Trapped in the comfort zone

When I was asked at the beginning of the year if I’d be a mentor on a Young Entrepreneur Program it was a tough decision, I was writing a book and launching a new business myself. As it turned out, it was a good decision, as it challenged my assumptions about the economy and industry.

A striking thing about the mentoring program was the diversity of the participants, everything from olive merchants and flower shops to chiropractors and shirt makers, with a fair few web and IT people thrown in.

It was notable that half of those being mentored were in the manufacturing and clothing industries, two sectors that I assumed were well and truly dead and buried in an Australian economy focused on seeking easy capital gains underpinned by mining royalties.

My assumption was wrong; many people want to make and sell things despite the odds working against Australian manufacturers. As well as a shirt maker, the course also included fashion designers and a manufacturer of rope sandals.

The rope sandal man personified one of the most valuable business skills of an entrepreneur; don’t get stuck with assumptions. Business life is a continuing journey and if you get stuck working within the stricture of one set of assumptions, your business will at best stagnate or be hit by the forces of change that are destroying many industries built on what seemed to be rock solid assumptions.

Of course many assumptions are flawed; we can call that “The Unknown Unknown Problem”. When we start a business there are a whole set of unknown factors, some of which we know about and others which are totally unexpected.

Identifying “unknown unknowns” is probably the best benefit an adviser can bring to the mentoring relationship. The more inexperienced we are, the more likely it is that we don’t know what we don’t know. As one of the experienced mentors put it, “the longer I’m in business, the more I realise how much I don’t know.”

Another of my assumptions that was shot down during the program was the internet-savviness of younger entrepreneurs. Many of their assumptions were that net wouldn’t do much for them.

For instance the custom car parts seller believed, incorrectly, that most of his customers aren’t on the web or interested in tools like Facebook when the reality is that niche products are exactly what the web does well.

A similar belief was with the shop fitting design business, that the web is a threat to her business. The reality is the opposite, as innovating retailers need to improve their store designs to improve the physical shopping experience that presents wonderful opportunities for clever designers.

One assumption I’ve never bought into is about the work ethics of the much maligned Generation Y, believing those whining about lazy 20-somethings are just intellectually lazy and grumpy old baby boomers and Gen Xers. This was bourn out by the course as the younger entrepreneurs showed they weren’t shy of putting in the hard work required to succeed in your own business.

Demolishing assumptions about things – like the internet’s effect on business, the work ethics of Generation Y and the refusal of Australia’s manufacturing and clothing sectors to die – was the most valuable thing this course delivered for everyone involved.

Assumptions kill our creative thinking, the very asset we need in a society like ours that’s going through massive technological change, not to mention an economy that still has many “unknown unknowns”.

Challenge your own assumptions, you might be surprised at the results.

Paul Wallbank is one of Australia’s leading experts on how industries and societies are changing in this connected, globalised era. When he isn’t explaining technology issues, he helps businesses and community organisations find opportunities in the new economy.