The unconscious motivation of entrepreneurs

NOT all dreams have happy endings. It is generally accepted that as many as 90 per cent of startups fail within three years.

Given these stark figures, it is important to consider the personal factors that influence entrepreneurial success. What kind of personality makes a person more, or less, likely to succeed?

This question has interested psychologists for decades, and some recent findings obtained by my colleagues and me may represent another piece of this complex puzzle.

We were interested to examine the personality factors that predicted the intention of undergraduates to follow different types of career paths, including entrepreneurship.

Particularly, we wanted to look at the influence of implicit motives: unconscious aspects of personality that influence our behaviour even though we may not be aware of it.

To do this, we surveyed 149 university students from Nanyang Technological University across a wide range of academic specialisations, who completed measures of both unconscious motivation and career intent.

What we found was this: undergraduates with a greater unconscious need for power are more likely to want to pursue entrepreneurial careers.

Other important aspects of unconscious motivation, such as the need for achievement and the need for affiliation (the need for belong and close relationships), are found to be unrelated to entrepreneurial aspiration.

This means that students with a greater unconscious need to impact, influence, and control other people have a greater conscious intention to become entrepreneurs.

Like many findings in psychology, this seems superficially obvious.

Alternatively referred to as hindsight bias or creeping determinism, there is a well-documented tendency for people to claim past events were easily predictable, even when, objectively speaking, they were not.

Our research findings are a good example of this phenomenon. Some of the most influential work on entrepreneurial motivation was conducted by the late American psychologist David McClelland, who found that individuals with high unconscious achievement motivation were the most likely succeed as entrepreneurs.

There is a clear disconnect between those findings and ours.

The relationship between the need for achievement and entrepreneurial performance was subsequently observed in many studies by Mr McClelland and a group of associated researchers across many cultures. Mr McClelland even embarked on an ambitious project to explain global differences in economic activity in terms of cultural differences in achievement orientation.

His argument for a link between achievement motivation and entrepreneurial success went like this.

People who need achievement display key characteristics. They are attracted to moderate risk and they assume personal responsibility for outcomes. They pay attention to feedback in the form of profit or loss, and they have the ability to innovate.

Given that these are also qualities that should promote entrepreneurial success, Mr McClelland reasoned that entrepreneurs should, on average, score higher in the need for achievement.

His theory received plenty of support. Mr McClelland and his colleagues found that achievement-motivated students were more entrepreneurial than those who were less achievement-motivated, and also that achievement motivation at university predicted engagement in entrepreneurial activity 14 years later.

The same group also conducted research on power motivation.

Although the results were slightly more complex, they generally found that individuals high in power motivation are attracted to leadership positions, and that they make better leaders when they have a low need for affiliation and high self-control.

Fast forward several decades and the orthodoxy is well-established. Achievement motivation is associated with entrepreneurship, whereas power motivation is related to leadership.

Yet the picture we observed in Singapore undergraduates was very different. Why might this be?

We think that these results might reveal important differences between the motivational profiles of aspiring and successful entrepreneurs.

Perhaps the need for power and influence is what draws many people to set up their own businesses, but the need for achievement is a more important determinant of whether or not their business succeeds.

This raises an interesting possibility: that motivational fit is an important consideration for individuals considering embarking on an entrepreneurial career.

Those who are motivated by the social and material trappings of entrepreneurship may wish to think again, while those who are driven by a desire for excellence and innovation should be encouraged.

There are of course other explanations. It is possible that the association between fundamental motives and career intentions varies across cultures, with power motivation playing a greater role in Singapore or the wider Asian region.

However, this seems unlikely given the wealth of cross-cultural evidence for a link between achievement motivation and entrepreneurial success.

As always, more research will be required to tease these issues apart.

In the meantime, it is worth considering whether more nuanced career guidance and counselling might help people choose a career that they are better suited to.

This is made more complicated by the fact that these motives dispositions are unconscious.

Measuring them is time-consuming and most coaches and practitioners are unfamiliar with the necessary methodologies.

However, even in the absence of proper testing, it should be useful for aspiring entrepreneurs to conduct an honest self-examination: am I embarking on this venture because I truly enjoy developing new products and services? Do I get a kick from improving processes and prevailing in a competitive environment?

If the answer to these questions is "yes", then the outlook is good. With a good idea, favourable conditions and a lot of hard work, your new business stands a good chance of success.

If the answer is "no", then it may be wise to take the more conventional route.

Everyone wants influence, prestige and respect, to a greater or lesser extent, but this cannot and should not be the main factor.

As the popular maxim goes, entrepreneurship is not about making money, it's about creating value.

And creating value is an area where achievement motivated people truly shine.

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