A Consultant's Secret: Optimize Entrepreneurs, Not Organizations

When I graduated from business school, I was prepared to optimize organizations. I was ready to analyze spreadsheets, evaluate market forces, and build great business plans on paper.

But since my passion is consulting entrepreneurs, I quickly learned that I had to throw away the clinical approach I learned in school. When working with entrepreneurs, I first need to optimize the entrepreneur, and the organization will follow.  

The opportunity for success in an entrepreneurial organization is directly related to the entrepreneur’s personality, management style, and risk tolerance. 

Once I learned this critical insight, I adapted my business consulting style to specifically address each of my clients’ unique entrepreneurial strengths, and set out to maximize those strengths before addressing the rest of the business. 

Of course, I still start every consulting engagement with a full financial review, which gives me a foundational understanding of where the business stands. I also interview employees and customers to determine the health of professional relationships in the business.

But what I'm really looking for are clues about the entrepreneur himself. I'm watching for hints about how the entrepreneur is doing as a leader and a manager. For example, is he disconnected from his financials? Obsessed with cutting insignificant costs while failing to see growth opportunities?

Does he consistently blame his employees and customers for being difficult or "not very smart?" Does he have high customer turnover and low quality scores? Or does he have great customer relationships and feels like his employees are "like family," but he isn't making a profit? 

An entrepreneur's behavior and beliefs surrounding his financials, employees and customers gives me insight into the deepest challenges and opportunities facing the organization. Because an entrepreneurship is directly tied to the ability of the entrepreneur to guide the ship. An overwhelmed entrepreneur will run an out-of-control business, while an optimized entrepreneur will run an optimized business.

We can fix all entrepreneurial business problems by focusing in on the entrepreneur's strengths and optimizing around them. Rather than focusing on what doesn't work in the business, we focus on the entrepreneur's strengths. Once we optimize the entrepreneur, we gain a whole new momentum for the business.

The more I learn about each entrepreneur’s psychology and behaviors, the more accurately I can structure strategic business plans that maximize each business opportunity. If I take the business school approach and create a strategy based on the standard elements like market conditions, product, customers and other external factors, I miss the boat entirely. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.

When I don't try to change an entrepreneur, but instead optimize him and the organizational structure based on his strengths, we are able to transform the business. 

Entrepreneurial optimization is the only way I have successfully impacted my clients’ businesses. By seeing them for who they really are, and building structures to support them, I am able to help them achieve much greater success in their organizations.