One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you can indulge your personal peccadilloes and (if you don’t take them too far) justify them for business reasons. If they involve flying first class or an upgraded car, you can often write them off – thereby sharing the expense with all the other American taxpayers, many of whom are doing the same to you.
But it goes deeper than that. You can insist that widgets be made in purple as well as “normal” colors just because you like purple. If the purple ones outsell the green and red, you’ll say you were playing your hunch like all good entrepreneurs do. If they don’t you’ll blame market forces and look for something else you can sell in purple.
I’m reminded of a story about Henry Ford who was fixated on tractors when this incident took place. One winter day the Michigan weather prevented him from taking his latest prototype out for a spin in the farm lands. Luckily the Ford foundry had what amounted to a large dirt field under a huge roof. They used this to make molds (or patterns or whatever they’re called) in the dirt. Molten metal was poured into these molds, which hardened into car parts and such. Henry, looking for a place to ride his tractor realized he could test it out on that dirt under the roof in any kind of weather. Never mind that in the process he’d destroy thousands of dollars worth of molds that his employees had just dug into that dirt. As Henry took a break for lunch of caviar and pickled flamingo tongues, he was heard to remark, “It’s good to be the King.” OK, I made up that last sentence.
Of course, thinking that you’re right just because you think you are is a classic case of denial, and forestalls the reality check. Being the boss allows us to make decisions and take actions that can be at times only marginally justifiable and at worst destructive. Enron looked like a good idea to someone.
This can sometimes be a good thing – you’ve heard many stories of people persevering to pursue an idea that looked utterly foolish, only to become an overnight success. Of course, it usually takes 20 years of hard work to become an overnight success. Or the person who succeeded because she tried something without knowing the conventional wisdom that it just could not be done.
It can also, as you might suspect, be a problem. It is one or the things that makes us entrepreneurs so utterly unemployable (oops, maybe that’s not a problem). But when taken too far leads to hubris – see your Greek tragedies for the consequences of that.
Of course you’d never give your employees as much leeway to play their hunches as you give yourself, would you? Why not? There are companies that do – Google and 3M come to mind. No slouches there. So maybe you’re not in denial about your hunches, but what about those of your employees?
It’s my view that companies do best when management creates an environment where everyone is given a structure to try out their ideas and innovations – where we test them against reality, not personality, and use the best ones for the good of all.
Reality is the field we play in, but we can all use a bit of denial now and then.
