Fuelling the Micron Rumor Mill
I’m sure everyone’s heard about the possibility of Micron getting purchased by Blackstone Equity Partners. If not you can check out the story here and here.
Of course it’s hard to say if it would be a good thing or a bad thing. For every success story there’s a not so successful story. Change is scary for some people (aka people with normal jobs).
Here’s my question: Would it be good for Micron to have a major shake up? A bigger question is will it be good for Boise? The Albertsons/SuperValu deal didn’t fair so well for those in Boise (unless your name was Larry).
But could the shake up give a few people the push they need to leave Micron and do their own thing? I hope so.
More Micron stories here and an Appleton interview here.
One way to look at entrepreneurial motivtion is “push” versus “pull” - are pushed by necessity or pulled by an opportunity? Most entrepreneurs are “pushed”; those who grow (like into job-creating gazelles) are “pulled” -or see themselves that way.
Put another way: Most entrepreneurs are push, but ‘pull’ entrepreneurs tend to be more successful.
Why does that matter? A meltdown by a local employer might create some small businesses out of necessity, but the qustion to ask is: Would those displaced employees see self-employment as a genuine personal opportunity?
One thing that TechBoise can do is to find ways to show employees that being an entrepreneur is a believable option for them.
I’d rather see a day where it would seem normal for someone to choose to leave a large organization and start a growing business (rather than waiting for a downturn). In the meantime, there are things we can do to spread the gospel and starting pulling good entrepreneurs out!
(Of course, if you’re the large organization, you may not be thrilled at the idea of their most happening staff looking for their entrepreneurial opportunity and leaving. However, highly innovative, entrepreneurial organizations seem to thrive on that turnover - it even makes you an even more attractive place to work!)
Great point Norris. I would hate for anyone to loose a job. Push was probably not the best word to use, “motivation” probably would have been more accurate.
I know there are a lot of people in Micron that have a ‘plan B’. They have an idea of a business they would like to start (a lot of them even have business plans put together). I just hope that if anything good can come from the acquisition of Micron it’s that it helps those people to find the courage to launch off on their own.
Courage is a lot easier to come by when we have a better sense of what we’re getting ourselves into. The more that we can help folks learn to think like entrepreneurs, the higher their entrepreneurial self-efficacy, the stronger their intentions to start will be -and will take less of a trigger to get them going. AND, we know how to do this helping! It’s just a matter of, well, doing it. TechBoise can be the catalyst for that!
(p.s. I mentioned ‘push’ & ‘pull in part because Idaho may be #1 in new businesses but we are up to #37 in the number of jobs those new firms created. We’re good at creating small businesses, not so good at creating entrepreneurs. My home state of Ohio is near the bottom in new businesses, yet the jobs created by startups is near the top. Hmm… a future post topic? LOL)
The moment they supplant words like “Our Community” with “Shareholder Value” (ala Larry) is when you’ll begin to hear a large sucking sound as jobs, Columbia Village, and perhaps Boise itself start circling the drain.