Entrepreneurial Passion and Personality Differences among the Team Members

Entrepreneurial Passion and Personality Differences among the Team Members
Reflective Report: Passion and Personality in the Group
1 Introduction
Working in a group to create a new solution to an existing problem can be both an exciting and challenging experience. I learned this recently when working with my team to create a new approach to sustainability at Paravel. I have had experience working in teams in the past and learnt how to effectively be a team player. But while working on the group assignment, I realised that the task also influences how people work in a group. The venture idea we worked on seemed easy to plan and pitch. However, this was not the case because I found that the formulation and delivery of the pitch were influenced by team entrepreneurial passion (TEP) and personality conflict within the group. This report aims to discuss how this challenge manifested itself, how it was addressed, and its impact on the venture's prospects. The report will also discuss how the challenge would be approached in future, the effect of the type of venture on the challenge, and how this whole experience relates to my future career direction.
2 Nature of the Challenge
Our team's main challenge relates to personality and how personality differences contribute to TEP issues and conflict. According to Cardon et al. (2017, p.284), members of a venture team do not have an equal passion for their venture, ideas, or goals, but the entrepreneurial passion of each individual influences the overall TEP for the group. As indicated in the team introduction section of our group assignment, the passion and personality of individual team members were quite diverse. Some team members were passionate about the venture idea and shared ideas on creating a compelling pitch. In contrast, others were not passionate at all about the venture idea or anything else we were doing as a group.
While this diversity is good, it created a problem because members who were passionate about the venture idea were more interested in inventing the product rather than the customer target or the value proposition, which are essential in developing the venture. There was also conflict because of different personalities. This conflict made it difficult to focus on different areas of the pitch beyond the proposed product. When the venture team members are passionate about one aspect of the venture idea at the expense of other elements, achieving success with the venture becomes problematic (Cardon et al. 2017, p.284). Also, de Mol et al. (2019) reveal that the diversity of team passion and focus variety in venture teams negatively affect the performance of the venture. The degree of the diversity of passion and team members focus on one aspect of the venture idea negatively influenced how we approached our pitch in the initial stages.
3 Overcoming the Challenge
We quickly realised that the TEP diversity presented us with problems that affected our decision-making capacity and ability to move on with the venture plan. Even though we lacked equal measures of passion for the venture, we shared one goal of at least creating a pitch that would convince potential investors and other shareholders that our idea was worth their time and resources. To overcome the challenge, we decided to make short-term goals and focus on achieving each short-term goal without concentrating too much on the long-term goal. For instance, we agreed that since no one was interested in creating the customer profile, we would break down the goal into smaller tasks such as creating a customer journey map, assessing suitable demographics, and creating customer personas.
We agreed that once we achieved each short-term goal, we would get closer to achieving our long-term goal of creating a compelling pitch. We soon realised that our individual differences based on our personalities and passion diversity reduced significantly. This experience is similar to what de Mol et al. (2020) share regarding the effect of passion diversity on short-term goals. They indicate that individual differences are barely brought to the surface when a venture team is focused on achieving short-term goals. It is easier for the team to make effective decisions because there is less conflict.
4 Impact of the Challenge on the Venture
TEP and conflict issues within the team impacted the venture and its prospects in several ways. First, it affected the pitch development process because members provided different and often conflicting ideas on developing the venture idea. According to Santos and Cardon (2018, p.475), high TEP facilitates the team's performance in developing and implementing the venture idea. However, our group had limited TEP because only a few members were passionate about the venture. The rest were either sceptical or less confident about the pitch; some were indifferent. It affected our ability to work effectively as a team because we lacked adequate average passion for the venture.
Second, the high diversity in the passion level of team members also negatively affected our team performance. According to de Mol et al. (2019), team performance is negatively and significantly affected when TEP diversity is high. Team members spend more team trying to resolve interpersonal conflict instead of working on the venture. In my group, individuals who were passionate about the venture felt very strongly about it, and any idea c...