BizThoughts

Just so I could relive my college days, I attended Stanford's Conference on Entrepreneurship yesterday. The conference was just a one-day event within Stanford's Entrepreneurship Week from February 22 – 29. (You have one more day left!)

One of the sessions I attended was Professor Jeff Pfeffer's "Top Ten Mistakes that Entrepreneurs Make". Pfeffer is a professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Judging from the packed classroom, he's also a popular professor. With good reason too, it seemed. His lecture was pretty funny and engaging, with stories and personal anecdotes sprinkled throughout.

Though I jotted down a ton of chicken scratch, I was able to get Pfeffer's top ten mistakes that entrepreneurs make:

1. Too much CEO ego.
2. Too little regard for the self-esteem needs of others.
3. Too much time, attention, & emphasis on "strategy" & analysis, and not enough time on "execution."
4. Too little emphasis on the importance of people & culture.
5. Too much belief in the saving grace of "miracle" technologies & "big brains," particularly in high-tech fields.
6. Too much emphasis on budgets & financial controls; not enough attention to customer satisfaction and employee attraction & engagement
7. Not enough attention to and knowledge of competition & competitors, including tracking their sales & market share
8. Too much emphasis on individual performance and too little attention to context & situation within which that individual performance occurs.
9. Excessive reliance on financial incentives for alignment, motivation, & communication.
10. Not enough consideration of or attention to underlying assumptions & feedback effects.

This is just a quick recap; he had a ton more information. I hope he doesn't mind my posting these notes. I would guess not, since attending his lectures is an experience mere notes could never convey.

If you attended Entrepreneurship Week too, what did you think of the other sessions?