Intrapreneurship Clinic: How can we build the personal resilience of intrapreneurs?

Funny - In the grant making world there is something called 'The Grantmaking Tango' & a book to go with it. Which talks about the dance people get into to get philanthropy/award making to work

thanks!

You're on it Matt! They can all be downloaded for free here: http://www.leagueofintrapreneurs.com/toolkit

Its interesting I'm comfortable with my zigzags.. if I look back they are often where I have gained experience/knowledge/learnt something about myself that then proves invaluable later on. The strange thing is that its not linear, not with me anyway. Things pop up all the time.

And sometimes speed-bumps are amplified and shown as roadblocks by people around us who're backing up in their securities. I've heard things like "Oh no, we don't have resources for this to happen!" too many times.

Interesting. What I take away from this is as an intrapreneur, when you are sharing your vision, also lightly touch upon at different times, what would happen if your company didn't invest in your project.

Yes, I'm now much more conscious that I need to prepare (not just wait) for success and ensure the team I'm working with is clear on how credit will be shared (in the case of partnerships among organizations in different sectors or geographies), and how we'll deal with massive media interest if that materializes! And also, not to fret so much.

I think its the same thing, I refer to as pace and space & often things don't go as well as planned when the pace/space is not there/recognised. Particularly when managing other people giving yourself and other the space to do xyz/experiment etc & setting pace which gives momentum but also allows the same.

Super parallel Marjorie, I'll definitely go watch her TedTalk again with this in mind, and see how it can apply to everyday discussions. Every interaction is a chance to influence...or inspire!

Great conversation! We touched on this a bit already, but can you say a bit more about why resilience is so important for intrapreneurs?

Ah, funny you mention that, because I thought the same thing myself as I wrote that, but then thought, maybe that's something other than resilience. Maybe it's successful evolution?

I feel like once we've got a better sense of the chatter that goes on inside our heads, and how we can channel it in productive ways, we will then find ourselves to be in a better place to see the positive transformations that are happening for other people - and also play a role in their transformations.

In my experience, insufficient resilience is the number one challenge holding intrapreneurs back from doing something truly great. Too often, we’re worried, often subconsciously, about looking dumb, or being proven wrong. And so we operate from a position of fear, and not of positive creativity and abundance. When our motives are mixed, we are less sure of ourselves; less compelling to others; and ultimately limited in our ability to effect change.

Think about it: the greatest changemakers on the planet, like Ghandi and Nelson Mandela are people of extraordinary resilience—people threw everything at them: rocks to expletives to jail, and they still managed to stay focused on positive change. They were extraordinarily powerful because they operated not out of petty fear for their reputations, but from a position of immense love for humanity.

Obviously, the more innovative and wonderfully radical an idea is, the greater our resilience needs to be. So if we want to do something really great, we have to increase our ability to withstand the challenges ahead, especially when the time scale for change is years or even decades or longer.

You need resilience to get an idea off the ground running your own business. From within an organisation you also need similar resilience to get your idea up and running & develop it. You are also navigating and negotiating to get the idea off the ground from within your organisation & making all sorts of decisions about how 'in' the organisation the idea is - both in terms of what the organisation does and how it does it. Whether that idea is a new product/service; a new approach to the way things work; or approach to working with clients. Whatever it is you are looking at change outside your organisation & also within.

If you want your idea to succeed then you’ll often finding new ways to get things done - alliances from the unusual suspects - new angles - flexing to move something along - working on the quiet (by stealth). People can have mixed motives for working with you and blocking what you are trying to do.

Personally as well - you are known in a role/for a way of working & this may be different on your idea. You may be changing who you are within the organisation. You may find people are resistant & the approaches people can use to block/make life difficult can be and have been for me the hardest to deal with.

Writing that was tiring enough - navigating this real time needs inner strength and adaptability

Resilience is critical because the work social intrapreneurs are doing is vital for the future success of organisations and their stakeholders. And if we are going to do it right, resilience means more than surviving. It means figuring out how we will thrive. Or else, the temptation to jump ship and become social entrepreneurs make take over us...and it may not be the best decision!

An intrapreneurship success depends on a lot more people than only the individual intrapreneur behind the project -an people are maybe the most unexpected thing in the world! For example, for the change to be sustainable in the workplace, the intrapreneur might need to not take credit for its success so someone else can truly own the new idea or paradigm. But this is totally unknown when the intrapreneur starts their Change Project! How will people react to new ideas or paradigms? By playing within the margins of the corporate immune system, the intrapreneur will have to adapt to the reaction of this system to her/his own actions.

Love the "unusual suspects"!!

He makes a great point. I'm interested to know if you've found ways to identify when something is a road-block or just a speed bump. I sometimes struggle to figure out which one it is and usually just default to speed-bump!

I think resilience for intrapreneurs is different than it is for entrepreneurs. Intrapreneurs are working within a somewhat constrained system that often doesn’t want to change. If an entrepreneur meets resistance from a stakeholder that they are unable to overcome, then they can find a new stakeholder. An intrapreneur often doesn’t have this luxury.

I learned a lesson about what is in your control and what is out of your control from a boss I once had a tough relationship with when I was an intrapreneur.

What is in your control are your thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

You can take in an experience and decide for yourself how you’ll respond to it. For example, your boss could be really cold to you one day. You have a choice in how you receive them and the impact it has on you. For example, you could think “I’m never going to get them to say yes", feel deflated, and perform poorly that day. You could think “what a miserable old goat”, feel resentful that they are your boss, and behave in an aggressive way. Or you could think ‘I wonder what is going on with them’, feel empathy, and behave like normal by either asking if they need someone to talk to, or just get on with your work and let the interaction be a forgettable moment in your day.

When we know how to stay in the driver’s seat of our thoughts, emotions and behaviours, we can have more consistent levels of confidence, hope, optimism, responsibility, forgiveness, etc. When we hop into the passenger seat, we risk adopting passive responses of self-pity, blame, frustration, anger. Once you slip into this mode, it can be tough to get out of it. It gets tougher to bounce back. It can often lead to quitting.

How to do this? An intrapreneur needs to actively listen to themselves... What are they saying to themselves about themselves? Are they bigging themselves up, or putting themselves down? Are they projecting blame onto others and forgetting that when you point a finger you’ve got three pointing right back at you?

I’d say I learned this lesson the hard way. My years as an intrapreneur were tough. Quitting was never too far from my mind. But I can look back now and see that I hadn’t yet learned what resilience really meant. I was surviving, bouncing back each time I got knocked down, but I certainly wasn’t thriving. And that to me isn’t enough. To be effective, we’ve got to be more than surviving. In part, I should have been celebrating more of the wins like Vik pointed out.

I think from my own example, Intrapreneurs, are on a mission TO TRANSFORM. Especially the ones who are working on game changing solutions (which is different slightly from problem solving). On these journeys, one can fine oneself .....very alone. Dealing with "that" is essential. It is a journey which will make you worry, question your purpose, doubt, blame, feel depressed and all sorts of negative emotions. Resilience or whatever it means to you, is simply an ability to deal with these emotions (they are even stronger for early stage intrapreneurs when even they dont have a proof of concept or even a clue as to what they are up to!) Hence learning to be resilient (or go beyond resilience) is absolutely essential to stay commited to the goal.