Keys to Shaping the Entrepreneurial

¶ … Keys to Shaping the Entrepreneurial Organization," is a summary of all the things about making one's own way in business that the author, Michie P. Slaughter, learned from his mentors. The article is published by the Kaufman Center for Entrepreneurial leadership, which is highly appropriate, since the mentor the author respects the most is Ewing Marion Kaufman, the businessman who built Marion Laboratories. A successful organization is one that is driven by a common purpose and is committed to established goals.

Slaughter's claim is that there are seven steps to creating such an organization: 1) hire self-motivated people; 2) help others be successful; 3) create clarity in the organization (of purpose, direction, structure and measurement); 4) determine and communicate your values; 5) provide reward systems; 6) create a learning attitude; and 7) celebrate your victories. Overall, the rest of the article is an attempt to expand on these seven principles, but the principles leave little to be expanded upon, at least in a deep way.

For example, in the section, "Hire Self-Motivated People," Slaughter spends an entire page essentially saying the same thing over and over -- hire the best people, and the best people are ones who are able to guide themselves. Some of the sections don't seem very valuable to the business-minded entrepreneur. The entire second section essentially says, "Treat people well," and offers little specific advice or insight. The most useful section of the article is probably Chapter 3, a collection of advice about creating clarity in an organization.

The sections on purpose, direction, structure, ad measurement include the same kinds of platitudes as the other sections, but it also contains some meaty portions -- advice an entrepreneur can really use. For example, Slaughter realizes the importance of communicating the organization's mission to every level of the company and setting up measurements of success that fit your business and can be easily measured and understood.

Question 2 Jeanne Whalen's article from the October 17, 2005 Wall Street journal examines the story of academic-turned-businesswoman Lisa Drakeman, who at the time was the CEO of Genmab as, a pharmaceutical company based in Denmark. The transition from being a lecturer at Princeton University with degrees in history and religion to running a biotech company was not a smooth one. it's easy to imagine the kinds of hurdles that Drakeman had to face. Professors do not have to be business-minded in order to be successful.

Their business -- the university, especially a prestigious university like Drakeman's Princeton -- is stable and requires no rainmaking on their part. They are not responsible for the practical, everyday tasks of running a business and often unaffected by the bottom line. Unless they are a department head or dean, professors may lack personnel management and competitive skills. One of the most important skills Drakeman needed to learn during her transition was the skill of delegating.

She was lacking important knowledge needed for understanding some of the basics of her new business, such as the technical jargon of biomedical engineering. To bridge the gap, she delegated certain tasks.