Keeping inspired about the competitions in Rio de Janeiro – Brazil due to the Olympic Games 2016 and seeing the outcome of Paralympic Games 2016, I want to share the concept of resilience and how the entrepreneurs can be filled with the urge by the idea of effectuation from Saras D. Sarasvathy.

First of all, it is important to clarify the concept of resilience that means the ability of people to feel better quickly after something unpleasant, such as trauma, shock, injury etc.

Therefore, it is easy to understand why the adjective resilient is commonly used for the paralympic athletes, considering that they have acquired the deficiency in an accident or after have suffered a disease, however independent of the reason, in general they need to reorganize the life with their physical or visual impairment, also in the same way in the case of intellectual disability, adapting for the environment and doing activities in other manners, for instance, playing guitar or drums with his feet.

And thinking about entrepreneurs, many times they do not have all the conditions that they dream to create a new business and to go ahead with their purpose, so they need to be flexible and agile to identify the opportunities and use their resources in the best way.

Similar of this process of adapting to the reality, Saras D. Sarasvathy conducted a study with expert entrepreneurs and identified some key research issues like the entrepreneur personality and the environment, thus the results putting both together considering the evolutionary processes it was created the idea of effectuation.

In this logic or thinking, it was defined five principles of Entrepreneurial Expertise:

1. The bird-in-hand principle

Discover your strengths and work with it, therefore this principle starts thinking about some questions like who I am, what I know and whom I know, after with these reflections imagine the business that could be created and how to get there. This principle contrasts with the idea of pre-set goals / targets.

2. The affordable-loss principle

Define what it is acceptable to be lost at each step, and not try to create a big picture of whole opportunity, as well as avoid generating the all or nothing outcome. On this way, there is no expectation of wide return and only the focus on the downside risk.

3. The lemonade principle

Invite the surprise factor and not try to control the future, use the “bad” news as opportunities. In this case, do not spend much time creating various what-if scenarios for all worst possibilities. On other words, if you receive some lemons, prepare the best lemonade as possible!

4. The patchwork-quilt principle

Build partnerships with potential stakeholders, because these key partners can reduce uncertainty and co-create a “blue ocean” with interested people. It contrasts with the idea that you need to avoid the competitors and consider them as rivals.

5. The pilot-in-the-plane principle

You are the pilot and you are in the command, so not try to predict the future, work to create it and to generate the desired outcomes. It is based on the idea that the future is not found or predicted, in fact it will be made by the action and the effort of the entrepreneur and his/her team.

Based in these principles, the author defined the effectual cycle, adapted in the diagram below:

In this diagram, the cycle starts with the means based on the questions of who am I, what I know and whom I know, after it, the goals are defined by the entrepreneur with the question what can I do. In the third stage he/she interacts with other people to generate stakeholder commitments. Therefore, the cycle is maintained with the entry of new surprises that impact the process until has been created new sellable products with compromised customers and stakeholders focused on developing new markets.

Considering this quick view about the concept of effectuation, now it is possible to explain it in a simple way, as a person that wants to prepare the dinner and just opens the refrigerator, identifies the items that stay there and defines at this moment, which will be the dish for the night. This process is a contrast of the conventional approach to entrepreneurship, that in the same situation, he / she starts imagining  what want to eat, list all products that it is necessary, go to supermarket to buy the missing items and only after come back to home, begin to prepare the dinner.

In conclusion, many paralympic athletes and people with impairments or disabilities are accustomed to solve the obstacles using their strengths, therefore they do not spend time planning what might be necessary to do something and how could be easy if they have all resources available at any moment. As well as usually they do not lose efforts to find an investor that will support all their needs, by the way, this last approach is very common for traditional entrepreneurs that it is not aware about the effectuation thinking model.

Do you agree with this logic for entrepreneurs starting their businesses?

Share with us to evolve together.

To know more:

• EFFECTUATION – SEA (Society for Effectual Action) available in: http://www.effectuation.org/. Accessed in Sep/2016

• SARASVATHY, S. D. Effectuation – Elements of entrepreneurial expertise. Edward Elgar, 2008.