According to the latest release of the results from OPEN from American Express Small Business Monitor, which is a semi-annual survey of small business owners, entrepreneurs are struggling with finding balance in their lives.
– While business owners recognize the importance of “down-time” in their lives and most are satisfied with the amount of leisure time they have (81%), most report that carving out this time does not come without stress. Two-thirds of business owners (64%) find it stressful balancing their personal life and their business. Women business owners are more stressed by work/life balance than their male counterparts (71% vs. 62%).
– Two-thirds of business owners (67%) report they find themselves making sacrifices in order to be an entrepreneur. Among those who feel they are making sacrifices, family (52%) and friends (42%) are areas where they make the most sacrifices, followed by personal finances (36%) and health (35%). Male business owners are more likely to find themselves making sacrifices in their personal lives in order to be an entrepreneur when compared to women (73% vs. 65%).
– As business owners find themselves trying to achieve balance, they identify flexibility as the most essential entrepreneurial attribute. One-third of business owners (34%) identify flexibility as the most essential aspect of being an entrepreneur. Following at a distance is working well under pressure (24%) and knowing the market (18%).
– Taking their own advice on the importance of flexibility, two-thirds of business owners (64%) report making personal time for themselves during the business day. Men are slightly more likely than women to make personal time for themselves (66% vs. 60%). Although entrepreneurs realize the importance of taking time for themselves during the business day, nearly half (45%) consider taking time off from work to pursue a leisure activity a ‘guilty
pleasure’. Female business owners are more than four times more likely than their male counterparts (18% vs. 4%) to consider ignoring an email as a “guilty pleasure”.
– There may indeed be a connection between exercise and business success. Fifty-nine percent of small business owners report exercising several times a week with nearly one-quarter (24%) exercising every day. Nearly three-in-ten (29%) business owners with companies over $1 million in revenues say they exercise every day.
– The vast majority of entrepreneurs have the support of their significant other. Most entrepreneurs (89%) report a happy marriage or relationship with their spouse or significant other. Of those who report having a happy marriage, a similar number (81%) believe being an entrepreneur contributes to their happy marriage/relationship.
– Entrepreneurs are not only concerned with their own well-being. When making business decisions, eight-in-ten business owners (80%) take into consideration how their decision will affect their employees and their livelihood. In terms of offering employee benefits, nearly seven-in-ten employers (69%) believe it is important to offer healthcare coverage to their employees.
– Growth is a priority for a large majority of business owners. Over the next six months, seven in ten (71%) small business owners report planning to grow their businesses in a variety of ways. While most in this group (50%) plan to grow by selling more of the same product or service, one in five (22%) will introduce new products or services, and 14% will branch out into new markets or increase investments in their business (11%).
– For many, business is a family affair, and six in ten entrepreneurs (61%) who are parents would like their children to join their business. It will be interesting to see how many of these children agree!

For those of you who are interested in exploring the integration of your faith into your business I have a recommendation of an excellent book. Devotional Ventures, edited by Corey Cleek, is an inspiring read. It includes 60 entries by business people of all walks, including — to my surprise — my good friend Barry Landis.

BusinessWeek Online has a story that profiles 18 women who have left high-power corporate jobs to join the ranks of start-up entrepreneurs. The reason — “Only 2 of the 18 women on our list mentioned making more money as their primary motivation.”
Building a different kind of organizational culture seemed to be a major driving force for many of these women. While still striving for high performance, these new entrepreneurs want to create a more collaborative and team-driven culture. It appears that they also want to create cultures that are more supportive of employees.

Cecelia McCloy, the 52-year-old co-founder of Integrated Science Solutions, a Walnut Creek (Calif.) science and engineering firm with $9 million in sales, says she specifically set out to create a company that was friendly to families. Her employees also get eight hours of paid time off per year to participate in civic or charitable activities — say, to volunteer in their children’s classroom. Last year, about 20 of her 75 employees took advantage of the option. And every month, she asks managers to give her information on employees who did something exceptional for customers or their colleagues. McCloy then writes a thank-you note to those folks.

From our own research for our new book, we have found that these types of goals are also shared by many male entrepreneurs. It is heartening to see entrepreneurs of both genders pursuing such rich and well-ordered definitions of success in their businesses.
(Thanks to Ben Cunningham for passing this along).

While Business Ethics is getting much more attention in the press, in the Board room, and in the classroom, I am concerned that our definition of business ethics is sliding into a legalistic world of rules compliance. I was reminded of this today at morning Mass. The priest was talking about the story of Jesus breaking the rules of the scribes about the Sabbath, through his acts of healing and teaching about the greater good.
We have to be careful not to boil morality, whether it be in everyday life or in business, down to a simple list of don’ts that serves as a checklist of how to be ethical.
Business ethics should so much more than a list of rules to follow. It should be a much broader set of standards of how we treat each other. It is the pursuit of being good in how we treat our employees, our customers, our investors, our families, our suppliers, and so forth. That cannot be boiled down to a simple checklist. Being ethical, being good, is having integrity in all that we do. It requires courage to do what is right toward others, no matter how hard it might be at certain times in our lives.

There is an interesting guest column at Inc.com on religion and work written by Alan Wolfe, Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. Wolfe writes the following:

Workplaces are not public in a legal sense and, because they are not, courts will generally allow companies room to find their own ways of accommodating the rights of believers. But workplaces are public in a social sense; they are composed of groups of people, and the larger the groups grow, the more likely there will exist religious differences among them. There is an implicit bargain here for private companies to accept. Make room for diversity and tolerance, and few will object to religious expression in the workplace. Confine the right to expression only to select groups, however, or use one faith to browbeat others, and those others will rightly object. The choice is up to each company.

I believe that Wolfe has missed an important part of this issue by looking at this only from the position of the individual employee and to define it only in terms of evangelization toward a specific religion. There are many privately owned businesses in which the owners have used the core values of their faith to shape how they start and grow their companies. They build their values into the policies and practices, and into the culture of their companies, that govern everyday activity in their businesses.
These entrepreneurs are not doing this to convert their employees nor to make their firms an extension of some particular church. They do this because their faith is based on integrity. What is good and what is right does not change once they walk into the door of their businesses. And they find ways to integrate this into how they run their companies. It shows up in compensation systems, job design, employee ownership programs, policies governing customer relations — the list goes on and on. It is not a matter of using their businesses to save others souls, but to act in ways that assure that their own souls do not become compromised by how they act in their business.
The specific religion that these entrepreneurs practice becomes inconsequential, as does the religious tradition of their employees. My experience and the results of the interviews we have conducted for our forthcoming book suggest that because the focus is on how the entrepreneurs’ faith and values guide their actions, these businesses become good places that are valued by employees of all faiths. They are companies that treat all employees with dignity, fairness, and respect, that treat their customers well, and that have a truly good culture.

There are three key questions that every entrepreneur should ask while assessing to see if an idea is a real business opportunity. Is there really a market? Is there enough margin to make the business feasible? Is this business really for me in terms of my passion and my experience? Answering these questions is a process that entrepreneurs should go through with every idea they are seriously considering for a new business. As I have written earlier, answering these questions is a step long before pen is put to paper to write a business plan or a dime of money is raised. My students sometimes refer to this as answering the “3 M’s”.
There is also a fourth “M” that should be assessed, That is the morality of the business idea. Now what is moral is a tricky issue. But if we are going to be serious about running an ethical business, shouldn’t it begin at the very first steps of the start-up? But what makes a business moral?
The morality of a new business relates to two issues. First, do we have a vision to build a good business? Do we intend to business that creates a good culture for its employees? Do we intend intend to treat our external stakeholders, such as customers, suppliers and investors, with integrity and honesty?
The second part of building a good business from the very beginning relates to product or service that we offer to the market. Does our business idea make a positive contribution to society? I am not saying, for example, that only entrepreneurs who make new medical devices that save millions of people’s lives is the only type of moral businesses. That is not the point. Rather, do we have a vision to offer a product or service that in some way will make peoples lives a little bit better, even if in some small and insignificant way.
In many ways the issue here comes down to intent. The same business concept can be moral when implemented by one entrepreneur and not moral when started by another. Let me offer an example, but please know that I am not suggesting that I know the intent of either of these entrepreneurs nor pretend to know what is in their hearts and minds, for that is where this ultimately rests.
These examples come from a recent story in US News on genetic screening for the potential to come down with severe genetically related diseases. On the surface this sounds like a pretty good thing to offer to the market. Some of the companies offer this service in a way that clearly is intended to first and foremost help their customers. They only offer tests that are scientifically validated and do so with one-on-one genetic counseling as part of the service. Some other companies in this story offer tests that are of questionable validity and reliability and provide the results with vague and, according to the US News story, potentially misleading written explanation of the results. Again I do not pretend to judge what either entrepreneur intended here, but in looking at their actions and how they implemented the same basic concept, one can infer some possible differences in their visions for this same business concept.
A few years ago I was team-teaching this concept with my co-author Mike Naughton from the U of St. Thomas. One of our students asked us if his family business was a good business, a moral business. After all, their business simply planted bushes and tress along state and county highways. What did that really contribute to society, he asked? But Mike assured him that indeed this business could be good, as long as their vision included good intentions for their customers, their market and their community. The student said that they took pride in making people’s long and often tedious commutes a bit more pleasant and enjoyable.
“Then that is indeed a good business,” Mike assured him.

The generation whose leading edge is just coming into the work force, the ones that many of us call the Entrepreneurial Generation, are sick and tired of the simultaneous bragging and whining that we Baby Boomers constantly offer up when talking about our work and careers. They are the children of the tale end of the Baby Boomers — and they are angry and they want to make changes in our culture.
One of my students offered this comment to a post I wrote on Character last summer:

There are many things that help forge our character and values. My generation, from what I’ve seen, is really focused on keeping family first, even before career. Some say that this is because we watched so many baby boomers screw this whole family thing up. My take on it is that because the baby boomers sometimes grew up wanting, they determined in their minds that their families would want for nothing. Unfortunately, my generation has all they want, but grew up with workaholic parents who were absent in their lives. I believe we’re searching to find that balance between family and career.

Penelope Trunk, who writes a blog called Brazen Careerist, offered her take yesterday on a Harvard study on “extreme careerists” (who are most often Baby Boomers):

I cringe every time I read an interview with a “Successful Mom” who works a 70 hour week and can miraculously balance her kids and husband’s 70-hour week as well. All of this womens magazine [stuff] is self-reported, and what mom or dad is going to stand up and say they are destroying the kids by working long hours?…
Here’s what the Harvard Business Review article should have said: The long-standing practice of baby boomers to have dual-career families with no one home for the kids is bad for the kids, even if the parents are enjoying themselves. Fortunately, the post-boomer generations recognize the problem and plan to not repeat it.

And if you think her words sting, make sure to read the comments that follow her post!
Cal Thomas’ quote on the mess we Baby Boomers have left the generations that follow us are worth repeating:

My generation has been obsessed with making money and acquiring things in place of investing necessary time on marriage and children. The message the kids get is that if marriage is mostly about accumulating wealth and acquiring stuff, they can do that without getting married.
Family trees are beginning to resemble kudzu…

Other countries and cultures around the world are not the only people ready to rebel against today’s American culture — so too are the young adults who are inheriting it.

Since we are about to enter a day of complete gluttony, followed by a day of consumerism gone mad, I thought it might be good to reflect again on the original intent behind the Thanksgiving holiday:
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:
“Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
“And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
“Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3rd day of October, A.D. 1789.”
George Washington

My father passed along a news clip about a study called the Bank of America Study of High Net-Worth Philanthropy that compares the giving patterns of entrepreneurs versus those who inherited their wealth. High net-worth is defined in this study as someone having at least $200,000 in income or $1,000,000 in net assets. The conclusion: high net-worth entrepreneurs give on average $232,206 compared with heirs and heiresses who give an average of $109,745. For those of you not ready for mental math this morning, that is over twice as much! The study is long on facts and statistics, and short on any analysis, so I’ll take a stab at it.
Most entrepreneurs I know who have had financial success still pinch themselves once in a while to make sure their successes really happened to them. They often use words like “blessed”, “lucky”, and “fortunate” to describe their success. The days of sweating payroll are still fresh in their minds. They remember how many times they came within days of failure. They remember all of those sleepless nights.
Most entrepreneurs I know understand that they did not make their business a success in a vacuum. It took the hard work of employees who also took a risk by joining their fledgling business. It took investors who took a risk in their idea. It took bankers who believed in their cash flow and their character. And many see God’s hand at work in their fortune, understanding that they are but stewards of what they have been given.
Most entrepreneurs I know viewed success, from the very beginning of their business, to mean much more than profit, a paycheck and “the big payday.” Many talk about the ability to give back if they able to be successful. I do an exercise with aspiring entrepreneurs in which I ask them what they would do if they won the lottery tomorrow. For many, philanthropy is at the top of their list.
I will not even try to judge what is in the hearts of those who inherit their wealth. I will say for many of them, it is a fixed and limited sum. What they get from their inheritance is all they have. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, build their wealth from a process that they can repeat over and over again.
In this age when out economy is being transformed by entrepreneurs, what a wonderful opportunity to look more and more to them to take on the burdens of our society. What a wonderful opportunity to rethink our broken system of governmental redistribution of wealth that is doomed to entropy, rather than the boundless potential of entrepreneurial wealth created and freely shared.