This post is my answer to a question asked by Liz cassidy on LinkedIn:
"What is your experience of developing / or dealing with an entrepreneur inside an organisation?"
and refers to some of the answers posted by other members.
As an entrepreneur I had the opportunity to experience many configurations,
and I must say I especially thrive in entrepreneurial environments or
environments that value entrepreneurship. Organizations that don’t value
entrepreneurship tend to expect people to fit the mold and follow behavioral patterns
where rules and processes prevail and where the system cannot be questioned for
improvement. As a consequence they tend to misuse the skills of the
entrepreneur and tame his entrepreneurial qualities, or worse let him tilt at windmills
like Don Quixotte...
Entrepreneurs are probably the best positioned to bring
innovation about because they positively challenge status quo and roll up their
sleeves to get things done. I am totally with Gurprriet
and Anne here: to keep
on top in an increasingly competitive and changing world, organizations need to
foster internal entrepreneurship and provide a culture where they will thrive.
Here are some examples to illustrate what
entrepreneurs deal with in various kinds of organizations.
Working for an entrepreneur in the packaging industry who
hired young entrepreneurs to manage and grow the business was a fulfilling
experience. I was in charge of marketing, and two other 25 to 30 year-old entrepreneurs
were managing sales and operations. When we started, there was no marketing
department, and a first production facility had just been acquired. As a team,
we learnt by doing, moved the company forward and accomplished great results
with limited resources and time. The founder eventually brought in an OD
consultancy to assess the structure in view of future growth. Part of their
conclusion: too many young and impetuous managers that needed senior managers
above them. Needless to say nobody was hired to create an additional echelon of
hierarchy between the boss and his entrepreneurial team. This of course didn’t
prevent a five fold increase of sales in ten years, attainment of leadership
position, and the strongest profitability in the sector, as well as the recruitment
of more young entrepreneurs… The OD consultants had missed something of the
company’s culture based on lean, flat and agile organization ahead of time. They
perceived the strong personalities and the somewhat “loose” or flexible structure
where people were taking and given initiative to improve things as a liability.
It was indeed difficult to follow at times, but this was also our strength, and
quite unusual in the industrial world. This type of organization however can only
function if the leader fully backs the internal entrepreneurs and is fully
supported by his shareholders. Something relatively easy when the leader is the
owner as in the present case, or when you call yourself Google and base your
strategy on an entrepreneurial model.
Leaders of entrepreneurial companies also need to state a
clear vision and strategy to point their entrepreneurial teams in the right direction.
Many entrepreneurs usually “see” where they want to go in a very pragmatic way,
and concentrate on the doing. They imagine everyone understands the strategy
and its inflections even without a thorough formulation or reformulation. This
was a common trait I noticed in startups during the internet/technology boom. Very
often too fast a growth would blur the vision and strategy or make it obsolete.
I consulted a few startups were each member of the management team had a
different idea of where the business should go, and what the competitive
advantage was. The entrepreneurial culture was there, but the “power of
entrepreneurs” was not channeled. There has to be a beacon, set by the founding
visionary or collectively by the management team.
On another occasion I was hunted by a large pharmaceutical
company who wanted to launch an OTC product range, a possibility just opened by
new legislation. I went quite far in the interview process as my
entrepreneurial profile appealed to the people in place. My potential boss got promoted abroad during
that time, and his replacement did not see things the same way... From the foreseen
best “enabler” of this diversification, I became the candidate who would the
least know how to “correctly” draft a recommendation and follow the processes because
I was not trained the proper way in an entrepreneurial company -I quote-. I
must say I wasn’t quite motivated to work for this type of boss either… so we
both left it there. Going back to Gurprriet’s and Anne’s points, it is indeed essential
as an internal entrepreneur to have allies and protection, but this remains a
precarious situation if the whole culture is not entrepreneur friendly.
I had the opportunity to volunteer and spearhead some change
initiatives in several non profit settings and collaborate with a versatile group
of volunteers. And I encountered very efficient outcomes and fulfilling
experiences, as well as situations marred with politics and spanners in the
works. Volunteers show different degrees of involvement, they pursue different
personal goals and have different ideas of their mission and role or power within
the organization. In the absence of actual role descriptions, processes, and decision
structures, those who actually fill the void and get things done and moving forward
are generally entrepreneurs. Their longevity at the task is often proportional
to the room for maneuver they obtain from members of the group who are less
involved.
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