by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

 “Management was designed for monitoring yesterday and today’s work activities: Enlightened leadership is designed to take advantage of today and tomorrow’s opportunities.” – This writer

Adjacent you will find a proposed Start-Up Enterprise Team (SET). It was introduced to a young entrepreneur back in 2014 as he contemplated how to build an international, cyber-age, multi-media marketing agency. He already had some dedicated individual technical resources in a few global, cyber-literate ‘hotspots’ that he could source for particular projects. As more opportunities presented themselves, he saw himself positioning and building a valuable entrepreneur-oriented, marketing support organization.

This writer worked with him one day to help forge a coherent framework for his proposed venture, so that his start-up could become a reality. As the likely Visionist – or CEO or President in conventional management parlance – he could already foresee approaching likely initial volunteer Strategists, people he knew, for some of these indicated roles. So we agreed to map out a framework in the form of pictographs – starting with the one adjacent – to coordinate his thinking prior to approaching such initial, hand-picked volunteers. He would then give them a glimpse of these proposals, while enlisting them, as a way of building their interest and overall commitment level. The first one consisted of his Vision –Success Strategy (2014-16) with such items as:

»Have a team of graphic designers in CDE

»Have a strong sales-marketing team in US

»Have developed a full-time Enterprise Growth Team (EGT)…among other items.

Note that the items are somewhat framed in the past tense, since these are the milestones that he intended to meet by mid 2016. Naturally he proposed to review this listing with his Strategist team once it was in place.

With his next pictograph he gained a clearer idea about his envisaged current and future Product-Service intentions. In fact this came out much more complete than he expected, due to the well-informed, facilitated discussion that took place. This would also give his future Strategist team far clearer thoughts about their venture’s future intentions. It was split in to two columns: one listing Current Products/Services such as – Website Design & Development, Search Engine Services, Website Ad-Apps, etc. – the other Future Products/Services such as – Software Development, 3D Printing, etc.

It nudged him to dig deeper into his consciousness than at any other prior moment, thereby highlighting one of the key benefits of working with an outside, objective facilitator. Such an activity is more likely to occur with a Level 3 entrepreneurial leader, who has the maturity of mind to work with valuable outsiders. Level 1 entrepreneur leaders pretty much always prefer to go it alone; since they prefer their own advice. Level 2 entrepreneur leaders are more open to share ideas with their own team and occasionally discuss issues with objective outsiders, even though they may still be reluctant to do so on occasions. In other words, they still have to mature or set their ego aside a little more. Level 3 individuals, at the same time, are happy to collaborate across the board, although are much in the minority among entrepreneurial types.

Right on the heels of listing his products-services, he was also challenged to list his future enterprise’s Business

Operating Principles. This is a highly important step. Without such principles, people working within his future organization wouldn’t have a clear operating framework within which to proceed wholeheartedly. Readers will be all too well aware of how much more confidently they can proceed, when their operating guidelines are clear. They’re like the rules of the road, although enlightened leaders don’t spend their time imposing rules – they’d rather just get their people’s ‘buy-in’ to a valuable set of principles instead. It included items such as:

»Focus on organic growth

»Build company through an Enterprise Growth Team approach

»Have a strong sales and marketing strategy for attracting the most favorable clients.

» Our over-riding intention is to build long term client relations through an extraordinary experience.

Such principles are designed to withstand the test of time, as well as be something for his future Strategists to think about on a day-to-day basis. They in turn will relay such principles on to their own team members for everyday use. Such a listing becomes another early valuable discussion document for pulling volunteer Strategists onto the same page.  Where you observe Strategists showing discomfort with such principles, you should be wary about their likely ongoing commitment level. Even so, enlist their input and additions as much as possible since that will aid their ‘buy-in.’

(NOTE: With the continued emphasis on volunteer Strategists at the outset, there ought to be some thought by Visionists toward compensating these volunteers retrospectively once the venture starts making decent money. It would reward them, in due course, for their initial time and expert input: although you should only make a hint at the outset, otherwise you are more likely to engage mercenaries rather that Strategists who are fully committed at the outset.)

He then went on to build other pictographs covering his Business Values, External Stakeholder Picture, Internal Stakeholder Picture, the team’s Strategic Intent – all of which will be itemized in detail within your writer’s forthcoming book Radical Leadership Breakthrough: Embracing the Five Phases of Enlightened Leadership…probably spring 2020. His final item was a Staircase of Start-up Enterprise Team Member Options. It outlined team members starting out as likely volunteers, then becoming Advisory Board Members, then – if they wished – to become Part-time Leaders, and finally – if they wished – to become Full-time Leaders…all as revenues and resources were generated. In this particular entrepreneurs case, he was willing to share 48% of the equity among the six outsiders; relative to their advisory board, part-time of full-time wishes.

It’s now 5 years on and interesting to find that his enterprise is forging ahead on an international basis, as business opportunities dictate. When the founding entrepreneur was asked how the start-up configuration and discussion helped his enterprise get going, he wrote: “LSI’s startup enterprise team strategy helped us to understand our strengths and limitations; which made it clear who we needed to bring into our agency to strengthen those areas in order to grow as fast as possible.”

To find out more about a positioning and pathfinding approach, talk with: