Built, Not Born: A Self-Made Billionaire’s No-Nonsense Guide for Entrepreneurs
Tom Golisano with Mike Wicks
HarperCollins Leadership/An imprint of HarperCollins (February 2020)

Here’s a GPS for entrepreneuers but they have to complete their own journey

Written with the substantial assistance of Mike Wicks duly acknowledged, this book shares the most important lessons Tom Galisano has learned about personal growth and professional development.  They are based primarily on his own experiences as an entrepreneur. In 1971, with $3,000 and a credit card, he took a basic business idea “and turned it into one of America’s largest and most profitable corporations,” Paychex. He wrote this book for those who are thinking about starting or buying a business, or for those who have only recently done so.

As I worked my way through the first few chapters, I was again reminded of a GE annual meeting during which its then chairman and CEO, Jack Welch, was asked why he so highly admired small companies. This was his response:

“For one, they communicate better. Without the din and prattle of bureaucracy, people listen as well as talk; and since there are fewer of them they generally know and understand each other. Second, small companies move faster. They know the penalties for hesitation in the marketplace. Third, in small companies, with fewer layers and less camouflage, the leaders show up very clearly on the screen. Their performance and its impact are clear to everyone. And, finally, smaller companies waste less. They spend less time in endless reviews and approvals and politics and paper drills. They have fewer people; therefore they can only do the important things. Their people are free to direct their energy and attention toward the marketplace rather than fighting bureaucracy.”

Presumably Golisano agrees with Welch. Organizations with leaders committed to the business principles that both Welch and Colisano affirm have a significant competitive edge.

It is no coincidence that most of the companies annually ranked among those most highly admired and best to work for are also annually ranked among those most profitable with the greatest cap value.  However different they may be in most respects, all of them have a workplace culture within which an entrepreneurial spirit is most likely to thrive. You’ll find that spirit at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise.

There are no head-snapping revelations, nor does Golisano or his publisher make any such claim. With Wicks, he has written a book that really is a “no-nononse guicde” for those who are in greatest need of basis but essential information, insights anchored in human experiences with which they can readily identify, and counsel that they can put to good use immediately.  Golisano has developed what Hemingway once characterized as a “built-in, shock-proof crap detector.” It’s helpful to have a compass and a flashlight. He can’t accompany his reader but the wisdom he has gained from wide and deep real-world experience certainly can.

It isn’t necessary to launch a company to be or become an entrepreneur. Whatever their size and nature may be, all companies need people who are results-driven,  who are driven to ask and then answer the right questions, to identify and then solve the right problems. They don’t care who gets the credit for success but have zero tolerance of liars, slackers, cheaters, corner-cutters, and other species of organizational barnacles.

Winners are built, not born. That’s true of companies and it’s also true of individuals. Thank you, Tom Golisano, for so generously sharing what you have learned over the years. Advice such as yours serves as a “head’s up” rather than a guarantee of success. It’s up to each reader to complete their own journey, no matter where it takes them, no matter what their own experiences prove to be.