Product Owners, Do You Have an Entrepreneurial Mindset?

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones are pure perseverance.” — Steve Jobs

How can we establish such a team having team members where every individual is like an entrepreneur? Where they are committed, they own everything, they are motivated to contribute to something bigger, better, and they explore to learn more about themselves and about the organization.

?Below are the some of the factors which drive an Entrepreneurial Mindset:

The organization will be able to deal with higher challenges when we have Product owners who are having such a mindset. Product owners are the CEO of the products. If he/she is having such sprit with that such organization can grow into a large leap forward.

a) Desire and willingness to take the initiative: Product owners are the drivers of all initiatives. They will jump into the challenges, thinking all these are opportunities. With such a mindset, individuals will be able to come up with innovative ideas to tackle the organization in the forward direction.

b) Preference for moderate risk: The path is full of risk, and willingness to take calculated risk is effective. The goal may appear to be high - even impossible for others’ perspectives but the product owner should be able to figure out through the situation and believe that goals are reasonable and attainable. The optimistic quality will encourage such individuals to take up the risks.

c) Courage & Confidence: Such individuals demonstrate a great amount of courage and confidence in the given assignment. They are curious to explore the world and that is the major driver of high confidence. They may face many hurdles on the?way?with help?of?great collaboration skills, they will be able to overcome all the challenges. It is their strong willpower has?enabled them to be a winners.

d) Self- Reliance : Product owners are continuous learners. They research a lot on the problems they are having. They build focus groups to explore the unknown. In the process, they become self-reliant on their own journey.

e) Perseverance: Most of the time in software product development things will not move as per the expectation, such product owners do not give up. They keep going on their path. Japanese proverb applies here , “Fall seven times, stand up eight”

f) Feedback: They seek feedback for improvement. They can not live in the dark on their journey. That is their personality type. Nothing gives better feedback than your own business.

g) High level of energy: Product owners are highly energetic in their endeavors. The secret to their success is high passion and energy. It is one of the critical factors to becoming successful in any start-up company. Long hours of work are the norm here. Building a business from level 0 demands considerable endurance.

h) Competitiveness: This is one of the team spirits all startup individuals enjoy. They love to win and for that, they would prefer to go for the extra mile and seize the winning moment. It is a part of excellence.

i) Future Orientation: They dream big and formulate a plan to achieve the dream. They would live to solve a problem for mankind and build a better place to live for. They have a well-defined sense of searching for opportunities. They look ahead and are less concerned with what they have accomplished yesterday than with what they can do tomorrow. They are always vigilant for new business opportunities. They have eyes to spot the opportunity.

j) Skill at organizing: Managers and leaders should know how to put the right people and resources together to accomplish a task. Effectively combining people and enabling jobs to be done helps entrepreneurs to bring their vision into reality.

k) Value of achievement over money: Such personalities are achievement-driven. Achievement is their primary motive. Money is a simple way of “keeping score” of accomplishment- a symbol of achievement. Money is just a byproduct of achievement.

l) A high degree of commitment: They are completely immersed in their work. Such traits helped them?to?overcome business-threatening mistakes, obstacles, pessimism, etc.

m) Tolerance for ambiguity: They have a high tolerance for ambiguity as the situation is ever-changing. This is the ambient most of the startup space operates. The ability to handle uncertainty is critical in this game. They have to quickly make decisions in this situation based on data that comes from unfamiliar sources.

n) Flexibility: they are highly adaptable, as, in the rapidly changing world economy, rigidity often leads to failure. The social and technological ambient, everything is changing, and they have to adapt to thrive in the business. This attitude helps the business model to evolve as market conditions warrant.

o) Tenacity: obstacles and defeat typically do not dissuade team members from doggedly pursuing their vision. They have the will power to conquer barriers that stand in the way of success.

Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.” - Unknown

When you are coaching your product owners, do you find gaps? What are you doing to bridge those gaps?

How can you make this artist an Entrepreneur?