The Trouble with Brains in Small Business

I am blessed.

All my life I have been continually surrounded by people who think differently from me. They process the same event in a totally different manner, have different priorities and ways of looking at things.  As a result, I’ve had to learn to adapt to others…as well as become very aware of my own linear, sometimes didactic personality.

Men were the initial challenge.  Because I was in the male-dominated field of information technology in the 1980s and 1990s, I had to learn to work around the way that men (and mostly engineering men) thought. Then I had sons…  The dog and I were the only females in the house — that was definitely trying at times!  All that testosterone, especially as they got older and large hulking males began to fill the house.

I was involved in an international organization and learned quickly that Europeans do not think like Americans — nor even very much like each other. As for the Australians, that was a different story altogether!  Add to that the strain of alcoholism that invaded my small little family and the strength of ADD in my entrepreneurial clients, and I’ve had quite an education on the fact that people just don’t think like me!

What does this have to do with small business?  Well, there are many different “brain types” in small business. This is a fact that I see many entrepreneurs forget.  They also forget that they need people who think differently from them. Entrepreneurs, by definition, have creative brains that are always whirring along, leaping from one thought to another. Good for starting a business, not so good for bookkeeping or project management. Many small business owners have lots of UFPs (unfinished projects) because they can’t focus long enough to complete something before coming up with the next great idea.

This is where I, or someone like me, comes in. All of us linear types can help the entrepreneur. You need us in your lives, either as thought partners, assistants, business partners or business managers. And you need to accept that we work differently from you.  Just as we have to accept your mercurial minds and impatience.  If we can develop a good working relationship, your business will become very successful indeed.

Think about the people in your life. How do they think differently from you? Do you allow and even learn from their difference? Or do you try to force them into your own mold rather than accepting the gift of their personality for exactly what it is.

A gift from the Universe.