The Ambitious Entrepreneur Case

This mentoring case is about an ambitious entrepreneur/owner of a restaurant chain with more than 130 employees.

A full-blown passionate entrepreneur who loves his business and who shoots for the moon; his long-term goal is clear; he puts the bar high.

His main challenge is that he succumbs to the operational execution and all the negative things this brings, thereby draining his energy. This way, he loses focus on the long-term goal and gets stuck in day-to-day micromanagement. He is not an operational manager but a high-level conceptual and visionary thinker who is too often forced to deal with things far out of his comfort zone. Consequently, he has the feeling that he is not in control anymore.

He wants to grow and achieve his ambitions and connect with positive energy sources again. He desires to fully empower his team to provide the best of themselves and take full ownership but does not know how to do this in practice. Moreover, he wants to ensure that the daily operations are followed-up by the right person in the right way.

Ambits mentor Eric Noterman entered the scene and got some things done.

Eric used the following management tactics with fast results:

• Define your ambition and communicate this as goals
• Listen to your key people
• List the issues and prioritize
• Set deadlines
• Make people accountable
  • Define the responsibilities
  • Indicate owners
  • Use fact & figures
  • Stop with the stories and the feelings
  • Evaluate regularly and systematically