Sixty-six years ago in Munich, Germany, a conference was held by the powers of Europe to determine the fate of Czechoslovakia (conveniently, without the participation of the Czech people). It was convened in response to Adolf Hitler’s demand for a region of the country that was primarily German. Having recently annexed Austria, Hitler was in a position to bargain with the other powers of Europe, none of whom was prepared for war. At the end of the conference, the European powers agreed that Hitler could annex the part of Czechoslovakia that he desired, as long as he would go no further. Neville Chamberlain, who was Prime Minister of Britain at the time, triumphantly returned to England and proclaimed, “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.”

Chamberlain returning from Munich, waving the Munich Agreement

This so called peace, however, was short-lived, as Hitler, emboldened by his military power and encouraged by the failure of the other European nations to respond in kind, went on to occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia and set the stage for World War II.If there’s a lesson to be learned from this story, it is that extraordinary results require extraordinary effort. I will explain what I mean in the course of this article.

Let’s switch gears for a while, and talk a little bit about career planning as a means to illustrate my point. If you are possessed with even a bit of ambition, you are probably not going to be content doing the same job year after year. As time goes on, you expect to be endowed with greater responsibilities, and improve your standing in society (have a house, a car and 2.5 children – the classic American Dream).

Achieving these unsaid objectives might possibly come from working a 9-5 job for twenty or more years, until finally, you have accomplished your life’s goals.

Indeed, this is the path that many working professionals seek to follow. And this path does produce its rewards. However, at Ishi, we believe in another path. That path is the path of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship involves an understanding of risk and reward, and picking those investments that yield the greatest reward. Entrepreneurship also involves managing risk in a way that maximizes your upside, and reduces your downside.

The problem with entrepreneurship is that most people perceive themselves as risk-averse, and think that entrepreneurship means taking risks that are not worth taking because of the downside. However, to reiterate what I have said earlier, entrepreneurship is not about taking risks, but about managing and understanding risk.

At Ishi, the engine of entrepreneurship is learning. You frequently hear it mentioned that Ishi is a learning organization. At Ishi, there is a premium on learning activities, and the value that they add to individual growth and the firm’s business objectives. It’s a winning proposition for all. If I were to summarize a strategy for learning and entrepreneurship at Ishi, it would be as follows:

• Increase your investment into yourself
• The easiest way to increase investment into yourself is through learning
• Increase your investments into others
• The easiest way to increase your investments into others is through mentoring
• Learning does not happen through osmosis, but by active participation
• Career progress is hard work

And finally

• Extraordinary results require extraordinary effort.

There’s a sort of justice in this, isn’t there? After all, why should those who work hard above and beyond what is required from their job description be afforded the rewards that they deserve? At an entrepreneurial firm such as Ishi, the job of building the firm is not the responsibility of a chosen few, but of each person who has chosen to be an entrepreneur. While this paradigm does not suit everybody, the firm does reward entrepreneurship. Career progress at Ishi is very difficult in the absence of entrepreneurial activity.

Sit still, and you run the risk that one day you will be faced with the same words that Neville Chamberlain was presented with when he was forced to step down as Prime Minister: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go”.

For some background reading, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement