Many people wonder if there is an ideal or more appropriate time to undertake and, also, if the fulfillment of business objectives just depends only on the way we act. Both questions led us to talk with Carlos Quintana, founding partner of Consultores Avante, a consulting firm in planning processes and organizational transformation, as well as strengthening leadership skills.
Quintana has accumulated high-level professional experiences in the corporate world, where he has made a progressive career for 30 years, as well as subsequently in the field of executive development advice. Currently, his main focus is on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, and on the identification of the key factors that drive the successful consolidation in disruptive environments and high uncertainty.
Undertaking is the starting point
In Avante, we are convinced about the fact that there are ways to go, and it all starts when we take the first step. But, as we know, a single step is not enough despite the fact that it constitutes an act of great value, because the rest would not exist without it, says Carlos Quintana.
“That initial impulse will require others as a consequence, and will activate the gears of entrepreneurship. Thus, undertaking is then the starting point”, he says.
Observing this phenomenon and its displacement towards the point of attention and relevance that it has reached in the socio-economic sphere of much of the contemporary world, he has found a series of notions he wants to share, considering them of importance for the reflection of those who are interested in the subject either from the perspective of execution (entrepreneurs) or from their study.
The key idea
Quintana points out that in the genesis of every venture there is an idea (…): How to meet a need that many people have? (…) How to make easy some aspects of people’s lives and which seems complicated for some communities? (…) How to bring people what many individuals want but just a few have?”.
When ideas are answers to questions like the previous ones, they become the seeds of entrepreneurship. But, for this to be so, “we would need to find articulation mechanisms that allow ideas to link so that they create an echo and trigger the process,” said the interviewee.
“It is the first test. In order for the venture to begin, for the first step to be taken, it is necessary and prudent for the idea to go through a series of filters that verify its feasibility. In other words, it needs to make sense to be carried out. Undertaking is not chasing windmills!,” says Quintana.
The consultant and founder of Avante states that ideas have to be feasible. It must be possible to execute them, put them into practice. And they have to be viable. It should be possible to implement them with available or potential resources.
The purpose
“We have already said it. Having a feasible and viable idea is not enough,” Quintana insists. For entrepreneurship, that idea must include an intention. A purpose is an idea with intention.
“The purpose indicates the direction of the venture, the north of its compass. When the purpose is clear, it becomes easier for others to visualize the entrepreneurial proposal and enthusiastically incorporate what is required to materialize it and put it into practice,” he adds.
In the next part of this conversation and interview, Carlos Quintana (@CQideas) will refer to key aspects of entrepreneurship, such as organization, planning and execution.
With information from DobleLlave
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