Applying the Old to the New

I came across two very useful books recently: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People  (I wish I’d read it when I was 20 or even earlier!) and Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup. One is relatively old and the other one is brand new. While the Carnegie’s book was published in 1936 and Ries’ book was recently published, they are both rooted in old concepts.

How to Win Friends and Influence People has had a remarkable shelf life and remains one of the best selling ‘people management’ book of all time. What makes it effective is Carnegie’s ability to clearly articulate key communication/interaction skills, mixed with stories how people apply them in real life settings. 

The same thing can be said for Ries’ book, in which he describes how the scientific method (diagram from sciencebuddies.org) can be applied to the ‘startup’ universe, mixed with real life stories of active believers and users. He defines a startup as “an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty.”

As we look at the basic steps of the scientific method (whose development goes back at least two millennia), it makes a sense why it would be a good tool to manage a business with so much uncertainty. It is easy to see when we replace the last step, “Report Results” with customer discovery and development – the heart of all successful businesses. The power of iteration – a key component of the scientific method – takes on additional significance as the pressure to find new buyers for any products/services has be to weighed against, quite often, limited resources.

As I reflect on our own work at iVotech, it strikes me how lucky we are to enter the ‘startup’ world at this point. There is a wealth of information and insights from which we can draw. How successful we can be might depend on a simple equation: Process + Product.

Process is something that we can control. Carnegie’s insights about how we communicate and interact with others fit this description perfectly. This process solely depends on ourselves and no one else.

Product (or outcome), on the other hand, has external influences beyond our control. But here, the good old scientific method or Ries’ Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop will go a long way toward managing the uncertainty.

Entrepreneurial spirit

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." – Albert Einstein

Everywhere we turn, economic crises seem to pop up all over the world.  A lot of written words have been dedicated to how best to get out of this predicament. A common theme seems to be: all countries need to adopt an entrepreneurial spirit (or mindset) toward solving their current problems and plan for long term economic prosperity.

While the term entrepreneurship is relatively new, it is certain that many human beings have long approached life with an entrepreneurial spirit, probably going back eons, not years. I suspect that most people intuitively know what it means to have an entrepreneurial spirit. A simple way to think about it is a person’s ability to solve problems with the world as it is. In other words, they are the quintessential 'glass half-full' people.

The entrepreneurial spirit, of course, can exist anywhere. The only difference between countries is how wide spread. And it is not just the developed countries leading the way. As countries like Singapore, South Korea, Brazil, etc. climb up the ladder of innovation and entrepreneurship – and passed many western countries in the process – they serve to inspire developing countries to take the same path – knowing that the long road has its rewards.

As I think about our work in Tanzania, the lesson we need to heed is clear: it is critical that we transform the way people think before equipping them with specific skills. The challenge for us is to continually seek feedback from our customers – the young people of Tanzania – and make sure that the appetite for our work is real and robust.

While there is much debate about whether it is possible to teach someone to be an entrepreneur, the consensus is anyone can learn how to be entrepreneurial. We share the view that, at the end of the day, it is always about people making connections. We have no doubt that engaging local entrepreneurs to share their stories will be the catalyst for transforming half-empty to half-full.

We will evaluate our findings from our recent trip to Dar es Salaam in the days to come and map out our next step. We are excited and undaunted by the hard work ahead and look forward to sharing more with you in the near future. Stay tuned! Cheers, Dat