Business is simple, people are complex

Business is simple, people are complex

This phrase is one I used a lot in working with leaders around transformative change.

Business can be boiled down to numbers, process, metrics, budgets. Business can be complicated, but it can also be understood, so distilled to simplicity.

People, on the other hand, are complex. They cannot be analysed, processed, distilled to simplicity. We are driven first by our feelings, then our thoughts. Sentio Ergo Sum, not Cogito Ergo Sum.

As such, it is highly predictable that the Private Equity business and the Entrepreneurs they invest in so often fail to understand each other.

Today am curating an article by Mike Driver, a polymath by passion, Chairman of Convex Capital his day job, where they “advise entrepreneurs on how to maximise and realise the value of the equity in their business.”

In his article, Mike compares Risk and Uncertainty, also giving incisive commentary as to why professionals in the Private Equity business cannot possibly understand what it feels like to be an Entrepreneur and visa versa.

Over to you, Mike.

Private equity and the real world

Originally published in the so often excellent publication, Raconteur