You Say You Want Entrepreneurial People. Be Careful.

For years, companies hunting for talent have said they want entrepreneurs. It's in the job adverts, the person specifications, the leadership frameworks. "Be entrepreneurial." "Think and/or act like an owner." "Bring an entrepreneurial spirit."

It's always made me feel a bit uneasy, but I've never had the time to sit with it properly and put my finger on why.

Then I saw a post from Emily Firth on LinkedIn and it sparked something. I think I've finally got to the bottom of it, for me at least. I understand the sentiment behind the ask but I don't think these companies want entrepreneurs. Not reeeeeaaaally. I don't think they want the entrepreneurial spirit either.

What they want is a handful of traits that entrepreneurs happen to have. Definitely not all of them. Some will read "traits" vs "spirit" as mere semantics. I don't think it is, and getting clearer about which traits you actually mean could save everybody a lot of bother.

Full disclosure before I continue - I'm about to generalise. I'm describing the entrepreneurs I've seen and admired from afar throughout my career, and my own behaviours - not the whole species. Plenty are slow and steady, and some of the ones I'd back the most are the coolest, calmest, and most collected people in the room. So, please read this as a pattern I've noticed, not a rule that fits everybody.

What the behaviour actually looks like

Watch the ones who do move at pace and you'll see everything on the shopping list. They chop and change, run three experiments at once, kill two by Thursday and don't mourn either. They'll back their gut before the data is in, because waiting for the data can sometimes cost more than being wrong.

They're not anti-process, which is the lazy read. I'd call myself a master of process. Don't confuse being good at something with enjoying it, but it does come naturally. My brain works sequentially. I spot dependencies without trying. I'm neat and tidy by nature, which means I move fast and find what I need the moment I need it. My wife calls it OCD. I call it efficient 😉.

The good ones have sharper processes than most companies I've worked in, because they built them from nothing and pay for every inefficiency themselves.

What they won't carry is bureaucracy - process that exists to protect somebody rather than produce something. They find the routine that works, optimise it, and bin the rest.

None of that is a personality type on its own. It's a rational response to exposure.

When it goes wrong for them, they don't have an awkward conversation with their line manager. They have one with their mortgage lender. They've signed a personal guarantee. They've told their partner it'll be fine. Six weeks of no revenue isn't a dip in the forecast, it's the school shoes. The speed comes from that. So does the intensity, the urgency, the motivation, and the refusal to sit in a meeting that moves nothing. When you're personally paying for the delay, you stop tolerating delays.

It's a loop, not a cause

It isn't the stakes on their own, and it isn't personality on its own. It's both, constantly driving and evolving each other.

You need some appetite for risk before you'd ever start. Once you're exposed, the exposure sharpens the behaviour. The sharpened behaviour makes you more resilient to the exposure, so you'll carry a bigger stake next time. Round it goes, and your comfort with risk shifts as the stakes shift.

Which is why you can't buy either half on its own. Hire the disposition, give it nothing at stake, and the loop never starts.

Load real risk onto someone who never had the appetite and you don't get an entrepreneur, you get a rabbit in the headlights.

The risk on offer inside a business isn't the same risk

I've just spent several paragraphs saying entrepreneurs need real exposure, so let me be clear about what most companies are actually offering, because it isn't that.

An entrepreneur's risk cuts both ways. They carry the downside and they keep the upside. Inside a business it mainly cuts one way.

Take an entrepreneurial risk that works and the company banks it. You might get a mention at the town hall. You'll need several of those before it shows up in a promotion or a pay rise. However, take one and it fails, and guess who's necks on the block? One failure weighs more than three wins. It follows you into your review and a quiet conversation about whether you're a safe pair of hands.

Heads the company wins, tails you lose. Most people don't play those odds, and they are right not to.

So the word 'entrepreneurial" does its job. It puts off everyone sensible who won't play with those loaded dice, and lands you the one person who will take that bet anyway.

Then you find out you don't get to pick which bits of them you keep. It isn't a menu. The thing you hired them for and the thing that drives you mad are the same thing, just pointed in a different direction.

You wanted someone who moves without being told. You also get someone who's booked the supplier before procurement saw the form.

You wanted someone comfortable with ambiguity. You also get someone who lets the routine 70% of the job slide, because it bores them senseless.

You wanted someone who challenges the status quo. You also get someone who challenges yours, usually in front of other people.

You wanted someone who can't be put in a box. You also get a nightmare at objective-setting, because they won't commit in October to what they'll be doing in June.

Then the organisation does what organisations do. It rejects them, the way a body rejects an incompatible organ donor. Three months hiring, six months onboarding, and out the door somewhere between 12 and 18, because the job you described and the person you wanted, versus the job you actually have and the personality that survives your culture, were never the same thing.

Be specific about what you actually want

So name the traits you actually want. Most companies writing "entrepreneurial" mean one of three things, and all three are better words.

Resourceful. "We're stretched, the budget is thin, and you'll be doing your own admin." Honest, and plenty of good people love that.

Adaptable. "We change direction more often than we'd like and you'll need to be alright with that." Also honest, and attractive to the right person.

Commercial. "We want people who spot the opportunity and make the case, who can tie their actions to financial impact, and who use their initiative to jump in rather than wait to be tasked." Fine. Write that.

Then write the true ones as evidence rather than a claim.

"Entrepreneurial mindset" is a claim. "You'll own a £40,000 budget and you don't need sign-off to spend it, as long as you can show you invested it wisely" is evidence. One of those is on every careers page in the country. The other gives a candidate something they can make a decision on.

Be careful what you wish for

If you want someone to bet like it's their own money, you have to let them keep some of the winnings. And when they lose, you have to give them the room to get up, dust themselves off and go again. That's the part most organisations can't stomach, because from the outside it looks like they're being casual about everything. It isn't. They're not casual because they don't care. They're casual because they haven't got time for remorse. They're already looking for the better answer.

So picture what you're actually asking for. A hundred people moving at pace? Failing fast, often and cheaply? Not big fans of authority? Wanting control of their time, their tools, their techniques and the team they pull on to get the work done? All of them? In the same building? On the same Tuesday???

If that's honestly what you want, brilliant. Build the conditions for it and fund it properly.

I'd guess it isn't. I'd guess you want someone resourceful. Or a team that's adaptable. Or a leader who thinks commercially and moves without waiting to be asked. Those are traits entrepreneurs tend to have, and you can ask for them plainly.

Ask for entrepreneurs and one of two things happens. You don't get them, which is a waste of a job advert. Or you do, which is a much bigger problem.

Name the trait instead. You'll get someone who's still there in three years and has probably pissed off far less people in the process.