Trade News

What does it take to succeed in business?

October 31, 2006

Finding success in business requires a combunation of key traits, says one expert.

Countless volumes have been written on what makes a businessperson successful. While each has its own angle, most acknowledge that it’s a combination of key traits. According to one expert on the subject, it takes a mix of intuition, wisdom, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurial giftedness and managerial talent.

Larisa Shavinina, an internationally renowned professor of management at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, points out that the brightest names in business can pull from an array of

entrepreneurial tools at their disposal.

“When Michael Dell decided to expand his young computer company internationally, they told him he was out of his mind,” she says. Yet Dell’s first international expansion was to the United Kingdom in 1987 and the business was profitable from its very first days.

According to Shavinina, all but one of the 22 reporters at the press conference announcing Dell’s expansion predicted failure. They said it was a bad idea, that the direct business model was an American invention that would not work in other countries. Even Dell employees believed it was silly.

So what does Dell’s success say about leadership? In his own words, the lesson is “believe in what you’re doing. If you’ve got an idea that’s really powerful, you’ve just got to ignore the people who tell you it won’t work, and hire people who embrace your vision.”

Shavinina says that it was also tough going for other business superstars, like Sony’s Akio Morita.

Morita could not find American distributors for Sony products—the same line of products that later included Sony’s ubiquitous (and profitable) Walkman. “Sony’s Walkman is one of the best examples,” says Shavinina. “It emerged despite strong market research that suggested that there was no demand for this kind of product, but only Morita’s intuition saved it.

The professor points out that while one can’t underestimate the power of market research, it is just one factor among many that can make a product or service a big seller. She says it’s important to emphasize a combination of business traits because if, for example, intuition fails an exporter, then managerial talent, market research and creativity can pick up the pieces. “We know that if exporters have highly developed compensatory mechanisms, success is more likely.”

Of these traits, intuition may be the most powerful. Herbert Simon, who won a Nobel prize in 1978 for his work on decision-making and problem-solving, explained why it is impossible to make any important decision simply by gathering and analyzing all the facts. According to Simon, there are too many facts and too many combinations of facts. The more complex the decision, the faster the complications add up.

Researchers suggest that intuition, in the form of very large repertoires of patterns acquired over years of practice, helps people make better decisions. Formal analyses can be valuable to supplement intuition, but it cannot replace it.

Shavinina, who conducts workshops on developing these important business traits, says that “tapping unconventional approaches, a good dose of creativity and the ability to solve problems in innovative ways are great learning tools for today’s exporters. If it worked for Dell and Morita, it could work for any Canadian exporter.”

For more information, go to www.innocrex.com.