THE INTRAPRENEUR

Spin-off company. A Supportive role comes to play a leading role.

THE INTRAPRENEUR
[It is not a new movie with Nicole kidman, but give Pollack some time… ]

"Intrapreneur" is an employee in a corporation who comes up with ideas and then brings those ideas to life with the assistance and resources offered by the company. The result may turn out to be just a new project, a new business line, a new corporate start-up company or an organization culture shift, which is more valuable?

April 17, 1982 in an article in the Economist, Norman MacRae gives credit to Gifford Pinchot as the inventor of the word "intrapreneur".

Intrapreneurship is not easier or better than entrepreneurship—it’s simply different.  Let us come up with a few first-sight differences between intra- and entre-preneurship:

-Elevator Pitch. For an intrapreneur, the elevator pitch must convince not a business angel in a 20 min speech but your own company. This is usually a long-distance day-by-day work. TIP: If it is not moving ahead, try to spark off a pitch meeting but thoroughly choose an influential audience.

-Team. Either in or out, an idea rarely comes to business by itself and a team is built around. An entrepreneur can choose its team more freely, while the intrapreneur has to choose in most cases among colleagues. TIP: It is usually said that the more heterogeneity the better, but be sure everyone in the team has the same sense of survival.

-Internal Affairs. Is intrap. easier than entrep.? It is so, only with respect to risk, but then, How many startups died at the very beginning just because the team did not have to set it up to survive? Maybe survival sense linked to motivation is an important issue to take into account. An intrapreneur, at the beginning, has to employ extra time to boost an idea and quite often quits at the second or third blockage of some leaders’ ego.

-Internal Inertia. As one joins a corporation, one employs oneself in fast learning what the core business of the company is, and in moving the planning-budgeting-marketing-technology “machinery” at their very pace.  After a couple of years, it is difficult to move fast inside this maze, and quite often one pre-intrapreneur gets tired of trying. An entrepreneur can walk more freely and faster sometimes.

What can you do if you think you came up with an idea inside a corporation?

 

1.       Clasify: Is it an idea for a new project or a new business? If it is business, you are a pre-intrapreneur.

2.       Leading role: If somebody “up in the pyramid” thinks that this is a good idea, would you be willing to lead the project? If not, let the idea find its worker, if you are, keep reading.

3.       Egos: in some corporations it is not well seen that one skips one’s boss and here comes one of the first bottlenecks. Make him/her participate but be sure your idea is not kept in captivity at his/her ego’s cage nor in yours:

I like to imagine my ideas as homing pigeons swarming around me. Then you go to your boss and give it to him/her in the hope that you will be somewhat rewarded as a creative employee (although once a culture is shifted you would be doing it because it is in your nature to be creative or just a problem generator, not looking for a reward). The more pigeons you host and care for, the bigger your cage becomes, but remember to send them deliver ideas to the correct people if you know you are not able to grow them or they are not useful to breed new ideas.

4.       Gollum or Pollock. Try not to keep looking for a long time at your “precious”, feeding your ego. You are creative because your mind is dynamic, fast and can look at things laterally. So, start painting your thoughts and do not think too much, because we need some action here.

5.       Team. Ask for advice before you ask for resources. Try to spread your spirit and motivation to colleagues in very different areas of the company. Remember you have to weaken the corporate immune system towards boosting new business. Gather together multidisciplinary people: your colleagues know much more than the title of the department they are working at.

6.       Resources. Ask for resources. Keep the best interests of the company and its customers in mind, especially when trying to bend company’s rules and human resources dept. tradition. Honor and educate your sponsors.  Remember to include education in intrapreneurship for you and your team.

The world is changing. Money makes the world go ‘gound, but so do people. Creating an Intrapreneurial environment does not have the only mission of setting up startups under the corporation umbrella, but also, and more important, to promote expansion, motivation, working out of the cage, dynamism, and an opening of innovation.

Some of the ideas have been picked from other posts at intrapreneur.com /pinchot.com / intrapreneurialresources.info