The Flawless Entrepreneur

In teaching and coaching emerging and serial entrepreneurs across generations and geographies, I still consistently encounter people who try to operate from an employee rather than entrepreneurial mindset. This makes the whole process far more difficult and risky than it needs to be.

They assume the resources they lack are more important than the resources they have. They assume constraints are problems to be overcome. They assume it’s better to start with solutions rather than problems. They assume failing is failing. They assume what they know is more vital to their planning than what they don’t know.

They do not know that the latest research on entrepreneurial mindsets indicates there is nothing more opposite to an entrepreneurial mindset than an employee mindset. They do not know coming at things with an employee mindset can and will only prevent them from developing and flourishing in an entrepreneurial mindset.

The conventional start-up founders and teams often operate from flawed employee mindsets. At the core of a flawed mindset is operating from assumptions. These are assumptions about the problem they’re solving for, the solutions they hope seduce investors, the markets they hope exist to serve them and their exit dreams‒and how best to do planning in any phase of their adventures.

Flawed planning is planning based on assumptions. The ultimate flaw in planning is operating from assumptions.

Flawless planning is based on questions. Entrepreneurs who operate from questions are flawless entrepreneurs. It’s the same when they form their teams and lead their organizations. Flawless leaders operate from questions rather than assumptions.

In the start-up and pivot worlds, assumptions come in many shapes and sizes. They involve impassioned assumptions about the existence, character, and readiness of markets. They involve assumptions about team members, partners, and investors. And as assumptions, they are fabulous assets in the formation of new questions.

We have assumptions about markets, product fits, MVPs, and runways. Whether we try justifying these with data, speculations, or illusions, they are still assumptions, and as such, great assets for composing new questions. The power of new questions is that they always keep us close to reality — and reality is never wrong. That’s what it means to be flawless.

Assumptions can be wonderful starting places for new questions in flawless planning. They represent what we already know, which can be valid and valuable expressions of experience, intuition, and signal sensing.

New questions instantly and persistently engage the best in the entrepreneurial team because everyone has questions. Everyone has a unique lens on the ubiquitous constant of uncertainties. Everyone engages with a mind hardwired for curiosity. Everyone has the ability to recognize the new, accidental options revealed by the perspectives of new questions.

In a flawless planning world, we are only as smart as our questions. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, why not aspire to be a flawless entrepreneur?

For more about Flawless Planning, visit FlawlessPlanning.org.