If you do not possess an “Entrepreneurial Mindset”, The Boss’s decision-making process may look very risky to you.  To The Boss, it makes perfect sense.  Let me try to explain.

The Boss receives a small piece of information.  Most folks in the company see it as non-essential data with little meaning.   The Boss gets excited about the opportunity she sees and begins discussions to react to and move forward with a plan using the newly discovered information.  The managers declare the data they have is at best only 25% of what they would need to even think about diverting resources and investing company funds.  Well, The Boss is “the boss” and a plan is developed, and the company begins to implement the plan.

In short order another 25% of the data is received, making the entire data collected 50% of what others would say is needed to begin to think about developing a plan.  The Boss reviews the new information and now with 50% of the data, she pivots and changes course.  Still moving forward and begins working the newly revised plan.

A short time passes and an additional 25% of the data is collected, now The Boss has 75% of the data collected which is still short of what the managers feel would be needed to begin to develop a plan.  Adding to the 75% of data collected from the market, The Boss and the managers have the information collected from the company’s activities as it moved forward from the initial 25% to now 75% of the data.  At this point after reviewing the new data, The Boss is willing to make a “go-no go” decision.  The Boss and the managers must decide if this is a good investment of time and money or not.  If not, the project is dropped for now.  The managers may feel this whole ordeal was a waste of time, but The Boss shrugs it off and looks for the next exciting project.  If the data looks good the company again pivots and changes course, this time the managers begin to believe in the opportunity and the company is moving forward full throttle with the revised plan.  The knowledge or intel the company has is very valuable and will differentiate The Boss’s company from the competition.

Today the entire market has 100% of the data and the opportunity is apparent.  The competition is beginning to ramp up its resources to begin the process of developing a plan.  The Boss’s company is light years ahead of the competition, granted the risk was high that the data would result in a business opportunity back when The Boss knew 25% of what she knows now, but the reward would also be high if the plan works as The Boss hoped it would.  The company is ready to reap the rewards of early adoption in the market.

What magical sense does The Boss have that gave her the confidence to move forward with only 25% of the data?  This magical sense or feeling is called “Intuition”.  It is the “gut feeling” that entrepreneurs have which tells them to jump before anyone even knows the opportunity exists.  If you do not have this Intuition or gut feeling, working for or with this type of personality can be nerve-racking and sometimes outright scary.  But in my experiences, I have learned not to discard The Boss’s intuition, it is often the difference between a business surviving or becoming one of the SBA’s statistics.

If you do not have it, it is hard to understand.  Your job is not to understand how The Boss recognizes these unforeseen opportunities, but to help her identify the ones that are too risky until the next 25% of data is received.  I have often had to grab The Boss from the ankles and pull her down to earth until the company received a little more data to move forward.  Inside The Boss’s head it makes perfect sense, from the company’s point of view it looks to be very risky, mostly because “it is!”