Corporate Venture Talent: Finding and Nurturing Intrapreneurs
Intrapreneurship is a term given to the entrepreneurial talents found within a company. Some intrapreneurs have this talent but it is dormant. It can be woken up by challenging and empowering employees.
Intrapreneurs are individuals who have a high potential to be innovative, creative, and inspiring. Unlocking this kind of talent in your employees is bound to give your company a boost.
Keep reading to see how to identify, unlock, and encourage them to improve company efficiency.
Defining Intrapreneurs: The Secret to Corporate Innovation
In a cut-throat, competitive business world, companies should not ignore the importance of constant innovation. This is where it comes in; productivity and creativity are embedded in them.
The reason why they are known as the secret to corporate innovation is the amount of talent they possess. Intrapreneurs are filled with new ideas and hone problem-solving skills.
The skills, much like entrepreneurial skills, need to be given room to grow. If employees are given the platform and encouragement to build on their ideas, they can be defined as intrapreneurs.
Who are Intrapreneurs? Corporate intrapreneurs are people with potential business ideas that can be implemented in your company. Support and nurture these ideas to encourage your company’s growth alongside individual growth.
Employees who are creators, doers, and implementors innately possess types of intrapreneurship. Supporting their potential will boost their confidence in trying new ideas within the company.
6 Reasons for Identifying Intrapreneurial Talent in Organisations
Intrapreneurs are nothing but potential entrepreneurs- they can decide to pursue their ideas on their own or implement them within the company. This fine line is what decides their fate as intrapreneurs or entrepreneurs. And the fine line lies in the hands of the company.
This is why you need to identify entrepreneurial talent in your company and turn it intrapreneurial:
1. Retaining Efficient Talent
When talented employees feel unsupported, they may leave to pursue their entrepreneurial ideas independently. This results in the organisation losing efficient talent and potential business opportunities.
If the organisation fails to support employee talent, growth opportunities are left undiscovered and suppressed within the company. The employee’s talents, thus neglected by the company, will be taken external.
2. Encouraging Good Ideas
Identify ambitious employees with practical ideas—they are often the ones with an intrapreneurial spirit. Nurture this by offering them networking opportunities and expertise in the industry.
Allow them to improve their skills by sending them to conferences or reimbursing them for upskilling courses.
Google’s 20% rule[1] encourages employees to learn extracurricular skills on the job. This intrapreneurship example allows employees to spend part of the day working on themselves. Google’s practice has given rise to various types of intrapreneurship, encouraging employees to develop groundbreaking features like Google Maps.
3. Internal Business Opportunities
Businesses usually have Research and Development departments for internal growth. However, intrapreneurs, too, bring an undiscovered scope for internal opportunities to the table.
Intrapreneurs are not afraid to go beyond the company comfort zone to explore opportunities. Provision of resources can help them discover these internal opportunities, which will later help the company.
4. Leveraging Domain Expertise
Managers have expertise in their departments. They know how their department domain works and its weaknesses. Their ideas to eliminate these weaknesses come from domain expertise and should, hence, be heard. Many employees help their companies make minor changes that make major impacts.
Even the most miniature ideas should be encouraged because they come from people who are experts at their jobs. Their perspective and insight might be better than that of an external hire.
5. Internal Problem Solving
Established companies with a hundred competitors notice a gap in the business that they cannot solve themselves. As a last resort, they hire outside experts, which is a risky move for the company’s reputation. This sets off a warning bell for other companies who may try to fix the gap first.
This is where relying on employees is the best way out of this problem. Companies can ask their employees to come forward with innovative ideas. This way, different perspectives are gained, and intrapreneurs are encouraged to show their problem-solving skills.
6. Going Beyond Tradition
Many times, especially in tech companies, employees might come up with their own techniques to make their tasks efficient and easy. Their ideas have the potential to make all employees’ work efficient, thus saving time and energy.
Implement their techniques and ideas on a company-wide basis even if the ideas go against traditional methods. This will help your company stand out from the competition.
Top 4 Strategies for Finding & Engaging Intrapreneurs
Intrapreneurship is more of a personality trait than an individual skill. There are ways to bring out this personality trait in an employee. Set up challenges and pay attention to detail during team meetings. Anyone with unique ideas is a potentially famous intrapreneur.
Let’s look at more strategies you can use to engage different types of intrapreneurship in your organisation.
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Challenge Your Employees
A mundane work routine can fizzle out the spark responsible for ideas. So, even if your company has an intrapreneur, there is a high chance their skills remain dormant.
Occasionally hold competitions and challenges for your teams. These can be industry-related brain teasers or real problems your company faces. Present the problem set to your employees and encourage them to come up with solutions.
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Get Different Teams Together
Every department has its own intrapreneur. If intrapreneurial personalities of different teams come together, it creates a powerful environment. Encourage teams to give domain expertise to other teams for holistic communication.
Collaboration between teams allows intrapreneurs to polish their communication skills. You can easily identify leadership personalities through collaborative activities across different teams. Intrapreneurs will take charge, speak up about their concerns and opinions, and come up with unique ideas.
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Be Transparent
If you expect your employees to share their ideas with you, you, too, must share necessary details about the business. Use the intrapreneurs in your company to make positive changes to your company.
If you present a growth opportunity to your employees to work on, ensure you give them its important details. People with half details will come up with half ideas, which wastes time and resources.
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Feedback and Check-ins
Many employers neglect the importance of feedback. Feedback does not mean negative comments; it means meaningful and constructive criticism. If employees receive meaningful feedback, 80% are fully engaged[2] at work
Weekly check-ins with your teams encourage them at work. Knowing that they are making a difference in the company and in their industry can unleash their intrapreneurial spirit.
How to Measure Impact of Corporate Intrapreneurs on Business Growth?
Assessing intrapreneurial impact has a very different meaning than assessing revenue growth in your company. You don’t need tools and tech to measure internal success. Big names like Amazon, Apple, and Netflix have quite simple strategies for measuring corporate intrapreneurial growth.
One way to measure internal growth is by looking at your company's management. Managers should set the precedent for intrapreneurship in a company. Their ideas and advice should be effective for the team.
Conducting workshops and providing technical or expert resources keeps employees engaged, which makes for a good return on investment in the long run. Keep your employees updated on current and future industry trends, which they will implement in their roles.
Use KPIs to analyse your team’s growth. Give your team performance goals to measure their work efficiency. Intrapreneurs will go out of their way to achieve their goals and influence others to do so.
Summing it Up
Intrapreneurs are the backbone of an organisation; they are the ones who make innovative, efficient, and creative changes to the company. Using intrapreneurs’ ambition to contribute to the company is an excellent way to grow your company from within.
Without the intrapreneurial spirit, the company will stop growing. Employers can use strategies like problem-solving challenges and feedback to keep this spirit engaged.
GrowthJockey believes in growing your company one step at a time. Our experts can help you identify your company's talents and use them as leverage for growth. Contact us now to find and engage your intrapreneurs!
FAQs Related to Intrapreneur
1. What's the difference between an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur?
An entrepreneur is a person who pursues business ideas. They start their own business and use their resources to fund it. They have a business mind and an ambitious spirit.
An intrapreneur is someone who uses their entrepreneurial spirit within the company they work at. These are usually the people with the most ideas and questions at a team meeting.
2. Is a CEO an intrapreneur?
CEOs can be both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. They are, on some occasions, entrepreneurs if they have founded the company.
CEOs are always intrapreneurs, in that they find solutions for the company. They are ambitious about their role and strive to find efficient ways to run the company.
3. Who is called an intrapreneur?
Intrapreneurs are company employees with an entrepreneurial spirit. They are the company's innovators. For a company to grow efficiently, an organisation needs to find and nurture them.
They bring a different perspective to problems. Their expertise and creativity can help their company come out of a rut. They are very effective within their team and impact the company in the long run.
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