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Due to their incompetence or even their toxicity, poor managers can push employees to become entrepreneurs. These managers, in their own way, exemplify Gresham’s Law and Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction. Indeed, entrepreneurship is often driven by a desire for personal fulfillment and freedom. This article encourages reflection on one’s talents, values, and drawing inspiration from the journeys of accomplished entrepreneurs.
The writer and politician François-René de Chateaubriand had harsh words for the opportunists of the Napoleonic era, about whom he wrote: “One must be sparing with one’s contempt, given the vast number of the needy.” These sycophants, who praised Napoleon one day only to turn their backs on him after his fall, are denounced in his Memoirs from Beyond the Grave.
In a similar vein, Albert Einstein famously said: “Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.”
The corporate world is full of people capable of turning the gold of your motivation into lead. Among these poor managers, cowardice can be compounded by toxic management, creating a significant capacity for harm.
The Paradoxical Virtues of Poor Management
And yet, let’s try to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. Beyond their poor human qualities, these “repellent managers” paradoxically foster entrepreneurship and innovation. Without such individuals, many people would never take the leap into entrepreneurship.
I am not trying to justify the unjustifiable, but rather to find a silver lining if you find yourself in an environment particularly weighed down by such individuals.
The first collateral benefit is group cohesion. When managers stand out for their incompetence and malice, they inadvertently strengthen the bonds within their teams. These bonds may form against the managers, but they certainly save on team-building exercises!
From Sir Thomas Gresham to Joseph Schumpeter
In the short term, by creating problems where there were none, such managers unintentionally illustrate Gresham’s Law, which states that bad money drives out good. Team members will hoard their respective talents, their engagement will become superficial, and their behaviors purely transactional, allowing mediocrity to thrive within the organization.
When trust is absent, professional relationships are reduced to mechanisms of compensation and power.
In the medium term, these masters of de-motivation embody Schumpeter’s metaphor of creative destruction. New activities will emerge from the ashes of businesses they have ruined. Competitors will revel in watching a once-thriving enterprise crumble. Just as civilizations are mortal, so too are companies.
By demotivating even the best employees, these counterexamples will stimulate brain drain and business creation. This is the central thesis of this article, which analyzes the primary motivations of entrepreneurs. Numerous studies emphasize that money is rarely the main driver for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is primarily tied to:
- Independence and autonomy: Many entrepreneurs wish to be their own boss and make decisions independently, free from sometimes absurd directives.
- Personal fulfillment: They want to give meaning to their work by bringing their own projects to life.
Echoing these studies, I could cite countless conversations with entrepreneurs who confessed that their decision to leave their former company and start their own was driven by having to endure one indignity too many.
The approach of a midlife crisis often serves as a powerful trigger for action: the average age of founders of innovative companies is, after all, 38 years old.
The Value and Price of Freedom
Is the ultimate luxury to “do what you love with the people you love,” as a line from the second Night at the Museum film suggests? Entrepreneurship is one way to achieve this, provided you have prepared adequately.
This article aims simply to encourage reflection on your talents and how to express them through the development of innovative activities within an existing company—or perhaps your own, if that’s not already the case!
To help you “create the activity that reflects who you are” alongside people who share your values, it’s beneficial to engage with entrepreneurs thriving in their respective jobs. They can share both their dreams and their daily realities, echoing the aphorism by Henry de Montherlant: “Freedom always exists. You just have to pay the price.”
