Intrapreneurs are the future of your organisation. They will find ways of rising above obstacles, barriers, entrenched thinking, bureaucratic constraints to help bring enormous value and transformation within organisations. I often use the metaphor of a Helium balloon or hot air balloon when talking about organisational intrapreneurs – despite the pull of gravity it gets lift off and soars. Intrapreneurs do the same thing – they manage to rise above barriers and bureaucracy to make positive change happen.
There are SEVEN critical steps that enable organisations to capitalise on and benefit from the intrapreneurial talent within their ranks. How many does your organisation have? Take this quiz to see how your organisation stacks up.
1. Identify your intrapreneurs.
You have a clear, proven and effective method or process of finding your high-potential employees who are ready, willing, able and excited about stepping up to the challenge of finding opportunities and solving high-value problems for the benefit of the organisation?
Yes No
2. Give them permission to challenge the status quo.
You have processes, guidelines, sanctioned spaces or opportunities in place to enable people to question established practices without being shut down or dismissed. Your intrapreneurs know that thinking differently is valued and respected. They know that they can ask difficult questions even if that might make some people uncomfortable. They know that they are allowed to take calculated risks AND be supported without losing face if their actions don’t bring the anticipated results? They have a forum or safe-space where ideas that challenge the status quo can be heard and aired and welcomed.
Yes No
3. Teach them to think like an enterprising start-up.
Your people have been given the skills to scope and design projects where they can experiment with small scale pilots before scaling up incrementally. In other words they know how to start small, be agile and get some quick wins that can be adapted and scaled up later. Your organisation has guidelines for how intrapreneurs start their pilot projects or ventures.
Yes No
4. Have a process for identifying problems worth solving.
You use a checklist, a decision- matrix, a framework, a filter of some sort that enables people to analyse the worthiness of a problem or challenge to pursue so you increase your chances of bringing exponential value to the organisation?
Yes No
5. Systematise the intrapreneurial journey.
You have a documented, clearly articulated process in place that your employees who step up to be intrapreneurs are using to progress them step by step on the pathway to being effective, valuable change makers.
Yes No
6. Quantify the value your intrapreneurs create.
You have a method of calculating return on investment. You use a formula or a heuristic to do the math on the actual dollars that intrapreneurial initiatives bring to the organisation.
Yes No
7. Celebrate intrapreneurialism.
Your organisation regularly and formally announces and acknowledges the value your intrapreneurs bring, and by doing so celebrates their efforts and achievements. There are many ways that could happen – at the end of projects or during team meetings, quarterly, annually – ideally all of those. But you have some mechanism by which the good work done by intrapreneurs is foregrounded, presented, discussed, amongst the whole area, branch or team and there is a celebration for the work they have delivered so that people realise they are supposed to talk about it and promote it.
Yes No
How did you go? How many of those seven steps does your organisation have in place?
A score of 0-2 means that there are some serious resources being wasted in the organisation. It is costing you revenue, and turnover in talent. Important high-value problems aren’t being solved effectively. Your workplace may be struggling to be future ready.
A score of 3-5 means that you are on the journey and are on the way to creating an intrapreneurial and future-ready workforce and organisation but there is still work to be done.
If you got 6-7 Congratulations! That’s impressive. You have created a high performing culture of intrapreneurialism and are using it to prepare your organisation for the future. Well done.
If you would like some help with developing your intrapreneurs – contact me.
Join me for my Creating Intrapreneurs Workshop Thursday the 26th of July.
Another totally unique workshop. This is my NEWEST workshop based on my latest book “Intrapreneur: How leaders ignite innovation, break bureaucracy and catalyse change”. This is the IP I’ve been excitedly working on for the last 18 months which, I believe is powerfully transforming people and workplaces.
Intrapreneurs are the most valuable of all employees because they find and solve high value problems. They think and act like entrepreneurs while still working inside their organisations.
- This workshop is not for anyone who wants to:live in business-as-usual mode;
- remain unchallenged in their mindset and thinking; and
- leave their potential buried and unharnessed
It IS for you if you:
- Are a dedicated, progressive leader or aspiring leader helping to shape the future of your organisation to ensure its ongoing relevance, adaptability and competitiveness;
- Are a forward thinker who wants to be on the leading edge of current workplace trends;
- recognise that there is huge underutilised potential and talent in you, your team or organisation and you want to unleash and harness it; and
- Want to learn how to combine personal leadership, business acumen and creative problem-solving to help achieve the strategic goals of your organisation.
More information here.
