During the last twenty years, as in no other time that we can remember, we have witnessed by one or another circumstance the interest of man to write on this subject so particularly human, individual and complex. The creation of companies is not, of course, any new activity in man's intention to survive, to transcend and even to perpetuate himself. The first men, those who started life, are without a doubt our most distant antecedent in that legitimate right that every individual has to provide better living conditions, for himself and his people.
From the caveman, through that man conqueror of peoples and generator of new civilizations, to the man of the industrial and post-industrial era, in all of them there has been an undeniable desire to possess, to accumulate and from these, to be able to influence others, those who perhaps also having the same desire and legitimate right were not or have not been able to achieve it or at least to try. This has been the permanent dilemma on which a good part of man's existence has worked.
Starting a business is not a phenomenon of these times, it always has been; through it entire societies have been consolidated, around it political and economic models have been articulated and strengthened, she, the creation of companies, is part of the cultural heritage of many peoples, assumed as a legitimate intentional action of man to improve and for progress.
Perhaps the novelty of the subject turns out to be, especially for these new generations, the diversity of generally theoretical proposals that come to us through the various media. These messages that sometimes come with a high philosophical content even spiritual, most of the time academic and a few epistemological; They show the desire, the concern of man to find development alternatives for society.
The creation of companies is without a doubt a way of economic and social development for any community that prides itself on weighing the initiative of its members. What is called into question are the ways in which many of these individuals manage to capitalize on such initiatives, often in favor of the interests of a few, and worse, to the detriment of many. This is where the importance of discussing and reflecting on everything relevant to the creation of companies as a human activity at the service of man lies.
The creative act in its universal conception appears as something spontaneous, natural, but we must know that it is truly provided with much analysis, maturation, confrontation, waiting in time, even destruction to the extent that it implies making mistakes and correcting. The act of creating can not be thought of as something simple, simple, easy. Creating in all the orders of life is not only an act of incomparable importance for man, but it has always served to mark limits between the productive and the unproductive, between the authentic and the false.
Creating is an infinitely human act, which exalts our condition as thinking, creative beings, which places us above other species.
Creating a company over time has become an activity devoid in a great majority of cases of those ingredients that should place it in a privileged position in the actions of man in search of his well-being. We have witnessed in the last decades in our country the level of degradation that has been reached around this option of life. Creating a company in Colombia has represented the “salvation table” for many, where the problems that have given rise to it are as varied as the companies that have been created.
We have seen the creation of a company to overcome unemployment, to cover high levels of incompetence, to save the life of another who is dying of poor administrative management. Companies have been created to hide the dark origin of money, to justify the dismissal and non-payment of labor rights to many good workers; the list could be more extensive and worrying.
When it comes to generating employment through strategies from the private or public sector, the desire is unanimously expressed that they be jobs that are not only equitably paid, but that they really respond to organizational needs, allowing the person who occupies it to make projections in function of supplying at least their basic life requirements. This has been one of the battles that the union in the country has carried out in recent years, that is, if jobs are not going to be generated in sufficient quantity for all the unemployed, unless those who believe they meet expectations in quality lives of those who turn out to be its beneficiaries.
If the creation of companies is seen as a strategy to combat the scourge of unemployment, it should not become a bigger problem for the community than become a solution. Just as there is talk of healthy jobs, there is also the metaphor to refer to healthy companies. In other words, those that have been created as a result of a legitimately intended act of reciprocal benefit and equity. By people who assumed such creation as a life option.
The creation of companies as a way of life goes far beyond the preparation of the Business Plan, the search for financing, contacting friends or acquaintances so that they “accompany” the adventure, carrying out a sense of openness and from the pronunciation into that of a corny speech of thanks to all those who collaborated with such a “noble” cause.
It is certain that if that decision has not been subjected to all the revisions and confrontations regarding life expectations, true motivations, authentic ideals towards life, weaknesses and strengths of existence, vocations, tastes and preferences, in other aspects. At the first obstacle or before the first distractor that arrives, the illusions will have another perspective, that impulse will reach there. Then the rethinking will come, the reproaches of why they did not make me "see" this or that before, the eternal excuses for not being present where the responsibility of the entrepreneur called to be and many other confusing and annoying situations, but totally predictable, only if He stops to think about what it means to start a business as an authentic option for life.
Robert Rondstadt says, "You don't understand what it is to be an entrepreneur until you are about to lose everything." “EVERYTHING” is what is put into play when you are aware of what is being done. "EVERYTHING" is what accompanies you when the decision implies a life option. "EVERYTHING" is the reward obtained for doing things motivated by a legitimate desire for reciprocal benefit.
It is necessary to think and believe that the matter does not end when the company is created, a responsibility is acquired for managing to maintain and consolidate it over time so that all those directly and indirectly involved in its development have the possibility of making their projections based on their quality of life. The act of creating a company may be as individual as it may seem, but its evolution and results are definitely collective. Perhaps in this you should learn from those men who created the first companies, that even though today they would seem simple and easy exercises compared to those of these times, they did it convinced that what they were assuming was a life option, theirs individually and those of those who accompanied him.
There are many apologetic approaches that have been heard and used in recent years about the almost absolute impossibility of creating a company in our country and for those who managed to create it, the almost extreme difficulty of maintaining and strengthening it. "The tax regime in Colombia makes the dream of creating a business impossible", "The lack of price regulation prevents honest competition", "The low level of training of people does not generate added value to production", "Excessive procedures it makes it almost impossible to export, the same happens with the import ”. Surely there are many more complaints to the country's economic and business system.
Apart from the analysis that can be made of each of these and other approaches, many of which may have a basis, the truth is that more than once they have been used to evade responsibilities inherent to the exercise of entrepreneurship, more than once they have served to cover up inefficiencies in business management. And it is that more than once, too, the problem has not been just a lack of knowledge and experience, but what is more serious is a lack of commitment to everything that it involves and represents. That commitment is nourished by something essential such as the desire and desire to be and live it, from that passion that must be felt and that must be expressed in each and every one of the acts that are carried out as such.
There must be a total and full identification with that human and social condition of being an entrepreneur. If the entrepreneur is born or is made, it is a discussion for another time and another scenario, probably for the academy, he will elucidate on the "true" origin of the entrepreneur. Its results should not alter in any way that commitment to which your exercise must be signed when it has really been assumed as a life option.
Assuming the creation of a company as a life option does not mean, either in the extreme of its consideration and interpretation, having to die trying; Precisely when talking about a life option, it is accepting that the exercise of being an entrepreneur should not lead to the extermination of the person, to such wear and tear that their possibilities of enjoying life are impoverished and limited. On the contrary, assuming such responsibility as a life option means above all other considerations the dignity of the human person, this exercise must serve not only for the economic growth that must come as a result or consequence of personal growth above all. At some point, very surely, it will take a lot of lucidity to redirect the coordinates that had been established,This will say a lot about that person who once assumed the role of businessman as a life option and therefore she must always be present for him and for those who accompany him.
Ending an activity in this way is far from those ways in which false arguments are always used that only harm others, because the one who first sought to save himself from shipwreck has been the captain and has left the others exposed to their fate, when his responsibility was to provide alternative solutions for everyone.
