Supplement the learning environment with resources

Originally posted in our August 2023 Top of Mind Newsletter. Those of us in the entrepreneurial ecosystem have likely felt the sensation of being adrift at sea with no sight of land. For some, it feels like there’s not enough support, and for others, there’s so much you don’t know where to turn. It’s feelings like this that lead to unneeded competition and mismanaged communications. But there are dynamics at play that make the term ecosystem…

Originally posted in our July 2023 Top of Mind Newsletter. If you haven’t ever heard from Carla Harris, consider this your wake-up call. Harris is the former Chair of the National Women’s Business Council, former Vice Chair of Wealth at Morgan Stanley, and has made a continued career of writing and speaking about leadership and mentorship. Earlier in 2023, she joined Adam Grant on his podcast, ReThinking. During their conversation, Harris and Grant unpack her early…

Originally posted in our July 2023 Top of Mind Newsletter. The ELI team is not very interested in Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, or Richard Branson’s entrepreneurial journeys. This is both because their stories are not common or replicable but also because they, at times, diverge from the customer-driven approach to entrepreneurship that we advocate for. Enter the concept of Principled Entrepreneurship. Author Andreas Widmer’s book, The Art of Principled Entrepreneurship, promotes a different approach from the…

Originally posted in our June 2023 Top of Mind Newsletter. In the vein of entrepreneurial leadership, one core capability Senge et al. discuss is the importance of fostering reflection and generative conversation. In this recent piece from the New Yorker, we read about the “civilizing power of conversation” and how we’ve fallen so far from this as a society. “As the philosopher Michael Oakeshott observed, in conversation, ‘there is no ‘truth’ to be discovered, no proposition…

Originally posted in our June 2023 Top of Mind Newsletter. Many have heard ELI talk about the importance of everyone learning to think like entrepreneurs. One such way that the most successful entrepreneurial thinkers “do it” is by applying the tools of systems leadership. Put simply; systems leaders are those who can take action while also considering the situation they (and their team) are in, in order to foster collective leadership. In this article from Peter…