When Peter Mann describes the way of his business runs, he said that as they are not a huge company in terms of numbers, so everybody has an input into minor decision-making. It is a good decision-making approach to me as I think that everyone can contribute to the company. Peter Mann is also a good leader in the company in my opinion as I can see it in his sales and marketing strategy, which is “Be positive to everybody about your company and so just make sure everyone knows what you’re doing That’s marketing, that’s word of mouth”. His approach to negotiation is good as well because his company did not have enough money to employ people and to reach major clients, so they went out and managed to get venture capital. And it is also important to have a good negotiation skill if they want to reach the major clients successfully.
However, the making-decision process of comparing and evaluating alternatives does not appears in Peter Mann’s approach as he said that “When I think we started to get just a little bit conceited about how we picked what we did. Basically, we had an idea and we went for it; we hired contractors, we signed contracts to get the work done, and then afterwards did the research on it and found that we’d made some fundamental miscalculations about the value of this product and the competitive environment of the product. That was a waste of a serious amount of cash.” In this aspect, I suggest that using the decision-making process- doing the full research and then compare and evaluate with others will be improved this problem. Money is one of Peter’s aims but he said that it is not his main aim.
Another entrepreneur who I am going to introduce is David Lane. Sir David Lane graduated at University College, London and he carried out Post Doctoral Research at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. He also set up his own laboratory at Imperial College, London, moved to the ICRF laboratories at Clare Hall before moving to Dundee to help establish the CRC laboratories there. He is co-author of the successful guidebook, “Antibodies“. Professor Sir David Lane is the Director of the Cancer Research Campaign’s Cell Transformation Research Group at the University of Dundee. He is also the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Cyclacel, a company developing drugs for treatment of Cancer. Sir David is well known for his speaking to non-specialist groups and for his clarifying reviews. He was the second most highly cited Medical Scientist in the UK in the last decade and was knighted in this year’s honours list.
Sir David Lane starts up his because he felt he wasn’t able to achieve the objectives he wanted with the existing organisations he had worked, by starting his own company, he could able to bring intense focus to what he wanted to achieve and to shepherd those things through and make them happen.
When Sir David Lane describes the way of his company runs, he said that it was run in a pretty strictly organised way that is, keeping track of how money spent and how they are convincing their shareholders that they are doing the right thing. They are also tracking back every piece of the work, so it creates a very different environment, a very different culture. But he said that he find that many people find it very satisfying because their work as a team is so much recognised as a team. Sir David Lane also describes himself as a friendly sort of person and he like people, he like to inspire people and he like to get people to achieve.
In my point of view, His leadership style is not authoritative as he likes team controlling and motivates people. He also has a good approach to negotiation when he manages to raise money. He has good negotiation skill, which persuade the London bankers successfully that their money would be safely invested in Dundee. Outside helped was also used by Sir David Lane such as the University’s research department, the Cancer Campaign Technology Transfer Company as well as the venture capitalist, Chris. David said that if he without Chris’ enthusiasm and risk taking, he would not be able to establish the company.
When comparing with this two entrepreneur, with regard to decision-making process, Sir David Lane is based more on research while Peter Mann doesn’t. Peter Mann thinks that spending too much time on research will give people chance to practice your idea. Also, there is a different view of money between Sir David Lane and Peter Mann. Money is important to David Lane as he describes it is the engine that drive for whole process while Peter said that money is not his main aim.
To conclude, according to both entrepreneurs, the approaches to negotiation, decision-making and the style of leadership is very important to business, both business are run in a very organised way and the work is also carried out in a team manner.
SECTION 2
In the integrative core session, I have learnt the decision-making, negotiation and leadership through the exercise and it all helps me to understanding of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behaviour.
From the decision-making exercise, for example, the Kelvin hall case study, our group need to carefully dealing with the future of Kelvin hall and advise on the best option to adopt. We need to consider all the option carefully as it will cause many consequences such as the social, economical and political problems. From this exercise, I have learnt that good decision- making is vital for entrepreneurs as it is very risky. A wrong decision-making will lost a lot of money and therefore it is important to carefully analysis all the alternatives and evaluate and compare with all the options to make the best decision.
In the negotiation exercise, which we need to group as a team representing either Glasgow Council or Sports Scotland, to come up some agreement as to what the future of Kelvin hall should be. In this exercise, we need to prepare the issues, debate to get more we want to get from the other party, propose and bargain and at last conclude the agreement. And through this exercise, I realize that an effective approach to negotiation is important for entrepreneurship, as it is a way of communication and trading that to get what you want and need for your business.
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In the Leadership exercise, we were given a group task to decide in what order of importance we would take items with us when stranded at sea. For one particular item-gas-we were stuck as a group and cannot come to a cohesive decision about where to put this item in the list. And then one of our group member make a decision, and then she ask everyone in our group for opinion. When all of our group mates agree and she leading our group to the next items. In this exercise, I understand that a leader need to have a good communication, judgment, faith, have determination, have persuasion, vision and power. Looking back to these interpersonal skills a good leader have, I think that the entrepreneurial behavior also involves having a good communication, a vision and being determined to get what he want to get. And I think that communication is a very important part for entrepreneurship as they can learn a lot from others who have been in similar situations and receive valuable advice in order to understand all the risks involved and therefore to make their business to be success.
