They are Innovative, Integrative, Intelligent, Imaginative, Multi-Cultural, Multi National and Multi Lingual. The dreams of tomorrow beckon, the world holds abundant opportunities for those who keep moving forward. World class “Hepta Entrepreneurs” never stand still.
They have the innate ability to move with speed and agility, vision and desire, and the will to get the job done. These young, and sometimes not so young disruptors, innovators and entrepreneurs represent the best of our and the next generation.
Heptas are engaging bright stars, creative and hardworking, impatient to change the world. They bring their passion, smarts and energy to startups and family businesses by making their mark and gaining credibility across diverse sectors.
As progression is vital for enduring success, risks and obstacles may abound. Change can often be disruptive, yet the future belongs to those who keep striving towards the next horizon- the iGeneration of Hepta Entrepreneurs. There are many ways to move forward, but only one way to standstill.The future is partly influenced by the past, but more importantly, it is shaped by the actions of today. As Albert Einstein once said that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
Well, today’s “Hepta Entrepreneurs”as I call them, will never have to worry about such stagnation. They are innovative, integrative, intelligent, imaginative, multi-cultural, multi-national and multi-lingual; they have it all. Type A personality is usually an understatement for this population; Type AAA, the energizer bunny on steroids with the attention span of a flickering light bulb, is a much more fitting description. They spend almost all their time in front of the computer attending to concurrent conversations on Google chat in multiple languages, answering 10 incoming emails with attachments needing immediate attention, they answer their Blackberry while texting and ordering pizza on the IPhone. Oh, let’s not forget, they still manage to follow BBC’s breaking world news on the large screen TV while keeping an eye on the stock market picture in picture, all while listening to the latest Shakira CD and chewing gum. Welcome to the world of todays’ multitasking hepta innovators!
Hepta entrepreneurs are behind some of the world’s best companies, big or small, as they can pioneer new industries, disrupt others, design superior products and services, and bring them to market faster and at lower cost. As CEOs and entrepreneurs they have to propel their companies from one stage of growth to another, from startup to profit, or small enterprise to big business, create opportunities out of their imagination and realize their dreams through tenacity and hard work..They have to lead with clarity and vision to achieve enduring success and take their companies from one stage of growth to another, expand across borders and diversify into new business lines. Some CEOs adopt the entrepreneurial attitude of being a ‘perennial startup’ to stay ever nimble, agile and poised for growth. They know how to keep customers and employees happy, raise funding, manage capital and keep their investors satisfied.
Today’s hot hepta entrepreneurs can be identified by “7” distinct characteristics essential to a companies future success. And, oddly enough, since Ancient times, in Greek mythology, the number seven “hepta” held a very special meaning. There were Seven Wise Men, Seven Sages, Seven Against Thebes, the Pleiades were Seven Sisters, there are Seven Liberal Arts and Seven Wonders of the World denoting beauty and prosperity. Christianity mentions the number Seven countless times in the Bible, Rome was built on Seven Hills, the Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, Seven Sacraments, Seventh day of rest, Noah’s 7 laws, Geneses 7:2 , Jericho, Seventh year, Seven years for love and Seven Days to solve a Riddle. Judaism has the Seven branched Menorah, Seven days of Sukkot, Seven Hakafot, Seven weeks Shavuot, sitting Shiva Seven days and there are Seven Blessings being recited at a Jewish wedding. In Islam there are 7 verses in the first sura, the book of Revelations talks about Seven Stars and Seven lampstands, Seven spirits of God, Seven thunders, Seventh angel of the Apocalypse.
Hepta entrepreneurs evolve from one success to the next helping policymakers to keep raising their countries’ global competitiveness. Their attitudes energize companies, recalibrate their growth engines to create new value, revitalize their culture and performance. These people move at the speed of light, are highly educated, intelligent, culturally savvy, flexible, innovative world citizen forming the backbone of successful global companies. They transcend international borders, master cultural norms and easily overcome language barriers as most of them have been raised at least in a bi-lingual environment.
This iGeneration is emerged in the technological revolution, driven by ambition, fierce competitiveness and search for Uber-prosperity. They easily establish cross-functional working relationships, maintain long distance communication, overcome stranger anxiety as their main modus operandi is behind an impersonal computer screen allowing for and encouraging unconventional language use. They thrive on task complexity, excel under pressure, perform at their peak in stressful situations and experience an endorphin rush only parallel to that of a climber conquering a high mountain peak during stormy weather. For the most part these emerging leaders were brought up in heterogeneous cultures, are multi -lingual which facilitated the development of a filter by which to view and understand the world around them. The hepta’s core is a multifaceted, filled with contradictions, built around their experiences with conflict, alternate belief systems and new ways of behaving in foreign environments.
Hepta entrepreneurs will never relate to bygone phenomena such as typewriters, doing research using a library and microfiche, listen to LPs, making phone calls using an airport payphones, waiting for the mailman to deliver hand written letters or using a floppy disk. Elephant size computers housed in big underground basements, hotels offered courtesy type writers in their small business centers and satellite phones could be seen when Captain Kirk communicated with Mr. Spock in Star Trek are viewed in a rather nostalgic light by this generation. For them “Beam me up Scotty” is occurring in the present, yesterday’s utopia has become today’s reality.
This population excels by breaking the rules over and over again and causing disruption in order to achieve measurable results essential to meeting management challenges faced by today’s global leaders: transition, change, difference and adaptation. What’s more, hepta entrepreneurs develop these abilities so subtly and naturally that many don’t even know they have them.Significantly, none of these qualities described below requires an international context in which to use them.
These seven characteristics combine to yield the “iGeneration”, the hepta’s identity, pivotal to your organizational success:
Innovation – Heptas see change as normal. They combine the scientific, positivistic, rationalistic, technocratic world of the industrial paradigm and get into the intuitive, creative, open, diverse, global world of the postindustrial paradigm. Example: “The Internet of Things” which is a way of saying that more of the world will become part of their network. They are able to assimilate the world into the computer. It’s just more and more computers. Product companies compete by building ever bigger factories to turn out ever cheaper widgets. But a very different sort of economics comes into play when those widgets start to communicate. It’s called the network effect—when each new user of a product makes its value higher. Let’s take Cisco Systems as an example. According to the MIT Review ( July/August 2014) Cisco Systems has been enthusiastically predicting that 50 billion “things” could be connected to communications networks within six years, up from around 10 billion mobile phones and PCs today . Or think of the telephone a century ago. The greater the number of people who used Bell’s invention, the more valuable it became to all of them. The telephone became a platform for countless new businesses its inventor never imagined.” For heptas connecting, adapting and expanding the Internet of Things comes naturally as they leave behind the clockwork, mechanical, piecemeal, linear, quantitative world of Newton and get into the fluid, ambiguous, androgynous, qualitative world of the 21st century.
Integration & Invention – As outsiders to fixed cultural rules, hepta innovators rely on creative thinking as they reinvent themselves and experiment with new identities. Chaos and complexity theories, quantum physics, and open systems are in ; strategic management, Newtonian physics, and closed systems are out. These may seem queer, but get used to them. Example: In many cases they work with models which have not been established, taking for guaranteed that computers the size of a pinhead which collect data inside the brain and transmit it through the skull will join the internet network, brining healthcare to whole different level.
Intelligence ( Contextual and Emotional IQ) -Heptas are experts at the subtle and emotional aspects of transition, adjusting mental models, learning to differentiate between universal principles and their specific embodiments, and being open to new ideas. They influence multidirectional relationships, using persuasion, rational strategies, political analysis, creating metaphors and using myths and rituals. They are apt at appealing to emotional attachments, friendships, connectedness, relationships, to the higher ground–ethical/moral stands and to communitarian ideas, the commons, public good, organizational culture. imagination- Heptas entrepreneurs easily learn and use new ways of thinking. They are the ones who come up with a smart coffee pot, a refrigerator with a Web browser or a $78 digital “egg minder” that reports to a smartphone which egg in a refrigerator is oldest. So many gray hairs avoided by never having to worry about my eggs again!
Multi /Lingual, Multi/Cultural, Multi/ National, Multi Tasking. Heptas are at least bi-lingual or tri-lingual, multi- cultural & multi-national and multi taskig. They have lived in different countries and are familiar with many cultures. Because globalization enables breakthrough ideas to come from every corner of the world, they are able to change where and how the world does business. While until now they might have been a source of low-cost skilled labor in emerging markets is moderating.
Multilingualism at the workplace constitutes a major asset for companies and supports their international competitiveness. Even though it can be a Janus-faced phenomenon, entailing several problematic points, it is up to management commitment and involvement to prevent and counter these problems. Language skills and cultures might differ in multilingual work environments, however mutual respect and shared values can overcome linguistic and intercultural differences.
I predict that connecting ordinary objects like ovens to the Internet will trigger new platforms and that hepta entrepreneurs will be the leaders of tomorrow forming and transforming this platform, necessary for cutting edge performance to each company. Due to the fact that they are born to question, break rules and used to paradigm shifts, they will not simply rest at the standards, the connections. Instead they will also address add value, allowing for a recombination of features in ways that the original designer cannot anticipate. Heptas will be instrumental in developing tomorrow’s Internet of things which is similar to the functions of the iPhone encompassing hundreds of thousands of apps that Apple never even conceived of as they do not have a difficult time with new mental models. They will help companies compete and add incredible value by introducing new features to products, add new communities or network effects. In turn, organizations must learn how to hire and augment their workforce with efficient hepta innovators.
Emerging countries are creating their own rising stars and these fast-growing companies are changing the competitive landscape. Global and multinational companies have to assess the promise of emerging markets in current economic cycles, changes in the marketplace and policy environments. So, without a doubt, organizations will be challenged and potentially leap frogged if they do not hire hepta innovators and entrepreneurs.
