Growth pains are an integral part of human life. The baby grows into a man or a woman, and this growth is accompanied with some pain—physical and emotional. As an entrepreneur grows along with his initiative or organization, he and his organization face the attention of jealous competition, non-performing disgruntled employees or business associates, media mischief-mongers and unsuccessful or not-so-successful wannabes.
So what does an entrepreneur do when his initiative or he are under attack by malicious and anonymous entities?
 |
| Anurag Batra |
With blogs and social media, anonymous, malicious posts with no real substance (in many cases), but malicious intent and jealous opinions, have been manifesting themselves. How does an entrepreneur deal with all this? How does he segregate the criticism of his venture with a criticism of himself? Should he totally ignore it and focus on further building his initiative?
Yes, of course. Most of the times it is difficult to segregate the entrepreneur from his initiative, they are both intertwined. An entrepreneur builds his entity by immersing his complete being into the enterprise and so an attack on the enterprise is an attack on the entrepreneur, and vice-versa. However, there is little one can do about it, and so while it is important to take the necessary steps to curtail such remarks and send out the signal that the entrepreneur will not take this “lying down,” from a personal perspective, it is best to ignore such remarks.
The thing is, an entrepreneur realizes that no decision goes down well with everyone, and so it is impossible to keep everyone happy. Also, there are times when an entrepreneur has to take decisions that are unpopular, but necessary—and the criticism is just part of the package. Criticism is a sign of success and importance, and part and parcel of the entire entrepreneurial package (as they say, “nobody kicks a dead dog”). An acid test that the entrepreneur can perform is to ask himself would he have taken the same decision had he known that the criticism was coming? In most cases, the answer would have been a “yes”, and so it would not matter in any case.
In short, ups and downs and over-jealous association is a part of the entrepreneurship journey. To be an entrepreneur is to take some calculated risks, and it is statistically impossible to get no detrimental outcome from all business risks.
In the last few months, I have personally experienced this and moved forward from all the attention and my submission (as wiser men tell me) is that it is a natural corollary to success.
I am reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote, “Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. The best way to handle these critics is to “answer them with silence and indifference. It works better; I assure you, than anger and argument.”
Having said that, entrepreneurs are sensitive human beings, perceptive and seeking acceptance for what they do and hence, it not easy to be indifferent even if you know it is a hallow criticism coming from or inspired by competition. The best way is to continue to create success and silence your critics.
They say that if you have no critics you are likely to have no success.
As a very successful female anchor in the news broadcast business once told me, when I confronted her with the question of how she handles all the negative publicity she gets and the not-so-kind posts in the blogosphere, that she initially used to get upset and affected, but has now come to accept this as an occupational hazard. Criticism is the price you pay for success and for being famous.
My advice to entrepreneurs is to march on, do your thing, and create successes and enterprises. As Mark Twain once said, “It is the will of God that we must have critics and missionaries and congressmen and humorists and we must bear the burden.” I must also say here that I admire politicians, and we as entrepreneurs must learn and take inspiration from them on how despite scathing criticism, they go on doing their thankless job and serve this nation.
A final quote that springs to mind is sales guru Og Mandino’s thoughts on the subject—“Always reward your long hours of labor and toll in the very best way, surrounded by your family. Nurture their lover carefully, remembering that your children need models not critics and your own progress will hasten when you constantly strive to present your best side to your children. And even if you have failed at all else in the eyes of the world, if you have a loving family, you are a success.”
Anurag Batra is real life, first-generation entrepreneur who is Much Below Average (MBA) from the prestigious Management Development Institute, MDI. When he is not busy writing such columns, he can be reached at anuragbatrayo@gmail.com.
Anurag is the founder and editor-in-chief of exchange4media group which includes exchange4media.com.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
