C: All right. Welcome to Slingshot25’s Shotcast, a series of bite-sized podcasts that’ll feel like an espresso shot to your brain. I’m Courtney. And I’m Jackie. Something we’ve been thinking about is being entrepreneurs. I know we’re entrepreneurs. You’re entrepreneurs, and thinking about it, not the way you might think we’re thinking about it.
We just did an episode on thinking you should go listen to it. Um. We’re thinking about how often in our corporate work that leaders say things like. Act like an owner. Mm. They do say that a lot. It’s kind of like the theme of when they want people to feel more empowered, they just tell ’em, act like an owner.
Yeah. And now we are actually business owners. And so I’m gonna share a few things that I think are behaviors that we had to adapt to become owners. And then we’re gonna do something. DI, it’s different, but Jackie’s gonna kind of weigh in and see how that plays out in corporate. Yeah. So, uh, one mindset is that we say a thing we say all the time is like, this might not work.
Like being an entrepreneur, you have to try a lot of things that sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. And it’s, you know, high risk, low reward, high risk, high ride reward, whatever. Another thing we must do as entrepreneurs is constantly reimagine and redefine things. Like, you just can’t be too attached.
If it doesn’t work and what you thought, then you gotta get really fast at letting go of what you thought things were gonna be so that you have room for what’s really there and what’s in front of you. And that adaptability, that responsiveness, um, I think it becomes a skill. It doesn’t mean that you’re not attached.
It doesn’t mean you just don’t. Doesn’t mean you quit desiring what you wanted it to be, it’s just you gotta let go of it and move on. ’cause that thing isn’t happening. I, I, I think of this group, um, I have to do that the most because I get attached to things really fast. Um, and the other thing I think that being a part of an entrepreneur is the mindset that like, if it’s not working or it’s not done.
It’s not over. So you just keep at it like there’s just a resilience in being an entrepreneur that you gotta keep coming back and keep rethinking and keep putting it in. ’cause you’re not done. This is it. Right. So, so you just have to keep at it. Yeah. So I’ll, I’ll stop there. There’s probably more. Those are the ones.
J: Oh, I, there’s, yeah, I’m sure there’s many. But, I love that list and, uh, you know, because as your business partner here, I experience all of those as well, and all of us here at Slingshot 25, those whose voices you don’t hear on this shot cast as well. You know, we all came out of corporate and we came into this role and it was a huge adjustment.
It was a huge adjustment. Um, I’m happy to be on the other side of that adjustment now. It was not an easy one to go through, but I think it gives us an interesting perspective of being able to do that sort of comparison because of how we worked in corporate. Our job in corporate was to solve sort of cultural problems to think about how people interface with the culture of their workplaces and interface with their teams.
And so I think it gives us kind of that unique perspective, ’cause we actually think about these sorts of things. It’s actually part of our job to do. So I think that
C: unique perspective, I think that’s why we hear the phrase act like an owner so differently now. Yeah. Yeah, we didn’t hear it quite then.
Yeah. But now it’s like, uh, do you really get to think like an owner
J: in corporate? Right. Right. So if I were to contrast those, so I’m just gonna kind of take your list, Courtney, and, and maybe just open some questions and um, and maybe tease out with those questions, I might tease out a little bit of inviting leaders to think a little bit differently about how they show up as a leader, who should invite people to act like owners. I think that’s not a bad thing to act like an owner. Now keep in mind you don’t probably actually own the corporation that you work in, um, but you can certainly own, you know, a piece of that, and I think that’s what, of course, people are asking you to do. Well, the first thing you mentioned, um, how this might not work.
That’s true in any, in anything we take on, whether it’s here or in, in a corporation, this might not work. You’re trying out new things, um, things can go wrong. Uh, you know, something, an external, uh, factor could weigh in all of a sudden. Or just, or just it just. Doesn’t work. It wasn’t, you know, it sounded like a good idea.
And then you start to assemble this thing, start to maybe roll some things out and you realize customer’s not picking this up, this isn’t really having the results. Um, and you know, we get to as, as entrepreneurs to, to just reimagine and shift. Um, but we, we lean into that this might not work. And of course we always want everything we think of to work, but we’re ready for it if it doesn’t. And then we get back to the drawing board. I want you to think of yourself as a leader. How often do you let people just try things out and what happens if it doesn’t work? I. What do you do? What is, you know, everyone likes to talk about, you know, fail fast, fail forward and fail. You know, success is built on failure.
These are all things, of course, that you know, would appear on any motivational poster, but do you really allow that? How do you actually respond? How okay is it for people to say, yeah, that didn’t work. This isn’t working, which leads me to this sort of reimagining and redefining. Um, how many, how many of us are in, in corporations are allowed to just take something that we’re working with and then just reimagine, redefine that work without layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers of approvals.
To, to, uh, to change things. Now, you know, I think we should be clear that we do understand that when you’re working in large organizations, not everyone can just mill around and, you know, kind of. Experiment and just do things that they feel like doing all day long. We do get that, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
We’re talking about so many layers of control and so much of a, like a, a feeling of you don’t get to, you don’t get to reimagine, you don’t get to redefine your work or try something, you know, new or, or apply things in new and interesting ways in many, and it just an add, like it feels like that because.
C: The leader has all the answers. They’ve done it before. They share too much of their experience. They are too attached to how it should be, and so people don’t feel like they really get.
J: Absolutely. All kinds of ways that we exert control in organizations. Some control is needed, we would argue. And, and many, uh, you know, many, um, many, a lot of research is out there now and many books are written now about how we are over-controlling because we can.
Because, you know, like we solve some things and we just go on to solve more. Where else can we apply a rigid process too, to clean it up and make it easier, so everybody does exactly the same thing? Um, I think, I think that we, we obviously take that too far. Um, and then you talked about just like key at it.
It’s if this, if it’s not working, it’s not done. And you know, here I think about many of the, you know, how corporations work, how organizations tend to work is, you know, it’s this year’s budget. And then, and this is the span of that project. And when that project is done, that project is done. And, and you know, those, you don’t get to kind of come back at things and keep working things and keep refining things.
There’s often times not, uh, opportunities to the inside organizations.
C: And if it’s not working, I think it’s easier inside a corporation to. Just disengage from it. Mm-hmm. You know, take on a, maybe you’re disappointed, maybe you’re angry, so you just don’t play. Yeah. You know, we call the third option club around here.
Like you, you get to live there. And entrepreneurs, there’s, there’s no third option club. Like, it’s nowhere to hide, so there’s nowhere to hide. That’s right. Yeah.
J: Yeah. So, um, so it is different and you know, we do understand that you have to keep in, you know, keep. Things in context. Um, we do live in a different world than corporate America now. I think keeping things in context, though, we still have so much more we could do that if we want employees in our organization to step up, to feel a personal sense of accountability to care about what happens next is to just small things every single day to remind people that we believe in them.
You’ve got this, we’re interested in your ideas. Keep at it. This might not work. We’re with you through all of that. Um, I think you’re gonna find that you have, you have, you essentially are creating a culture of accountability. And ownership.
C: I love it. On that note, I think that’s all we’re gonna say for this episode. That’s a lot, but we always have more to say. If you want more, drop us a line at slingshot25.com. Until next time.
