When the Going Gets Tough

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Authors: Pradip Sinha, Sadhu Ramakrishna,
Associate Consultant, Research Associate
ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research).

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She was equally determined in doing something for the society, especially for bringing down child abuse. It is her continuous efforts that had led the president of USA to pass the `Oprah bill', a law made for the child protection against any sort of societal abuse (The national child protection act). How many have made such an impact to the society? She has also contributed millions of dollars to charities and higher education institutes but without seeking any media attention.

Like the two sides of a coin, a person's life has also got both the positive and negative sides. It applies in the case Oprah Winfrey also. Like Jack Welch, Steve Jobs and many other leading business leaders, Oprah too has been criticized on many counts; foremost among the criticisms is her way of enforcing strict rules on her employees and giving them a tough time. Her employees complained of not getting any special attention from her whenever their project got recognition or won ratings or awards. She was more interested in completing the project. She was also criticized for her statement that she would never eat a hamburger again in her life.

Some cattle producers blamed her statement saying that it was the reason for the drastic collapse of the sales of their products, and some even filed a suit against her.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. She was proved to be innocent of the mad cow disease case, as the court clearly stated that whatever she had said were her personal views, i.e., her statements were not illicit and one could not consider her the reason behind the collapse in their product's demand. Talking about the employees of Oprah, you cannot have the guarantee, that they would not have said anything harsh of her work culture, if Oprah would have praised them while making it to the awards and ratings, and not when they have completed the project. Some people have the habit of sensing dissatisfaction irrespective of what they have. They keep on stinking for this or that. Oprah did what she was doing from the very beginning of her career. Entrepreneurships taught us to accomplish the goal and not the awards or ratings and recognition. She feels that awards and recognition will come to an individual once he/she achieves his/her goal. She did exactly that by praising at the time of completion of the project, thus matching with the norms of entrepreneurs, which matter the most.

According to the entrepreneurship center at Miami University, Ohio, the definition of entrepreneurship is: Entrepreneurship is the process of identifying, developing and bringing a vision to life. The vision may be innovative idea, an opportunity, or simply a better way to do something. The end result of this process is the creation of a new venture, formed under conditions of risk and considerable uncertainty.

The awards she received and the recognition she gained as an idol in the minds of millions of people, itself speak of her hard work, popularity and success. One of the important characteristics of entrepreneurs is their consistency with which they perform things. And her record reveals her consistency in being among the top three positions while talking of favorite TV personalities from 1993 to 2001. No one can ever get closer to her unique feat. Her talk-show has been the number one show for 16 long years and this clarifies and further proves her popularity.

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