Rochan Kakar

There are 5 simple things I do when I sometimes question my “passion / motivation” for my business: 1. Remind yourself why you started in the 1st place 2. Look at the number of customer lives you have positively impacted 3. Look at the number of employee lives you have positively impacted by providing them a place of work, and livelihood 4. Get to the root cause of why the lack of passion is occurring? Is it because of a loss? Not meeting goals? Conflicts? 5. Seek mentorship. Get out of the rut, shake things up a bit to get a fresh perspective on how you are approaching the business It was never going to be easy. And often operationalizing emotions is what is needed to solve the real problems hiding behind those emotions.

This one is easy. “Perform at the next level and get feedback while you do it.” Lets break this down into 2 simple actions: Action 1: The best way to show you are a leader is to tell them you want to level up, make an inventory of the KPI’s of that leadership role. See how many of those skills you can showcase you already have via actions and communicate them repeatedly to your boss. Tell them you are doing them so they can take note. Action 2: Ask for consistent feedback. Now that you have been communicating to them that you are taking on more responsibility as you aspire to level up, ask them for feedback. This will show that you are not only genuinely interested in growing, but deeply value feedback that contributes to your growth.

First - strategists are creative people. The best way for you to get noticed to show your creative firepower. Be it creativity in opinions, ideas, solutions to problems or the way the D2D is being run. Sure, you do’t need to fix what is not broken, but no body is ever going to say no to a little more efficiency and improvement in processes/operations. Second - most important thing one can do is to help ensure that the execution is happening aligned with the strategy. Because if you don’t safeguard the goals created as part of the strategy - your strategy will be deemed as a failure. Third - never stop finding ways to create more stickiness and cohesiveness. In communications, collaboration or relationships.

First: If you cannot explain it to a 5 year old your strategy is probably wrong. The first principle of exciting someone about anything is to make it as simple and easy to understand as possible. Your strategy should not only tell them what you will do but where you are going. Because your team will go with you on that journey, which is why you want them to be excited about the journey. Second: Welcome scrutiny. Ask for feedback, ideas, suggestions, ways in which the strategy can be improved. Let them poke holes so you can pressure test your logic. Third: Set-up rigorous metrics around the strategy. Words are great, but remember that numbers make are what make a business outcome real for the people on the ground executing them.

The first rule of this game is to remember that there is a huge difference in being an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial. Often I have seen leaders mix the two and it is a bad strategy because both are absolutely distinct beasts and must be avoided. But.. that is a topic for another day. Anyway - To be an entrepreneurial leader is simple. One must not adhere to the status quo and be resourceful - just like an entrepreneur. What makes entrepreneurs unique is there ability to tackle uncertain situations, take on ambiguous problem statements, build teams with speed, innovate and consistently overcome obstacles. Often people stop doing these things in their day to day. If you do them - voila - you're an Entrepreneurial Leader!

Firstly, I don’t think any framework tool or tactic is better than common sense. First principles are still around after thousands of years for a reason. Secondly, there are no “entrepreneurial problems”. There are business problems. Business problems can be across market, product/service, people, process, tech, or data. The best way to “analyze” and then “solve” a problem is to not over analyze and to solve fast. Not over analyze - see the issue for what it is. Call it out, clarify and agree that the problem highlighted is in fact “a problem and the problem”. Solve fast - don’t ruminate. Make a hypothesis. Test the hypothesis. You will achieve far more success by solving faster vs solving slow to get the perfect outcome.