Smart, driven, and ambitious Krishnan, who made good decisions throughout his life, suddenly found himself suffocating under the weight of his own expectations, and that of others. He restlessly confronted new challenges each day, such as difficulty in managing people, the dichotomy of his quest for perfection versus delegation, anger and frustration, and constantly feeling inadequate while striving for perfection and excellence. But the climb was getting more difficult each day, with the lack of a definitive solution.
Unwilling to be stuck any more, Krishnan contemplated choosing between a reputed MBA course and a cutting-edge Excellence Installation Technology-based personal evolution programme for targeted capability development.
Over a period of eight months, with targeted capability development for the entrepreneurial mindset, personal and professional excellence, and emotional mastery, Krishnan turned over a new leaf. He became more approachable and started inspiring action in others with his personal charisma and effectiveness.
His transition surprised many. In the months following the interventions, Krishnan began to spot opportunities, pre-empt the market turns and even prepared his organisation ahead of time for crisis.
Today, Krishnan has not only set newer standards of productivity but is also progressing on his long-term dream of impacting people’s lives and leaving behind a mark in the cyber-security market. This has been made possible with critical adjustments enabling an entrepreneurial mindset and capabilities for Krishnan.
At its core, what separates a good employee from an Intrapreneur is an “entrepreneurial mindset”. Here’s what this mindset can do for a talented employee:
1. Focus on business results along with ‘work outcomes’
An average employee measures efforts while a good employee measures their work results. However, those with an entrepreneur mindset takes it further. They look at business accomplishments and not just measure their contribution. They continuously learn about the business, gather market insights, look at possibilities of business growth as well as its impact on customers and society at large. This naturally sets them leagues apart from others as this mindset also helps them focus on their missing capabilities and be more strategic in personal development than their counterparts.
2. Integration capability
An employee with an entrepreneurial mindset will develop the capabilities required to learn beyond their area of expertise and build deep relationships with leaders, without inhibition. This gives them a peek into developing an integrated view of the business. While good employees can outperform in meeting their targets, an integrated view helps them resolve conflicts, arrive at win-wins, seize business opportunities and add newer dimensions. However, such capability development takes time, literally decades. But leaders with an entrepreneurial mindset will find themselves time-compressing this outcome. Because building integrated capabilities are their priority, and they make themselves ready to take up projects beyond their job description, they naturally grow faster within an organisation and the more integrated they are, the more flexible and relevant they become.
3. Working for yourself!
One of the greatest privileges of entrepreneurs is the high levels of stimulation and personal satisfaction in becoming more capable and seasoned, as they are always faced with situations that force them to learn and perform. However, the entire risk of business is borne by the entrepreneur in addition to the necessity to dive in, learn, and solve whatever problem comes their way as well as steer the ship towards the destination.
In uncharted territories, an entrepreneur goes through a great deal of uncertainty and how the context itself evolves an entrepreneur to achieve what they have never done makes the journey fascinating!
While an average or good employee might not experience the above, one with an entrepreneurial mindset has the luxury to experience all these privileges with almost no risks. This mindset creates opportunities to develop entrepreneurial skills and opens up possibilities of rapid growth and key leadership roles in the organisation as if it is their own!
Entry-level freshers and sometimes even good employees tend to think, “Why should I work for the organisation when I can start-up and be my own boss!” In reality, most organisations encourage Intrapreneurs and fast-track growth opportunities for those who have an entrepreneurial mindset.
Fast-growing organisations must encourage an entrepreneurial mindset
As with everything, there is a risk. While leaders with entrepreneurial mindset are great assets to the business, there is the risk of losing them, if their growth is constrained. In my experience, this is one of the biggest fears of HR folks and people in the L&D space for big corporates. But as ZigZiglar said, “The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is to not train them and keep them.”
However, companies like Google are changing the trend. Finding potential leaders with an entrepreneurial mindset and nurturing such talent must be a role prioritised and performed by the top-most management of an organisation.
The author is co-founder of Antano & Harini Legacy Accelerators