It is with great pleasure to announce that Boehringer Ingelheim’s “School for Intrapreneurs” once again stands in the spotlight of a prestigous award: first as a finalist and now the winner of the “2015 Most Impactful Global Initiative Award” award at the eyeforpharma Philadelphia meeting on April 8, 2015!
A big thank you to eyeforpharma and its distinguished panel of expert jurors for recognizing the approach and the success of this unique program as well as kudos to the team at Boehringer Ingelheim and Pinchot&Co, who made this program such a success!
Meet me at the Intrapreneurship Conference 2014at the “Kennispoort”-building of the Eindhoven University of Technology, John F. Kennedylaan 2, 5612 AB Eindhoven, The Netherlands, from December 10-12, 2014! Contact me you are interested to attend, as I may be able to get you a discounted ticket!
Intrapreneurship is the most powerful engine for growth. With innovation being priority #1, how are you implementing and leveraging innovation from within?
Now being organized for the fourth time, the Intrapreneurship Conference 2014 is the premier global event for Corporate Innovation Managers, Intrapreneurs, Business Managers, HR-Managers and Innovation Consultants. This is not just another conference on innovation, where you will be listening to motivational speakers all day. We intentionally keep the number of available seats at a level that enables you to really connect with everyone.
Discuss the best and next practices in implementing and leveraging intrapreneurship. We have carefully curated a program for you that includes all relevant topics in the field of intrapreneurship, and invited experienced intrapreneurs and experts to co-create an impactful learning experience for you.
You will leave the conference with a clear action plan and practical tools for the next step in implementing intrapreneurship. Plus, you will meet like-minded people to connect, share and collaborate with – as most Intrapreneurs are the lone mavericks in the corporate jungle.
Our immune system protects our health and defends us against threats entering our body. It identifies intruding germs, isolates them from the surroundings and flushes them out of the system to prevent further harm. Our immune system also keeps track of intruders formerly identified to reject them even more effectively should they ever reappear.
Large organization consist of humans who tend to follow behavioral patterns not unlike their inner immune systems when it comes to evaluating new ideas brought forward by an aspiring intrapreneur. Especially, if a new idea comes with a ‘wishlist’ of demands is needed from us to make it happen; typically, time and money.
Joining the Dark Side
It’s our human nature: we approve ideas we like or that further our objectives while we tend to reject ideas that don’t match our liking, beliefs, commitments or that cause disruption to our equilibrium or budget. Disruptive ideas come with uncertainty and may require uncomfortable or additional efforts on our side. The outcome may appear risky, could waste precious resources or have other undesirable repercussions for us. The fear of losing something is stronger than the incentive of gain. And often enough, we just don’t fully understand the idea or its implications, don’t take the time or find the impetus to look into its details, so it seems safe and convenient to reject it.
This way, as managers and coworkers, we act as a part of the organizational immune system. We become part of the reasons why mature organizations can’t innovate – we join the ‘dark side,’ so to speak.
Our body remembers a previous intruder in order to respond even faster the next time – and so do we. Interestingly, though, we tend to remember better who presented the idea that we rejected rather than what the idea was about. So when the ‘quirky guy’ shows up again after a while with the next idea, our suspicion is already kindled, and we more easily reject this next idea too.
Too often an intrapreneur lets their enthusiasm take over and confronts us straight on with their ideas bundled with a request for resources of sorts. Most often, this discussion ends quickly with a “No,” when we perceive this ‘frontal attack’ as a threat to the status quo, the establishment, and the well-oiled machine that the manager runs; and so it triggers the ‘corporate immune system’ leading to rejection.
Stepping Stones to Success
So, just short of having “The Force” of a Jedi, how should an intrapreneur seek support for an idea from managers, potential sponsors or coworkers? While not ‘one-size-fits-all’ and there is no silver bullet, here is a selection of tried approaches for consideration:
Seek support: The trick is to ask in a ways that build support for driving the idea forward – and not necessarily for the whole implementation project at once. Even a small step is better than none. For example, supporting evidence can help to raise curiosity and deflate resistance. Find out if a similar approach worked out in another company or industry; it helps to emphasize validation elsewhere. It can help to frame and position your offer to a potential sponsor.
Build trust: Additional ‘selling tips’ I picked up from Gifford Pinchot III., the Grand-Master of intrapreneuring himself, suggest a more social approach that includes building a personal relationship first: It is much easier to connect from a position of mutual trust and openness to find support building the supportive network by asking for advice or references before you ask for resources.
Just a test: Cautious managers may open up when they hear the intrapreneur is not intending to change anything, just ‘trying something out,’ so not to threaten their established processes, investments or power-structures within the organization. Emphasizing the ‘experimental’ and non-threatening nature of the idea helps to prevent triggering the immune system at this early stage.
Gathering Insights: Successful intrapreneurs listen very closely to what the responses to learn from them. Rather than asking a closed question that puts them in a Yes-or-No cul-de-sac, it is much more insightful to carefully phrase questions in a way that the gate-keeper already solves the problem, or provides an answer or approach to the problem the intrapreneur is trying to solve.
Know the Goals: The larger a support network an intrapreneur can built for their idea, the better. Rather than the direct manager, it may be more informative to work with people who have insights into the goals and priorities of the organization, which may be sources of resistance. This way, the intrapreneur can learn about possible conflicting goals (for example, “do more with less” or “stability versus creativity”) that need to be known and understood in order to be addressed and dealt with constructively.
Show Gratitude: And finally, it is important for intrapreneurs to pay respect and express gratitude no matter what the outcome is of their conversation. A ‘thank you’ goes a long way and keeps the door open to talk more and possibly receive support in the future.
Books teach us how to say “No!” – they fill up entire shelves in bookstores to help us achieve professional success and personal freedom. Rejecting requests from others helps us de-clutter our busy day and protect us from time-suckers and commitments we immediately regret.
On the other end, we are asked to delegate more to boost our productivity. This comes easier for your client or boss, who has a mandate or authority over what we work on and what process to follow. And then there are Intrapreneurs: champions of ideas they want to turn into reality within large organizations without mandate or authority. (Read also The Rise of the Intrapreneur)
The “No” trap for Intrapreneurs
Intrapreneurs are driven by their passion and belief in the idea they develop and seek support for. They also often stand outside the ordinary structure and processes of the organization. Intrapreneurs need to pull voluntary favors from people they have no control over in order to find support, funding, protection, expertise or whatever else their project requires to get off the ground or move forward.
For Intrapreneurs, avoiding the “No” becomes even more crucial: once they received a “No” to their proposal or request, it is hard to change their mind no matter how much sense the project makes.
– Why is that?
Why it’s hard to say “Yes” again
Put yourself in the shoes of a potential sponsor, lets say a manager, executive or technical expert: this Intrapreneur, a person you may or may not know well, walks into your office and requests resources, money, time, or whatever to fuel an uncalled for project with an uncertain outcome that was not budgeted for and that disrupts your operations.
The safe and easy thing is to say “No.” When rationalizing in retrospect, you just saved the company diverting and possibly wasting resources on this crazy project that may even have felt like a surprise attack! – And so you feel good, right?
Now, when the Intrapreneur comes back later to try his or her luck again, perhaps equipped with more data, what can you do? If you said “Yes” this time around, wouldn’t you be inconsistent with your previous position and possibly even undermine your own authority?
Subconsciously, you may already be biased and seeking a face-saving way to get over this discussion. So it’s safe again to stay with “No,” and remain consistent – and feel good! After all, it’s human nature!
“No” doesn’t turn to “Yes” easily
As an Intrapreneur, coming back to ask for a “Yes” again is an uphill battle, a double sell. You are basically wasting your energy fighting human nature rather than helping your cause effectively. Chances are you will not be able to turn around a previous “No” into a “Yes,” no matter how much more data and other good arguments you throw at the aspired sponsor. When seeking voluntary support from others, hearing a “No” is a huge obstacle that is hard to overcome.
So, for an Intrapreneur, the million-dollar question (perhaps literally!) is, how to avoid the “No” in the first place and get support for the idea.
How to avoid “No” and thrive your project
For an Intrapreneur, it is most important to listen closely and be open to the questions and concerns the sponsor to-be brings up: they may just as well uncover valid flaws or complementing areas to be addressed to make the idea succeed in the end.
Gifford Pinchot, the author of the best-selling book Intrapreneuring, suggests these nifty tactics for Intrapreneurs to approach helpers or sponsors in a non-threatening or overly demanding way that would trigger the negative response. A small step forward is better than a full stop of the “organizational immune system” kicking in. Don’t ask bluntly for resources of sorts. Instead, ask for advice or a reference to a co-worker!
People love to talk about themselves and being asked for their expertise and opinion. This works with employees on all levels of the hierarchy no matter if you seek a sponsor or advice from an expert.
Intrapreneuring
By asking for advice, there is no Yes-or-No dead-end involved. It’s just a factual discussion among professionals about an idea and what it would take to improve it and to move it forward. Even softer is the question for help to find someone else, who could help or whom the Intrapreneur should talk to next. Even if not interested in the idea themselves, it allows the potential sponsor or expert to refer to another person, who is possibly better suited or more interested without losing face or appearing unsupportive.
Thumbs up all around
In case the idea or project tanks, as the expert/sponsor you didn’t waste any resources nor will you be held accountable. If, in contrast, the idea has a positive outcome down the road, you may even claim having supported it at an early stage or have made a key introduction that led to the project’s success. Now, that feels good no matter what happens with the Intrapreneur’s idea or project, right? That’s human nature too.
From the Intrapreneur’s perspective, for starters, you achieved to avoid the “No” kiss-of-death. You may have even got another lead or hint on what to improve or consider, something you overlooked or were not aware of before. Addressing this may require some more research, data or conversations, but for now, it drives your idea forward to take the next step, which is good and helpful.
It’s not really rocket-science but rather dealing with human nature in a resourceful and constructive way that keeps the intrapreneurial project moving forward.
The Rise of the Intrapreneur How to become an ‘Intrapreneur’? Why are Intrapreneurs needed? What is the difference to Entrepreneurship? – The future of innovation within large organizations lies within, if you know how to tap into it with intrapreneurship!
What is Intrapreneurship?
Did you know that ‘Intrapreneur’ and ‘Intrapreneurship’ are not new terms but were coined nearly 35 years ago by Elizabeth and Gifford Pinchot in 1978?
As a definition for our purposes, an intrapreneur takes responsibility in large organizations for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation. In contrast to an entrepreneur, the Intrapreneur operates within an existing organization with an internal focus. Intrapreneurship requires an organization of considerable size for an intrapreneurial role to become applicable in the first place.
What is the difference to Entrepreneurship?
‘Intrapreneur’ is not as well known as the more established term ‘Entrepreneur’ which it derives from. It even takes a deliberate effort to pronounce the word Intrapreneur so doesn’t sound like and get confused with Entrepreneur.
The word ‘Entrepreneur’ has been around since the 19th century with its functional roots reaching even farther back into the 16th century. According to the original definition, an Entrepreneur is “one who undertakes an enterprise […] acting as intermediatory between capital and labour” or in other words, to “shift economic resources out of lower and into higher productivity and greater yield.” (source: Wikipedia)
The role of an Entrepreneur is not so different from the Intrapreneur but many differences exist relating to the environment they operate in and the approach they take. An Entrepreneur founds a new venture, a business, or company, as an independent economic entity. This new entity then typically competes for profit in a market with other companies. Today, Entrepreneurship has fanned out to include specializations such as lifestyle, serial, or social Entrepreneurship that also expanded in markets (in lieu of a better word) previously dominated by non-for-profit, clerical or government institutions.
As a bottom-line, Entrepreneurship roots in competition between companies or organizations by introducing and building a new entity that grows as a company to stand alone in an economic marketplace – while the Intrapreneur connects “capital and labour” using somewhat entrepreneurial methods within an existing organization. You can even see Intrapreneurship as a downstream evolution for a successful and matured entrepreneurial venture.
Why do we need Intrapreneurs?
With increasing size, an organization slows. Inertia and paralysis set in to replace agility and effectiveness. This is often caused by the organization’s own success: The focus shifts towards delivering with increasing efficiency (cost, time) and consistency (quality). You can easily observe the results in many organizations – it looks somewhat like this:
Business functions specialize and sub-optimization to become more efficient and productive; they thereby form ‘silos’ with communication and interactions thinning between them to the detriment of the organization as a whole.
Hierarchical structures become steeper to manage more employees; they effectively disconnect the executives on the top from the workers at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Promising innovation ideas from the grassroots don’t get through to the executive level for backing or funding to be developed and implemented; the ideas starve and innovation suffers overall.
More rules and procedures regulate the growing workforce and detailed aspects of work processes; governance, red tape, and bureaucracy pour over the organization like concrete and become obstacles to change.
Career paths become linear, job profiles and responsibilities narrow, entailing an equally narrow view and mindset of the staff that eats away motivation and creativity over time.
Talented and creative employees are the first to leave or become hard to retain, as they are always in demand and easily find interesting work elsewhere.
Innovation suffers while competitive pressure increases when nimble competitors and start-ups outpace the organization.
Management used to command-and-control eagerly seeks fresh talent and ideas externally, i.e. ‘hiring the best and brightest’, to reanimate the organization – yet the leaky pipeline continues bleeding talent, as also the new ‘super stars’ find themselves trapped and escape to new adventures elsewhere.
It takes a jolt to overcome this inertia, revive it, and get an organization moving nimble again ‑ this is the hour of the Intrapreneur!
Time for Action – Clock
How to become an Intrapreneur?
It takes a new role in the organization to jump-start it, so we “Innovate to Implement“. Sometimes, a new CEO is hired to turn the corporate ship around from the top; sometimes it works. The Intrapreneur, however, also considers working bottom-up by pulling the loose ends together and connecting people again across all functions and levels of hierarchy. The Intrapreneur bridges the various gaps within the organization vertically and horizontally.
It takes a different approach to include, and engage all employees in ways outside their immediate job description that makes best use of all dimensions each individual brings to the (work) table. The Intrapreneur inspires and spreads a new sense of enablement throughout the workforce.
The Intrapreneur looks differently at how we conduct our business and unlocks innovative value chains, new business models, or propositions. It takes a strategic lead to become a facilitator for the organization, to adapt continuously and make best use of the changing environment. The Intrapreneur builds networks and alliances to help actively moving the organization towards its business goals.
The Intrapreneur is a much-in-need and critical role within the matured organization. It can come in different flavors too! Being the ‘Executive Champion’, for example, is an intrapreneurial role (see “How to become the strategic innovation leader? (part 2 of 3).”
As an Intrapreneur it is important to be aware what hat to wear and when. Sometimes an ‘architect’ is needed and an ‘orchestrator’ at other times, for example. ‑ For more details see: “Innovation Strategy: Do you innovate or renovate?”
Risks becoming an Intrapreneur
Now, as a word of warning, being an Intrapreneur is not always easy: You tent to step on many people’s toes if you want to make a difference. It can be so risky, that Gifford Pinchot even formulated The Intrapreneur’s Ten Commandments starting with: “Come to work each day willing to be fired.”
So brace yourself because there are many obstacles to innovation and change out there that the Intrapreneur will face. Intrapreneurship is most and foremost a leadership role, which has a natural tendency to conflict with managers (see “Leadership vs Management? What is wrong with middle management?”).
Prepare to hit the obstacles to an innovation environment that Irving Wladawsky-Berger in Business Week calls “indifference, hostility, and isolation” – I couldn’t agree more!
The bottom-line
It is not always easy to become an Intrapreneur. It takes skill and persistence as well as courageous leadership and risk taking. Truly making a difference and reviving an organization though is rewarding in itself – at least you will learn a lot and make new friends. ‑ Most of all make sure you have fun!
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