This month is Women’s Month. Did you know that women are entering the entrepreneurial world at twice the rate of men in the USA? Unfortunately, that is not the case in South Africa. I am of the firm belief that women make better entrepreneurs than men. Now - before the men get their egos in a knot, hear me out.

In my experience, women find themselves having to work harder to achieve in a predominantly men’s business world. Because of this, they are less inclined to waste time in many of the “required conversations” such as the rugby game last weekend or the best line up for the cricket on Saturday. Women get to the point quicker. Could it be that ego plays a part too? Do men need to have a bigger ego than women in a similar situation? Be honest, if you are a man and you have had a meeting with another man, who you observed arriving in a car that was less expensive than yours, would that change the dynamic of the meeting? Would the same be true if it were a lady arriving?

When it comes down to it, ego-based decisions are, without a doubt, the very worst decisions we make as entrepreneurs. And we make them everyday. We are so worried about setting up the perception of success that we sometimes fail to focus on the really important stuff such as adding value and delivering immaculately. I am not saying that perception is not important. I am saying that perception, at the sacrifice of value delivery, is a very bad idea. When your need to feel important, when your need to feel “in”, when your need to tell everyone how great you are, is greater than your need to ensure that your customers are happy (or indeed your need to go out and find customers) then trouble is on the horizon.

In his book “Good to Great” Jim Colins notes how humble and relatively egoless the great CEOs are. Rather try to emulate this behavior than that of the fly-by-night pop stars.