Description
The entrepreneur in charge of a small business to recognise his need for key managerial skills - both in himself and in his staff members. All too many small companies have foundered, or at best floundered, because the lead person did not know his own strengths and weaknesses and was not capable of selecting and developing a complementary staff for his business.
MANAGERIAL SKILLS FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR | 35
Managerial
Skills for the
Entrepreneur
by James S. Lowden
M
any small companies f ai l because
the entrepreneur does not recognise
his own strengths and weaknesses,
and the need to build a complementary t eam.
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to help the entrepreneur
in charge of a small business to recognise his need for
key managerial skills — both in himself and in his staff
members. All too many small companies have foundered,
or at best floundered, because the lead person did not
know his own strengths and weaknesses and was not
capable of selecting and developing a complementary staff
for his business. When a business is new, often the most
neglected aspect is building the best team possible to run
the company successfully. The entrepreneur frequently
hires people with the same characteristics as himself,
whereas the need is for an effective fusion of comple-
mentary values among his staff. It is not enough to have
a sound business idea, a supporting business plan and
appropriate financing. "Successful new ventures are the
result of the right combination of a capable and realistic
lead entrepreneur, with a balanced and compatible
entrepreneurial team"[l]. Margerison and McCann stress
that "problems in team management often occur
because...managers select too many people in their own
image... A key step for all managers is to have a clear
concept of people's work preference and to know how all
members, including themselves, relate" [2].
Siropolis [3] argues that "... entrepreneurs should first
ask themselves two questions:
(1) What skills do I need to make my venture go?
(2) How can I get the help of persons armed with those
skills?
Few entrepreneurs think through their skill needs and how
to meet them"
The managerial skills to be acquired, either personally
or through the employment of others, obviously depend
on the kind of business and the individual running it. What
is important is an awareness that there are gaps in skill
and an ability to bridge those gaps. The following example
is a useful illustration.
A distributor dealing in special wear had his depot closed
down by his parent company. He decided to set up his
own business, with his wife as co-director. They marketed
the same goods under a new name with some help from
the parent company. Difficulties arose for the new business
over records of purchases, stocks, sales, customer
accounts and overdue payments. The distributor was
strong on selling but weak on financial controls, which had
previously been carried out by the parent company. He
employed a part-time book keeper who taught the entre-
preneurial pair how to operate a simple ledger system.
At first, the couple were frightened by the rows of figures,
the need for cross-checking and so on, but with the help
of a manual of instructions, they mastered the system.
In this simple manner, a key managerial gap was bridged.
The special wear firm moved to bigger premises. The part-
time book keeper became the full-time financial manager
with the promise of a directorship after two years. The
distributor once again became engrossed in sales and
customer contacts, at the expense of developing his
leadership skills and, at the same time, his wife began
to neglect her ledger work. The book keeper turned
financial manager became loaded with routine chores, was
not invited to take part in the company's forward
development and the organisational climate turned sour
for him. Although it could be argued that the financial
manager contributed to his own frustration and eventual
departure, it is evident that the entrepreneur did not
develop the necessary managerial leadership skills to hold
the team together.
Analysis of Manageri al Skills
There are four areas an entrepreneur needs to develop
to become a strong manager — planning, organising,
leading and controlling. A questionnaire is provided which
will enable an entrepreneur to carry out a self-assessment.
It can also be used as a framework whereby he can select
and develop appropriate personnel to work alongside him.
36 I ENTREPRENEURS: A BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION
Exhibit 1. Analysis of Managerial Skills — Planning,
Organising, Leading and Controlling
The questionnaire is divided into four parts, covering
the main management processes.
(a) Planning — establishing goals and ways of
achieving them.
(b) Organising — arranging people and work to
accomplish objectives.
(c) Leading — encouraging the human factor in
performance.
(d) Controlling — making sure performance
conforms with plan.
The items in each part are not in any particular order;
each item to be scored 1 to 10, the more effective a skill
the higher the mark.
In the analysis of managerial skills the following points
should be remebered.
(1) The self-analysis should be honestly answered and
checked against the opinions of others.
(2) Scoring must not be taken too literally. It represents
a broad attempt to quantify a range of key
managerial skills.
(3) Results should nevertheless be checked by more
than one party doing the analysis, to provide some
consensus on interpretation of terms and on levels
of rating.
(4) Analysis sheets are employed, not primarily as
quantitative records, but as guidelines for future
development.
(5) The following is a list of definitions of terms used
in the Questionnaire.
(a) Planning Skills
(1) Establishing goals — determining the organisation's
broad strategy, translating this into specific
objectives, and ascertaining ways of achieving
these.
Figure 1. Questionnaire
MANAGERIAL SKILLS FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR | 3 7
(2) Allocating resources — acquiring and applying
resources, viz, manpower, machinery, money,
materials for the fulfilment of organisational goals.
(3) Making decisions — formulating the direction in
which the company, division or department is to
go, by allocating the necessary resources, i.e. the
ability to make good, non-routine decisions.
(4) Developing alternatives — providing various routes
according to different circumstances prevailing, so
that alternative choices may be made as a situation
develops.
(b) Organising Skills
(1) Designing structure — fashioning the arrangement
of people and work to achieve the organisation's
goals in situations of both stability and change.
(2) Co-ordinating parts — integrating the activities of
separate units in an organisation, to provide unity
of action in pursuit of common purpose.
(3) Arranging delegation — assigning authority and
responsibility to other people or groups, to do
specific tasks.
(4) Managing conflict and change — stimulating a
desired amount of controlled conflict and managing
its resolutions, to bring about necessary change
for improved organisational performance.
(c) Leading Skills
(1) Implementing decisions — having the confidence to
oversee the carrying out of decisions and the ability
to enact them in humane fashion.
(2) Providing climate — creating and maintaining a good
organisational climate, in which individual members
can be motivated to achieve necessary objectives.
(3) Forming communications — encouraging two-way
transmission between people and between groups,
so that they take part jointly in the organisation's
activities.
(4) Developing personnel — enabling personnel
consciously to carry out appropriate career
development through self-assessment and
opportunity seeking.
(d) Controlling Skills
(1) Establishing standards — specifying performance
standards in key areas for individuals and groups
and having them accepted through participation of
those concerned.
(2) Measuring performance — making measurements
of actual performance in key areas at agreed
frequencies, and comparing them with the
standards set, in time for action to be taken.
(3) Taking action — seeing the control process through
to its conclusion by action, in changing operations
or standards where necessary, or exploiting
opportunities where indicated.
(4) Instigating self-control — instituting the means by
which organisational members can control their
performances against objectives and ensuring that
a proper balance is achieved in the amount of
control exerted.
Personal Management Development in
Leading and Controlling
In this section, attention is focused on the personal
development of the entrepreneur through the acquisition
of certain managerial skills. This self-development will be
different at various stages of the development of the
enterprise itself.
It is probably in the areas of leading and controlling rather
than in planning and organising that start-up entrepreneurs
and builders of small businesses need to develop their
managerial skills. Because the small business operates
on a shorter time-scale than a large corporation, there
is less necessity for long-range planning. Also the smaller
size of staff requires less organising in the conventional
sense.
An entrepreneur can become almost obsessively bound
up with his own ideas because achievement is so crucial
for the survival of the firm. The very valuable attributes
of innovation and involvement can paradoxically work
against group operation demanded in managerial terms.
Hence it is vital that an entrepreneur develops his
managerial skills to set alongside his innovative capabilities,
if he is to build up his business and lead a team. And this
should be done at the beginning of the enterprise if the
business is to grow effectively.
The following two examples demonstrate the importance
of an entrepreneur developing and using managerial skills.
(i) A managing director of a small precision engineering
firm, in the early days of its development, recruited
young people as apprentices and trainees. In
addition, he appointed an experienced engineer to
supervise them. The directors were then able to
pursue their own innovative and marketing
activities, confident that the appropriate craft and
supervisory skills were available to cope with the
sales orders they were generating.
(ii) A managing director, engaged in marketing new
insulating material for housebuilding, had difficulty
in retaining his sales manager. He expected his
sales manager to be in his own image, instead of
looking for "controller" qualities to offset his
"explorer" qualities, thereby ensuring a balanced
38 | ENTREPRENEURS: A BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION
team. After several sales managers had been
appointed and left, his financial backers advised him
on what was required and a stable appointment was
made.
Framework to Select Staff for a Small Business
Having carried out his self-analysis at an earlier stage, an
entrepreneur should know what complementary
capabilities and skills are required to make a suitable
balance in the organisation's team. For example, the
entrepreneur engaged in selling special wear recognised
his own and his wife's shortcomings in the field of business
control. The book keeper was hired to create and carry
out the necessary office procedures of purchasing,
payment, and stock control.
Exhibit 2 (adapted from Siropolis [3]) is a useful framework
for identifying the skills required within the context of the
total business plan.
Opportunities for Staff Development i n a
Small Business
Through a comparison of various small businesses, it was
found that, in the successful ones, lead entrepreneurs had
defined specific responsibilities for each member of their
teams, and a balance was maintained between staff
members. Guidelines were set without loss of the
flexibility and freedom so essential in a small business.
The effective entrepreneurs recognised that they would
not have sufficient time to train each member of staff, so
Exhibit 2.
Identifying Skills Needs: Persons Best Fitted to Identify Need
Step
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J .
K.
Heading of business plan
Decide to initiate
business venture
Analyse oneself
Choose products/
services
Research market
Develop personnel
plan
Develop marketing
plan
Devise sales forecasts
Develop production
plan
Work out financial
plan
Devise banking,
accounting,
legal requirements,
insurance
Summarise
Main skill needed
Knowledge of
self and own
expertise
Knowledge of
self and own
expertise
Knowledge of
self and own
expertise
Practical marketing
research
Knowledge/Practice of
staff skills
Practice of
marketing
Practical marketing
research
Knowledge/Practice of
particular business
Managerial finance
Knowledge of
banking,
accounting
law, insurance
Knowledge of
venture and
presentation
ability
Entrepreneur
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Other
Consultant
Colleagues
Relatives
Consultant
Colleagues
Relatives
Consultant
Colleagues
Relatives
Marketing
researcher
Consultant
Marketing
practitioner
Marketing
researcher
Consultant
Banker/
Accountant/
Solicitor/
Insurance
broker
Consultant
MANAGERIAL SKILLS FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR | 39
self-development was encouraged. Staff members were
allowed to proceed with their jobs, enhancing and enriching
them as they saw fit, and could come to any senior staff
member for consultation. They were permitted to make
mistakes so they could learn from them, but errors were
confined to certain areas to restrict their damage.
Bureaucratic restraints were dispensed with, but control
was exercised in the form of self-management. The staff
set standards in conjunction with directors/supervisors and
then produced goods to those standards.
It was sometimes difficult to recognise the specific place
of counselling, coaching and assessment within small
firms, even the successful ones. This was probably
because coaching and counselling were part of the job
itself, related to the task in hand, and not a separate issue
as often happens in large corporations — e.g., the annual
appraisal scheme. The lead entrepreneurs who were most
conscious of their responsibilities for staff development
were those who were most concerned with making a
continuous assessment. They attempted to formalise the
assessments in order to provide their staff with reference
material, but were also concerned to make it unobtrusive.
They tried to make the assessments as much the staff
members' responsibility as the lead entrepreneurs', and
the counselling and guidance following on the assessments
was not a special occasion, but an integral part of the jobs.
In the less good firms, entrepreneurs gave little, if any,
time or thought to staff selection and development, but
still expected their staff to respond appropriately in
emergencies. Not unexpectedly, staff failed to respond
adequately and relations became soured, often to the point
of staff departing.
Summary
It is important for an entrepreneur to recognise why and
where gaps in his managerial skills arise and to do
something to fill those gaps. He must look for
complementary skills in others to make up his team, by
employing aids such as the analysis of managerial skills.
A small business is built by building the people in it.
Therefore, a practical, everyday development programme
needs to be carried out in a simple fashion. There is also
a need for positive assessment carried out continuously
and openly both by the lead entrepreneur and by others
in his team.
A small business flourishes through the effective use of
its assets, particularly the people in it.
References
1. Timmons, J.A., Smollen L.E., and Dingie, A.L.M. J r.,
New Venture Creation: A Guide to Small Business
Developtnent, Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, Illinois, 1977.
2. Margerison, C. and McCann, D., "Team Mapping: a New
Approach to Managerial Leadership", Journal of European
Industrial Training, Vol. 8 No. 1, 1984.
3. Siropolis, N.C., Small Business Management: A Guide
to Entrepreneurship, Houghton Mifflin, Boston,
Massachusetts, 1977.
J ames S. Lowden is PICKUP Project Manager, Kirkcaldy College of Technology, Scotland.
Application Questions
(1) As an entrepreneur what are the gaps in your managerials skills? Can you see why and where they arise?
(2) How is the analysis of managerial skills a good "tool" to use in your business? How can it be used to look for
complementary skills in others to make up a well-balanced team?
(3) What everyday practical development programme can be carried out in your company?
(4) In what ways could a positive assessment be carried out continuously and openly?
Action Points
• Recognise that leading and controlling skills are needed in the start-up and development stages of any new business.
• Distinguish between planning, organising, leading, and controlling skills.
• Be aware that each member of the firm has specific responsibilities which make a balanced organisation.
doc_389814980.pdf
The entrepreneur in charge of a small business to recognise his need for key managerial skills - both in himself and in his staff members. All too many small companies have foundered, or at best floundered, because the lead person did not know his own strengths and weaknesses and was not capable of selecting and developing a complementary staff for his business.
MANAGERIAL SKILLS FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR | 35
Managerial
Skills for the
Entrepreneur
by James S. Lowden
M
any small companies f ai l because
the entrepreneur does not recognise
his own strengths and weaknesses,
and the need to build a complementary t eam.
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to help the entrepreneur
in charge of a small business to recognise his need for
key managerial skills — both in himself and in his staff
members. All too many small companies have foundered,
or at best floundered, because the lead person did not
know his own strengths and weaknesses and was not
capable of selecting and developing a complementary staff
for his business. When a business is new, often the most
neglected aspect is building the best team possible to run
the company successfully. The entrepreneur frequently
hires people with the same characteristics as himself,
whereas the need is for an effective fusion of comple-
mentary values among his staff. It is not enough to have
a sound business idea, a supporting business plan and
appropriate financing. "Successful new ventures are the
result of the right combination of a capable and realistic
lead entrepreneur, with a balanced and compatible
entrepreneurial team"[l]. Margerison and McCann stress
that "problems in team management often occur
because...managers select too many people in their own
image... A key step for all managers is to have a clear
concept of people's work preference and to know how all
members, including themselves, relate" [2].
Siropolis [3] argues that "... entrepreneurs should first
ask themselves two questions:
(1) What skills do I need to make my venture go?
(2) How can I get the help of persons armed with those
skills?
Few entrepreneurs think through their skill needs and how
to meet them"
The managerial skills to be acquired, either personally
or through the employment of others, obviously depend
on the kind of business and the individual running it. What
is important is an awareness that there are gaps in skill
and an ability to bridge those gaps. The following example
is a useful illustration.
A distributor dealing in special wear had his depot closed
down by his parent company. He decided to set up his
own business, with his wife as co-director. They marketed
the same goods under a new name with some help from
the parent company. Difficulties arose for the new business
over records of purchases, stocks, sales, customer
accounts and overdue payments. The distributor was
strong on selling but weak on financial controls, which had
previously been carried out by the parent company. He
employed a part-time book keeper who taught the entre-
preneurial pair how to operate a simple ledger system.
At first, the couple were frightened by the rows of figures,
the need for cross-checking and so on, but with the help
of a manual of instructions, they mastered the system.
In this simple manner, a key managerial gap was bridged.
The special wear firm moved to bigger premises. The part-
time book keeper became the full-time financial manager
with the promise of a directorship after two years. The
distributor once again became engrossed in sales and
customer contacts, at the expense of developing his
leadership skills and, at the same time, his wife began
to neglect her ledger work. The book keeper turned
financial manager became loaded with routine chores, was
not invited to take part in the company's forward
development and the organisational climate turned sour
for him. Although it could be argued that the financial
manager contributed to his own frustration and eventual
departure, it is evident that the entrepreneur did not
develop the necessary managerial leadership skills to hold
the team together.
Analysis of Manageri al Skills
There are four areas an entrepreneur needs to develop
to become a strong manager — planning, organising,
leading and controlling. A questionnaire is provided which
will enable an entrepreneur to carry out a self-assessment.
It can also be used as a framework whereby he can select
and develop appropriate personnel to work alongside him.
36 I ENTREPRENEURS: A BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION
Exhibit 1. Analysis of Managerial Skills — Planning,
Organising, Leading and Controlling
The questionnaire is divided into four parts, covering
the main management processes.
(a) Planning — establishing goals and ways of
achieving them.
(b) Organising — arranging people and work to
accomplish objectives.
(c) Leading — encouraging the human factor in
performance.
(d) Controlling — making sure performance
conforms with plan.
The items in each part are not in any particular order;
each item to be scored 1 to 10, the more effective a skill
the higher the mark.
In the analysis of managerial skills the following points
should be remebered.
(1) The self-analysis should be honestly answered and
checked against the opinions of others.
(2) Scoring must not be taken too literally. It represents
a broad attempt to quantify a range of key
managerial skills.
(3) Results should nevertheless be checked by more
than one party doing the analysis, to provide some
consensus on interpretation of terms and on levels
of rating.
(4) Analysis sheets are employed, not primarily as
quantitative records, but as guidelines for future
development.
(5) The following is a list of definitions of terms used
in the Questionnaire.
(a) Planning Skills
(1) Establishing goals — determining the organisation's
broad strategy, translating this into specific
objectives, and ascertaining ways of achieving
these.
Figure 1. Questionnaire
MANAGERIAL SKILLS FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR | 3 7
(2) Allocating resources — acquiring and applying
resources, viz, manpower, machinery, money,
materials for the fulfilment of organisational goals.
(3) Making decisions — formulating the direction in
which the company, division or department is to
go, by allocating the necessary resources, i.e. the
ability to make good, non-routine decisions.
(4) Developing alternatives — providing various routes
according to different circumstances prevailing, so
that alternative choices may be made as a situation
develops.
(b) Organising Skills
(1) Designing structure — fashioning the arrangement
of people and work to achieve the organisation's
goals in situations of both stability and change.
(2) Co-ordinating parts — integrating the activities of
separate units in an organisation, to provide unity
of action in pursuit of common purpose.
(3) Arranging delegation — assigning authority and
responsibility to other people or groups, to do
specific tasks.
(4) Managing conflict and change — stimulating a
desired amount of controlled conflict and managing
its resolutions, to bring about necessary change
for improved organisational performance.
(c) Leading Skills
(1) Implementing decisions — having the confidence to
oversee the carrying out of decisions and the ability
to enact them in humane fashion.
(2) Providing climate — creating and maintaining a good
organisational climate, in which individual members
can be motivated to achieve necessary objectives.
(3) Forming communications — encouraging two-way
transmission between people and between groups,
so that they take part jointly in the organisation's
activities.
(4) Developing personnel — enabling personnel
consciously to carry out appropriate career
development through self-assessment and
opportunity seeking.
(d) Controlling Skills
(1) Establishing standards — specifying performance
standards in key areas for individuals and groups
and having them accepted through participation of
those concerned.
(2) Measuring performance — making measurements
of actual performance in key areas at agreed
frequencies, and comparing them with the
standards set, in time for action to be taken.
(3) Taking action — seeing the control process through
to its conclusion by action, in changing operations
or standards where necessary, or exploiting
opportunities where indicated.
(4) Instigating self-control — instituting the means by
which organisational members can control their
performances against objectives and ensuring that
a proper balance is achieved in the amount of
control exerted.
Personal Management Development in
Leading and Controlling
In this section, attention is focused on the personal
development of the entrepreneur through the acquisition
of certain managerial skills. This self-development will be
different at various stages of the development of the
enterprise itself.
It is probably in the areas of leading and controlling rather
than in planning and organising that start-up entrepreneurs
and builders of small businesses need to develop their
managerial skills. Because the small business operates
on a shorter time-scale than a large corporation, there
is less necessity for long-range planning. Also the smaller
size of staff requires less organising in the conventional
sense.
An entrepreneur can become almost obsessively bound
up with his own ideas because achievement is so crucial
for the survival of the firm. The very valuable attributes
of innovation and involvement can paradoxically work
against group operation demanded in managerial terms.
Hence it is vital that an entrepreneur develops his
managerial skills to set alongside his innovative capabilities,
if he is to build up his business and lead a team. And this
should be done at the beginning of the enterprise if the
business is to grow effectively.
The following two examples demonstrate the importance
of an entrepreneur developing and using managerial skills.
(i) A managing director of a small precision engineering
firm, in the early days of its development, recruited
young people as apprentices and trainees. In
addition, he appointed an experienced engineer to
supervise them. The directors were then able to
pursue their own innovative and marketing
activities, confident that the appropriate craft and
supervisory skills were available to cope with the
sales orders they were generating.
(ii) A managing director, engaged in marketing new
insulating material for housebuilding, had difficulty
in retaining his sales manager. He expected his
sales manager to be in his own image, instead of
looking for "controller" qualities to offset his
"explorer" qualities, thereby ensuring a balanced
38 | ENTREPRENEURS: A BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION
team. After several sales managers had been
appointed and left, his financial backers advised him
on what was required and a stable appointment was
made.
Framework to Select Staff for a Small Business
Having carried out his self-analysis at an earlier stage, an
entrepreneur should know what complementary
capabilities and skills are required to make a suitable
balance in the organisation's team. For example, the
entrepreneur engaged in selling special wear recognised
his own and his wife's shortcomings in the field of business
control. The book keeper was hired to create and carry
out the necessary office procedures of purchasing,
payment, and stock control.
Exhibit 2 (adapted from Siropolis [3]) is a useful framework
for identifying the skills required within the context of the
total business plan.
Opportunities for Staff Development i n a
Small Business
Through a comparison of various small businesses, it was
found that, in the successful ones, lead entrepreneurs had
defined specific responsibilities for each member of their
teams, and a balance was maintained between staff
members. Guidelines were set without loss of the
flexibility and freedom so essential in a small business.
The effective entrepreneurs recognised that they would
not have sufficient time to train each member of staff, so
Exhibit 2.
Identifying Skills Needs: Persons Best Fitted to Identify Need
Step
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J .
K.
Heading of business plan
Decide to initiate
business venture
Analyse oneself
Choose products/
services
Research market
Develop personnel
plan
Develop marketing
plan
Devise sales forecasts
Develop production
plan
Work out financial
plan
Devise banking,
accounting,
legal requirements,
insurance
Summarise
Main skill needed
Knowledge of
self and own
expertise
Knowledge of
self and own
expertise
Knowledge of
self and own
expertise
Practical marketing
research
Knowledge/Practice of
staff skills
Practice of
marketing
Practical marketing
research
Knowledge/Practice of
particular business
Managerial finance
Knowledge of
banking,
accounting
law, insurance
Knowledge of
venture and
presentation
ability
Entrepreneur
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Other
Consultant
Colleagues
Relatives
Consultant
Colleagues
Relatives
Consultant
Colleagues
Relatives
Marketing
researcher
Consultant
Marketing
practitioner
Marketing
researcher
Consultant
Banker/
Accountant/
Solicitor/
Insurance
broker
Consultant
MANAGERIAL SKILLS FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR | 39
self-development was encouraged. Staff members were
allowed to proceed with their jobs, enhancing and enriching
them as they saw fit, and could come to any senior staff
member for consultation. They were permitted to make
mistakes so they could learn from them, but errors were
confined to certain areas to restrict their damage.
Bureaucratic restraints were dispensed with, but control
was exercised in the form of self-management. The staff
set standards in conjunction with directors/supervisors and
then produced goods to those standards.
It was sometimes difficult to recognise the specific place
of counselling, coaching and assessment within small
firms, even the successful ones. This was probably
because coaching and counselling were part of the job
itself, related to the task in hand, and not a separate issue
as often happens in large corporations — e.g., the annual
appraisal scheme. The lead entrepreneurs who were most
conscious of their responsibilities for staff development
were those who were most concerned with making a
continuous assessment. They attempted to formalise the
assessments in order to provide their staff with reference
material, but were also concerned to make it unobtrusive.
They tried to make the assessments as much the staff
members' responsibility as the lead entrepreneurs', and
the counselling and guidance following on the assessments
was not a special occasion, but an integral part of the jobs.
In the less good firms, entrepreneurs gave little, if any,
time or thought to staff selection and development, but
still expected their staff to respond appropriately in
emergencies. Not unexpectedly, staff failed to respond
adequately and relations became soured, often to the point
of staff departing.
Summary
It is important for an entrepreneur to recognise why and
where gaps in his managerial skills arise and to do
something to fill those gaps. He must look for
complementary skills in others to make up his team, by
employing aids such as the analysis of managerial skills.
A small business is built by building the people in it.
Therefore, a practical, everyday development programme
needs to be carried out in a simple fashion. There is also
a need for positive assessment carried out continuously
and openly both by the lead entrepreneur and by others
in his team.
A small business flourishes through the effective use of
its assets, particularly the people in it.
References
1. Timmons, J.A., Smollen L.E., and Dingie, A.L.M. J r.,
New Venture Creation: A Guide to Small Business
Developtnent, Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, Illinois, 1977.
2. Margerison, C. and McCann, D., "Team Mapping: a New
Approach to Managerial Leadership", Journal of European
Industrial Training, Vol. 8 No. 1, 1984.
3. Siropolis, N.C., Small Business Management: A Guide
to Entrepreneurship, Houghton Mifflin, Boston,
Massachusetts, 1977.
J ames S. Lowden is PICKUP Project Manager, Kirkcaldy College of Technology, Scotland.
Application Questions
(1) As an entrepreneur what are the gaps in your managerials skills? Can you see why and where they arise?
(2) How is the analysis of managerial skills a good "tool" to use in your business? How can it be used to look for
complementary skills in others to make up a well-balanced team?
(3) What everyday practical development programme can be carried out in your company?
(4) In what ways could a positive assessment be carried out continuously and openly?
Action Points
• Recognise that leading and controlling skills are needed in the start-up and development stages of any new business.
• Distinguish between planning, organising, leading, and controlling skills.
• Be aware that each member of the firm has specific responsibilities which make a balanced organisation.
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