This week Helen and Sarah explore intrapreneurship, a skill that helps increase your impact and autonomy at work without introducing risks you might not be ready for.
They talk through intrapreneurship actions to help you increase your profile, widen your influence, and gather momentum and motivation for your ideas.
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00:00:00: Introduction
00:00:56: Defining an intrapreneur
00:05:28: Why intrapreneurship matters
00:08:51: An intrapreneur's skillset
00:09:31: Common intrapreneurial traits
00:15:02: Easy actions to be more intrapreneurial…
00:15:32: … 1: start asking intrapreneurial questions
00:20:16: … 2: do old things in new ways
00:23:10: … 3: try and spot other intrapreneurs
00:27:23: Harder actions to be more intrapreneurial…
00:27:39: … 1: catch people's attention
00:31:00: … 2: spot the signal vs the noise
00:35:14: … 3: start lots of small fires and see which burn brightest
00:41:17: Final thoughts
Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.
Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.
Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast. Every week, we talk about a topic to do with work and we hope to share some ideas, actions and tools to help all of us navigate our Squiggly Careers with a bit more confidence, clarity and control.
Helen Tupper: And because we know that lots of people might listen on the go, whatever that looks like for you, I hear lots of feedback from people who listen to podcasts while walking their dogs, and it's not always the opportune moment to think about or write down or take action with your careers. Because of that feedback, we create PodSheets. So, these are sort of one-page summaries that after you've listened, you can download, and hopefully makes it a bit easier to apply some of the things we've talked about. So, all the resources we create from PodSheets, PodMail, PodPlus, you can get all of that on our website, which is just amazingif.com.
Sarah Ellis: And so this week we're talking about how to be an intrapreneur. So, we'll start straightaway with what that is I think, just so that we're all talking about the same thing, because it's not an everyday word; and I think as we get into the description, it becomes clear how it's relevant for all of us, and why we think it matters in a Squiggly Career. And then we're going to go on and talk about some easy actions, and this week also some harder actions about what it might take to be an intrapreneur in your organisation. So, Helen, do you want to start us off with what it is?
Helen Tupper: So, yeah, let's start with the definition then. So, an intrapreneur is somebody who acts like an entrepreneur but inside a company. And what that means that they are doing is they are cutting through complexity and a lot of the noise and bureaucracy that we might get in big businesses, and they are able to present people with new ideas and projects that help the business grow. That's quite a short definition but there's quite a lot in there. So, there's a lot of abilities in there, their ability to cut through so they have that kind of pace and agility; they have new ideas, so they're seeing opportunities that maybe other people don't, and these aren't coming from a selfish place, so it's not, "Because I want to do this", this is sort of in service of the organisation. So, that's really what it means when we're looking at intrapreneurship.
The difference obviously is an entrepreneur, that's somebody who kind of does it for themselves. They run their own company, maybe a bit like what Sarah and I do now, though I actually feel a bit uncomfortable with the label "entrepreneur", I've never really identified with it. And I know that lots of people like the idea of running their own company, but don't really want to take that risk, for a whole load of reasons really. It might not be right for them, they might not feel like they have the idea, it's sort of a nice idea in theory but the reality might be a bit different. So, this is why we think that intrapreneurship, as a skill and an opportunity for people in organisations, actually has an awful lot more appeal, because not everyone is going to do their own thing and run their own company and that's absolutely fine, but lots more people can operate like an intrapreneur within an organisation, and that's what we really want to focus on in terms of how we can help people today.
Sarah Ellis: And I think it's worth saying, as we've been reflecting on this, I think this is a hard thing to do. In lots of ways, I think it's easier to be an entrepreneur. Helen and I can directly contrast our experiences in really big organisations and what we do now, and some of the stuff that makes this hard in a company doesn't exist when you're starting from scratch. There aren't the systems, you don't have to cut through, you don't have to engage with loads of people. In lots of ways, you can get stuff off the ground in your own way, particularly I think when you're starting from scratch. And so, I don't think this is an easy thing to do well, and I think that's why there's quite a lot of articles and things that you can read about this skill, because I think organisations recognise just how valuable it is when someone can do this.
There's a lovely quote I found from somebody called, great name, Gifford Pinchot, back from 1984, so old school, but I really like the definition. He describes intrapreneurs as, "Dreamers who do, those who take hands-on responsibility for creating innovation of any kind within a business".
Helen Tupper: I like that, "Dreamers who do".
Sarah Ellis: Yeah.
Helen Tupper: I feel like that's like a really nice mix of these abilities, because I think intrapreneurs can see what could be better and that's the dreaming, but then they ultimately take action. And one thing I would say is, I was in a presentation recently where a Head of Innovation Technology of a large company was presenting and I was learning a lot by watching, and they talked about a book, The A-Z Intrapreneurship, which actually I've flicked through it since and it's really good. But I think it is still a little bit intimidating. So, some of the examples in there are like, The Invention of the Post-it Note.
Sarah Ellis: And it's always Steve Jobs; why is it always Steve Jobs? Oh yeah, they just invented the Mac. And you're like, "Oh, right".
Helen Tupper: Like, this person accidentally realised that paper stuck and as a result, the Post-it Note, the ubiquitous communication tool for everybody, was invented. I'm like, "Oh, is that the scale we're going for? We're all trying to invent the Post-it Note!" But I think the dreamers who do I actually think is probably more the level that we're operating at in this podcast. Like, what do you think could be better and how do you make it happen, is I think the essence of intrapreneurship that we're trying to connect with.
Sarah Ellis: And why we think it matters in your Squiggly Career, so why should we care about this as a topic, well what you do see is that when people feel like they have the autonomy and freedom where they when they can be an entrepreneur, those people are really motivated so they feel like they are making progress, they've got great profile, just their return on effort and energy is really high. So, you know when you think about, "Have I had a positive impact in the work that I do? Does my work feel purposeful?" When you read about entrepreneurs, when people have got examples of having done that in their organisations, which are not Post-it Notes and inventing the Mac, those people feel really good. They feel really good about the time they spend at work, because often there's a bit of job crafting that's happening, so people feel like they've got personal responsibility for their role; and also, you are definitely learning by doing, because I do think with intrapreneurs, there's a lot of emphasis on, this is not about having ideas.
I think that's a mistake or a myth that you might have about this is like, "Oh, I need to be generating loads of ideas". And you know sometimes we perhaps again label ourselves as, "Oh, but I'm not an ideas person [or] I'm not a creative person"? Actually, what you see is most organisations don't need people like me. So, you don't need people who just have lots and lots of ideas, like I've always got an idea, so organisations don't need more ideas. What they need is more people who can sometimes have the ideas, but really execute and take action around those ideas and do that with pace, and as Helen described, cut through the complexity, find a way of making these things happen despite the organisation or in spite of the organisation, perhaps.
Helen Tupper: I was just thinking about a bit of a scale which you may or may not agree with, but as you were talking there, I was like, at one end you've got an ideator, so I feel like this is not the only thing that you can do, but it's a natural home for you is that you are an ideator. You can always see better, you kind of have this endless ability to kind of be like, "Oh, but what if?" and that's part of your skill. And then, maybe at the other end you have the innovator, so the career professional who maybe works in an innovation team, this is kind of what they do for their job, they are the identified innovator in an organisation. And I feel like what we are maybe talking about is this sort of intrapreneurial ability that maybe sits between the two.
So, it doesn't have to be your job title, like it's not Helen Tupper, the intrapreneur in Amazing If, or whatever; it's an ability that helps you maybe take other people's ideas, for example, and move them forward, connect people to them, give them some energy and momentum. But this doesn't have to be your job title in order for you to be able to demonstrate this ability at work. I feel like this is the bit maybe in the middle that more people could do.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, the middle ground for the majority, I think we're describing.
Helen Tupper: Nice! We want that.
Sarah Ellis: We did, we do. And there is a good HBR article that we will link to in the PodSheet on why you should become an intrapreneur. So, if you did want to read more examples and a bit more of a description, dive in a bit deeper, I've had a read of that before today and I just found it a kind of really useful, well-researched summary. So, if we think now about what skills does an intrapreneur have, so what is it that they are doing well? Well, in the article, one of the things that they do say very early on is that it's important to recognise that there is not a single profile. So, in lots of ways again, that should feel reassuring because this is not, "Well, I must be able to do these four things to an excellent standard, otherwise I can't be an intrapreneur". I think some of these traits we're going to talk about, all of us will have at least one or two of these things that we already do well, and probably one or two work-ons. So, what do you do well, what you're work-ons? And it's about bringing these things together if this is something important to you, if you want to do more of these things.
So, some of the common traits that we see, the first one, which is universally true I think, is this ability to be proactive and take initiative. So, you are sort of creating this action, creating change; you aren't necessarily waiting to be told what to do; and you're not expecting almost someone to give you this opportunity to be an intrapreneur. It's like you're sort of seeking it, you're just always scanning and spotting, and so we'll talk a bit more about that. But I think that's definitely a trait that you see, is this proactive nature.
Secondly, I think you've got to be happy to challenge the status quo. So, intrapreneurs are essentially changing things or maybe championing new things some of the time, and so these are restless people who don't accept how things are today. And they are really motivated by making things better, and as Helen said, for the good of the organisation. So, they're not motivated by themselves and necessarily making themselves look good, but they do have a really strong belief that this is the right thing to do. There's definitely a kind of sense there of like, "I believe in this".
Third, influence to make these things happen. Intrapreneurs are very good at recognising, "I need the right sponsors and supporters. Who are the right people to have around me?" And this is not about convening big meetings or big cross-functional steering groups. This is like quickly, "Quickly, who are the people I need to get in front of? Who are the people that I need maybe just enough support from to move things forward?"
Then the last one, which always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, and I think this is the one that I would find the hardest and did find the hardest in big companies, was this idea of acting first, so seeking forgiveness, not permission. And I had a boss who that was basically her mantra. She was like, "Yeah, don't worry about it, Sarah. Seek forgiveness, not permission", and was somebody who I think really at her heart, I'm like, "I do quite like to follow the rules. There's a reason I worked in big companies and structures and systems". And this idea of like, "Oh, just do it and it will probably be fine". And I think probably my critical thinking was like, "Will it though? And what happens?" And because I can see scenarios, I was like, "Well, what happens if it isn't?" And so, I think there's a lot in that. But definitely of the four, that one just makes me feel tense and a bit uncomfortable.
What about you, Helen? If you were thinking about those four, given you have probably been on that scale, you have been in innovation teams as well as probably been in that middle ground, when you think about proactive, challenging status quo influence and acting fast, where do you think you're at your best; and then, what would your work-on be?
Helen Tupper: At my best is proactive and act first, which is different to yours. I would just be like, "I'll made it forward", and then I'd tell people later. I think that connects to my doing-ness as a vibe.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, you do that with me.
Helen Tupper: Yes, I'm like, "I've always done this". But again, it's not really an intentional trait, it's just part of the way that I work. I think that challenging the status quo, that restlessness to not accept how things are today, I think sometimes I just go, "I'm not going to fight that". I don't think I have that relentless restfulness. I think I'm pretty targeted on the stuff that I want to make better, and I'm willing to leave some of the stuff. Whether that's right or not, I don't know, but I don't challenge everything that I think could be better. You know the whole pick-your-battles thing? I think I'm much more like that.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think I'm less like that!
Helen Tupper: Yeah. I think you spread yourself across everything you might want to change, and whereas I'll be like, "I've let other things go", and be like, "That's a thing". I was just thinking as you were talking there, that I think it is hard to talk about intrapreneurship without thinking about it in context. So, for example, being an intrapreneur in an entrepreneurial company, so this is me working at Virgin, that's easier, right?
Sarah Ellis: Of course.
Helen Tupper: It's expected of you and everybody who is chosen to work at Virgin, you've chosen. It's easier to be an intrapreneur in an entrepreneurial company, it's just easier, it's part of the DNA. Whereas I think about when I worked at somewhere like BP, for example, that was a hierarchical organisation that was very process-driven. Therefore, being an intrapreneur in that organisation, which I argue I did demonstrate some of the things that we're going to talk about in terms of behaviours, was exhausting; not impossible, but it's exhausting. And so, I do think it's important to think about, where are you starting from?
I think you can be intrapreneurial in any organisation. I just think you got to be aware of the context, because the ease of intrapreneurship I think is slightly different, not impossible, but for me for example, when I was in BP, it helped me to find other people like me, because it made me feel like I wasn't fighting a battle of my own, and I got a lot of energy from those people. Whereas in Virgin, I think everybody was like me. And so, it was more about learning how they did it a bit better, because everybody was already there. So, I was like, "Well, how do you get influence? How did you make that happen?" And so, there was a wider pool of people to learn from, I think, if you're in a quite an already entrepreneurial organisation.
Sarah Ellis: So, we're now going to move on to how to be more intrapreneurial. And as we said before, we've got some easier actions that we think everyone could just start having a go at and start practising, and perhaps you already do some of these things really well already; and a couple of harder things, because as we said, I don't think this is that easy. If you're very ambitious about this, if you really want to be intrapreneurial, if that's what matters to you, if you're thinking about your Squiggly Career and you think that's a good fit for you, I think there are there are some harder things. So, we didn't we didn't want to shy away from those things.
So, let's start off with an easy one, though, let's warm up with an easy one, and that is to start asking intrapreneurial questions. So, these might be some of the questions that no one else is asking; these might be questions that you don't hear asked very frequently; and they are designed to do some of those things that we just talked about to challenge the status quo, to look at things differently. So, three examples that I came up with, just so you can hear what these might sound like, (1) what's the risk of continuing to do this in the same way? (2) what's the quickest way we could move forward to test this in practice? (3) who do we need support from to speed this up? And so you can hear in those questions, they're not super-confrontational questions, but by going, "What's the risk of continuing to do this in the same way?" there's a connotation there that, "Okay, perhaps we do need to challenge ourselves to do something differently". Or in that last question, "Who do we need support from to speed this up?" there's a sense there, "This is going too slow, we're not making enough progress".
So, thinking about what questions could you ask where you're challenging, you're being restless, you're trying to move things forward, you're trying to make pacey progress on things where you can see changing this is going to make a difference, it feels like this matters. And maybe for some reason it's not happening, something's stalling or it's getting stuck, because I think these are inherently quite brave questions, because you are being sort of challenging. Then, even though this is an easy action, I still don't think this is -- these are not the easy, everyday questions that we might be very used to asking.
Helen Tupper: And I think if asking questions feels quite intimidating, because to Sarah's point, I do think it is brave, like in the middle of a meeting to ask a question that you haven't asked before.
Sarah Ellis: "Quick question, guys?"
Helen Tupper: Yeah. I mean, that actually is a good way into it, I think, "Oh, quick question, just before we move forward, I've just got something I wanted to just check in on". Those are ways into a question that can feel quite confronting. I also think maybe an easier way in sometimes is just to use more intrapreneurial language. So, intrapreneurs will often talk about experiments or alternative ways, or they'll often use the word "scenarios" or things that I've heard said are like, "Oh, maybe we should take a challenge-and-build approach to this", or, "This is a great opportunity to test and learn". So, if sometimes questions that confront the status quo might feel a bit difficult to do, then I think using some of this more intrapreneurial language could be a good way to start. And remember, this is more about getting you comfortable with the way that you are operating and also creating that, I guess, perception from other people that you're thinking and doing things differently.
So, you're not going to be an intrapreneur just by asking some questions and saying some different words. But I do think it is a good place to start if you've not come across this before. And we'll put those questions and some of those words in the PodSheet, so that you've maybe got a glossary to get started with that, and you could start to think about how you can put them into some of your meetings.
Sarah Ellis: Maybe to make this even easier, because I was like, "Okay, let's keep going with how do you make this…", because you can't do this out of context. It would be weird in the middle of a meeting to suddenly throw in --
Helen Tupper: A finance meeting!
Sarah Ellis: -- throw in one of these questions.
Helen Tupper: "Shall we test and learn the monthly finances?" "Maybe not, Helen"!
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I'm not sure you'd get a super-good response to that. The other thing I guess you could do is use this as a tool in your team. So, as a team, you could make a commitment to say, "We want to be more intrapreneurial together", and it's always easier to do these things together and with the support of people that you know well, especially if you've got a good team, everybody gets on well. You might have a list of five questions, perhaps ours and then you come up with some other ones of your own, and you just every so often agree to go, "Oh, shall we ask ourselves some of those intrapreneurial questions?" and you're just all chatting them through. And I was thinking again, that feels not particularly daunting, most people would feel comfortable doing that, you know the questions beforehand, and also you have signalled, "Oh, this is a time where we're going to chat about some of this stuff just to almost together stretch this skill. We're almost doing a bit of learning at the same time as a bit of practising". Maybe that's an even easier way to start.
Helen Tupper: Yeah. And I was talking to someone called Vivi in our team, many people will know Vivi because she creates lots of the things you see that we share. Vivi and I were working today on an exciting thing that's coming up in August for the podcast, and I said to her, "Oh, I think these ideas, we should put them in front of the team and do a bit of a challenge and build". So, again, I think just making this the way that your team works, rather than trying to change an entire organisation, just trying to have an intrapreneurial team probably feels like a more realistic way to start. Which leads on to the second easy action, which is about doing old things in new ways. And when we say old, we mean like routine, the things that you just don't question, "Oh, we always have a meeting on a Monday morning at 9:00. Oh, we always present our monthly report in PowerPoint", you know, like, "This is just how we do it around here". I think intrapreneurs are good at spotting the way things that have been done for a while that are right for trying something new out.
Sarah Ellis: Renewal, yeah.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, that kind of -- they're just sort of like, "Oh, gosh". Because I think they probably get bored easily, they look at things and they need to kind of stay engaged and they want to test and shake things up.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that's you. You definitely get bored easily. I was just thinking, "Is why you're so good at this?"
Helen Tupper: Well, the trick is I think to make sure that your boredom can benefit others.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah.
Helen Tupper: If you're just trying to shake things up because you're bored, it's kind of a selfish way of operating. But if you can do it in a way that benefits other people, I think that's useful. So, doing old things in new ways. The thing to scan for here is what's become so routine and habitual in your team or department or organisation that nobody questions it anymore. And so, the way meetings work, when meetings work, where meetings work or how projects are managed, all that kind of stuff, a lot of that stuff, as Sarah says, it's kind of ripe for renewal. And that might just be, "Well, we'll have a no-PowerPoint meeting", or, "We'll do meetings in the way that Jeff Bezos does at Amazon, where you get a pre-read before you get into the meeting", or, "Instead of everybody using Teams or Outlook to comment on an email or an idea, we'll do it in the meeting using a tool like Miro or Mural or Jamboard. I think technology is probably your friend here in terms of trying to do something different.
Just back to the Vivi thing, I really liked this recently. We've been having some team training on AI, and Vivi and I were put in a breakout group, and we were coming up with some ideas for things that we could do differently, and we had I think ChatGPT4 as the third person in our little meeting. And so, I was asking Vivi her opinion on something, and then I'd put the same question into ChatGPT4, and it was like having a third person in the meeting. And I think other teams could do that. You could invite AI into your meeting, not just to listen, like a passive AI like lots of tools, but to almost be like an active participant in a meeting. I think that is intrapreneurial, the extra person in the meeting that's bringing this very different perspective. So, old things in new ways is then the area that you can add just a little bit of your intrapreneurial energy into a situation.
Sarah Ellis: And then the final thing, the final easier action before we move on to the harder stuff is, as Helen mentioned, try and spot other people who have intrapreneurial traits or tendencies, either in your organisation or if you're struggling to find them inside, find people in other organisations who seem to be doing this well, because these are often people who are championing or challenging some sort of change, maybe something that they are passionate about. I was talking to one of our clients the other day, and they were giving me an example about, they want to really help increase people's awareness around disability in their organisation. And it obviously felt like a really brave thing for her to say that out loud, even though she was already very knowledgeable. And what she wanted to do was really connect with other changemakers in other organisations, because she was very much at the start of that process for her.
So, her smart question was, "Well, who else do you know who has been a real intrapreneur on an area of interest, but where they really believe it will make a big difference to their organisation if they could do something about it?" And I think just sometimes having those quite specific, you could call them I think in-the-moment mentoring conversations, because you've got a real goal in mind, you're like, "Okay, well how do you manage to get stuff done? What is it that you do well? What made the difference for you?" And even I was using this in a workshop the other day, there's some interesting research around if you're talking to somebody, rather than asking for feedback, if you ask for advice, it's much, much easier for people. And I sometimes call this the Advice Accelerator. So, it's like almost to accelerate your own intrapreneurship, who could you ask for advice from? And most people are really happy to offer advice because, it's really flattering to be asked.
Funnily enough, when Helen and I were preparing for the podcast today, that's essentially what we did. We were asking each other. We were like, "Well, what advice would you give somebody if they were trying to be intrapreneurial, based on what you've done well?" And we were both reflecting on things that have gone well, things we perhaps would have done differently, and that definitely got us to some of the ideas, some of the actions. So, perhaps just thinking about, could you have just a really short in-the-moment mentoring conversation, specifically about this intrapreneurship skill? I don't think you have to name it that, I think it's not a super-common word, I don't think it's everyday language.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, I know, it's not, is it? It's funny like, "I want to be an intrapreneur", it doesn't feel right, but it's this idea that you're somebody that has the ability to cut through and do something different, "The dreamers who do". I much prefer your -- I mean, it's a funny sentence, "Dreamers who do", but I don't know, intrapreneurship just doesn't feel like everyday language, which means that everyone might not identify with it.
Sarah Ellis: I guess probably, what you can do is you'll have spotted that they will have championed either something new or probably a change. And you can say, "I really admire how you've made … happen", because they will have made something happen. Like, if I think about even knowing you when you worked in other organisations, I could name things that you've made happen and you could be like, "I really admired how you made that happen. What was it that helped you? What do you think you did well?" If I think about our Squiggle and Stay programme, which we've run with companies over the past year, all of the individuals from those companies who've been part of that programme are all pioneers. They have all made change happen and they are all intrapreneurs. They are really good examples of people who are intrapreneurs. And I just know that any of those people will be really happy to share like, "Oh, well this is the advice I'd give to someone else if they were in a similar position. This is how I found my way through the bureaucracy, what I did when people said no, what did I do when I thought I got support and then I lost it". So, people who've just lived and breathed it I think have an awful lot to offer.
Helen Tupper: Yeah. I think who do you admire for making something happen in or outside of your organisation, is probably a really good filter for those people.
Sarah Ellis: That's a good question ,yeah.
Helen Tupper: So, those first three things that we talked about, so the asking the questions, doing old things in new ways and spending time learning from other people with intrapreneurial behaviours, are a really good foundation. And that might be where lots of people stop. That's still, I think, helping you develop some really important skills, it's helping you make a difference to your organisation, you'll be developing lots of transferable talents. But if you do want to go a bit further with this, if this is more something that you want to spend time doing that you really want to be known for, we've got a couple of sort of harder actions that might move this to being more of your role and more of how you're spending your time at work.
So, the first thing, if you want to be an intrapreneur who is doing something different and making a difference to your organisation, then one of the ways that you can make that happen is by catching people's attention, and by connecting them to something that is outside of yourself. So, what do we mean by that? It's not enough to just to say, "I think that we should do this thing, because I think it would be better".
Sarah Ellis: Like you saying to me, "I think we should do lots of video for our podcast, Sarah". That is just for example.
Helen Tupper: "For example"!
Sarah Ellis: So, if Helen just says that, it's probably not going to happen, and we'll talk about what you might do instead.
Helen Tupper: And the reason that might not happen is, I haven't really connected it to anything that Sarah cares about. So, for example, Sarah hates being on camera! So, me going, "I think we should make more video", it's arbitrary really. Sarah might be like, "Well, good for you, but I don't care enough about that to do something differently". But what intrapreneurs are really good at is connecting to what people care about, but also using insight that is not just about themselves. So, it's not, "I think", it might be, like for example, I know that Sarah cares about helping people with their careers, I know that she has a value of achievement, which kind of means growing over the long term for our business. And so for me, if I believed in creating more video for the podcast, what I need to do is care, connect to things that Sarah cares about, and use insight and information that is beyond just my opinion. And by doing that, I have much more influence over Sarah.
It sounds quite complicated, but really it isn't. It's just this person that you want to say yes to this thing that you think is good to do, what do they care about? And how can you get some insight and information to influence them that isn't just about your opinion? If you can connect the insight outside of you to what they care about, you are much more likely to have influence over that individual. I think a lot of intrapreneurs get the opportunity to do things that other people don't, because they connect to things that people care about in ways that other people haven't been able to do.
Sarah Ellis: So, let's imagine you've done that. You've caught people's attention and you've connected the dots between what they care about and something that you believe is important. So, I do think intrapreneurs individually do care about the change or the new thing that they're trying to make happen, but they go beyond that. They also really believe, as I mentioned before, "This is the right thing for the goal that we've got as a team or as an organisation, or for the reason that we are here. I really think this is going to help us to move forward". So, if Helen was talking to me about it, it would be, "We've got a mission to make careers better for everyone". So then, Helen would say to me, "Well, if we're talking about everyone, if we use video, we can double the number of people that we can reach". And I think, "Well, I'm very achievement focussed, so that sounds good for me personally. But to be honest, even more importantly, that has a very strong fit with our mission, with why we're here". And so you start to go beyond either the computer says no, or this is how we've always done things and why do we need to do anything differently. So, you sort of you're starting to nudge people into that territory of kind of influence.
I then think what an intrapreneur does really well is they are either, I was thinking, they're a little bit like a sniffer dog, I think. They have like a submarine sort of radar for opportunities, and they are very good at spotting the signal versus the noise. So, particularly in big companies, there's always loads of noise, and that noise can be the 4 million emails you get every day or the meetings you're reading or the conversations you're having. You're probably not short of data, most of the time you've got more than you know what to do with; it depends probably a bit on where you work. But I would think of it just like there's loads of stuff, there's loads and loads of stuff. And I do think Helen is very good at doing this well. Her ability to absorb all of that and then cut through and go, "This is what matters most", that's the signal point. And it's not just, again, "This is what I think matters most", it's like, "No, this is the gem in here. This is the diamond in the rough here. We've got all of these things that we could do. But actually, have you noticed that if we've heard this word so many times, or have we noticed that that story seemed to completely change the energy in a room when we were listening to our customers", or whatever it might be. But it's just spotting that signal, having that real radar for it.
Then I think these interpreters are really good, they leap on it. They're like, "Right, I've got it. This this is what it is". And then, you know they've done it well, because everyone just sort of nods. And this is what I always say to Helen, I've never seen anyone do this as well as Helen. She gets people nodding very quickly. She gets me nodding and I'm really critical, well, particularly critical with Helen. And sometimes she gets me nodding and then I'm like, "I don't even know if I agree yet". But somehow, I'm nodding and I have to say to her, "I realise you've got me nodding and I just need a moment to work out if I actually believe in my nodding!" And that is a real skill because intrapreneurs need to get people nodding, and I think the real thing there is going, "It's a signal versus the noise". It's spotting it but also saying it. I think it's got to go beyond just the spot. You've got to say it and you've got to bring it to life.
Helen Tupper: That is actually my favourite feedback I've had from you recently, was when you were like, "Just wait a minute, let me think about what I've just nodded at". We were in a meeting together and it was interesting feedback. And so, I think you could do this in a few ways. So, your aim I think, as an intrapreneur, is to get people nodding along, because that's kind of validation that you're on the right track. But I also think you can notice the nods. So, you don't have to be the person speaking to notice the nods and nods can happen in a very literal way, like literally, you're in a meeting, someone's presenting, you're not presenting, you're just observing, and you see that everyone's maybe doing a thumbs up on Teams, "Yeah, great point", something like that. So, you can sort of notice the nods from other people.
I also think nods can come in the form, like if you are looking on LinkedIn, I will often look at what are the most popular articles or what are the most commented on posts. That's a nod. You've not necessarily created the content or you've not necessarily even liked it, but you're noticing the nods. I think that's the thing. The signal versus noise is having the ability to spot what is interesting, engaging and a little bit unusual for other people. Those are often the things that you're going to get a lot of engagement with. Honestly, I remember this with Amazing If and Squiggly Careers. So, this podcast that you are listening to, everybody was not originally called the Squiggly Careers podcast. It was called The Amazing If podcast back in the day, because that's the name of our business. Wouldn't it be Amazing If more people love their jobs? But what Sarah and I both noticed was the thing that stuck from everything that we talked about when we started our business over ten years ago was Squiggly. And so whilst what we do still has the same mission to help people in their careers and make careers better for everybody, what we noticed was that Squiggly stuck. We noticed the nods. And I think that's what intrapreneurs are really good at.
So, it can be in response to what you are saying, but also don't forget the role of observing and seeing what's sort of sticking in what other people might be saying or sharing as well.
Sarah Ellis: And then the third hard action, and I think the hard actions all follow on from each other, is intrapreneurs are very good at starting lots of small fires and then seeing which ones burn brightly and then really going hard and quite fast after those ones which are getting those nods. And so, I think this looks like getting lots of fast feedback, because all of the things that you might think could change or that you might want to start, I think you have actually got to have a certain level of quantity here. You have got to be starting quite a few small fires, and you have to accept that along the way, some of them, I've definitely had this, some of them, I'm adamant, you're like, "This is a brilliant idea" and you're getting no nods. And you're like, okay, well it's either just not a brilliant idea, you've just got to let it go as fast as it came almost, or you might want to try again in a different way or reframe it. But again, if you're still not getting the nods, you're like, "Right, let it go and move on".
So, I think part of this is a holding-your-ideas-lightly point. I think you've got to get very used to that. And then you've got to figure out how can you get that fast feedback. So, we were talking about a new idea that we've got, and we were saying what's interesting is because we both got energy for it and we think there's something in it, we've managed to get probably fast feedback from 10 or 11 people in a week, and that's not by creating a deck or anything fancy; if anything, the opposite. I mean, I turned up to one of my friends who had asked for a coffee, who I really appreciate. He's a real critical friend for our company. I mean, honestly, with the scrappiest bit of paper of all time and I mean, I could barely read my own writing, but it was just to remind me of the key things I wanted to talk him through. And I left him a voice note beforehand, which his feedback to me was, "It was like listening to a mini podcast", because he'd just listened to our podcast! And so, I've done that with a few people. I was like, who are the people I could send a really short voice note to just to be like, "What do you think of this idea?"
What was so interesting is when people then replay back they like the idea or they don't, and actually we got a lot of enthusiasm for this idea, there were two or three builds that people made, things that we'd not thought of or things that felt important, where I was like, "Right, well this fire is only going to burn bright if we do those things. And so, if those things are not right for us, then it's not right to do". But I'm so glad we've done that in a speedy way, because then you don't waste time. You can then move into the making-it-happen phase much, much quicker. And I think I've got a lot more used to doing this actually, probably since running a company, because I do think sometimes in big organisations there is more pressure. You feel like for some reason there just should be a PowerPoint.
But I do remember one thing I worked on where I was doing some work on food waste that I'd probably talked about before, and I do remember having a conversation with my leader at the time, and she just went, "Right, we're just going to go and talk to our CEO about this because I think this would be good". And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, slow down! There's no PowerPoint, there's no business case, there's nothing". And she was like, "No, let's just go and see if he's free". And nothing could make me more tense and that spontaneous, "Let's just go and see if our CEO is free", because you're like, "Well, I've not practised and I like to think things through and it's very on the spot". But it was 100% the right thing to do, because between the two of us, we could just very quickly go, "Look, I was thinking about something along these lines. What do we think? Do we think this is important? Could this work?" And then once you've got his interest and enthusiasm, then that's it. That's all that small fire needs to burn brightly. And then also you've sort of got as much permission as you need to then go off and get stuff done.
So, I think part of recognising what it feels like to be an intrapreneur, certainly for me, as I said, Helen and I both experienced this in different ways, is it does feel uncomfortable. I think some, some moments of that process feel uncomfortable because you're either letting go of things that you thought were good, or you're having to perhaps move a bit faster than you might like, you perhaps don't get to think everything through properly. But that's what makes these people good, that's why they make stuff happen. So, it's sort of knowing which of the parts might make you uncomfortable.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, I was just thinking about that kind of difference between maybe the ideator who comes up with ideas and the innovator who's all about doing things fast. And this intrapreneur is the person, that bit in the middle who's coming up with the ideas and testing and spotting the signals and seeing what sticks. It's that kind of ability, that ability in the middle. I think you really do have to drop the ego because you are not the idea, I think you are sort of the momentum. So actually, it's your ability to take an idea and connect with people who care about and to move it forward faster than it would have done without you. That's success. And so, you have to drop the things that slow you down or you can't succeed, you will not get momentum. And so, you can't just attach yourself to an idea because you came up with it and think it's brilliant, because that's ultimately not going to be the thing that is able to move forward if you haven't connected it to the people.
So, just to go back through a couple of things that we said there, we tried to split it into these three easy things that are much more about behaviours that we think that everybody could demonstrate or would be beneficial to people in their career. So, this is asking the questions, using that language; relooking at things that have always been done a certain way and looking at doing it in a different way; and then spending time learning from other people. That's going to help everybody to do things differently in organisations.
But if you want to go further with this intrapreneurial ability, that's where we think that catching people's attention by connecting your ideas to things they care about, making sure that you can spot the signals and you're not drowning in the noise that everyone else might be in, and start lots of those small fires, that's where I think this really becomes a bigger part of your role and your identity at work.
Sarah Ellis: So, that's everything for this week. We do hope you found that useful to flex or develop those intrapreneurship skills. We will go away and try to think of a new word for it that feels probably a bit more accessible. But also, we probably can't go around saying "dreamers that do" either. I'm not sure that would quite get the reception that we would need in every company. So, there's got to be something better. So, if you can think of a better name, let us know, because the more time Helen and I spent talking about this and researching this, I was like, "Oh, I think there's something really interesting here, but probably the way it is framed makes it feel a bit inaccessible, potentially a bit intimidating". But the actual skills in your Squiggly Career I think will give you both profile and progress and a lot of momentum and motivation, which I think is what we all want from our jobs.
So, that's everything for this week. Thank you so much for listening and back with you again soon. Bye for now.
Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.
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