Recognise Intrapreneurs!

As a business leader you know that finding ideas is not always the problem. The real issue is selecting and spreading the best ideas, testing quickly, and executing flawlessly. An “innovation engine” is an organisation’s capability to think and invest in long-term opportunities along with the competence to drive continuous innovations for top-line growth each year.

Many senior leaders, surprisingly, are actually afraid to promote out-of- the-box thinking for fear of losing their best employees to success and then to competitors; this is a sure sign of failed leadership. Many successful entrepreneurs get their business idea while working for a previous employer. These talented individuals left because the environment did not have an intrapreneurial process to pitch their ideas. Smart people leave companies to start their own ventures because their firms did not believe in intrapreneurship as a critical tool for growth.

Intrapreneurs can transform an organisation more quickly and effectively than others because they are self-motivated free thinkers, masters at navigating around bureaucratic and political inertia.

You can begin a senior-level conversation about intrapreneurship by addressing the following important questions:

What is your organization’s definition of a corporate intrapreneur?
How does one become a successful intrapreneur?
How can you find intrapreneurs within and outside your company?
What are methods and tactics to develop intrapreneurs and intrapreneurial teams? How can your organization implement them to nurture your intrapreneurs?

Successful companies with their own “innovation engines” understand how to find, develop, and retain intrapreneurs. In order to outcompete, they promote and nurture a small start-up environment within a large organisational structure that embraces continuous experimentation to find the next big thing. When you find your intrapreneurs and support them correctly – magic will occur!

Extract of article by Vijay Govindarajan and Jatin Desai

Please share your knowledge about nurturing your intrapreneurs?