The baseball player’s position in the batting line up is largely determined by their physical attributes. The strongest player bats in the clean-up spot while the fastest, must cunning hitter leads off with hopes of somehow getting on base.
On-base hitters enjoy smaller, more frequent successes (getting on base) while “sluggers” go through long droughts punctuated by rare but large successes (home runs). Similarly entrepreneurs need to decide if they would prefer lots of little “wins” or one big one, which I wrote about in an earlier column.
If you want lots of little wins, starting and selling companies with relative frequency makes sense.
Baseball players know where they should hit in the line-up based on their physical attributes -- but as an entrepreneur, how do you know if you are best suited to start lots of small companies or try to grow one larger one?
The trick is to understand your personality. For the past nine years, I have been attending a quarterly workshop offered by the Strategic Coach. “The Coach,” as it is known to the initiated, specializes in working with entrepreneurs to help them achieve both business and personal success.
Prior to my first Strategic Coach workshop, each attendee was asked to complete a personality test known as “The Kolbe Test,” which measures people on a score of one to 10 on each of four personality attributes:
Fact Finders are people who seek details before making decisions. Like picking at yarn in an old sweater, each answer to a fact finder’s question triggers a set of new follow-up questions. They seek out and find details before making decisions.
Follow Through people love systems. They think in a linear fashion where step one leads to step two. They love process and create systems when they are confronted with chaos.
Quick Starts enjoy initiating new things. They are creative problem solvers and think laterally. Easily bored, Quick Starts tend to begin lots of projects but need help finishing them.
Implementers live in the physical world and enjoy building and fixing things. They thrive in environments that allow them to work with their hands.
When you take The Kolbe Test, you are given a score on each attribute. A score below four on an attribute means you actively avoid the behaviour. Middle ground scores of four to six mean you go along with the crowd on that attribute and a score of seven-plus on a single trait means you will actively initiate the behaviour.
My first Strategic Coach class was made up of 60 growth-oriented entrepreneurs, most of whom had started a number of businesses in their careers (on-base hitters). The facilitator started the day with a random poll of our Kolbe scores. When she asked how many people scored seven or higher on the Fact Finder scale, about one third of the hands went up. Just three or four hands were raised when she inquired about people with high Follow Through scores and then she asked if anyone got a score of seven or higher on Quick Start -- virtually every hand in the room went up.
My Kolbe score was as follows:
Fact Finder: 7
Follow Through: 4
Quick Start: 7
Implementation: 2
I like asking lots of questions before making a decision; I can follow a set of rules if you insist; I like the start-up phase of running a business; and you don’t want me anywhere near your Ikea furniture.
If you score seven-plus on Quick Start, chances are you’re going to be happiest starting lots of smaller businesses in your career (on-base hitter), rather than one larger one (slugger). As a business grows in complexity, the need for higher Follow Through scores increases and your high Quick Start score goes from an asset in the start-up days to a liability as your business will need more structure to support its size.
Tomorrow: Why sluggers shouldn’t bunt.
Special to The Globe and Mail
John Warrillow is the author of Built To Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell. Throughout his career as an entrepreneur, Mr. Warrillow has started and exited four companies. Most recently he transformed Warrillow & Co. from a boutique consultancy into a recurring revenue model subscription business, which he sold to The Corporate Executive Board in 2008. He is the author of Drilling for Gold and in 2008 was recognized by BtoB Magazine’s “Who’s Who” list as one of America’s most influential business-to-business marketers.
