Heading Up a Team as an Entrepreneur

The entrepreneur who is looking forward to attracting a team should be able to provide that team with the responsibility and authority to carry out specific instructions within the company. Often, healthcare entrepreneurs involuntarily stop the team from working effectively, precisely because they want to “micromanage” their people and maintain strict control over what each member of the team does.

Wanting to control all the tasks may seem to be a natural tendency, but in many cases it ends up being impossible for the entrepreneur to maintain that level of control.

Indeed, the creative contribution of each one of the collaborators will look very limited and will generate very little enthusiasm for the work. Healthcare entrepreneurs should be capable of allowing a certain amount of freedom to those are around them and “macromanage” the project by defining fundamental lines and allowing the collaborators to work freely in their own area.

For the company to grow and move forward from the initial start-up phase, healthcare professionals should share their vision for the future with the rest of the team and allow them to carry it out.

To form a good team, the healthcare entrepreneur must be capable of finding, motivating, convincing, and retaining people who contribute value to the initiative:

• Finding. Healthcare entrepreneurs should learn to cultivate a network for obtaining information, advice, and support by demonstrating networking skills. It is a distinctive characteristic of good entrepreneurs — they continually look to increase their network to improve the possibilities of making their idea a success. They actively promote their visibility, frequently participating in entrepreneurial forums, medical conferences, investor symposiums, and so on. Not only are they capable of attracting talent to the project, they are also capable of building personal relationships with others quickly.

• Motivating. Healthcare entrepreneurs should communicate their ideas effectively, looking to impact and influence those around them. Getting support from others for their ideas is essential to the entrepreneurial process. This requires learning to send the right messages using language appropriate for the audience. It is important that everyone can “visualize” the company, including in its earliest phases, before anything exists. Similarly, the entrepreneur should be ready to translate the medical terminology into business language that the sector is used to hearing: costs, investment return, benefits.

• Convincing. Entrepreneurs must be genuine and authentic, capable of using honesty to persuade the right people to join the project.

• Retaining. Entrepreneurs should understand the strengths and weaknesses of the team and work tirelessly so that team members soften the barriers that might exist between them so they can understand and share their circumstances, motivations, and frustrations.

Entrepreneurs should lead the team, investing time and effort through constant dialogue, demonstrating their own abilities and learning from their colleagues, whom they recruit, those things that they lack.

Adapted from Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Healthcare Sector: From Idea to Funding to Launch by Luis Pareras, MD. https://shop.physicianleaders.org/collections/all/products/innovation-and-entrepreneurship-in-the-healthcare-sector-from-idea-to-funding-to-launch