Recently on a casual chat with Rene Rojas, Founder
and CEO of HubBog, he shared with me one of the coolest analogies I’ve heard
when it comes to entrepreneurship.
Rene and I, both passionate for education, were
talking about the concept of “academy” for entrepreneurial context and how it
differs from the traditional MBA/business education mental models. So, it was when he told me: “Supporting Entrepreneurs is like being an obstetrician,
we are talking about a fragile human being hardly trying to come to life, in a process that
is fairly delicate , unexpected and difficult. MBAs in the other hand are full of
pediatricians, those who deal with the child when he’s expected to be stable and
fit and now it's all about raising her/him healthily” (1)
As a soon-to-be MBA (even from Babson and its
differential entrepreneurial approach) I could not agree more with the past
point, to the extend that I added that some graduate programs or at least people
I have come across, seem to be even “geriatricians”. However in a entrepreneurship movement that eery days leans more towards SCALE UPs (vs. Start Ups) and RAPID GROWTH, pediatricians will be nevertheless in high demand, specially those who hang out with lots of obstetricians.
While many of the greatest things I’ve seen in the
entrepreneurial world have risen however from the magic zone of collaborations between obstetricians, pediatricians and
geriatricians, such as …
- · Endeavor connecting adolescents (High Impact Ventures) with adult doctors (seasoned executives of Large Organizations and TOP consulting firms)
- · The IBM Emerging Opportunities Program, for Corporate Entrepreneurship
… I still think that everybody needs to be clear of where its natural space it.
The beauty of all this is not to play cool about being one or another; we need the three types of doctors for the economic system to function!
The real beauty is to understand where our expertise, talent and personal culture relies, as a manager or as a “mentor” (I am pretty scared to use the
underestimated/misunderstood M word these days) and offer this expertise in the
right context. Just because entrepreneurship is so cool these days, does not mean that you have the right skills set to support entrepreneurs or turn into one.
And thinking back in my own business education at Babson, I can truly say the Entrepreneurial Thought and Action DNA of our school is nothing else as an invitation to understand that in today's world, we'll be many times pushed to be obstetricians (weather we want it or not- "you never know when a pregnant woman in the middle of nowhere we need your help!"). That does not mean that every single person that leaves this school will be an obstetrician, but at least we all are aware that pivoting, and testing and dancing with ambiguity (even in the most stable organizations) is the "new forecasting".
(1) These might not be
textual words, but you get the idea.
