Corporate Entrepreneurism

One of the biggest challenges when running a corporation is maintaining innovation. For that your need entrepreneurs, and those are few and far between in big business.

Corporate entrepreneurism is increasingly recognised as the way forward for innovation, leadership and growth, but how do you find and foster it if your organisation is geared in the other direction? The three options are to use consulting specialists, unearth internal talent, and recruit it from the outside.

Taking these steps is a calculated risk, but if you are not good at managing those, you probably would not be in an executive position. From my consulting work developing entrepreneurial spirit in organisations, I recommend the following:

1. Consulting Entrepreneurs

The primary source of focused entrepreneurial spirit is consulting success stories who can teach the skills, guide in-house potential, help recruit the right talent and invigorate the organisation as a whole.

These rare resources are invaluable for giving input to the business leader, mentoring staff, and managing projects no one else can conceptualise or complete. In my capacity as such a consultant, I am often also contracted as a performance coach.

Consulting entrepreneurs work best when given a strategic objective, a whole project to deliver or business division to grow. Their key functions should be to stimulate ingenuity in fellow strategists, exemplify innovativeness, build relationships, implement vision and, of course, deliver results.

2. Internal Entrepreneurs

All organisations, and all individuals for that matter, have entrepreneurial potential within them. The challenge is to identify, mobilise and nurture internal talent, and give people the space and opportunity to perform while keeping them accountable.

You need to allow for failures because success stems from them, but you need to make sure the mavericks stay on track. With the right opportunities and development, they can become ground-breaking specialists and visionary leaders.

3. Recruited Entrepreneurs

There are people out there with priceless skills gained from starting up and establishing their own enterprises, who can bring these to your business. Even “failures” can have great value because their experience and orientation can enliven a team weighed down by procedure and corporate culture. Often a resourceful and structured environment is just what they need to turn their hard-earned knowledge into rewarding results.

Entrepreneurs can be difficult to assess because of their often ambiguous qualities and shaky-looking track records, but the right insight and good risk management can make for a mutually beneficial match.

Internal and recruited entrepreneurs can be discovered and developed with the help of consulting entrepreneurs. An experienced expert at the right level can become the custodian of a culture of innovation, and a key player in the quest for survival and success.

Whichever approach you choose, it is essential to have entrepreneurial spirit manifesting in your organisation. It will keep alive the energy that got you going in the first place, up your chances of still being here in the future, and make your present a much more purposeful and invigorated business. Take that calculated risk.