Entrepreneurship

Assembling the Team: Acquiring and Utilizing Essential Human

Resources

5

5-2

“Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.”

--Samuel Butler, 1882

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Human Resources

• Knowledge• Skills• Talents• Abilities• Of co-founders and

early employees are key to success

5-4

The Appeal of Similarity

• Similarity leads to liking

• Almost any kind of similarity will do—similarity with respect to attitudes and values, demographic factors, interests, etc.

• Such effects are both strong and general

5-5

The Value of Complementarity

• Avoids redundancy.

• Provides a wider range of information, skills, aptitudes, and abilities.

• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

5-6

Don’t yield to the temptation to work solely with people whose background, training, and experience is highly similar to your own. Doing so will be easy and pleasant in many ways, but it will not provide the rich foundation of human resources the new venture needs.

5-7

Know Thyself

• We are often unaware of at least some of the factors that affect our behavior.

• We do not gain knowledge of our major traits, abilities, or attitudes directly, through reflection.

• We gradually gain insight into ourselves through our relations with other persons.

5-8

Your Personal Inventory

• Knowledge base• Specific skills• Motives• Commitment• Personal

attributes

5-9

Big Five Dimensions of Personality

• Conscientiousness

• Extraversion-Introversion

• Agreeableness

• Emotional stability

• Openness to experience

5-10

Similarity or Complementarity?

• A balanced approach

• Focus primarily on complementarity with respect to knowledge, skills and experience

• Bring similarity into the picture with respect to personal characteristics and motives

5-11

“He who knows others is clever; he who knows himself has discernment.”

--Lao-Tzu

5-12

Impression Management

• Self-enhancement—efforts to increase appeal to others

• Other-enhancement—efforts to make the target person feel good

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Self-Enhancement Tactics

• Boost physical appearance

• Appear highly skilled

• Describe self in positive terms

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Other-Enhancement Tactics

• Flattery

• Expressing agreement

• Showing high degree of interest

• Doing small favors

• Asking for advice or feedback

• Using nonverbal signals

• Intimidation

5-15

Due Diligence

• Failing to recognize impression management techniques can lead entrepreneurs to make poor choices as they assemble their initial team.

• Don’t accept information or appearance without checking it out.

5-16

Deception

• Microexpressions

• Interchannel discrepancies

• Nonverbal aspects of speech

• Eye contact

• Exaggerated facial expressions

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Founding Team Relationships

Three factors are crucial in developing strong working relationships among the team:

• Clear initial assignment of roles

• Careful attention to perceived fairness

• Effective communication

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Roles

• The set of behaviors that individuals occupying specific positions within a group are expected to perform, and the authority or jurisdiction they will wield.

• Divide responsibilities and authority following the principle of complementarity.

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Self-Serving Bias

• The tendency to attribute successful outcomes largely to internal causes, but unsuccessful ones largely to external causes

• Often leads people to conclude that they have not been treated fairly

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Perceived Unfairness

Self-serving biasFeelings of perceived unfairness

Harmful effectson working

relationships

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Effective Communication

Constructive• Is considerate• Doesn’t threaten• Is timely• Doesn’t blame• Is specific• Offers concrete

suggestions for improvement

Destructive• Is harsh• Contains threats• Is not timely• Blames• Is not specific• Offers no concrete

ideas for improvement

5-22

Expanding Human Resources

Social networking allows entrepreneurs to:

• Acquire human resources quickly

• Know people directly or indirectly before hiring

• Integrate new employees more easily into a loose structure

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Is Bigger Better?

• On balance, the benefits of increasing the number of employees outweigh the costs.

• New ventures that start with more employees have a greater chance of surviving.

• Profitability is positively related to size.

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Temporary Employees

Advantages• Reduced fixed

costs• Flexibility• Secure

specialized knowledge

Disadvantages• Lack commitment

and motivation• Carry information

to competitors

5-25

Temporary or Permanent?

Flexibility and speed of acquiring new sets

of knowledge

Permanentemployees

Commitment andretention

Temporary employees