What Is In the Mind of Enterprenuers?

Researchers from the neuroscience department and business school collaborated to scan the brains of 63 subjects, divided between self-described entrepreneurs and managers, when engaged in a game. The game involved virtual slot machines; to maximize returns you had to decide when to keep playing the same machine (an exploitative choice) or try a new one (an explorative choice).

The entrepreneurs in the study, perhaps surprisingly, weren't any more likely to engage in exploration. But when they did, they were more likely to activate both the right and left sides of their frontal cortex. Managers mainly stuck to the left side, which is associated with logic and structured thinking. The right side, on the other hand, is associated with creativity and emotion.

Successful decision-making isn't necessarily about doing more exploration than exploitation. It's in the timing--knowing when to shift between the two forms of thinking. A question for further research is whether entrepreneurs' brains function this way because of the kind of decisions they're used to making, or whether people with these more coherent brains are more likely to end up as entrepreneurs. “It’s a nature versus nurture question," said Professor Maurizio Zollo, the lead author of the study.

Another research made by Saraswaty. Brilliant improvisers, the entrepreneurs don't start out with concrete goals. Instead, they constantly assess how to use their personal strengths and whatever resources they have at hand to develop goals on the fly, while creatively reacting to contingencies. By contrast, corporate executives—those in the study group were also enormously successful in their chosen field—use causal reasoning. They set a goal and diligently seek the best ways to achieve it. Early indications suggest the rookie company founders are spread all across the effectual-to-causal scale. But those who grew up around family businesses will more likely swing effectual, while those with M.B.A.'s display a causal bent. Not surprisingly, angels and seasoned VCs think much more like expert entrepreneurs than do novice investors.

Being entrepreneurs actually forcing individual to use both side of brain the left and the right brain and knowing how to shift according to the right timing. This requires practice day in and day out.