Treasure your identity: Remain grounded and be yourself
The power of identity to shape the world is a common theme in fiction, especially science-fiction. In Daryl Gregory's short story Second Person, Present Tense a seventeen-year-old girl named Therese Klass overdoses on Z, a consciousness-disrupting drug.After two years in the care of the neurologist Dr Subramanian, the girl's damaged brain heals except that the original identity Therese has disappeared, and a new one 'Terry', nothing like Therese, has taken its place.
Dr Subramanian explains to Terry that the brain's neurons are like the British parliament and that the consciousness is similar to the Queen, a figurehead; Theresa's brain has crowned a new Queen. But Gregory's story really shows how even if that's the case, without a sense of identity, human action loses all meaning.
In the theory of effectuation, which studies how entrepreneurs shape events without needing to predict what's going to happen, there is an idea called the "bird-in-hand" principle, based on the logic of identity.
The
logic says: this is who I am, this is the sort of thing I like to do
and therefore I will do it even though I'm not really sure what's
going to happen. For example, Mahatma Gandhi had an almost sixth
sense for what needed to be done—in South Africa, at Buckingham
palace, at the enactment of the salt law, after religious
riots—because he was always authentically himself.
The logic of identity doesn't tell you to make decisions like Steve Jobs or Attila the Hun or Joan of Arc, it tells you to be yourself. You don't have to waste time trying to predict the unpredictable future. You only need to ask yourself whether you can build something based on the idea that you find doable and worth doing for reasons of your own. Consider a venture in the food industry.
You may dream of starting a restaurant of your own. The standard way to think about it is to find a good location, do some market research, define several possible segments you could target, decide on a target segment after analysis and then design a restaurant well positioned to capture that target segment.
It's a sensible approach as long as your restaurant is typical in some way, perhaps a franchise, say, or the restaurant doesn't really need you, just someone like you. But there's another way.
The logic of identity doesn't tell you to make decisions like Steve Jobs or Attila the Hun or Joan of Arc, it tells you to be yourself. You don't have to waste time trying to predict the unpredictable future. You only need to ask yourself whether you can build something based on the idea that you find doable and worth doing for reasons of your own. Consider a venture in the food industry.
You may dream of starting a restaurant of your own. The standard way to think about it is to find a good location, do some market research, define several possible segments you could target, decide on a target segment after analysis and then design a restaurant well positioned to capture that target segment.
It's a sensible approach as long as your restaurant is typical in some way, perhaps a franchise, say, or the restaurant doesn't really need you, just someone like you. But there's another way.
Ask yourself: why do you want to build a restaurant? How is that connected with your bird-in-hand - namely, who you are, what you know and whom you know? Maybe you dream of starting a restaurant because you love cooking and people love your cooking.
If so, why not simply start by cooking for others and charging them for it? Perhaps you could start a catering business out of your home? Or a lunch delivery business to a nearby office area? Do you really need to tie yourself to the notion of a "restaurant"?
When you tie yourself to a specific pre-conceived goal, you end up trying to predict the future. To pick a goal means to ignore all the roads available to you and pick only those that lead you to your goal.
Many actions you could take to achieve similar and related goals are overlooked. Maybe you are starting a restaurant because you already own property in a prime location. You may be very good at getting vegetables to be food but you also know you are even better at managing people.
So
why start a restaurant? Why not start talking to people you know
about different ventures that they might be able to start in your
particular venue? It might turn out that your dentist is thinking of
moving and is interested in the location you own.
Or your gym instructor might be dreaming of starting a yoga class for which your property would be a good match.
Depending on who may be willing to commit to partnering with you to do things within their birdin-hand, you could start a much wider variety of possible ventures than you think possible when you are deciding on your own. Consider Revathi Roy who turned her enjoyment of driving into a taxi service for women in Mumbai.
Roy's bird-in-hand consisted in her enjoyment of driving coupled with a family necessity to turn that bird-in-hand into a revenue model. She began by simply driving the first cab herself.
And even though she has encountered several ups and downs in building her ventures, Forsche and Viira Cabs, Roy has managed to work with people she knew to open up a brand new market category in India. And even though she has encountered several ups and downs in building her ventures, Forsche and Viira Cabs, Roy has managed to work with people she knew to open up a brand new market category in India.
Effectual entrepreneurship argues for you not to tie yourself to specific goals too soon. Instead stay close to all your bird-in-hand possibilities. Explore them all by acting on each and interacting with those you know and meet.
By working with the means already within your control, and leveraging what other people can do, you not only avoid the trap of analysis-paralysis, you also reduce the risk that's associated with uncertainty.
This does not mean you have to give up your specific dream. It only means you don't let it control you by narrowing your choices or wasting your many other talents or not recognizing people who could help you.
Or your gym instructor might be dreaming of starting a yoga class for which your property would be a good match.
Depending on who may be willing to commit to partnering with you to do things within their birdin-hand, you could start a much wider variety of possible ventures than you think possible when you are deciding on your own. Consider Revathi Roy who turned her enjoyment of driving into a taxi service for women in Mumbai.
Roy's bird-in-hand consisted in her enjoyment of driving coupled with a family necessity to turn that bird-in-hand into a revenue model. She began by simply driving the first cab herself.
And even though she has encountered several ups and downs in building her ventures, Forsche and Viira Cabs, Roy has managed to work with people she knew to open up a brand new market category in India. And even though she has encountered several ups and downs in building her ventures, Forsche and Viira Cabs, Roy has managed to work with people she knew to open up a brand new market category in India.
Effectual entrepreneurship argues for you not to tie yourself to specific goals too soon. Instead stay close to all your bird-in-hand possibilities. Explore them all by acting on each and interacting with those you know and meet.
By working with the means already within your control, and leveraging what other people can do, you not only avoid the trap of analysis-paralysis, you also reduce the risk that's associated with uncertainty.
This does not mean you have to give up your specific dream. It only means you don't let it control you by narrowing your choices or wasting your many other talents or not recognizing people who could help you.
Because
you're focused on what you can do, your means rather than your
dreams, you can start building your venture right away while keeping
control in the face of an unpredictable future.
You may wonder how you can keep control while partnering with all kinds of people who may or may not want what you want. That's the subject of a future column. For now, keep in mind that control doesn't mean manipulate.
Control becomes manipulation when you lead people to do what they don't really want to do. The bird-in-hand principle is about authenticity and to make others behave un-authentically is to miss its power.
Gregory's subtle story shows that the logic of identity is not as straightforward as we'd like to believe. Who we are is a function of many things.
But even if identity is just a fiction, just a figurehead, as Dr Subramanian says, it is this integrating, sense-making figurehead, the logic of identity, that helps us rewrite the stories of our lives.
You may wonder how you can keep control while partnering with all kinds of people who may or may not want what you want. That's the subject of a future column. For now, keep in mind that control doesn't mean manipulate.
Control becomes manipulation when you lead people to do what they don't really want to do. The bird-in-hand principle is about authenticity and to make others behave un-authentically is to miss its power.
Gregory's subtle story shows that the logic of identity is not as straightforward as we'd like to believe. Who we are is a function of many things.
But even if identity is just a fiction, just a figurehead, as Dr Subramanian says, it is this integrating, sense-making figurehead, the logic of identity, that helps us rewrite the stories of our lives.
By
Saras Sarasvathy
(The
author is the Isidore Horween Research Professor, The Darden Graduate
School of Business, University of Virginia)
CDET140919
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