Successful careers are built around three core-values that are highly complementary and together affect our lives in the most profound fashion.

During a recent meeting with one of the entrepreneurial pioneers, Dr. Bob Beyster, the founder of the largest research and engineering company in the US, SAIC, a student asked Dr. Beyster about the most important thing he learned during his career in entrepreneurship. Dr. Beyster is over 85 years old and sat in his wheelchair. He looked straight at a student and responded with only one word: “perseverance.” Everybody was waiting for a more detailed explanation of his answer. After a few seconds, Dr. Beyster said: “A lot of perseverance.” And then he smiled.

I have never seen a more memorable and or clear answer to this very important question.  Sometimes, it takes many words to make a point. Sometimes, a few words are better: “A lot of perseverance.” In the language of Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, Dr. Beyster is a “Level 5 leader” – a leader who operates with a genuine humility, but hugely ambitious for the job, and the company!

Mrs. Beyster, a lovely and kind person who was also in that meeting gave examples about what perseverance really meant. “He would not let go,” she said. “I was once shopping with him and I went off go get something and left him just for a few minutes. When I came back he was gone, leaving on his airplane to deal with an urgent problem that could not wait.” She smiled, and so did he, remembering that day. Success requires commitment and perseverance many just don’t have in them.

The first and most important P of entrepreneurial career is perseverance.

There is a second P of success that can be clearly seen in Dr. Beyster’s book, and in so many other stories of great entrepreneurs. It is extremely difficult to have that perseverance if our work is not at the center of our passion. We talked about that previously. Every success-story that is worth talking about has difficult chapters, times of doubt and near-disaster. Performance during these times requires energy almost beyond human limits, and I believe this energy comes from an alignment of our actions with the passions in us. Yes, it’s tough right now – but we are doing something we love, something very much worthwhile.

Jim Collins once said: “The kind of commitment I find among the best performers across virtually every field is a single-minded passion for what they do; an unwavering desire for excellence in the way they think and the way they work. Genuine confidence is what launches you out of bed in the morning, and through your day with a spring in your step.”

There is no entrepreneurial success without passion!

There is a third P of success is patience. We have focused on this previously. True and lasting success takes patience. Only in movies does success happen within one hour! Success takes time – almost always more time than we expect.

There is lots to be said about venture investing, but there are important limitations of fast hits which are at the center of interest of some investors. Dr. Beyster focused on sustained success, paying his people to stay, and making many of his employees millionaires.  This was not a “hit and run.” It was a plan, implemented with patience and with a view towards long-time health of his company.

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow – that is patience.” This quote by an unknown author defines what patience really means. It is not about standing by passively, but about the continued courage to keep moving!

Augustine said: “Patience is the companion of wisdom.”

Therefore, the three P’s of entrepreneurial career planning are perseverance, passion and patience!

I very much wish to all of us that we remain focused on our values, our goals and keep creating success!  We are not derailed by criticism – we take from it what helps us become better, and ignore the rest.  Because we are passionate about what we do and we know that due to our patience and continued perseverance – success is ours!

I want to acknowledge Ross Childs who gave a speech on these three P’s during a recent College of Engineering Alumni Society award ceremony!

The following text was prepared for a welcome speech to our Advisory Board. We received tremendous, valuable advice during our one-day meeting! This speech was to introduce a small number of questions which were discussed at length during the board meeting. We encourage your feedback!

“First, I want to thank you for your support and encouragement throughout the entire journey of the Center for Entrepreneurship. Before I get into this, I want to tell you about your promotion. We want this group to be advising all of the Engineering Entrepreneurial Programs. The biggest and most important program is the Center for Entrepreneurship, as you know, but we will talk to you about plans to go bigger and make better what we are doing right now. We also need to expand our programs and increasingly address our faculty’s needs and the interests of our best and most innovative researchers.

“As we start this discussion, it is important to examine the reasons why we are focusing so much on entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering. We think these reasons root in four strategic imperatives that together can drive an entrepreneurship program that is indeed best-in-class and create meaningful and societal impact.

“First, we have Knowledge Transfer: The creation and dissemination of knowledge is the core reason research universities thrive. This transfer occurs through various channels. The most important one is the transfer through our students. That transfer by far exceeds any other option we have. We have also the knowledge transfer that results from our record-setting $1.1B research enterprise.

“A second strategic imperative is Venture Creation: Our talent needs to be enabled and encouraged in such activities, and our knowledge transfer is often enabled by such ventures. Venture Creation is also what the country expects of us and our students. So, we better get involved in teaching and actually impacting this process in a positive fashion.

“A third strategic imperative is Community Engagement: In many ways, our community is our number one strength and it is through the engagement of our community that we can improve in our knowledge transfer and also light a fire under our venture creation efforts. Without a strong engagement we cannot be victorious in creating successes in knowledge transfer and in venture creation. If we are successful, entrepreneurial thinking is not a value we seek to own, but a descriptor of a community we seek to build.

“There is a forth imperative that strongly relates to our entrepreneurial efforts and that is of Disruptive Innovation: Such innovations are the foundations of big plays, and big changes. There needs to be a strong connection between such disruptive innovations and our knowledge transfer for us to truly build impact.

“Together, Knowledge Transfer, Venture Creation, Community Engagement and Disruptive Innovation will create the impact we seek through establishing an entrepreneurial culture within the university, but also to create positive societal impact beyond.

“You will hear an update from CFE and the highlights of the past quarter and the upcoming strategic plan. You will see  the center is focusing on entrepreneurial process to equip the entrepreneurial mindset that lies at the foundation of everything we do. You will hear examples of how the CFE team is driving the right programs in Social Entrepreneurship, Employee Ownership and also a Masters in Entrepreneurship which has the potential to be truly unique and leading in this field. Most importantly, you will hear about a proposed launch of a significant and strategic effort focused on faculty and research activities, driven by our strategic imperatives.

“We are very much interested in your opinions and feel your input to the following two topics will be significant

“The first is directly linked to our strategic imperative of Community Engagement. What are the right tools and the best strategy to engage our community in entrepreneurial programs? What should we do we are not yet doing?

“The second one is focused on our role within the university. Knowing real well that most of you are not university administrators, we would like your feedback on our strategic imperatives and also on our role within the entire university. What do we need to do to create the most impact through this university? And, what is the role of the College of Engineering Entrepreneurship Programs in that?”

Again, your feedback to these questions is very much appreciated! Feel free to send it to me by email, or comment them on Facebook or right here.

An often discussed aspect of our life is the apparent inability of the government to act in an entrepreneurial fashion. And, this mismatch is at the root of one of the most pressing problems – the inability of our government to address security matters at sufficient speed.

Many of us just accept the blatant inefficiency, lack of use and even waste of government efforts, pulling effort towards the meaningless or even useless. Sometimes, we make jokes about the horrible inefficiency of government and lack of motivation of the people to do a good job. But, there is an aspect of this problem that is taking my sleep and is keeping me worried and that is the fact that bureaucracy and government are dropping the ball on security matters.

I learned about this from an award-winning FBI agent whom I had the honor of meeting and spending time with. He has active experience through a successful career focused on organized crime and also on counter-terrorism and has been involved in many high-profile investigations inside and outside of the US. He is a guy I would trust me and my family’s lives.

And, he is desperate.

“We do not have the tools to do our job. Right now, I have to access four computer systems to get access to information you can get with this” – he said, pointing to my Black-Berry. “I cannot keep all the passwords straight – and much information just isn’t even on there. In fact, the only way I can do certain vital searches is to ask for help from other agencies or individuals.” He moved on to discuss some specification of the government-furnished computer system – as I stood in awe and utter disbelief. I am actually not sure whether I know of any still active computer anywhere on the University of Michigan campus that is as old, or as incapable. And, the networking capability is far outdated. In fact, the agent told me about needing to ask the local police-department for help in getting timely and accurate information – not because the FBI does not need this, but because the systems in place do not allow such information retrieval in a timely fashion.

The FBI recognizes the deficiencies and has been trying to fix their computer system – for over ten years!  This work was supposed to be complete by 2009. But, a recent review by the Office of Inspector General of the Sentinel system indicated that the project is now $100 million dollars over budget, and nowhere near finished. The overruns are not the most important story here – it is that the system was obsolete upon arrival! This system will not solve my agent’s problems and there is no plan right now that has the promise to do so.

Let’s think about this government IT project on a time-scale of technology entrepreneurship: The FBI IT project started in the year 2000. For reference – 1999 is when the Google founders moved out of their garage and raised the first seed capital. In 2000, Google launched ad-words, which started a revolution of the search space! After some disastrous approaches, the project was again new defined and launched. 2005 is when Google launched Picasa, Google Maps, Google Earth – all of which have substantial importance to security.  In 2005, the Google headcount was 3000, now it is over 22,000. Also, in 2004, Facebook launched its social network site – it now has 500 million active users. As a citizen and tax-payer, I would hope that the FBI computer system could take advantage of these technology waves – but, sadly, it cannot. It is hopelessly out of date and obsolete – a dead-birth!

Indeed, there is no such thing as a relevant IT security project that is developed on the time-scale of government bureaucracy. Technology moves on the time-scale of entrepreneurship! There are no slow solution to this – only fast ones!

And, here is the scary part: there is one aspect of the FBI work that indeed does move at the speed of entrepreneurship – and those are the security threats! Perhaps that was the biggest concern of my FBI agent. And, this was also the topic of a recent showcase of the Security Innovation Network at the National Press Club in Washington DC focused on cyber security. Vivek Wadhwa’s post on TechCrunch talks about his feelings after learning about some of the facts. There are frightening trends, and numbers – but there is utter helplessness. Says, Vivek Wadhwa:  “The chasm between government and entrepreneur couldn’t be wider. All of the government officials I talked to were open to change and seemed eager to embrace new technologies; yet they had no idea where to start or how to get around their own bureaucracy.”

Wadhwa goes on and makes recommendations regarding acquisition, awareness, and funding/incentives focused on entrepreneurial companies that – if implemented by empowered people – will make a huge difference for us to address the threats, and also give our law-enforcement agencies the tools they need to make us safe.

We will be safer if these recommendations are followed and if our currently ill-equipped law enforcement agencies are given what they need to do their job! During our discussion, we talked about TV-shows focused on law enforcement, such as CSI, and how it made him feel. My friend just laughed out loud and said: “I just only wish I had half these tools!”

The University of Michigan has a lot to add to this important discussion and also to the solutions to these problems. Here are two recent highlights:

-The recently announced sale of a UM-spinout by Farnam Jahanian and his team, Arbor Networks, a leading provider of secure service control solutions for global networks.

-The widely publicized demonstration of safety (or lack thereof!) of DC voting machines, by Alex Halderman, and his team.