Intrapreneurship Insights From Virgin
In The Eight Faces of the Intrapreneur, from the Virgin website, the author lists the office innovator, the corporate catalyst, the silo-buster, the secret change agent, the on-top-of-my-day-jobber, the re-imagineer, the do-it-yourselfer, and the closer as the eight types of corporate entrepreneurs in your organization. In my experience, successful intrapreneurs must have most if not all of these traits to succeed inside the corporate world. In my book, Winning at Intrapreneurship: 12 Labors to Overcome Corporate Culture and Achieve Startup Success, I dedicate a chapter to understanding the differences and similarities between intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship and define characteristics and skills required of successful intrapreneurs. These include 12 entrepreneurial traits such as risk-taking, customer focus, emotional resilience, and passion, and 7 distinct intrapreneurial characteristics and skills such as change agent, corporate leadership, corporate leveraging, and more. Understanding how to properly identify and support your corporate entrepreneurs is key to successfully transition your innovations to the market place.