It is always tough to summarise what you learnt on softer aspects but very interesting to read when others write. I am making that effort to put my experiences and study in black and white. The insights might be useful for somebody like me.

My discussion is around entrepreneurs, their behaviours and reasons for such behaviours.

Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs. Their ability to take risk, set the future course of action, put together teams, straightening them to suit the requirements, managing finances, managing external environment is an interesting study by itself. Each entrepreneur is different. Each one has a different DNA and style of functioning. The styles affect the functioning of the organisation and the journey they take. 

Some entrepreneurs are well educated and well aware of the people and environment around them and use that knowledge effectively to control the course of their journey. They do lot of reading, acquire skill sets, talk to knowledgeable people and surround themselves with people of wisdom and knowledge. They are ever inquisitive, anxious and want to be thorough in their execution. They seldom leave option open and do not rely on luck. They encourage professionals to come up with solutions that fir their thought process. They are systematic and process driven and set culture for long term.

Some entrepreneurs get lucky by being in the right place at the right time without much thought as to what they would derive. They tend to correct as they travel. They tend to lean on subjects that favour their personal traits. They believe what they believe is right. Their ability to judge people is limited to their own knowledge. They surround people with lower levels of knowledge or "yes men". They always take experienced paths than taking new routes. they feel that any detour will take them to wrong destination. They do-not wish to associate themselves with knowledgeable people as they feel intimidated. They feel that professionals will dictate terms which is of their liking. They are short term in nature and address short term and medium term issues. They also wish to exercise fair amount of control on the people around them. 

Others are those who are neither knowledgeable nor in the right business at the right time. They believe in a concept and feel that it will take them to next level. They seldom exercise their mind to chart a path of execution. They are thorough yet fall short of strategic thinking to set the business in motion. They believe in luck not favouring them and seek divine interventions.

One trait that runs across the entrepreneurs is the ability to comment strongly on the future happenings relevant to their business and at times not relevant to the business but may become relevant. They are very strong on what they predict and stick to that till they are completely wrong. Some get an opportunity to correct and some don't. It is like taking a call on the equity market and praying adamantly that you are going to be right. Another indisputable trait is the enormous appetite for risk.

It was always a mystery to me as to how people can predict the course of a person, organisation or a group based on the past and present behaviours. As a school kid I always wanted to know what is happening in others' mind so that I can understand their next action. 

The urge to know more about others' mind got strengthened when I joined a spiritual school, with equal rigour on studies, from my +2 and continued for my graduation. In the school and college we had enough time to analyse ourselves as we were always told be the master of our mind. Mind is the most wavering and volatile and if anybody controls it can control anything. 

While basing our mind as the base, I tried to ponder over others' behaviours. The more I pondered and prepared a trend, the more predictable people became. As the trend was getting clearer I probed more into their background and continuously went back to understand from where the behaviours have started. So, I could establish links between the background of a person, his current behaviour and future behaviour and life pattern. I called this Grassroot analysis. I don't know from which Professor I picked the concept and the terminology, but the concept stuck to me even after long time of leaving college. 

The downside of this continuous study of people and their behaviours was to get judgemental. It took lot of beatings(not in literal sense) from people to how to be analytical yet not be judgemental. I continue to exercise on this. Reading through Psychology and spiritual books established the relation between the biological aspects and behaviours. All the more interesting. Now I had study of people, process and data. Great time to share.....

My jobs demanded me to communicate more with entrepreneurs across diverse industries and from different walks of life. What I felt were odd jobs and businesses were great business opportunities to entrepreneurs. They would talk on identifying that opportunity for hours and how they strategised to win. I was pleasantly surprised that some petty businesses with no fixed assets nor great statutory tax payments had cash flows that were supporting large borrowings. For example a roadside chat bhandar (serving evening snacks of pani puri, dahi poori, samosa etc) had a structured borrowing of Rs.17 lakhs in 1996. Some of the industries didnot have such cash flow, asset turnover, return on equity in those days. Every act of his was a "jaugaad". His chairs, tables, cooking place, rain cover, logistics of cooked and uncooked food were all creative. Today the whole world talks of Indian Jugaad ways but those were the days where every entrepreneur was creative to make his buck.

I enjoyed each day thoroughly as it gave me opportunity to interact all that I wanted. 

More data in the mind, more analysis and more variables for predicting behaviours. Life got more and more interesting and now I became a full time consultant specialising to address the needs and requirements of all the entrepreneurs who need that direct experience to address situations with 

Being a start of the series I would keep it as brief as this for me add meat every time to even minor aspect which I studied and understood from entrepreneurs.

Next week: Reasoning the Entrepreneur behaviour