The Omelette Analogy: Risk-Taking, Entrepreneurship, and Success

This essay provides a critical analysis of the statement "You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs" in the context of entrepreneurship. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of entrepreneurs in relation to risk-taking, highlighting the necessity of difficult decisions and potential ethical considerations for achieving long-term business success. The essay argues that entrepreneurs must often take risks and make tough choices, even if they involve shady business dealings, to foster growth and profitability. Real-life examples of Steve Jobs and Kiichiro Toyoda are used to illustrate how this principle applies in practice. The essay emphasizes that while such behaviors may appear questionable, they can be justifiable if they ultimately benefit the stakeholders and the organization's financial standing.

Statement Analysis

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Strengths and Weakness of Entrepreneurs in Context to the Statement....................................3
Strengths.................................................................................................................................3
Weaknesses.............................................................................................................................4
Critical Discussion of the Statement..........................................................................................4
Linking the Statement with Example from Real Life entrepreneurs.........................................7
Steve Jobs...............................................................................................................................7
Kiichiro Toyoda......................................................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
Entrepreneurship is considered one of the significant factors, which can provide grand level
success and recognition to a business. As per various scholars, entrepreneurship is an activity
in which new business is set up by the individuals despite taking risks for generating
profitability and productivity in a business market (Cole, 2013). This report is presenting a
critical analysis of the statement “You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs”. The
report is analysing this statement from the view of entrepreneurship and evaluates why it is
necessary for the entrepreneurs to take risks and show difficult behaviours or shady business
dealings for trade-offs and success. For this purpose, various strengths and weaknesses of
entrepreneurship are analysed in context to the statement, which is followed by critical
discussion. Not only this but, certain real-life example of entrepreneurship and their difficult
behaviours are also described in the report for justifying the statement.
Strengths and Weakness of Entrepreneurs in Context to the Statement
Strengths
One of the prominent strengths, which are associated with the statement for entrepreneurs, is
the risk-taking ability. It is found that entrepreneurs across the world analyses the impacts of
the emerging situations in the business markets and may evaluate the ways how those
situations can be transformed into opportunities (Collins, 2017). However, it is found that the
emerging situations in a business environment may also pose the risks and threats to the
business; but, entrepreneurs usually focus on the benefits and advantages, which can be
acquired after taking risks.
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Weaknesses
The most noticeable risk linked with entrepreneurship is the risk, which may put the
organisation into vulnerable situations. It is found in many studies that entrepreneurs consider
taking risks to lead their organisations on the path of success and growth. For this purpose,
they take significant risks, which may completely change the environment within the
company (Cremer and Tenbrunsel, 2012).
Critical Discussion of the Statement
The statement “You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs” is a metaphoric
statement, which indicates that for long term growth profitability of the business;
entrepreneurs are required to take decisions, which may expose the organisation to great
threats in the business markets. It is found that entrepreneurs need to exhibit shady business
deals and difficult behaviours speculating the long term productivity and business making
probabilities. Various studies in entrepreneurship and organisational management help
understand that entrepreneurs cannot always take the decisions in which all the stakeholders
and business associates are benefitted (Vries, and Manfred, 1985).
It can be analysed that while operating in a business environment there are many factors,
which can severely affect the excellence of an organisation. When an organisation is
launched in a business market, it can easily make business and profitability until other
organisations emerge as prominent competitors. It is found that more competition in the
business environment may allow entrepreneurs to look for ways, which may present growth
opportunities. Increasing competitive rivalry in an industry escalates the difficulties to the
companies to do business (Sims, 2017). For this reason, entrepreneurs consider overhauling
the entire structure and nature of the organisation. There are many studies, which show that
entrepreneurs may take risks in the tough business environment to enhance the situations for
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the organisations. These tough decisions may include restructuring the organisation,
developing new products, offering attractive services and many others. It can be understood
that when an organisation faces tough business situations; it could be too difficult to take
risky decisions and to implement them (Michalos and Poff, 2012). For example,
entrepreneurs may consider investing in new business ventures, which may increase the
operating income of the organisations and increase vulnerabilities.
As per the theory of entrepreneurship, it is not necessary that decisions taken by the
entrepreneurs will always benefit its stakeholders. There can be situations in which
entrepreneurs need to overlook the expectations of the customers, suppliers, governments,
investors and many other stakeholders. It can be analysed that entrepreneurs focus on gaining
long term productivity and profitability; which customers, employees and other stakeholder
focus on generating fast financial benefits (Theodosios, 2014).
However, shady business dealing and difficult behaviours shown by the entrepreneurs in an
organisation cannot be considered fair and rightful. As per the theory of corporate
governance, organisations can only be said to do ethical business, when they intend to show
transparency in business deals (Bachmann, 2016). It can be understood that while showing
difficult behaviours and shady business deals approaches of ethical business making are
violated.
As far as the suitability of the shady business dealing and difficult behaviours is considered;
it can be analysed that entrepreneurs need to make the deals, which are surely benefitting for
the employees and other stakeholders (Stanwick and Stanwick, 2015). Only then, difficult
behaviours can be said suitable for the business and activities of entrepreneurs can be
regarded as justifiable. Therefore, the statement “You cannot make an omelette without
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breaking eggs” appears right only when organisations have surety of gaining financial
excellence in the future, which ultimately levies positive effects over the stakeholders.
Linking the Statement with Example from Real Life entrepreneurs
There are several real-life examples in which states “You cannot make an omelette without
breaking eggs” appears right and justified. This study will take the real-life example of Steve
Jobs and Kiichiro Toyoda.
Steve Jobs
Various studies show that before Tim Cook, Apple Incorporation was managed and lead by
Steve Jobs, who was also the founder of the company. Steve Jobs is considered one of the
greatest entrepreneurs in the world. Style of the leadership of Jobs was autocratic in which
employees were not involved in decision making (Cole, 2013). Not only had this but, during
the times of Jobs, Apple Incorporation considered the top-down approach in strategic
decision making. At that span of time, Apple was also reported to execute many shady
business deals in which the entire focus of the entrepreneur was on enhancing financial
excellence of the company rather than considering stakeholder benefits (Rothaermel, 2013).
Launch of Apple iPhone was one of the toughest decisions in the organisation, which put
Apple at the edge of high financial and strategic risks. Despite tough market situations and
high scale vulnerabilities, Steve Jobs considered taking the risk of carrying out innovation for
developing smartphones. As a result, the organisation gained massive success and
profitability across the world making it the biggest company on the plant in terms of market
valuation (Collins, 2017). Not only this but, it was also observed that difficult behaviours and
shady business dealing exhibited by Steve Jobs ultimately resulted in beneficial business
ventures, which also provided advantages to the stakeholders.
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Steve Jobs have gone through lots of ups and downs and was able to turnaround the bankrupt
Apple into one of the most valuable brand in the world due to his effective leadership quality
and entrepreneurship behaviour (Isaacson, 2006). He uses to stay very simple but focused
with its organisation goal and always gave preference to learning. It is analysed that the Steve
Jobs have always look forward to take the advice and opinions from the experts so as to
identify the areas of improvement and make things better(Isaacson,2006). Moreover, being an
entrepreneur and leader, he had always given major focus on quality rather than quantity and
had always gave higher attention so as to deliver quality products to the customers. Being an
entrepreneur, an individual should also learn to consider failure as one of the learning
opportunity as being experience by Steve Jobs at the time of his professional career
(Rothaermel, 2013). He had always analysed the factors of failure and used it as a source of
motivation to improvise his weakness. Steve jobs also gave emphasis to take risk in order to
achieve ambitious goals.
This way, it can be seen that if Steve Jobs (the entrepreneur) had not shown the difficult
behaviours; then, there would be fewer chances for Apple Incorporation to gain huge success
in its business markets. His determination and focus to achieve the desired goal and learning
ability have helped him to tackle and deal with various difficulties which came across his
path. Moreover, his ability to take the risk and manage it systematically had also helped the
Apple company so achieve success. His aim for perfection and delivery of quality product
has also acted as a challenge for the company. For this reason, the statement “You cannot
make an omelette without breaking eggs” appears to be right and justified for Steve Jobs after
reviewing his dedication and focus towards work. He had proved that success cannot be
achieved until and unless the risk is taken and focus is given on the organisational goal.
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Kiichiro Toyoda
Another example, which can be given for evaluating the statement, can be that of Kiichiro
Toyoda. Various studies indicate that Toyota is one of the organizations, which exhibit many
unethical practices and shady business deals. It is found that there are many unethical
practices in the organization, which also has enhanced the concerns of customer safety in the
cars and vehicles produced. A study carried out in the year 2013 indicates that management
in Toyota saved more than $124 million in the year 2009 by lowering the customer safety
standards in the manufactured cars. Not only this but, the organization also saved nearly $11
million by changing the tougher locks, which are used in the cars (Hastley, 2013). This way,
it can be analysed that Kiichiro Toyoda considered many shady business deals and difficult
behaviours to reduce its operating cost and to enhance the financial benefits. Further, studies
have revealed that the organization also made many efforts to hide the evidence, which were
related to rolling over and death cases (Liker & Meier, 2006). It can be analysed that in the
case of Toyota, there were no benefits, which were perceived by the customers; but, the
organization made huge profitability through unethical business means and shady business
dealing.
Kiichiro Toyota had believed that the superficial impression of the situation has always lead
to ineffectual leadership and decision-making. He thus planned to grow the leaders of Toyota
from the company itself who can acknowledge the culture of Toyota which is termed as
‘genchi genbutsu’. He had encouraged the people to go through the place to review the actual
scenario for understanding. His leadership and entrepreneurship skills have always helped the
company by encouraging the employees so as to make a development of the creative thinking
(Hino, 2006). He has always acknowledged the actual situation and have encouraged the
team members to understand the work in-depth. His teaching has always helped the
employees and have taught them by the means of questioning. This different strategy to deal
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with the problem had also helped the Toyota company to achieve success (Liker &
Meier,2006). Apart from that, Kiichiro always had the ability to deal the problems which
comes across his ways. When the company have issues in supplying the raw materials,
Kiichiro had altered Ford’s direction by serving each of the process of production with small
quantity of materials. This practice of giving smaller quantity of the raw materials in the
factory had later turned into an effective strategy called as ‘Just-in-time manufacturing’. This
have helped the company to achieve cost benefits and cutting-edge process (Hino, 2006).
Cost benefits acquired by the organization present the suitable justifications for the statement
“You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs”. He had proved that entrepreneurs
should be ready to deal with any sorts of issues which come across his way. Entrepreneurs
should not run away from risk and difficult situations and in fact come with effective solution
to it. Thus, he has said that success can only be achieved when an entrepreneur breaks all the
barriers and come up with new and effective solution.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above report that decisions made by the entrepreneurs
throughout the world can be mapped against the statement “You cannot make an omelette
without breaking eggs”. It is found that many organisations exhibit unethical practices and
shady business dealings, which are capable of providing financial benefits to them. There are
many organisations in the world in which entrepreneurs have adopted unethical business
means and have generated great profitability. Along with this, it is also found that shady
business dealings can be responsible for compromising the benefits of the stakeholders in an
organisation. It is evidenced from the example of Apple Incorporation that shady business
dealing carried out by Steve Jobs, were benefitting to the employees in the long term.
However, it is not always true as such approaches in Toyota compromised the safety of the
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customers. Overall conclusions that can be made are that shady business dealing levy positive
impacts over the financial gains in business.
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References
Bachmann, B. (2016). Ethical Leadership in Organizations: Concepts and Implementation.
UK: Springer
Cole, A. (2013). The Apple Organization: Unethical Behaviors. USA: GRIN Verlag
Collins, D. (2017). Business Ethics: Best Practices for Designing and Managing Ethical
Organizations. USA: SAGE Publications
Cremer, D. and Tenbrunsel, A. (2012). Behavioral Business Ethics: Shaping an Emerging
Field. UK: Routledge
Hastley, R. (2013). 10 Most Unethical Business Practices. [online] Business Pundit.
Available at: http://www.businesspundit.com/10-most-unethical-business-practices/2/
[Accessed 26 Apr. 2019].
Hino, S. (2006). Inside the Mind of Toyota: Management Principles for Enduring Growth.
New York: Productivity Press.
Isaacson, W. (2006). Steve Jobs. United States: Simon & Schuster.
Liker, J. K. & Meier, D. (2006). The Toyota Way Field book. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Michalos, A. and Poff, D. (2012). Citation Classics from the Journal of Business
Ethics: Celebrating the First Thirty Years of Publication. UK: Springer Science & Business
Media.
Rothaermel, F.T. (2013). Apple (in 2013): How to Sustain a Competitive Advantage? Boston:
Harvard Business Publishing.
Sims, R. (2017). A Contemporary Look at Business Ethics. UK: IAP
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Stanwick, P. and Stanwick, S. (2015). Understanding Business Ethics. USA: SAGE
Publications
Theodosios, T. (2014). Approaches and Processes for Managing the Economics of
Information Systems. UK: IGI Global
Vries, K. and Manfred, F. R (1985). The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship, Harvard Business
Review, Nov/Dec 1985, Vol.63(6), p.160
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