The first person I interviewed was Kelly Bousman. I had met her during one of Marty’s panel discussions in his Debates and Dilemmas in Entrepreneurship class last semester. Kelly is a business developer and has recently been involved in the start-up of the Tampa Bay Wave, where she works as a mentor providing advice and guidance to new entrepreneurs, similar to the Gator Hatchery here at UF.
In Marty’s class and in our conversation, we had discussed the concepts of business strategy and growth. Having experienced the rise and fall of so many companies, Sue was able to offer a lot of insight into business development. A great quote she gave me is that “Every stage of growth is preceded by a stage of reinvention.” I think this is super important, because in order to be successful, it is necessary to constantly look toward the future, and the future requires change. At some point, the market or business environment will change, and the business must be prepared for this process. Kelly has reinvented her company several times, and that reinvention has made it even more successful.
As we were talking, I told Kelly about my work with DECA, and she gave me some great teaching tools as well. One of the most useful tools she gave me was the following acronym, GOST:
Goals
Objectives
Strategy
Tactics
I actually used this acronym to teach a couple girls at my home DECA chapter, when they were getting confused between goals and objectives. Their minds were blown, and I actually saw them using it in their paper afterwards. She told me that through this acronym, the team can not only better set its goals and mission, but it can also better outline the core values of the company and keep employees on track as they build their companies or begin new projects.
I also asked her about her experience as a mentor at the Tampa Bay Wave compared to her leadership role in the company. She told me that being a business mentor is just as much a learning experience, as with her company, as it is a teaching experience. She’s learned about other industries that she’s mentored, and learned from mistakes. However, she’s used many more of her past mistakes as an entrepreneur to provide guidance to the companies she’s mentoring, so they don’t make the same mistakes. In regard to how she’s going to help me, we are currently discussing an opportunity for her to review my curriculum from a business perspective, and even promote my business workbook to the businesses she incubates and the students she works with.
I also interviewed Paul Wardinski, the Executive Director of DECA Inc. We didn’t get to speak for long, but I had some time to speak with him during a conference last semester and throughout this year because I’m doing work creating educational materials for DECA Inc.
The conversation was extremely valuable. Paul is not necessarily an entrepreneur, but he has the entrepreneurial mindset to lead and change an organization of over 215,000 members and advisors. DECA is a 501(c)3, and in the organization there are staff members as well as a Board of Advisors who make decisions. As a result of this, new ideas and change within DECA are very slow. Paul is in his third year as Executive Director of DECA Inc., and has already been making improvements and changes. In our discussion, I asked him how he approached entering the organization as the “new guy” in control and what his strategy was to lead the organization toward change. Much of what he told me reflected several of the Laws of Leadership. He told me that a huge part of creating change is getting the team on board by making them feel like a community and by making them feel like they are a part of the change. Every Monday, the Executive Staff has Executive Council meetings to go over ideas and progress, and if there’s a new idea out, they all have a vote. It may take a bit longer this way, but when the final decision is made, there’s more unification in implementation. To me, he’s really implementing the Law of Addition. I also think he’s leading using the Law of Legacy. Although he isn’t finished with his job yet, he has created new initiatives in DECA that he wants to strengthen the organization even after he leaves. For example, we were discussing a project, The DECA 100, that could become a long-standing tradition in DECA. Even though some of his projects are just beginning, he is ultimately making changes in order to create the most value within his position and within the company.
Speaking to Paul Wardinski, I also gained some insight into what motivates his leadership style. He is very family-oriented, and tries hard to understand the values of his co-workers. His wife is a DECA Advisor, and one of his daughters is currently in DECA at the high school level; he is a DECA family and is very committed to the organization. Through his family, he can gain insight into the teacher’s and the student’s perspective of the organization, which I think is a really valuable asset. As a leader, I think it’s extremely important to consider every perspective, and sometimes leaders at the top lose sight of that. I can connect it to teachers; I feel like for some teachers, there comes a point where they teach the same lessons over and over, and they stop being learners. At that point, they aren’t seeing new perspectives to teach their students.
The interview with Paul was extremely valuable, especially for me, because I want to work with/for him as a DECA Advisor or DECA Inc. Staff member in the future. I actually told him this, and his response was that I technically already am doing that because of my workbooks. However, this conversation gave me a ton of great insight into the day-to-day operations and leadership within the organization. In addition, he provided me with very valuable insight into selling business curriculum to high school school systems, and how I could penetrate the market. He also said I may be able to use his network in order to get my foot in the door.
The next person I interviewed was Dr. Michael Morris, a UF professor at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. I had seen Dr. Morris teach at his Business Plan Lab last Spring, and knew he needed to be one of the people I interviewed. When I listened to him teach, it was amazing. He could draw back on his own experiences, but even more than that, he knew how to boil down to the key concepts and show how everything in business connects. Watching him teach, I realize that is how I’d like to teach in the future: knowing so much and having so much experience, that every time a student walks away they feel like they’ve gained a completely new understanding of business.
When we spoke, I asked Dr. Morris about his opinion on whether or not entrepreneurship or leadership can really be taught, or if it’s something, a set of qualities or skills, that you need to be born with. He drew on his experiences not only in previous ventures, but also from the Big Idea Competition. He told me about how each year, there are a ton of teams that sign up to participate, but by the time final submissions roll around there are significantly less still in the game. Basically, you can learn the fundamental concepts of entrepreneurship and leadership: how to inspire a team, how to start up a company, the components of running a functioning business. However, being a leader or an entrepreneur requires more than just knowledge, it requires the drive and the determination to actually do it. Without that determination, it doesn’t matter how much you learn, because a plan will always change and you need to be ready, willing, and able to adapt and work hard in order to move forward.
I also asked Dr. Morris what his biggest piece of advice would be to an aspiring entrepreneur. His response is that “You’ve got to have a passion for whatever you do, it’s the only thing that will carry you through, in terms of setbacks, obstacles, and anything that will make any money or have any impact.” He also said that you need to be disciplined, and can’t try to be all things to all people. This resonated with me, because I’ve been in that position learning to manage a team and delegating, and realizing that I a) can’t make everybody happy all the time and b) can’t do everything by myself. In business, it is vital to have a strong inner circle and to trust your inner circle, so you have help to make you stronger. In addition, when your team is diverse and has skills that you don’t they challenge you and make you stronger as a leader, and the sum is greater than the whole.
Dr. Morris is a very valuable resource to me because he has developed so much of his own business curriculum in the past. He is connecting with several business educators to review my work from an educational perspective in order to give my products more validity.
This experience definitely shaped the way that I network with people. Expanding your network is extremely important, especially as an entrepreneur. Through this experience, I have become more confident in my exchanges both personally and professionally with people within and outside of my network.
