What is your social capital net worth? by Roz Usheroff

I recently came across a discussion on Twitter in which there was a debate as to what the differences in terms of risk were for an intrapreneur as opposed to an entrepreneur.

While an entrepreneur is obviously someone who runs their own business, what is an intrepreneur?

Practically speaking, an intrapreneur is an employee who thinks and behaves differently.

Rather than simply fulfilling the requirements of their position, an employee with an intrapreneurial mindset will instead begin to think outside of the box.

This means that they will:

• See opportunities where none previously existed.

• Potentially change their goals and objectives as they embrace a new personal independence that will better align them with their organization’s goals.

• Embrace their true unique ability because, similar to entrepreneurs, they will now be pursuing results from a position of passion rather than just duty or job description.

• See the significance of advertising their unique ability because they know that it will help them to receive the recognition they deserve.

By adopting the intrapreneur mindset, any concerns they might have in terms of being seen as political will be eliminated.  This is because, like any good business person, they will become strategic and intentional in everything they say and do.

Within the above context, how can one equate the financial risk of owning and running your own business with any purported risk that exists within the framework of a paid position?

My belief is that the only difference in terms of risk for intrapreneurs as opposed to entrepreneurs is currency type.

While an entrepreneur will risk financial capital, by becoming an intrapreneur, an individual finances their efforts using social capital.

This is not to suggest that entrepreneurs do not need to possess a certain level of social game.  Far from it.  However, an intrapreneur’s primary risk capital is based on their reputation.  Or to put it another way, by thinking outside of the box, intrapreneurs are trading on their good name or personal brand otherwise known as their social capital.

So what is your social capital net worth?  Of equal importance, how do you increase your social capital net worth to the point that you can effectively operate as an intrepreneur within your present organization?

The key words are creditability and contribution, and you cannot have one without the other.  This means that to build your social capital net worth, you have to be visible and involved.

In this context, the following exercises should help.

Exercise 1: Building Your “Fan Base” (Creditability)

• Make a list of those individuals who you can call upon to support your ideas, initiatives, and suggestions in future meetings.

• Make another list of those individuals who have relationships with decision makers with whom you do not have direct access but would be willing to speak on your behalf to introduce or reiterate your suggestions.

Now, identify two tactics that would help you to demonstrate your appreciation for their support, and reciprocate appropriately.

1. Tactic:
2. Tactic:

Remember, your brand is the sum of every experience others have of you.

To stand out, you have to creatively highlight what makes you different, better, wiser, smarter, interesting, and more desirable than others who profess to offer what you offer. Then you have to be visible and promote the best of what you do. The best way to do that is to offer something no one else is offering.

Exercise 2: Mobilizing Your “Fan Base” (Contribution)

Make a list of those people who have the power to:

• Impact your career because of their position and influence

• Provide you with opportunities to be involved in high-profile projects

• Serve as a coach, mentor, or sponsor

Now, identify two opportunities that would help you to showcase your value and bring you greater visibility in your company.

1. Opportunity:
2. Opportunity:

In the end, when you seek the assistance of others to help you create opportunities to deliver value to your organization, you will be well on your way towards building a healthy social capital balance sheet.

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The Results-Only Work Environment and the rise of the Intrapreneur by Roz Usheroff

“In a ROWE, workers can work wherever, whenever, and however they choose to, as long as they achieve their results.”

from the January 4^th, 2014 Huffington Post article “2014: The Year of Workplace Reinvention” by Pam Ross

I was recently listening to a radio interview in which after 15 years in business, a founding CEO talked about how his company had finally gained the market success that he had anticipated when he first launched his venture.

When he was asked if he felt fortunate that his company was able to persevere in the years leading up to this momentous breakthrough he said something that really hit a note with me.  “One of the ways of guaranteeing you’re lucky in your timing” he started, “is being able to wait for the market to catch up with you.”

In the context of the above referenced article by Pam Ross, the same can be said regarding the word Intrapreneur.

In my book The Future of You: Creating Your Enduring Brand I talked at length about the importance of energizing your brand and standing out from the pack.  The best way to do this is to adopt what I called an intrapreneurial mindset.

The concept of being an intrapreneur is nothing new.  In fact, in 1992, The American Heritage Dictionary “acknowledged the popular use of a new word, intrapreneur.”

So what is an intrapreneur?

An intrapreneur is defined as being “A person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation”.

What makes the Ross article so interesting is that the Results-Only Work Environment or “ROWE” strategy is an indication that the market has finally caught up with the intrapreneurial ideal that was first defined in 1992 – 22 years later.  (As an interesting side note – especially for those of you reading this article who are ardent history buffs, the term intrapreneur was actually introduced in 1978 in a paper by Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot.)

However exciting these developments are the real question that needs to be asked – and answered, is whether or not the majority of us are ready to make the transition from the traditional role of an employee, to being a self-motivated risk taking intrapreneur?

While I will of course encourage you to pick-up a copy of my book or, take my Webinar Series on Udemy, I hope that you will find the following excerpt from The Future of You helpful in both understanding what an intrapreneur is and, what you can do to become one.

(Note: It is important to differentiate between a unique ability and an excellent ability – the latter of which I will touch on later in this section.  Simply put, a unique ability is a gift or talent with which you were born.  An excellent ability is a skill set that you acquire through education and experience.  In other words, it is learned as opposed to being inherent.)

Adopting Sullivan’s wisdom, you now have an exciting opportunity to build your enduring brand in a way that energizes you and sets you apart.  By identifying what makes you stand out and defining your value proposition to your employer and/or customers, you will secure your bigger future using your best talents.  You can also think of it in terms of adopting an “intrapreneurial” mindset. 

Even though you are still technically speaking an employee, when you see yourself as an intrapreneur you will begin to think differently.  Rather than simply fulfilling the requirements of your position, you will instead begin to think outside of the box. 

With an intrapreneur mindset you will:

•             See opportunities where none previously existed. 

•             Potentially change your goals and objectives as you embrace a new personal independence that will better align you with your organization’s goals. 

•             Embrace your true unique ability, because similar to entrepreneurs, you will now be pursuing results from a position of passion rather than just duty or job description. 

•             See the significance of advertising your unique ability because you know that it will help you to receive the recognition you deserve.

By adopting the intrapreneur mindset, any concerns you might have in terms of being seen as political will be eliminated.  This is because, like any good business person, you will become strategic and intentional in everything you say and do.

In this light, the first and most important step is to ask yourself these important questions:

•             What is my unique ability?

•             For what am I best known? 

•             Why do people seek out my advice?

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Intrapreneurship is not an option by Roz Usheroff

I found Dan Schwabel’s recent Forbes article “Why Companies Want You To Become An Intrapreneur” very interesting.

Besides the fact that I talk about the importance of possessing an intrapreneurial mindset at some length in my book The Future of You! Creating Your Enduring Brand, the response from his readers reminded me that a “protect your turf, job security” mindset is still well ingrained into our collective employment psyches.

What do I mean?  Check out the following comment;

How ironic that I worked at 3M when the Post-It craze hit – and that a friend of mine, long retired, spend his working life in Lockheed (not Lockheed Martin) skunk works. Neither he nor I are of the view that real innovators are welcome in most organizations  –  there are too many apple carts that get knocked over with any significant change in the status quo. The PostIt guys at 3M only got anywhere because they got the chairman’s secretary to start using them, whence they got the chairman’s attention. Does it seriously take the chairman to get a sticky memo pad offered as a product? Lockheed was long known for the poor quality of work life – infamous, in fact – and the tortured politics of getting the manpower commitments for new planes.

This article overlooks the fact that people in organizations, even the best ones, will oppose change bitterly if it means some perceived loss to them. When there seems to be an allocation of internal resources to a new area, political sparks will fly, including outsiders looking for a piece of it and competitors and jealous bystanders wanting to kill it.

Many managements talk about innovators, skunk works and creative efforts but few will go beyond talk, which may well be doubletalk.

The above speaks volumes in that it erroneously reflects a long standing belief that we have some sort of tenure with the companies with whom we presently work, and as a result should govern our actions based on internal politics and positioning.  While I do not discount the fact that we must all be to varying degrees politically savvy in the proper context, the fact is that in today’s world of transactional engagement, we are ultimately going be measured on the value we bring to our employer client.

Even though one may encounter resistance to a new idea   ̶   read the story about the computer sales representative in the introduction of my book to see what I mean when I say resistance   ̶    we must, like any entrepreneur, earn our employer client’s business (re paycheck) every single day.

The individual who submitted the above comment and those that echoed his sentiments will, if they haven’t already, soon discover that you have to manage your career as if it “were a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you.”*

This means that any concerns you might have in terms of being seen as political will be eliminated because, like any good business person, you will become strategic and intentional in everything you say and do.  This is in essence at the heart of the intrapreneural mindset.

Given the above, can you provide an example of instances in which you have adopted an intrapreneurial mindset?  What was the end result?

Click here to put a voice to your ideas . . .

*In their book “The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career,” LinkedIn co-founder and chairman Reid Hoffman and author Ben Casnocha talk about the importance of managing your career as if it “were a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you.”

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Are you an Iconoclast or an MBA? (Part 2)

In the first part of this post I talked about business trailblazers Richard Branson and Fred Smith.

Branson with Virgin and Smith with FedEx have achieved unparalleled success, each building a global brand that has become ubiquitous with creative, outside of the box thinking.

What is even more interesting in relation to the title of today’s post is that they have also succeeded in achieving this success outside of the hallowed halls of the academic world.  In fact Branson openly wondered if he would have charted a similar course to success had he been confined to the dos and don’ts of the conventional business practices taught at our higher education institutions.

Now I want to clarify before you make the assumption that I am a detractor of our education system.  Nothing can be further from the truth.

I have on numerous occasions stressed the undeniable value of entering the workforce for the first time with a diploma in hand from a prestigious school.  In my many years working with senior executives from the world of business, I have learned that having a degree can be important in terms of opening doors of opportunity that might have otherwise remained closed.

This being said, while perhaps essential to getting you in the door, a degree does not replace the need to actually perform.  This is of course what Branson and Smith did in that they built hugely successful businesses, and in the process left an indelible impression or brand on the business world.

That is the point of this second post.  How do you build a successful brand that leaves it mark on the world?  How do you provide an indispensable service or deliver unparalleled value to your employer or customer?

If you are a business owner then you must possess a true entrepreneurial mindset.  If you an employee, you must adopt an intrapreneurial mindset.

“I know what an entrepreneur is,” you are probably thinking.  But what is an “intrapreneur?”

Even though you are still technically speaking as an employee, when you see yourself as an intrapreneur you will begin to think differently.  Rather than simply fulfilling the requirements of your position, you will instead begin to think outside of the box.

With an intrapreneur mindset you will see opportunities where none previously existed.  Your goals and objectives might even change as you embrace a new personal independence that will better align with your organization’s goals.  You will also embrace your true unique ability because similar to entrepreneurs, you will now be pursuing results from a position of passion rather than just duty or job description.

Once you build a special reputation around your unique ability, you will be able to engage in activities that capitalize on your specialty, providing you with the greatest level of motivation and satisfaction.  This is the true definition of an entrepreneur, and it is the practical illustration of what you as an intrapreneur will now bring to your organization.

With the above in mind you will probably be able to answer the question “are you an iconoclast or an MBA?”

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