Need for achievement is essential element to think about as we begin our journey into entrepreneurial mindset. We're going to start by first examining need for achievement, and what it means in context. We'll talk about exploring that need and its impact as it's related to entrepreneurship, and we'll also help you assess your personal need for achievement. So in this way, this is step one of part one of the opportunity analysis canvas. So defining need for achievement is naturally important. With that preference for challenge and acceptance of personal responsibility for outcomes or a personal drive for accomplishment are the most common terms and definitions in need for achievement. We may call it drive, we may call it hunger, we may call it being a self-starter, or being self-motivated. All of those will be accurate as we think about need for achievement in this context. And what we find when we look back into research is that this is an area that's been explored for over 50 year by academics as they've tried to understand entrepreneurial mindset. The connection between need for achievement and entrepreneurship is something that's really worth considering. And what we find is that entrepreneurs typically have a higher need for achievement than do managers. What we call a manager in this context is a typical government or corporate employee or mid- to upper-level manager in that environment. What we also find is that it is arguably that need for achievement that creates the entrepreneur. And so in that way, for individuals that score high in need for achievement, the likelihood of them becoming an entrepreneur is even greater. So in that way it's a question of kind of cause and effect. And in this way we would think that the cause of entrepreneurism might in fact be attributable to individuals that have this higher need for achievement. We also see that a high need for achievement makes for better entrepreneurs, naturally if you have a greater motivation, a greater drive, a greater level of commitment. You're going to have higher involvement in your job and in your career, you're going to have higher organizational commitment, commitment to colleagues, and suppliers, and partners, and customers, and investors. So in that way we see the need for achievement as both an enabler and empowerer of becoming entrepreneur, but also very valuable for entrepreneurs. And when we look at the history of opportunity and how humans have created value over time, and what have been the forefront of being able to do that there was the hunter, the grower, the warriors early on. They then became the craftsmen and the explorers and the merchants and the mechanizers. They went on to industrialist and to oil drilling. More recently, the corporate path, the corporate executive. More recent than that in financing, investment banking, private equity, something we hear a lot about today. But the next phase of this as we think about where is great value going to be derived, where the highest need for achievement going to be realized and motivated. And that's in the startups by making useful things faster than corporations of taking larger risk, for larger rewards. By being more innovative, and creating more value in the marketplace, is increasingly becoming the home, and the responsibility of the startup, and the startup founders. And we're beginning to see that evolve in a variety of different ways. The independent contractor is something that is gaining a lot of momentum in the US in elsewhere. Outsourcing something that we're familiar with traditionally in manufacturing but we're seeing it in software development, we're seeing it in R&D. We've seen it for years in customer support. So there are a variety of different pieces of the organizations that are being outsourced. And in many cases it's small and entrepreneurial firms that are playing a role in providing that outsourcing. Intrepreneurs is something that you may have heard of. Essentially, it's the individuals that are highly entrepreneurial within a corporate setting. The company hackathons, the 20% time, the do what you want ala Google. The entrepreneurs in residence. They're a variety of models whereby corporations are trying to create a climate for their employees to be more entrepreneurial and that again is what we'll call entrepreneurs. A sidepreneurs as something that is increasingly popular. Where individuals have a day job, but they also work nights, or weekends, or on their days off, doing something else that may be in their career line. They may be a marketing person by day or a graphic designer by day, but they're also going to do some graphic design work separately for other individuals. Outside of their company at night or on the weekends. Other jack of all trades is something that we see more so within small business jobs, where we have individuals that can do a little bit of programming and a little design and a little sales. That they are a bit more of generalist in what they do. So we're seeing more of those types of jobs as well, typically in small firms where there is more work than you have people. But ultimately we see this settlement of becoming an entrepreneur that is increasingly popular and maybe increasingly necessary. And so, when you look at futurists that are thinking about the corporation of the future and the business of the future, many of them forecast that we will all become entrepreneurs. That the element of benefits and pension plans and company essentially taking care of us is going to go by the wayside. And that everybody's going to be a free agent and that everybody's going to be an entrepreneur and that you're going to broker your skills and negotiate your own contracts and your own work for everything. Now, it may not reach that, but it certainly is an interesting thing to think about, and it's an interesting thing to be aware of on the path to becoming an entrepreneur. And we're seeing this happening a variety of different formats. And when you look at what are some tools and resources out there, and online communities. There are many, there's ODesk, E-Lance, FreeLancer, 99 designs, and dozens of others. And what I've done here is I've tried to highlight the big four if you will, so when we look at the number of freelancers that are out there. The number of people that are doing graphic design, the number of people that are writing web copy the number of people that are doing computer programming assignments and task. The numbers exceed 10 million, when you look at the number of jobs that have been posted, we see tremendous numbers there, millions and millions jobs posted. When we look on the lower left side of what do they charge, what this means Is that if you pay a $300 tag to oDesk, if you pay $300 fee as an entrepreneur to have a project done, to have a logo design for example, 10% of that will stay with oDesk. And that's essential their management fee But the other 90% of that, goes to the individual that's actually designing that logo. And so what we see here are these marketplaces that are emerging. Whereby for reasonable, affordability, entrepreneurs, and small businesses, and even large businesses, can contract out jobs, to freelancers online, to deliver that work. What we see regarding the cumulative earnings for that are in excess of a billion dollars that have been generated. So in that way a lot of transactions that are taking place and a lot of work that's being done. And I have used a number of these services both individually for my own projects as well as part of a company environment, whereby we have outsourced work to some of these platforms. So with that being said, take a step and think about the entrepreneur, and begin to think about yourself. We want to know, well, what does it mean to have this need for achievement? In the orientation here, what we want to think about first is goal setting. Do you have personal goals? Are they specific, and challenging, and relevent? Do you mentally rehearse or forecast or think about future events? Do you anticipate obstacles? Do you develop alternative solutions? And are you not only driven to success but are you planning your own success? Self monitoring is something to keep in mind as well. Are you tracking it? I'm a believer in that we track what we hear about. We measure what we want to be sure that we achieve or on path to achieving and so that self monitoring and that milestone measuring is another hallmark of individuals who have high need for achievement. Self-reinforcement so is there some measure of reward either incremental rewards or long term rewards and influencing yourself. Do you need others to give you a pat on the back. Do you need others to congratulate you. Or do you find success in your own success and are you satisfied without necessarily having some level of accommodation or recognition provided for you. So in summary, need for achievement is a key component of an entrepreneurial mindset. One of the five key components that we're going to analyze that it's certainly motivating. Motivating for individuals to pursue their new venture of success and also motivating and contributory to their success as entrepreneurs. And that analyzing your own need for achievement is valuable to diagnosing and enhancing your levels. And we are all at different levels. And it's not to say, you are where you are, and that's all there is to it. What we hope to do within each of these elements, identify and measure where we are. Think about what are some of the benefits of enhancing the various elements. And then later talk about what are some of the ways to motivate that, and realize that.
