The Three Personalities I Never Knew I Had

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I recently read a book recommended to me by a good mentor and even better contact to have in this industry. It is called The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber. Some of you may be familiar with it, but for those that are not I would recommend, even if you are not looking to open your own pizza shop or engineering firm.

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One of the main focuses is that there are three different personalities within the small business owner:

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• The Entrepreneur- lives in the future and has very grand ideas for the business

• The Manager- lives in the past and is always organizing

• The Technician- lives in the present, constantly tinkering, looking for a task to complete.

 

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All three of these personalities are vital for the success of the business, but each one gets in the way of the other.

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• The Entrepreneur wreaks havoc on The Manager and The Technician because he is always changing the company’s direction to meet industry change.

•  The Manager creates so many lists and boxes that he slows down The Technician and is an anchor, dragging down The Entrepreneur’s vision boat.

•  The Technician just wants a job to complete, does not want to be told what to do by The Manager and cannot stand when The Entrepreneur comes up with “the next best thing”.

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I never thought of myself having three different personalities (my fiancé would say otherwise) but once I read this it struck home. I related to The Entrepreneur the most, I felt The Manager’s drive to be organized, and I sympathized with The Technician’s desire to just have a task to complete.

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All three of these personalities contribute to Wilde Engineering differently. The challenge is giving the time and attention to each one to make Wilde a complete success. I need to let The Entrepreneur have visions and goals and live in the future. I also need to let The Manager keep this business organized, living in the past to learn from experiences (and mistakes). The Technician needs time to design, to take a client’s building, parking lot, fieldhouse; and design the power distribution, light the fields, layout the fire alarm devices.

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After finishing the book, I began to reflect more on the three personalities within me. I kept thinking about The Entrepreneur; how it sees Wilde Engineering, what it envisions for Wilde, and the perspective this personality has. The last point is one I thought about thoroughly: The Entrepreneur’s perspective.

  

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For Wilde, The Entrepreneur has a model that works, not a model of work itself. The latter is a technician’s perspective. The Entrepreneur does not want a business that depends on me, because then I would not own a business, I would own a job. This would not only drive me insane but would be terrible because I would be working for a crazy guy!

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Even though I have started my own business, and people call me an ‘entrepreneur’, people say they are jealous of my ‘entrepreneurship’; I really do not see myself as an entrepreneur. Right now, I am 70% technician, 15% manager, and 15% entrepreneur. The Entrepreneur needs to be coaxed out more, given the freedom to achieve his visions. And The Manager needs practice to take these visions and implement them in an organized way. I realize that having equal thirds of all three personalities is rare. However, giving each one the necessary attention creates a path of success for Wilde.

 

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In the next year, I want to seriously focus on The Entrepreneur’s perspectives:

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• “How must the business work?” not “What work has to be done?”

• Produce external results, results for my clients (profit). Not internal results, such as producing large income for my company (I might really be going crazy…)

• Look to the future, have a clear vision. Then come back to the present with the intention of changing it to meet that vision. Model the present after the vision, do not model the vision after the present

• View Wilde Engineering in its entirety, not just in parts

 

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Inside all of us are multiple personalities, whether we want to admit it or not. This is not a bad thing at all. Each personality can, and will, contribute to your success. Whether that be in your current job, in your business, or in your personal life. The key is allowing each one to grow, but not get in the way of the other. It took me reading The E-Myth to figure this out. A whole month into owning a business! But that is okay, because the sooner you figure it out, the better off you will be!

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