Dr Jeff Cornwall

Question: The difference between business plans and business planning is one that you highlight in your book. Can you give an example of why this distinction is important?
Answer: Recently a really smart guy referred to business plans with what I consider the perfect word: currency. Business plans serve as a form of currency—a fluid and temporary repository of information (and imagination) that fuels conversations between the players and potential players in any venture. Business plans have two fundamental purposes: to engender meaningful dialogue among participants about how to move the venture forward, and to foster real learning about how to achieve the goals.
Therefore business plans must be realistic. Any seasoned investor will fail to be swayed by outrageous promises of return on investment if the players lack credibility. Having great numbers only makes sense if the plan displays a seasoned and well-reasoned explanation of how the particular business plan author will achieve the stated goals. This means having the right resources (people, strategy, context, etc.) to make this plan happen.
Planning is a constant process of conversation and testing and reflection and action and learning. Business plans are static documents that may or may not be proven accurate. In fact they will invariably be proven inaccurate, for few if any business plans are ever fully realized in terms of financial projections. The important function of the plan is to guide the principle players towards high-leverage action.
Oh yeah, a slick and credible business plan can help someone raise money, which is a good thing. But again, this usually generally benefits individuals who were already well-positioned to receive funding in the first place.

Question: You begin your book with the importance of conducting a self-assessment before beginning a business. How can entrepreneurs avoid losing sight of the insights they gain from this self-discovery as their businesses grow?
Answer: Ideally, the insights become embedded in their actions. That is, realizing what you care about and are good at should get you started on the entrepreneurial path. Given that success is invariably an iterative process, based on where you are rather than where you aspire to be, the ability to accurately assess your potential venture will situate you in the most fecund ground. (Pardon the flowery jargon here…) I guess what I’m saying is that the self-assessment should include a realistic stock-taking of what you know (i.e. the copper pipe market or the legal profession) as a way of spotting opportunity. It also includes what you care about, who you know, what you’re good at—but not for the sake of achieving enlightenment (which is not a bad thing of course) but as a way of forming an entrepreneurial vehicle with a realistic chance of health and success.
So get the insights right from the start. As you proceed down the path, remaining open to what you learn, you will continue to expand what you know, and continue to becoming truer to the insights. AND if you business begins to falter, it could be that you don’t have enough cash or customers (generally a bad thing.) But it could also be a function of straying from your source of value (i.e. what you know, care about, are good at, and control)—or never realized what that source of value was. So take the time to reassess.

Welcome to this stop of the current edition of the Business Blog Book Tour. Our guest today is Tom Ehrenfeld, author of The Start-up Garden.
Throughout the day I will be posting my questions to Tom and his responses. Stop by often and join the in the discussion. The author will be checking in to see the comments and questions that you post and will offer additional insights based on what you have to say. As I mentioned earlier this week, we did have a few glitches after we upgraded our software, but the comments feature is now working flawlessly. Jump into the discussion any time!
Question: I like your metaphor of a garden for the entrepreneurial process. Are there any values or personal characteristics common to “successful” gardeners that also would be useful for entrepreneurs to think about?
Answer: The core idea of my book is that there are essential skills for individuals to master in order to realize entrepreneurial success. That is, simply to get in the game you need to become financially literate, to understand the principle of boundaries and goals when employing people or dealing with professional colleagues, to get the notion of a customer at a fundamental level, for starters. I think that when you develop these skills you have more of an opportunity to leverage your personal passions, skills, and beliefs.
Are there common values or characteristics to successful entrepreneurs, in my book? I guess the answer is both yes and no. No, in the sense that I truly believe entrepreneurship can be practiced by anyone with a strong conviction to bring a product or service or experience to life for others. But to do so an individual must be willing to put up with certain elements of life, such as uncertainty, that just won’t play with others. If pressed, I would say that the following traits are in general quite useful for entrepreneurial growth and success:
*sense of self and purpose—an understanding of what you really are good at and want to do.
*willingness to live in gray areas—a relative comfort level with situations that are by nature not preordained.
*an ability to ask for help—whether it’s asking for an investment or for time from a customer or supplier or mentor, you should be able to make reasonable requests without flinching.
*tempered optimism about the world and your place in it—a sense that when you act on the things you really care about you can make a meaningful difference.
*sufficient imagination to make unexpected connections.
*the ability to think backwards from a situation as well as think forwards—which means, the talent to reverse engineer success. This means having the capacity to start with the end in mind (in this case a valuable and sustainable proposition for a distinct customer) and then work backwards to figure out how to make this happen.
*an ability to learn and grow—and most of all, a reflective capacity. That is, an ability to learn from experience! To do, to take chances, and learn from mistakes. And to learn from experience above all, rather than from simple argument or intellect or emotion.

Thanks to Bill Hobbs for bringing the golf picture back to my site! Public pressure is a powerful weapon, sometimes.
Speaking of golf, while I was out this morning I was thinking about how my swing had been going so well for the past few rounds. But, now it was once again starting to fall apart this week. It reminded me of my days as an entrepreneur. When things started to run smoothly I would find myself relaxing just a bit too much. I would start to take my mind off the little things–not paying attention to details like I should. I would not pay attention to A/R like I should. I would not keep my eye on managers that needed me keeping an eye on them. And then, bit by bit things would start to get off track.
That is like my swing, I’m afraid. When I finally get it worked out I stop thinking about the little things that keep me hitting the ball straight and solid. I forget to keep my head still. I get off plane on my back swing. I tighten up my grip too much.
Certainly one can over analyze a business or a golf swing. But neither can completely take care of themselves. Even golfers with “natural swings” have to focus on what they are doing. And even the best business opportunity requires careful implementation and management. They really both come down to one thing: execution.

My site sure looked different when I checked in on it yesterday. Bill Hobbs and the IT crew here at Belmont have helped with the transition to upgraded software. So we are playing with some new layouts and features. Hope you like it. I do, except I do miss my golf picture….I always like to point at it when I tell entrepreneurs they need to FOCUS. Although I like to use lots of different metaphors, I can think of no better one for entrepreneurship than the game of golf.
Well, I’m off to my tee time….

Tomorrow, this site will host the Business Blog Book Tour. As I mentioned yesterday, the book is The Start-up Garden by Tom Ehrenfeld. And even if you haven’t read it I know you will find the discussion quite interesting and insightful.
I will be posting a question and the author’s response every few hours throughout the day. So stop by often and join the in the discussion. The author will be checking in to see the comments and questions that you post and will offer additional insights based on what you the visitors have to say. Although we had a few glitches earlier this week after we upgraded our software, the comments feature should now be working smoothly. So join in!
Thanks, once again, to Todd at A Penny For for putting this together. Here is the schedule of this tour, which has already begun this morning at re:invention.

This Thursday it will be my pleasure to host the current Business Blog Book Tour that is making its rounds through your favorite sites. The book is The Start-up Garden by Tom Ehrenfeld. It is a great book. But, even if you haven’t read it I know you will enjoy what its author has to say.
I will be posting a question and the author’s response every few hours throughout the day. So stop by often and join the in the discussion. The author will be checking in to see the comments and questions that you post and will offer additional insights based on what you the visitors have to say.
Thanks, once again, to Todd at A Penny For for putting this together. It should be great. Here is the schedule of this tour, which begins tomorrow.

There is a movement afoot to standardize entrepreneurship education. While there are some benefits to setting standards and even to accreditation, I hope that the traditional academics can keep their hands off entrepreneurship education for at least a while longer.
Certainly part of what has made entrepreneurship education flourish has been the creative juices that flow in many of its pioneers. We seem to be hung-up on finding legitimacy with our peers in the academy, so we fret about developing a theory base. The truth is, business education itself is in its infancy. We have only been teaching business education since the 1950’s (Authors note: I believe that anything developed within my life time should be considered relatively new, or even down right modern. It may be denial, but that is my premise and I’m sticking to it!).
When I compare my own business education which began about thirty years ago to today, much has changed. Why? Some is from new knowledge, but much of it is because we live in a changing world. Business operates within a complex context. Governmental policy can drastically change major parts of what we once knew to be true. The Finance and Banking text I studied from is no longer even close to today’s understanding. Deregulation of banking and financial services transformed this sector beyond recognition from what we learned in my MBA program in the late 1970’s. Social trends have had a tremendous impact. My wife was part of the first major wave of women going into the traditionally male work world. Human Resources texts are now full of discussion on sexual harassment and gender bias in the workplace. Amazing new theories have fundamentally changed the fields of finance and economics. And entrepreneurship? It wasn’t even a word that we learned. Now it is everywhere in business curricula.
So relax! Entrepreneurship is a fundamentally part of our current economic transformation. Let the creativity that is so much a part of entrepreneurship do its work. Let the market judge what programs and what knowledge work for entrepreneurs. Let us continue to play with the concepts and tools and how to teach them. I continually change my courses, and advocate that we reinvent our whole curriculum every few years. Just as entrepreneurs find that their businesses look very little like they envisioned in their business plans, I imagine that how we teach entrepreneurship will continue to evolve and improve. After all, entrepreneurship education is really still in its start-up phase and the world around us is in a period of amazing change. Give it time.

Carnival of the Capitalists is up and running for this week. Check it out at Outsourcing Weblog.