Can Cook be an Effectual Entrepreneur Like Jobs?

With Tim Cook taking over from Steve Jobs as Apple's CEO, the question raised is whether he can fill his shoes. Certainly he can if he is capable of focusing on the following five principles of effective entrepreneurship.

The first dimension is the non-predictive control. The effectual entrepreneur will not be attempting to predict the future. Such an entrepreneur will be focused upon the engaging in non-predictive controls. He will eschew any sort of information which is intended for predicting the future. Instead he will concentrate on factors that he can take control of based upon the available opportunities.

Means-driven action is the second important dimension. For the effectual entrepreneur it is not the goal which is important but the means of attaining it. He will be starting from the means of doing an entrepreneurial activity and based upon the means find the actions to be taken up and the goals to be achieved.

Affordable loss is the third pillar. The effectual entrepreneur will focus on the amount of investment he can possibly invest within the venture that he will be taking up as part of the entrepreneurial activity. This dimension will be related to the attitude of the entrepreneur in the direction of the risk and also on the return upon investment. In this case the entrepreneur will be putting a limit on his willingness for investment. He is not going to be attracted by returns which can be uncertain to be attained in the future.

Partnership is the fourth important dimension which will be important for the success of the entrepreneurial activity. This is fundamentally the attitude shown by the entrepreneur with respect to the others. The effectual entrepreneur focuses upon building partnerships. He will develop such alliances even before the vagueness of the market to be served by the entrepreneurial activity and the final goals of the activity are completely clarified. Such an outward-looking approach will be essential for success, especially those involving new opportunities and creating new innovative products.

Leveraging is the fifth important dimension which will be important for the success of the entrepreneurial activity. This is involves the manner in which the entrepreneur will be dealing with a contingency situation. An individual who is attempting to oppose such a situation can be in deep trouble and will be leading the entrepreneurial activity into crisis. The attitude should be to leverage from the contingency. The situation should be faced and converted into an opportunity which the entrepreneur should be capable of exploiting for the success of the entrepreneurial activity.