It’s a question that came to me about two weeks into my MBA

It’s a question that came to me about two weeks into my MBA programme and plagued me for the next three years: How does any of this learning apply to an entrepreneur in an ambitious small business? Okay, an MBA is really a programme to develop mainstream managers in established, and generally large, organisations. But in an age where almost 98% of European and US businesses meet the Small or Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) criteria, surely it’s time for some serious revision?

Of course, I’m not the first to question the validity of MBA-type learning for smaller businesses. In fact, Henry Mintzberg considers the applicability of most mainstream managerial thinking to all organisations as little more than a series of “myths” (oh, to be the one that became famous for that observation!)

But what was I prepared to do about it? The answer is that I spent the last 12 months of the MBA adapting the major strategic methodologies to work with ambitious entrepreneurs in early stage businesses. With the help of two colleagues that shared my curiosity, we undertook a major adaptation of the cognitive mapping process to suit the needs and dispositions of small entrepreneurial teams. What we came up with is Making Strategy for Entrepreneurs (MSE).

MSE employs visual mapping software and engages the entrepreneurial management team in the creation of a robust, visual business model. Either using good, old-fashioned Post-Its? and flip sheets or dedicated Decision Explorer software, the team work through a series of stages exploring the key strategic issues, business goals and its key competencies, assets and resources.