Think Like an

Entrepreneur

Deb Nystrom, REVELN Consulting Women’s Leadership Conference June 21, 2014American Business Women’s Association, MAIA ChapterRoss Business School, Executive Education, Ann Arbor

Be Anti-Fragile Regardless of

Where You Work

1. Fail Small, Learn Big

1,000 to 10,000 Mistakes

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.

The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

- Thomas A. Edison

Thomas Edison around the time he invented the phonograph by Library & Archives Canada

Connectone of the 5 C’s

What have you learned from dealing with failure successfully?

Deb at Entre-Slam, Ann Arbor – Feb. 2013

Fail Small,

Learn Big

Struggle => Strength

Fail Small, Learn Big

2. Reinvent Continuously,

Use an Internal & External Mindset

Reinvent Continuously

Internal & External Mindset

Veronika ScottThe Empowerment Plan

Reinvent Continuously

5 Cs:Connect

ClarifyCommit

CollaborateChange

From The Empowerment Plan website, Detroit

3. Antifragile“I Embrace

Randomness & the VUCA”

Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous

Photos: Sponge, by rob.knight Flickr cc

Antifragile

Beyond Resilience

Anti-Fragile“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty.

...Yet, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile.

Let us call it antifragile.”

Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Miche l l e Rogers ,

21 s t Century Med ia

See REVELN.com TOOLS for a resources on Anti-Fragile by N. N. Taleb

« I will adapt. »

« Many change projects fail, and the most commonly cited reason is neglect of the human dimensions of change.

This neglect often centres around a lack of insight into why people are unhappy with organisational change, a poor appreciation of the process of change,

and a limited knowledge of the tools and techniques that are available to help. » Statement from a university 2008 Change Toolkit

Photo: by frankula Flickr-cc

“If about everything top-down fragilizes and blocks antifragility

and growth, everything bottom-up

thrives under the right amount of stress and disorder.”

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Anything fragile hates

volatility...”

“The antifragile

loves randomness

and uncertainty,

which also means,

crucially, a love of

errors, a certain

class of errors.”

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

4. Multi-Networks

Multi-Network

Your Online Presence is: •Everything you say•Everything you don’t say•Your actions or inaction•What others have to say about you

Source: Leslie McGraw and Deb Nystrom, Your One Big Life, Women of Color Task Force Conference

5. Entrepreneurs Create

The Future

“Entrepreneurs

….believe in a yet-to-

be-made future [to be]

shaped by human

action; and they realize

…they need not expend

energies trying

to predict it.”

~ Assoc.Professor

Saras Saravathy

Entrepreneurs and Stories

“After nourishment, shelter and

companionship, stories are the thing

we need most in the world.”

― Philip Pullman

\

“But while my inner voice was clearly telling me I was at my core an entrepreneur, it's inconvenient to decide at twenty-three that you can't really work for other people.”

― Kelly Cutrone, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You

Deb’s photo of Veronika Scott, CEO of the Detroit based Empowerment Plan

“Youngsters want to change world. Elders want to enjoy their works.The entrepreneur sells anything needed by both to win their desires.”

~ Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

The Five C’s

• Connect• Clarify• Commit• Collaborate• Change

What challenged you?

What inspired

you?

What surprised

you?

28

Take-Aways

What are your “Hopenings” to

be Entrepreneurial & Antifragile?

References from today by June 25th, REVELN.com Tools page

Struggle = Strength

Don’t rob yourself (or them) of the struggle

More at REVELN.comSee the blog postThink Like an Entrepreneur: Be Anti-Fragile Regardless of Where You Work