This story appears in the
December 2001 issue of
Entrepreneur.
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Psychics predict the future. Entrepreneurs make their own
future.
At least that's what a recent study from the University of
Washington in Seattle suggests. Instead of trying to predict how
markets will behave, entrepreneurs launch companies with little
regard for market predictions and focus instead on the issues they
can control.
Saras D. Sarasvathy, an assistant entrepreneurship professor at
the University of Washington Business School, conducted the study
of 27 entrepreneurs, whose companies grossed between $200 million
and $6.7 billion annually. While companies varied in type and
industry, Sarasvathy found that overall, entrepreneurs eschew
predictions, preferring instead to create their own market
possibilities by making good decisions in the areas they can
control.
Says Sarasvathy, "To the extent that you can control the
future, you don't need to predict it." The challenge, of
course, always comes in controlling the future. "The
interesting thing to realize is that the future is the result of a
lot of decisions we make," says Sarasvathy. "The
decisions people make are what create the future."
What does this mean for entrepreneurship training-especially in
MBA programs, which focus largely on predicting market forces?
Sarasvathy says professors like herself should emphasize the
development of proactive decision-making and failure management,
rather than failure avoidance: "[In this way], you start
controlling and creating markets, controlling and creating firms,
controlling and creating economic possibilities."