Entrepreneurial rollercoaster- am happy, have vision; am sad, will focus on task

Cross-posted from my Psychology blog, The Mouse Trap, as this has relevance to entrepreneurs and web-squared audience may benefit from the tips here.

There is a recent article by foo et al, that shows , using Experience Sampling method, that entrepreneurs, when in a negative mood (not necessarily sad, but including anger, irritability etc...sorry for misleading headline:-) are more likely to be focusing on the task at hand; while those same entrepreneurs , when they were in a happy or positive mood would be more likely to be spending efforts on tasks that are more future directed. They interpret their finding in terms of the affect-as-information theory, whereby a positive affect signals that everything is hunky-dory in the present and one can take chances and focus on the future instead; while a negative affect is an indication that things are not going well and one needs to focus on the tasks at hand.  To quote:

Our findings suggest that affect serves as a source of information for entrepreneurs. As argued in the affect-as-information theory, negative affect signals that things are not going well in the venture and may lead entrepreneurs to expend more effort on venture tasks requiring immediate attention. An unexpected finding was that negative affect also increased venture efforts beyond what is immediately required. Because negative affect signals that something is wrong in the venture situation, it could lead entrepreneurs to engage in precautionary behaviors to prevent future damage to the venture.

Positive affect signals that things are going well in the venture, and, using affect-as-information theory, one might expect the entrepreneur to reduce effort because all is well at the moment. In the present study of entrepreneurs, we argued that positive affect should increase venture efforts. It is precisely because positive affect signals that things are going well at the moment that the entrepreneur’s focus can shift to the future, and such focus motivates the entrepreneur to work harder because it promotes behaviors to achieve desired future outcomes (Karniol & Ross 1996). This argument was supported, because our findings showed that future temporal focus mediated the link between positive affect and venture efforts beyond what is immediately required (next-day lagged outcome). Although not hypothesized, positive affect was also found to increase effort on tasks immediately required, and a future temporal focus also mediated the link between positive affect and venture tasks immediately required (with a next-day lag). Striving toward desired future states involves bridging the present and the future (Karniol & Ross, 1996). When entrepreneurs focus on the future, they may not neglect the present, as knowledge of the present may be required to determine how one can reach the desired outcome. To become successful in their venture pursuits, entrepreneurs should be able to integrate the present and future time horizons (Bird & West, 1997). They must be able to make sense of the here and now and the what will be and establish a coherent link between them.

I , would , of course , not restrict myself to what the authors conclude but , as is my ilk, would like to extend the findings and relate to other stuff. For example, I have written earlier about the Promotion and Prevention focus and how promotion focus is related to happiness/mania; while preventive focus may be more related to sadness/depression. Although, not mutually exclusive, a new hypothesis could be that the affect was due to promotion and preventive focus, which itself was due to either the environment was risky or risk-free. The same risky or risk-free environment which led to the negative or positive mood also lead to focusing on the here-and-now or on the future. I'm also tempted to correlate this with some other articles I came across recently-namely one that found that future orientation leads to creativity, while if there is not enough psychological distance we tend to be not -so creative; Could it also be that that is why entrepreneurs long-term strategies and visions are creative; while their short term tactics and day to day handling of affairs is mundane; while we are on the subject of creativity and vagueness (either in distance or space or time or abstractness) another study found that being primed about or thinking about Love leads to creativity while being primed with Lust leads to better analytical ability; is analytical ability much different from focusing on here-and-now; while creativity more future oriented? All these have important implications on how you can use your affect to either focus on hand in an analytical manner or solve problems in future creatively and with vision. As a last afterthought, is that why Manics, who are extremely happy, have such grand visions of future and are so future directed and entrepreneurial in spirit?

My claim to Entrepreneurship!

Image by bbcworldservice via Flickr

Today I came across a post on trak.in about "The anatomy of an entrepreneur" , and though I haven't read the original report in full yet, I am hooked to the report and would like to put forward my claims to be an entrepreneur. Firstly somewhat off-topic, I had became deeply interested in Psychology after reading "Anatomy of human destructiveness" and whether I became a good psychologist or not, I have managed to put together a good blog on the same after reading that decisive book that has affected my life to great degree; and though I had become interested in starting my own venture some time back, and this report is in no way a turning point or I would credit as being a seminal influence, it is timely in the sense that I can relate to it and find solace in the fact that I fit the profile of an entrepreneur to a T. And going by my track record, you can be assured that I may fail as an entrepreneur, but I'll hopefully be able to create valuable content for other like-minded folks as I venture on my fools quest , by sharing my experiences and knowledge by means of this Web-Squared blog.

So what are the findings of the report? As summarized by Arun at Trak.in:

Here is your Typical Entrepreneur

* He is from a middle-class or upper lower-class background, and very few come from backgrounds of extreme wealth or extreme poverty.
* He is usually well educated, with only 5 percent or less having a bachelor’s degree.
* He likely to be better educated than their parents were, with half his fathers and a third of their mothers having at least bachelors’ degrees.
* He performed well in high school and in college, with the vast majority ranking average or above in their respective institutions.
* He necessarily does not come from families of entrepreneurs; slightly more than half are the first in their families to launch businesses.
* On average, he tends to be the middle child in a three-child household.
* He is significantly more likely to be married and have children when they launch their first businesses.
* He is far more likely to have worked for an employer for more than six years than to have quickly launched their own businesses.
* His primary motivation for launching a business are to build wealth, to own his own company, and to capitalize on a business idea that he has.

And what is my claim to applying for the entrepreneurial tag?

I am reasonably middle-aged (ya to me 33 is middle-aged), from a middle-class family background, reasonably well-educated (B. Tech from IITD) , better educated then my parents (they both have masters in their subjects; but they are educators; I am an engineer:-) , from a family background where literally no one deep down the line of ancestry had even dreamed of being an entrepreneur; had performed well in high school ,  not so well in college (never had the ganda fighter spirit) , married and having a child; worked for an employer for more than 6 yrs; total industry experience close to 11 yrs; and my motivation to launch my own business is to capitalize on an idea and to be my own boss (making wealth is secondary).

Also, the non-factors are pretty pertinent- the inability to find  employment has never been a factor and never will be- I just wish I was more lucky and had got more encouragement from F&F to start my venture early, but it is never too late! Also, important to note is that even this entrepreneurial group is fragmented in two sub groups and I clearly belong to the late blooming group rather than the group of entrepreneurs that knew they would start their own company soon/eventually, even while in college.

So what domain I am planning to work in? It is the web domain, more specifically social web/ semantic web and perhaps the right time to share another relevant report I discovered today (still not read fully) about the social media landscape in India. Do let me know , by means of comments, whether you would like this to be a purely Tech focused blog, or wont mind an occasional business angle being discussed/ touched upon!