how to tap intrapreneurship in your organization
TRANSCRIPT
How To Tap Intrapreneurship In Your OrganizationBuild ownership and pride, challenge employees to the extra mile
• Aniisu K Verghese@aniisu
• How do organizations harness the entrepreneurial spirit and creative attitude
of its employees to boost business outcomes?
• In 1978, Gifford Pinchot and his wife Elizabeth S. Pinchot coined the
term ‘intrapreneur’ to represent the autonomy and initiative that employees
can be given to enhance creativity and make organizations more successful.
• In their seminal paper ‘Intra-Corporate Entrepreneurship’ they wrote ‘The
greatest opportunity in the world today is the opportunity to help form the
social inventions which will allow people to lead lives which more fully express
their potential. People have enormous potential for goodness, for insight, for
creativity, for intimacy, and for work. Much of this potential is trapped within
the constraints of today’s huge hierarchical organizations. The development
of the entrepreneur is a step towards freeing individuals, our organizations,
and our society to use our potential for building fuller, more meaningful,
richer and more productive lives for all of us. The signs of imminent change
surround us. Intrapreneurship is an idea whose time has come”.
Context
Who is an intrapreneur?
• The ‘intrapreneur’ is defined as ‘a person within a large corporation who
takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished
product through assertive risk-taking and innovation’. This means someone
who is curious to solve business problems over and above the regular duties
he or she does. The individual must be able to bring innovation to use at work
and for the benefit of the organization. Gifford calls the individual as ‘the
general manager of a new idea’. Someone who is able to take an idea and
implement it completely.
• So what does it need to create an environment where employees can be
‘intrapreneurs’? How can organization’s immune systems stay in check when
employees continue to be ‘intrapreneurs’?
Curate the journey of intrapreneurs
• Intrapreneurship like entrepreneurship isn’t a
linear process. Failing fast and cheaply are
drivers for fostering ‘intrapreneurship’. When
one innovates, ‘it doesn't always come out
the same way’. The journey isn’t easy
although the choices are clear – the
intrapreneur will choose to ‘do something’
rather than wallow in denial and depression.
Pivoting matters in intrapreneurship
• Intrapreneurship like entrepreneurship isn’t a
linear process. Failing fast and cheaply are
drivers for fostering ‘intrapreneurship’. When
one innovates, ‘it doesn't always come out
the same way’. The journey isn’t easy
although the choices are clear – the
intrapreneur will choose to ‘do something’
rather than wallow in denial and depression.
Organizations have a role to play
• Organizations can make the culture conducive to
innovation. Helping intrapreneurs to be internal
entrepreneurs by pushing freedom down the line.
Organizations can tap potential among employees by
supporting these intrapreneurs succeed through
mentoring, providing freedom and resources.
Acceptability, trust, and motivation combined with a
supportive reward system which isn’t punitive of
innovation make intrapreneurs thrive.
Leaders can nurture intrapreneurs
• Intrapreneurs need ‘air-cover’ from leaders- be allowed to
take risks and placed in environments where they are
inspired to try out new approaches without hindrance. For
example, the labs in organizations or the R&D department
are suitably placed to start. For leaders who want to
nurture intrapreneurs, they must be willing see
intrapreneurship as a team sport, tolerate small
beginnings, involve people, help others add value and
learn not to take credit for other peoples’ successes.
Best of both worlds
• It isn’t about ideas or presentations but about getting stuff
done. Intrapreneurs are both ‘dreamers and doers’. Since
they are closer to the ground they can spot opportunities
and make things work. What we need to realize is that
tacit information rests with these intrapreneurs and
helping them put it to good use will make organizations go
further. It isn’t about disruptive ideas but using stealth to
make bold yet effective decisions that make intrapreneurs
progress. Humility is essential for intrapreneurship.
Intrapreneurs need to try and fail, be persistent, be willing
to own the outcomes.
Final thoughts
• Intrapreneurship has implications for organizational
communication. By understanding the levers that drive
employees’ enterprise and spirit communicators can
collaborate to strengthen bonds. Can intrapreneurship be
sustainable? It depends if organizations are open to
allowing employees exist as entrepreneurs within the
system, allow for freedom beyond performance and
control and cherish dreamers and doers who follow their
passion and creatively solve business problems.
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Resources5 Ways To Harness Intrapreneurship In Organizations
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-ways-harness-intrapreneurship-organizations-aniisu