Innovation Edge

by: Susan Foley - March 6th, 2012   Filed under: Business Growth, Entrepreneurial Leadership, Innovation, Uncategorized Add Comment

In most organizations growth through innovation is a top priority.  So is talent. Yet, few organizations adequately look at the link between growth and talent.  Even when research has shown that there is a strong correlation between entrepreneurial leadership and higher levels of innovation and growth.

Future leaders are often molded in the image of the existing leaders who run the core business.  That’s a mistake.

The skills and capabilities that propelled most executives to the top of organizations in the past are not the ones required to build new growth businesses. These executives are often blinded by their own experience.  They rely on proven approaches that worked well in the core business but may not in a new business. They make decisions based on reason and argument not creative thought. They trust data more than intuition.  They prefer risk avoidance to taking risks. Read More

How Entrepreneurial Is Your Organization?

by: Susan Foley - February 10th, 2012   Filed under: Business Growth, Core Competencies, Corporate Entrepreneurs, Corporate Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurs Add Comment

If you are a frustrated Intrapreneur or corporate entrepreneur the reason may be that your organization is not entrepreneurial.

Intrapreneurs are either highly engaged or disenchanted.  There is nothing in between. They are engaged if they are working on strategic opportunities to grow the business. They are disenchanted when the organization does not provide room for entrepreneurship.

In the article, The Talent Paradox, the authors say that only one-third of employees are likely to stay in their current job when the economy turns around.  Chances are the best and brightest employees already have one foot out the door.  The same is true for corporate entrepreneurs.

It is natural for corporate entrepreneurs to feel like they don’t fit but it is another thing to realize that the organization doesn’t want to be entrepreneurial or doesn’t know how to become entrepreneurial.

There are three things that need to be in place for corporate entrepreneurship to flourish inside of an organization.  They are simple, yet complex.

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Entrepreneurial Thinking and Action – Missing Links

by: Susan Foley - February 1st, 2012   Filed under: Core Competencies, Corporate Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurial Leaders, Intrapreneurs, Social Intrapreneurs Add Comment

We know that corporate entrepreneurs (Intrapreneurs) are expected to think and act entrepreneurial but there is more to it than that. What enables them to do both?  That was the question that kept nagging me until the other night while teaching a class in corporate entrepreneurship.

Prior to the class the participants had completed the online Entrepreneur Survey.  The survey is designed to help you see how entrepreneurial you really are.  It looks at what you do and how you do it.

  • What is it about your work that makes it entrepreneurial?
  • What tools and techniques do you use that are entrepreneurial?
  • How entrepreneurial is your thinking, your actions and your decision making?
  • How would you rate yourself on key entrepreneurial competencies and behaviors?

The survey results showed that a majority of the participants were entrepreneurial thinkers but they did not take entrepreneurial action or make decisions like entrepreneurs.  It was this gap tha provided insight into what was missing.

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