank you for the feedback.

Leaders are like Ducks!

 What is common, yet unique, among Jack Welch, Sachin Tendulkar & Google’s Schmidt?

They all are very successful

They are role models for their people and generation

They are inspirational

& you can add many more here

The one that is not likely to be added or noted is that they all have had “Coaches”

What?

Yes, they have engaged coaches.

Why would they do that?

The probability of leaders to reflect and see what behavioral changes needs to be improved upon, is not very high. Their success is measured by results & outcomes. There is no measurement of what could have been achieved by them with changes to their behaviors at work. You can’t fault them; they have been a success for so long that they start believing they have the mantra and recipe.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith in his iconic book “What got you here won’t get you there” shares twenty one habits that could hold you back from reaching the successes that you ought to. If I were to share that “Goal Orientation” behaviors could be stopping the leaders from achieving higher successes, lot of eye brows would be raised.

To be successful leaders go out & seek feedback on their behaviors. They then go out and work diligently on building new behaviors which they believe will propel the team and organization to different levels. We all know that it is quite challenging to change behaviors, not until you have feedback. So when was the last time, one has identified a behavior, which is limiting the impact or results. Even if identified how many have gone ahead and successfully changed or improved that behavior.

Feedback is just the beginning, one also needs support to break out of those habits and acquire new. This phase is daunting & challenging.  Well in case of sportsmen, beginners to icons, they have coaches till they retire. So when they face challenges at their game, they go to their coaches who work with them. The coach then observes his player in practice sessions, helping bring the desired changes. The player then moves back to playing more confident of his abilities.

When we see a MS Dhoni, a Roger Federer or Messi playing like a true artist, we do not get to know & see the time spent in practicing just to be able to stay at the top of their game. These sportsmen are akin to Ducks, a smooth performance on ground while under that cool demeanor on ground they have worked hard in practice & net sessions.

Akin to the sportsmen are leaders who need support to stay at the top of their games, consistently. They are working furiously under, like a duck, maintaining a cool and easy demeanor on top. Well interestingly some of the iconic leaders have had a coach in their professional life. In the book Dr. Marshall Goldsmith shares stories of his coaching MD, CEOs of Multi- Billion Dollar global enterprises. These leaders have worked hard on themselves, seeking help from coaches , have led admirably & attained newer heights of success for their organization, yet very few knew that they have had the support from a coach.

So the next time you are inspired & motivated meeting a leader, do ask him “Are you a duck”. If he does not understand, smile and explain. You would see him smiling back.