Don’t Expect Right Manager To Just Appear
There’s an old saying: “To be successful in business you must have the right person in the right job.”
Q. I’m one of three founders of a start-up company in the high-tech field. Our triumvirate came up with the original idea in our free time and put up the funds necessary to attract a few additional early investors.
We’ve got a great idea and a lot of opportunity, but we can’t seem to find the right person to lead the parade. We are on our third president in as many years, and have our fingers crossed.
What have we been doing wrong?
A. Quite possibly, nothing. It’s a lot like trying to find the first babysitter for your infant. You might select a person with all of the requisite credentials and experience, but the chemistry just isn’t there between the sitter and the sat.
Often a few experimental pairings must be attempted before a satisfactory match is discovered. Both the circumstance and the leader inserted into it must have time to adjust and acclimatize before they can move on harmoniously and productively. Said another way, not every company can expect to recruit a Julie Andews as their first nanny-manager.
Commonly, the new managers are less responsible for the failing than is the firm. In most cases the fledgling company must develop to a point where it can accept and accommodate the type of leadership it needs.
Along this learning curve it is quite probable that pairings just won’t work out. It’s not necessarily the fault of the manager, nor is it your failing as the recruiter.
The same thing can occur in the department or division of a large, established corporation. That’s why a manager must keep this melding and matching requirement in mind when he or she is thrust into a new situation or given new responsibilities.
All parties to the process injecting leadership into an embryonic circumstance should make sure they are on the same page at the start of the undertaking and, thereafter, must work diligently to mutually compare progress to expectations as time passes.
Q. I’m a part-time cyber jock who is enthralled with the Internet. So far, it has been a hobby more than anything else. What do you think of the potential it offers to a budding entrepreneur? Can I turn my fun into a Bill Gates fortune?
A. Anything is possible. But it’s too early in the game to calculate probabilities. One thing is sure: the Internet is big and it’s here to stay. Both the technology and the user base have grown exponentially.
New technology-based innovations to improve and expand the utility of the Internet for both providers and users are introduced almost daily. Cost and performance are moving in the right direction to provide a powerful, effective marketing infrastructure. The market is mushrooming also.
In 1983 there were less than 600 hundred computers on line. Today there are an estimated 40 million users, and this pool is growing at the rate of about 1 million new experimenters per month.
Over 17 percent of the population of the U.S. and Canada age 16 and older have Internet access. Half of the Web users are managers or professionals, and 25 percent have annual incomes of more than $80,000. Quite a market!
But like the birthing periods of most industries, there still is a wide gap between the potential and the eagerly sought profit performance the Internet promises.
Few venturers have been able to figure out how to convert the market tapped by the Internet into a worthwhile bottom line.
Even our giant, well-heeled publishing industry, whose stock-in-trade is the backbone of the information-based Internet, has not been able to figure out how to make a buck on line.
To be sure, there are many fortunes to be made, but it will take the curiosity, perseverance, luck and hard work of pioneers like you to discover the niches of opportunity that will make it all possible.
You’re probably looking at your opportunity right now; you just don’t see it yet.
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