Personal Branding for Intrapreneurs
Share your inspiring success
stories and get a great personal brand as a gift from the Universe.
Focus on inspiring others, rather than self-promotion.
“There was a very cautious man
Who never laughed or played.
He never risked, he never tried;
He never sang or prayed.
And when he one day passed away
His insurance was denied.
For since he never lived,
They claimed he never died.”
Sometime back I had attended the lecture by the Head-HR of DuPont India. The
topic of the lecture was ‘Process Orientation’ and he spoke about how his
company lost crores of rupees in a financial deal recently. The point
emphasized by him was that since the employee had followed the laid down
process, he was not fired because the loss was due to market fluctuations and
hence the employee who had followed the process could not be held responsible.
The important point is to give employees certain freedom to
take risks with defined boundaries and laid down processes. If the organization
wants to produce and quickly launch innovative products, it must empower
employees and encourage employees to become intrapreneurs. If we take a look at
some of the most innovative and successful organizations like 3M, Google and so
on, the credit for their huge successes largely goes to the culture of
intrapreneurship.
The concept of intrapreneurship has been brought to India
largely by MNCs and very few Indian companies (except in new sectors like IT)
encourage intrapreneurship. If we take a look at Indian organizations, the
smaller businesses may encourage some risk taking by employees in consultation
with owners but as the organizations grow bigger, they become bureaucratic and
risk taking is seldom rewarded. But this culture is changing and has to change
due to competitive dynamics.
A culture of intrapreneurship is unavoidable to survive and
employees have to be both trusted and empowered besides of course rewarded for
taking risks. In fact one ex-boss of mine had remarked, “The best manager puts
his job at risk because if he does not he cannot be the best.” But a healthy
work environment is one where employee risks company money and not his job all
the time.
There is an interesting saying in Punjabi language of India,
Pehle saal chatti, duje saal hatti, teeje saal khatti. (Approximate
translation: you experiment and spend during the first year of business; set up
shop in the second, and earn profit only in the third year of business). The
saying emphasizes on the fact that it takes time to plan, set up and specially
break even and make profits in business. The top management has to keep this in
mind that some risks will have immediate impact and some will have long term
impact, sometimes the positive/negative impact may be felt after the concerned
employee has resigned.
Branding oneself as an intrapreneur of course will help a
manager to be on fast track in highly professional organizations. In fact many
large organizations today give preference to children of parents who are
entrepreneurs, respecting the spirit of enterprise in them. Consistently take
risks to build your brand as an intrapreneur. But build your brand as a
professional who is a calculated risk taker. If one takes wild risks, the
probability of loss becomes high and the reputation/brand can also get destroyed.
Remember the evergreen words of Leo F. Buscaglia, “The
person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes
nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel
and change and grow and love and live."
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