Intra-Entrepreneurship

I´m not delusional. I´m an entrepreneur

Cartoonist Hugh MacLeod @Gapingvoid

One of the subjects in my MBA program was “Entrepreneurship”, and it was lectured by one of the best professors I have ever met. He had plenty experience as a venture capitalist, and you can see by the look he stood that “he had seen it all” regarding this topic

One night, in one of the first classes, I said that I was an intra-entrepreneur at my firm. I had been familiarized with the topic and I used to boast a little bit every time I got back to headquarters and give some talks about this topic to the new interns. After opening the first branch of the firm 5 years ago, I felt quite confident on starting a “new” business.

“That´s bull-maneuver” he said (to put it softly). Either you are an entrepreneur or you die trying!”

I must admit that after some nanoseconds thinking “he doesn’t know what I went through. I do want to believe I am an entrepreneur,” a soft smile appeared in my face.

I had to face that, even though I know I had developed some of the characteristics and tools that make a good entrepreneur, I had not had the chance to throw myself into a project of my own. But at the same time I wondered…how can organizations engage their employees if they do not offer opportunities to develop new business or markets inside the organization? Nowadays, is not enough to give them a career...you have to make them proud. You know… Maslow told us about this about 80 years ago, and still companies think that “self-actualization” is becoming a CEO…

Very briefly, let´s go over this graphic on the “hierarchy of needs” presented for the first time in 1943 in a paper written by Abraham Maslow “A theory of Human Motivation”

According to PsycologyToday.com “Maslow called the bottom four levels of the pyramid ‘deficiency needs’ because a person does not feel anything if they are met, but becomes anxious if they are not. Thus, physiological needs such as eating, drinking, and sleeping are deficiency needs, as are safety needs, social needs such as friendship and sexual intimacy, and ego needs such as self-esteem and recognition. In contrast, Maslow called the fifth level of the pyramid a ‘growth need’ because it enables a person to ‘self-actualize’ or reach his fullest potential as a human being. Once a person has met his deficiency needs, he can turn his attention to self-actualization; however, only a small minority of people are able to self-actualize because self-actualization requires uncommon qualities such as honesty, independence, awareness, objectivity, creativity, and originality”

So how can organizations help their employees to develop these qualities? They need to develop an entrepreneurial environment.

The question now is…HOW?

First let´s define “entrepreneur”. Many dictionaries speak of “someone who starts a new business or arranges business deals in order to make money, often in a way that involves financial risks”. Other dictionaries even developed the term “Intrapreneur” as “a person employed to work independently within a company in order to introduce innovation and to revitalize and diversify its business”.

I like to describe them as “someone who detects either some needs or opportunities and find the way to satisfy them”. It is someone who has an idea, develop a plan and take the necessary actions to fulfill it.

It goes beyond making a Business Plan…we need to make a Business Model  considering more aspects than the typical financial ones. Every department in the company must collaborate to prepare this BP.

In this process the whole organization shouldn´t ask itself “who are we?”…it must ask “who are we being?

This process is in constant change along with every resource of the company: people, money, buildings, shareholders and so on…organizations must incoporate entrepreneurial qualities every single day, in every single department.

Not only will this process empower employees and raise morale inside the organization, but also boost the community. Entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs) are vital for the development of society in different aspects:

• Socioeconomic: it enhances the community with new businesses, generating employment and more qualified people. This eventually leads to new customers, with better standards, obliging vendors to improve their quality and service. What is more, this raise taxes for the governnement which in time cascade to better public services.

• Personal: people learn to canalize their energies and talent towards a self-fulfilling goal. In the way, they develop leadership and learn to work in teams. They generate tools to keep creating new ideas both inside and outside the company.

And I do not want to focus only in corporations…we can implement these thought also in NGOs, politics, schools, sports and so on.

But which are in fact these qualities that organizations must develop in order to generate new ideas all over the place, creating this entrepreneurial environment? How can we constantly propose and develop new ideas inside this “original” idea the organization is? 

Here are 5 simple steps to follow:

1) Know where you are standing

Reality may be different depending the angle we watch. Reality is not what it seems, it is what we interpret. In the following picture what do you see?

Or this famous drawing of Magritte…is that a pipe? Or just a drawing of a pipe?

Remember. Who are you being?

2) Crisis means opportunity

"Let's not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress.

Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born form the dark night. It's in crisis that inventive is born, as well as discoveries, and big strategies. Who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. Who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to solutions. Incompetence is the true crisis.

The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions to their problems. There's no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s no merit without crisis. It's in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead.

Let us stop, once and for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it."

 Albert Einstein

 3) Vision

     

     Organizations must see beyond their 2-years-budgets. They need to believe in the future in order to create a path to reach it. Employees must know by heart the mission of the company and truly believe in it. It must be more than some simple words written on a wall. It is good to know the history and myths of the company, but it is not enough to hold plans based on what a founder did more than 50 years ago.  The “vision” is the best manifestation of creative imagination, and the main motivation of human action. Remember to find the balance between these two:

§  Too much Vision but less Action:  you are a dreamer

§  Too much Action but less Vision:  you live a routine

§  Few Action and few Vision: you are a bureaucrat

§  Only with sufficient Vision and enough Action: you are an entrepreneur

 4)  Tolerance for failure. 

     

     Errors are part of the learning process, and they are constantly out there. Organizations must encourage errors within a controlled range of action. Employees must learn to be accountable for their decisions and actions. If we weren´t afraid of failure…how many amazing things we may try? Remember that things don´t happen on their own…it is US that make them happen.

 5)  Embrace an open minded environment:

•      TALK: Conversations creates worlds…
•    DIVERSITY: Different personalities teach us new ways of understanding the world
•    TRUST: Be confident of your colleagues
•    JOY: a smile in time, creates nine…
•    CHOICE: trust your choices and have research to support it.
•    NETWORKING: what comes around, goes around…
•    CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: do question why the things are done like that
•    ETHICS AND SOLIDARITY: Treat others with respect, professionalism, fairness, and sensitivity to their many differences and strengths, including situations of high pressure and urgency.
•    CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: Identify-Plan-Execute-Review
•    PASSION AND COMPROMISE: Be protagonist. “One person with passion is better than forty merely interested” E.M. Forster
•    BE PROTAGONIST: choose your lines but embrace some direction
•    CHANGE: Before you have to change. You change by changing and leaving your comfort zone.

It may be not the same as starting a new project from scratch, getting funding and sailing in the uncharted waters of uncertainty but...is not it worth it to try to create entrepreneurial minds from within in order to boost society? It may sound a bit utopian but at least that made me keep my smile in that class.

*****

PS: Al though I enjoy intra-entrepreneurship, in future posts we will talk about entrepreneurship focusing on new business and the whole process:

• Evaluation of an idea
• Getting funding
• How to navigate the first years of maturation: cost structure, profitability, outsourcing
• Paying off and moving on