Can someone do my Week 3 discussion 1 in BUS 637 Entrepreneur/Intrapreneur!?

The_Greenhouse_Approach_Cultivating_Intrapreneursh..._----_CHAPTER_SEVENTEEN_-_Nurturing_Your_Teams_.pdf

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C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

Nur tu r i ng Your Teams

TO S AT I S F Y T H E N E E D S and wants of your customers you need talented and dedicated employees. To remain successful and grow your company, you need intrapreneurs who will drive change by questioning the status quo, imagining better options, researching what is achievable, and exploring how goals can best be realized. Your job is to nurture the intrapre- neurs in your company by ensuring that they have the resources and time to explore how your company can better serve its customers.

As an intrapreneur, I quickly came to realize that if I did not have the sup- port of my manager, there was no way that I could accomplish the work I want- ed to get done. The support of my managers gave me wings to fly. Sometimes, though, I did not have it, and in those cases my wings were clipped.

D I S R U P T I O N L E A D S T O N U R T U R I N G

Accomplishing transformation in your company will make it necessary to disrupt the jobs of some people. It may involve replacing some people. Change does that. When you start to question things and challenge the status quo, you need to be prepared for disruption.

When transformation is taking place in your company, you need to support the people in your company who are completing the work. In my conversations with Raja Rajamannar, he indicated quite clearly that

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Anand, Chitra. The Greenhouse Approach : Cultivating Intrapreneurship in Companies and Organizations, Dundurn Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5329791. Created from ashford-ebooks on 2024-07-12 00:42:18.

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“management must walk the talk.” What this means, essentially, is that if companies want innovation, executives need to truly support the be- haviours that will drive this by

• supporting curiosity, • encouraging debate, and • supporting the people who question the majority.

Companies need to set up environments that are safe and comfortable for people to disagree. Th ey need to take out fear, to empower people, and to stand behind them.

John Ruff olo, our innovation expert and CEO from OMERS Ventures, is suspicious when everyone agrees with him. “How could that possibly be,” he asks himself, “when we are trying to break through?”

Employees need to be allowed to disagree. In fact, you, as a manager, need to cultivate open debate; you need to truly stand behind those who question the status quo, those who disagree. When you have your focused team members trailblazing through the company, there will be environ- mental noise, people who are happy with the way things are will oppose any new ideas and those who propose them. Leaders must support the intrapre- neurs in the company by muting the noise so that the work can get done.

When I worked at TELUS, we had amazing leadership. My managers were focused on transforming TELUS, changing it from a telecommunications company to an integrated communications and technology company. Every project that I worked on was designed to achieve this goal. Teams were lean, creativity was encouraged, and as a result, change was accomplished quickly.

Th e process involved challenging norms, trying new things, pushing people to think diff erently; if we made mistakes, we learned together and moved on. While this work was diffi cult, it was extremely rewarding. I could move with fl uidity and confi dence because I had the active support of my leadership. I was happy and the work was a success.

I have also been in situations with poor leadership. Th e managers were unfocused, unclear; they were motivated by ego, and focused more on poli- tics than on the work that needed to be accomplished. As a result, the team suff ered and projects weren’t successful.

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Nurturing Your Teams

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My point is that people perform diff erently in diff erent environments. Th is may seem obvious, but it is a truth that has enormous implications for the success of your business. If you don’t supply the right kind of leadership to support your staff , they will not fl ourish. And neither will the company.

S U P P O R T A N D R E W A R D

Having real intrapreneurial activity in your company is what will drive sustainable growth. Th e intrapreneurs need to be not only recognized, they need to be supported and rewarded. So, what should you be doing to sup- port this kind of talent from within?

1. Recognize skills. Th e fi rst thing you need to do is recognize the skill sets of the people who work for you. I have discussed throughout the book the various types of intrapreneurs: the rebels, the researchers, the disruptors, the mavericks, the trendspotters. Th ese are the people who are the thinkers, the ideas people, the ones who will challenge the status quo. But they are not doing it just for the sake of doing it. Th ey are doing it to drive change, and to see new results because they are very outcome based.

2. Give creative freedom. Th ere is nothing more inspiring than to have your manager give you creative freedom to solve problems. When you have this, you take control, you take initiative, you take account- ability. Th is is where magic really starts to happen. People start to ideate and think outside of conventional norms. Your role as the leader is to provide feedback and direction, but ultimately, you have to give your employees the chance to behave like true intrapreneurs when solving problems.

3. Provide access. In order to make things happen, your people need re- sources. Providing your trailblazers with access to resources will allow them to realize their ideas. One of the most important resources the people on your teams need is time. As a leader, you can prioritize projects and this allows you to free up people’s time to work on certain things. Th e role of the leader is to work alongside their peer groups to secure the time of diff erent discipline groups, in order to give focus to such projects.

4. Make time. I love learning. Curious people do. One of the things I’ve loved most in my career is learning — from those in diff erent disciplines

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and also from my managers. In a couple of my roles, my manager would, as part of our “catch ups,” have a white board session. We would share ideas. He would teach me. All I wanted to do was to learn. But these sessions were mutually benefi cial. I would communicate some of my chal- lenges and we would learn from each other. Th is time was sacred to me and I needed it, we needed it. I needed it in order to be energized, re- freshed, and, well, inspired. If you want to keep people engaged and inter- ested, leaders must make the time to talk to their staff , good quality time.

5. Be the advocate. It is very easy to get sidetracked and displaced with- in a company. People will complain. Th e most important thing that you can do as a leader is to minimize the noise. When I was hired at Microsoft to help drive the transformation of the brand in the Canadian market, I had to make a lot of changes quickly. One of my manager’s peers said to her, “Chitra is very disruptive.” And her answer was, “I have hired her to be disruptive. Th at is her job.” Creating change is diffi cult, and in order for the work to get done, leadership must back their people and support them through the journey. Communicate the what, the why, and the how your teams are doing, and support their work when they run into opposition.

6. Reward behaviour. If you want people to be disruptive, to challenge the status quo in order to drive change and help the company succeed, you must reward intrapreneurial behaviour. It is so easy to lose inspi- ration, to get caught up in corporate minutiae, so when your people are being brave, trying to pave new ways, you must recognize and celebrate these behaviours.

As a leader, you must acknowledge that people learn through observa- tion. Th rough observation and familiarization, they will be more likely to engage in those same kinds of activities. It is critical that your behaviour — your approach to your job and how you relate to others — is consistent with what you say you want others to do.

Th e role of leadership, Steve Forbes told me, is to “marinate capable people.” Everything depends on how you coach, support, and actively en- gage with your people as they transform your company, helping it to blos- som and thrive. It’s the spirit of the greenhouse approach.

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