Become Your Own Firestarter
On Course To Intrapreneurship
Igniting The Spark
Businesses and individuals both need to increase their confidence to succeed in this new era. They need to exploit the diversity and passion in order to unlock the capability they already have. We all need to put our best foot forward and find the right tools if we are to succeed in business and in life.
The Big Question Is How.
I’ve filmed a series of short video’s to explain my new course on Intrapreneurship. Quite simply that means behaving like an entrepreneur inside a large organisation. I think it works in all sizes of organisation — but you get my drift.
It’s powered by 42Courses.com and I think it’s a great foundation for businesses and individuals alike to recover their mojo and change the way they think and work.
Sign Up For The Course Right Here:
Why Should I Take The Course?
Amongst many reasons it contains real life lessons explained in language you will understand. It will give you the ideas and tools you will need to be far more entrepreneurial. The course is delivered in an easy and interactive way. It will give you techniques, insights and case studies from people who are already proven entrepreneurs.
The course also uses real examples/case studies from my Amazon #1 Bestselling book — Rough Diamond.
All The Videos Are Available Below
1. Why The Intrapreneurship Course?
Not enough people are empowered and curious enough to get fully engaged in the organisation. Without engagement people are deeply under-utilised. This video explains the course and its relevance to the individual as well as to businesses who can deploy the course across their enterprise.
2. So What Is Intrapreneurship Anyway?
Quite literally it means behaving like an entrepreneur while working in a large organisation and being fearless. But for me the lessons can be applied in life and in any size of business. An intrapreneur is someone who integrates risk taking and innovation, pragmatism and a whole lot of sincerity. But most of all it’s someone who adds impact by understanding and believing in themselves.
It’s not complicated, it’s hard. So people must stop making excuses that it’s complicated and just get on with it.
3. Can Intrapreneurship Be Taught?
Definitely. Hence the course — but mainly it’s pure common sense and working hard. The trouble is we have had our common sense drilled out of us in so many organisations and also by society as a whole. The course reminds us to be ourselves and be confident. The techniques will get you to think for yourself and learn how and why to question everything.
4. What Is A Skunkworks?
In large organisations it’s generally hard to get things done. That’s because systems and processes are designed to help a business standardise a particular (and historically proven) way of working. So when the world changes that becomes a massive problem.
The way we now need to think and work has to change but because the culture (leadership attitudes, values and rewards + processes/systems) doesn’t want to budge — we don’t/can’t.
The skunk works approach takes very enlightened leadership. It then shows us ways around the traditional processes and acts as a laboratory within the business. The idea of it gets things a long way down the track before they can be stopped by the enterprise.
5. Curiosity And Intrapreneurship
Creativity springs from curiosity. Curiosity is a core driver and the course opens up many avenues to rekindle the curiosity. Relearning our childlike ability to find out what makes things work is an essential ingredient for the intrapreneur.
6. Is It Scary Being An Intrapreneur?
Only if you are afraid to ask the dumb question. And the reality is that it’s far better to ask these questions because only by doing that will you learn. Learning to have a thick enough skin to ask the obvious question is important because often everyone else is scared to ask it.
7. Leadership And Intrapreneurship
Creating followership is the best definition of leadership. It’s about sincerity and empathy as well as creating the space and freedom to let people be people. Leadership is famously defined as having two particular traits that stand out — humility and iron will.
Sadly the world is very thin on leadership. My course starts to show the path to becoming someone others will be prepared to follow.
8. When Does Intrapreneurship Work?
In so many ways. The intrapreneur is the grit that creates the pearl. The agitant that gets things to change and to get things done. Small teams with trust are a powerful agent for change. It requires the team to believe in itself — stand up and say no to micromanagement and know your own roles and that of your team.
Let’s shake that tree!
9. Identifying The Intrapreneurs
Ask the busy person if you want something done. A truism — these people actually do stuff. There are real clues in identifying the doers. You begin to get a real taste for the people who just get it. The people that don’t take themselves too seriously — but do the right thing.
There’s something very subtle and instinctive about people who are prepared to just make things happen and are prepared to fail smart and improve themselves through learning.
The intrapreneur never judges failure as anything other than another lesson. Always make smart mistakes. You cant move forward with fear.
10. What Is 20% Time?
I discuss Google’s invention of 20% time — this means giving people time just for themselves. Allowing time and space for yourself to scan the horizon and learn is very valuable.
Be curious and spend quality time reflecting and being open to new ideas and fresh thoughts. It’s a powerful idea and it means you can channel more quality time to what’s important and overcome your inner procrastinator.
11. Emotional Intelligence & The Intrepreneur
There’s nowhere near enough of it about. For generations we have been told about the discipline and standards that we are supposed to adhere to. The trouble is we’ve been instructed to do things by people we don’t trust or seem to have little idea of what’s actually needed.
That’s because (many of them anyway) don’t have any idea what works — or what it takes. But worse because they lack any capability of getting the best out of their people. That’s another skill and fundamental requirement for the intrapreneur.
12. Why Do Some Companies Find Innovation Hard?
As David Rose said — “Businesses designed for success in the 20th Century are doomed to fail in the 21st.” They stayed with the old models for far too long and failed to disrupt themselves. The intrapreneur tackles these realities, finds clever ways to break them down — and most of all — refuses to accept them as barriers.
No is not a word in the vocabulary of the intrapreneur.
13. Intrapreneurs — Not Solving The Wrong Problems
One of the biggest challenges to the world, as we see it today, is the subjectivity we all have — our closeness to the issues. We so often deal with the effects and not the causes of the things that frustrate us as individuals and businesses.
So, only by standing back and looking at the big picture can we start to define the real questions we want to tackle and (in the process) avoid solving the wrong problems really well.
