Tag Archives: #career development

The Day of the Mavericks – the importance of intrapreneurship

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As part of my notes on Melbourne’s recent Startup Week, I mentioned an interesting discussion on “innovation from within”, and the importance of intrapreneurship. There has been a steady stream of articles on the rise of intrapreneurship, an often overlooked skill set or resource that all organisations need to tap into, harness and deploy successfully. But what does it take to be an intrapreneur, and where can we find them?

Idea Machine - image sourced from Vocoli

Idea Machine – image sourced from Vocoli

The panel discussion on “Innovation from the inside out” was mostly about what leaders are doing to foster entrepreneurial-thinking from within their own organisations, featuring Janet Egber (NabLabs), Phil Harkness (EY), Martin Kennedy (GE) and Liza Noonan (CSIRO). Much of this effort revolves around connecting individual purpose with collective purpose (team, organisation, society). For example, at EY, there is a program to “promote purpose-led transformation, grounded in humanity and a call to action”, while GE also places importance on purpose. CSIRO, meanwhile, is clearly undergoing some huge transformational change of its own, with a key focus on “making the treasure chest of ideas happen.” (For a couple of related blogs, see here and here.)

When asked about how to incentivize intrapreneurship, and how to prioritise efforts, Liza Noonan was of the view that the “grass-roots” of the organisation “give us permission” to pursue particular projects. While Phil Harkness talked about the need to develop appropriate career paths, and the importance of change management engagement.

In my own experience, intrapreneurs are likely to display a healthy mix of the following characteristics:

Curiosity – This is critical. If you don’t display any interest in what is going on around you;  if you don’t think about how things could be done differently, better or more effectively; or if you don’t care about how things work, you are unlikely to discover anything new or uncover new business opportunities. This is not only about formal technical skills, this is also about personal outlook. It’s not intended to be disruptive, but maverick thinking is often what gets results.

Creativity – While I am not a big fan of formulaic management methodologies, I do see some value in certain aspects of the Six Hats model – of which Green for Creative Thinking is key here. As well as being a vital part of ideation and innovation, having a creative mindset (coupled with innate curiosity) is essential to problem solving – especially when it comes to “what if?” scenarios, and joining the dots between seemingly disparate data.

Commercial – Intrapreneurs don’t need to be financial wizards, or be the best sales people – but they need to be grounded in the commercial realities of how businesses work, how markets develop, what customers think, and what it takes to launch a new product or service. Being open and receptive to customer feedback is essential, along with an ability to manage solution sales and consultative selling.

Uncertainty – Being comfortable with uncertainty, and learning to be resilient, flexible and adaptive are essential to the intrapreneurial mindset. This may include a different approach to risk/reward models, as well as being able to look beyond the normal business plan cycle into the “unknown” of the future.

Scepticism – Having a healthy degree of doubt and not falling prey to over-optimism can help to manage expectations and enthusiasm built on irrational exuberance. We know most new ideas never get off the whiteboard (which is OK!), so the skill is to challenge everything until proven, but in a constructive, pro-active and collaborative way.

The key to intrapreneurship is being able to find your role or niche in the organisation, from where you can develop your expertise, establish your influence and build a foundation for solid outcomes. While at times it can feel a bit like “right person, right place, right time”, there are strategic steps you can take to manage your own career as an intraprenuer, including networking, self-directed learning, volunteering for new projects and taking responsibility for fixing things when they go wrong, even if they are outside your immediate responsibilities. It’s these sorts of behaviours that get noticed.

I know from personal experience that being curious and asking the right questions can lead to exciting new opportunities (in my case, six years in Hong Kong to establish a greenfield business). I also value the advice of a senior colleague soon after I joined an organisation: “You need to be part of the solution, not be part of the problem” when it comes to organisational change. And some of the best indirect feedback I ever received was from a colleague who introduced me to a new hire: “This is Rory, he’s our lateral thinker”.

Finally, it’s not always easy or comfortable to challenge the status quo from within (which is what a lot of intrapreneurship involves). Intrapreneurship can also feel lonely at times, which is why it’s vital to make the right connections and build sustainable relationships because, in army terms, you don’t want to get a reputation for being part of the “awkward squad”.

Next week: “Language is a virus” – a look at coding skills

Another #pitch night in Melbourne…

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If there is one basic theme emerging from Startup Victoria‘s monthly pitch nights, it is this: whatever market you are in, regardless of your business model, and however disruptive you are trying to be, if you don’t know how to engage or reach your customers your idea is far less likely to succeed. This message came across loud and clear during last week’s event where four startup hopefuls pitched their business ideas to a panel of judges in front of a packed audience.

Picture sourced from Startup Victoria Meetup page

Picture sourced from Startup Victoria Meetup page

So let’s look at this specific issue in respect to each of the pitches:

First came JobPokes, an online recruitment service designed to help candidates match job opportunities to their career preferences. Because it claims to be addressing the hidden job market, candidates aren’t applying for specific roles – instead, it’s a form of reverse enquiry, where recruiters target potential applicants via their registered profiles. I applaud the focus on the non-advertised job market, but while it may well offer an additional channel for recruiters, I’m not sure there was a clear strategy to reach job candidates who need to create a user account, and who are probably already using platforms like LinkedIn and Seek.

Next was Airly, which is sort of “Uber for private aircraft”. The business model involves signing up a minimum number of customers (who pay a monthly subscription fee, entitling them to unlimited flights), and securing sufficient seat capacity via scheduled charter contracts. There is no doubt that the idea of flight flexibility, and an element of passenger exclusivity met with audience approval (Airly took out the people’s choice vote on the night). Also, the PR around Airly has generated in-bound enquiries, suggesting there is demand. But how does this market interest convert to individual customers, when many corporate travel policies rely on wholesale and bulk-purchase models (i.e., aggregation, consolidation, vendor discounts, agency rebates, preferred airlines) rather than catering for individual travel needs or preferences? Unless the target customers are business travelers that manage and pay for their own tickets?

If Airly was about the Uberisation of air travel, RagRaider revealed another aspect of the shared economy model. Squarely aimed at fashion- and budget-conscious women, RagRaider offers a peer-to-peer service whereby customers can hire clothes for one-time use. No doubt there is a market (high school formal, spring carnival, wedding reception…) but the question is how to connect with actual lenders and hirers? We know that the per customer cost of acquisition for 2-sided markets is a key metric, and it wasn’t clear how the founders were addressing this, other than a pre-launch website and some social media. As one observer has commented, the “model is focusing on the ‘product’ part first which is the reverse of how it should be”, and another commented that despite a defined market, the barriers to entry are considerable. The judges also questioned some of the proposed pricing, commission rates and logistics.

Finally, Rounded is another FinTech startup looking to service the SME sector, specifically sole traders, freelancers, sub-contractors and tradies. Another spin on the invoice solution when suppliers need to get paid efficiently, Rounded does not claim to be a full-service accounting software – but, as one attendee commented, key to success will be reaching and educating the end-user market.  Also, they are entering a competitive space, where a new entrant like Xero has already disrupted incumbents like QuickBooks, Reckon and MYOB. I wasn’t able to stay for the pitch, but I did have the opportunity to speak with the founders beforehand. Clearly driven by their own experience and needs, there is a solid but simple idea here – but as Xero and others are increasingly able to serve similar customers, Rounded will find it really difficult to compete.

If anything, these latest pitches showed how hard it is to compare apples with oranges, although the voting criteria (market traction, product viability, team composition, pitch presentation, and responses to judges’ questions) are designed to deliver a consistent evaluation. It was also apparent that these pitches divided audience opinion more so than previous contestants – which is probably a good thing as variety is the spice of life….

Acknowledgments: thanks to Graphican, Marlene M., Cornell and Dale G. for their input.

Next week: Re-Imagining Human-led #Innovation

 

Moving #innovation from “permitted” to “possible”

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As the dust settles on the Federal election results, the Turnbull government has already been taken to task for failing to get one of its key messages across to the public: how to take advantage of the economic, technological, scientific, social and cultural opportunities inherent in the “Innovation Agenda”.  It seems that the so-called “Ideas Boom” failed to resonate with much of the electorate because, apparently, no-one has explained to them how innovation actually impacts their lives.

Screen Shot 2016-07-18 at 8.39.24 PMUnfortunately, I think it goes deeper than that: the recent campaign debates were limited to concepts of “traditional” job-creation; reliance on conventional relationships between the State, the private sector and individual citizens; and the priorities of (pre)serving the interests of public institutions such as 3-year Parliaments and even political parties themselves. The electorate may (perhaps rightly) feel short-changed by the level of the debate, but voters also need to take some responsibility for not challenging candidates to raise their game: where were the mainstream discussions on climate change, new technology, the future of “work”, digital disruption, scientific advances, and the changing attitudes towards end of life?

There is also a core misconception, that the government is responsible for fostering  innovation, that only public policy (and public resources?) can set the innovation agenda. I don’t believe it is the role of government to “make it happen”, and certainly, such an approach is not going to occur overnight. At best, government can create a framework, highlight best practice, and encourage appropriate activity. Just as I don’t think you can “teach” creativity (only identify, support and nurture it), I don’t think innovation is something to be determined from the outside. As with creative inspiration, innovation has to come from within: from employees, from customers, from suppliers, etc.

The risk of relying solely on governments or other vested interests to shape innovation is that our thinking becomes constrained by what is “permitted”, rather than what is “possible”.

On a related theme, it was refreshing to listen to a panel of speakers at a seminar on “Innovation from the inside out” held during Melbourne Startup Week. The key messages were:

  • how to instill purpose in any organisational change, business transformation or innovation project;
  • how to empower all levels of an organisation to make ideas happen; and
  • how to incentivize intrapreneurship?

This naturally leads to a discussion of developing more adaptable and resilient career paths. If you don’t have transferable skills, or if you not prepared to update your knowledge, or if you think of your career path as a straight linear projection, it will be much harder to cope with the demands of a flexible work environment. If you think of yourself as only ever performing a specific job function, or identify only as your profession or job title, or define yourself only by your formal qualifications, you will only ever think about what roles you may be “permitted” to perform, rather than seeing what career opportunities may be possible. As a careers adviser in the Victorian Government’s Skills and Job Centre network told his audience at a recent Small Business workshop: it’s not the responsibility of the government or your employer to manage your career. Notwithstanding upskilling initiatives and structured outplacement programs, we are each responsible for shaping our own destiny – especially in the increasingly on-demand economy.

Back to the main topic, I’ve been participating in a series of workshops on the Future of Work, Money, Ageing, Death, Democracy etc. hosted by the Re-Imagineers, an on-line ideas playground that builds co-created artifacts to support people-led innovation. The model is designed to help organisations draw on insights from their in-house knowledge and skills, customer experience and feedback, and external expertise to originate new ideas and innovative solutions from within their own resources, and which align with their values and those of their stakeholders. It’s still early days, but all of the discussions have identified some amazing ideas and possibilities.

The team from Re-Imagineers will be visiting Australia during July and August, so if you or your organisation would like to hear about the key learnings from these forums, especially as they impact sectors such as finance, health care and IT, please contact me via this blog, and I will make the relevant introductions.

Next week: Update on the New #Conglomerates

 

Challenging Monocultures via Crop Rotation

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Agricultural scientists are advocating a return to crop rotation. They argue that if farmers diversify what they grow each season, they can achieve more sustainable environmental and economic outcomes. Whereas, industrial-scale, intensive and single crop farming depletes the soil, and requires the use of expensive (and potentially harmful) pesticides and chemical fertilizers. In short, monocultures are self-limiting and ultimately self-destructive.

Indoor salad garden, Itoya department store, Ginza, Japan (Photo © Rory Manchee, all rights reserved)

Indoor salad garden, Itoya department store, Ginza, Japan (Photo © Rory Manchee, all rights reserved)

The same concept applies to teams and organisations. If we only associate with people who look, talk, sound, think and act like us, we not only risk group-think, we also promote unconscious collective bias. While it might seem comfortable to only deal and interact with “people like us”, it creates unrealistic cognitive and cultural homogeneity.

I understand why we often talk about “finding our tribe”, but for me, I find connections and shared values among several tribes: partly because no single community can provide for all our needs; partly because at their worst, monocultures can result in in-breeding….

One antidote to organisational monocultures is to promote diversity (especially cognitive diversity), so you mix up the elements that make up a team or an entity. Another solution (a bit like crop rotation itself) is to alternate and rotate roles on a project, within a team or at the executive level. (Some corporate boards already practise this.)

I once had a marvellous CEO who liked to boast that he had worked in every department within the company, from editorial to production, from sales to marketing. Not only did he have a more complete view of the organisation, he also had a much better understanding of how to get each department to collaborate.

At the individual level, alternating roles within the organisation can help them to acquire new skills, develop fresh perspectives, build different networks, gain valuable experience, and avoid going stale.

If you are uncomfortable with the horticultural or biological analogies, then perhaps the work of Michael Simmons is more palatable. From his research, “simply being in an open network instead of a closed one is the best predictor of career success”.*

Another way of looking at this notion of “crop rotation” is through the lens of a corporate turnaround, or a company trying to move from start-up to scale-up.

In the former scenario, the owners, board and CEO recognise that they need to bring in different people, even if only on a short-term basis, to help them:

  • Review the status quo objectively
  • Identify new ideas and fresh thinking
  • Enhance in-house skills and resources
  • Apply a circuit-breaker to unblock the stalemate
  • Join the dots between different parts of the organisation, the market and the client base

In the latter situation, bringing in specialist advisers, or “pop-up boards”, can:

  • Provide an injection of strategic focus
  • Develop a dynamic business planning process
  • Ramp up capacity or capability in a very short space of time
  • Open up new networks or provide access to capital, resources and markets
  • Expand the team’s “bench strength” at critical times

As an independent consultant with a portfolio of interests, I provide an interim resource to my clients, fulfilling different roles depending on their specific requirements. I also serve on pop-up and advisory boards.  And because I am naturally curious, and like to immerse myself in different ideas, I am an “open networker”, meaning that I engage and connect with different people across the various groups of which I am a member. Where I increasingly add value is in joining the dots between otherwise unconnected or seemingly disparate elements.

Next week: Latest #FinTech Round-Up

* Thanks to Jessica Stillman at Inc.Com for bringing this article to my attention