The EQ Journal Blog

Guest Blog by Scott Annan of mercurygrove.com

In early 2000, just recently out of school, I was recruited by a fortune-500 manufacturing company and worked for them for six years. During that time, I progressed from a business analyst role in the European e-business group to a leadership role in the corporate headquarters as Global Director of sales and marketing systems with over 50 people reporting to me, a $15 million budget, reporting to the CIO and the EVP of worldwide marketing with frequent presentations to the Board of Directors, in the executive development program plus I was earning well over a 6-figure income. I was 28 at the time.

In retrospect, there were three core principles that I applied to become a successful intrapreneur:

1. Vision: constantly presenting new opportunities to management and volunteering to lead new projects;
2. Execution: putting value creation ahead of cost reduction;
3. Passion: upholding the core belief that “we can do and achieve more”.

I’m not sure if people at in the company would have described me as a “visionary” or as a “zealot”. When I had convinced myself about a new project or opportunity, I would spend days putting together a workable plan that outlined my vision, its ROI and a plan to show how it could be executed.

I ensured that I covered all the information that was necessary to get the project off the ground including case studies, financial models, potential concerns and how we could solve those. I would anticipate questions management would have and be prepared to with answers.

Then I would mount a campaign to get in front of the right people whose endorsement or support the project would need. I never thought: “This isn’t really in my department or responsibility or beyond my current scope”. If it was a good idea that had great potential, I would work hard at developing it and seeing it come to life – sometimes without the approval of management. It was my belief (and it still is) that nobody gets fired for working hard to do the right thing for the company.

I would also volunteer to lead these projects. This was important to me and I was able to accept both praise if things went well and criticism if things didn’t work out. As one colleague once put it to me: “Management is constantly give you just enough rope – to either make a success of or hang yourself.”

Many of my colleagues focused a great deal of their time on the cost side of projects (which I have found is a typical corporate focus) but what I learned was that a big corporation shouldn’t care about their costs, they should care about creating value – and, of course, adding to their bottom line.

There is a big difference between cost controls and investing and I always looked to ensure that the money being spent on my projects was an investment, not a cost. Several times I overspent my budget, but I was able to demonstrate a great return on the investment and a much better outcome for the company so I ‘got away with it.’

I always believed in trying to achieve the best outcome for the corporation. In every meeting, I would question whether the current direction was the absolute best decision – no matter whose idea it was. This is a difficult and often unpopular thing to do.

Corporations rely on hierarchy and well-orchestrated teamwork. Many employees and managers feel threatened when people ‘push back’ on entrenched business methods and it is hard for people not to take criticism personally. It does not take long for co-workers or managers to start labeling you as a troublemaker and disruptive to the team. Still, I always questioned and promoted what I thought was the best idea. For me it wasn’t a matter of pride but it was part of generating enthusiasm and commitment to the work we were doing. I couldn’t accept working for a company that wasn’t trying to achieve great things.

I wasn’t working for money or promotions but these were byproducts of the intrapreneurial approach I took. I thought of the business as if it were my own and management could tell.

I also wanted to learn new skills. After working in five different departments and two countries, I ultimately left because my pace of learning had slowed. Much like being an entrepreneur, an intrapreneur is constantly searching for new opportunities, often working against the ‘status quo’ and is potentially a difficult to fit inside a corporation unless they have a culture that tolerates and encourages innovation and change. Still, intrapreneurs are highly sought after and rewarded by corporate executives who realize that companies run on passion, creativity and hard work.

Scott Annan
mercurygrove.com
613-680-1458
Blog: mercurygrove.com/blog
Twitter: scottannan

Postscript: To read a bit more about the entrepreneur’s skill set and the subject ‘Can you hire an entrepreneur to work within your corporation’, refer to: http://www.eqjournalblog.com/?p=408. Prof Bruce