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Entrepreneurs, like artists, are born.


I have been thinking as to why are finance professionals so not entrepreneurs  Prima facie this flies against the known wisdom of finance professional being risk-takers and this is very true. However, is risk-taking all and the only thing about entrepreneurship  I am sure not. Being able to take risks is good part of the entire entrepreneurial skills. I am, at this juncture, forced to rant about this because of few distinct behaviors I have noticed over years.

First, its hard to convince a finance professional to quit their jobs and strike out. And it is almost impossible to get them to collaborate with others. No, it is not about the competition (as I will show you now) and reluctance of collaboration could be because of the huge financial responsibilities on each individual. But when you compare this groups of people with other groups, we can't but marvel the need for more collaboration than is happening right now. All the 'collaboration' / team works are happening only in large organisation and not in entrepreneurial ventures. I am not sure if this means that small companies don't have any place in financial industry but I would not be that pessimistic.

Second, its a wonder how beautifully artists seem to take risks and collaborate, even though their outputs are every bit more individualistic than other industry. A artist creating a work is like putting a part of his thought or himself out to the scrutiny of the world. When a work is collaborated, the individuality signatures disappear in its place comes a creature which is a thought and signature of all the people involved! There are and will forever be squabbles but however, it somehow never dissuades artists from getting into collaboration again. Artists are simply, highly collaborative. It could be because art is a very competitive space. 

My guess, almost a certainly to be proven right hunch, is that we have to be like artists in future to have any success in businesses of tomorrow. The businesses are very competitive and specialized to be under the control and guidance of one or few individuals. This, somehow seems what is very much essential for the financial industry than anywhere else! That's a contradiction. 

[I may be wrong and admittedly my experience in collaboration with other financial executives have not been shining bright  but at the same time I am compelled to say how easy it is to collaborate with artists, or people with artistic mind-sets really, to work on any project.]

I am sure it has something to do with the view of the world. And many more reasons that we can deduce. The point of the post is simply to highlight the stark difference in culture across industry.

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