The Intrapreneur Within

“Imagine an organization with an employee who can accurately see the truth, understand the situation, and understand the potential outcomes of various decisions. And now imagine that this person is also able to make something happen.” -Seth Godin, Linchpin

Intrapreneur: A person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation.”
– The American Heritage Dictionary, 1992

In 1964, Spencer Silver was working for 3M Corporation in St. Paul, Minnesota when he began experimenting with a new adhesive compound that he thought could be used for posting announcements on bulletin boards. Silver’s idea was to develop an adhesive that could keep the paper stuck but then be ripped off easily without leaving a trace.

Today, we don’t think much of this bulletin board problem because of our easy access to sticky notes and double sided-tape. But in the ’60s, this idea would have been new, even out of the box. Those lacking vision may have even considered this product unneeded or unnecessary, referring to it as “a solution that doesn’t have a problem.” But Silver was passionate about the idea and, despite the fact that it had nothing to do with his normal job duties, he began it on the side as a pet project, building a new product on both company time and company dime.

Were this to happen today, Silver likely would have branched off and left 3M to build the sticky product and start his own company. We can imagine him as a start-up founder, working to secure angel investors and advisors or maybe even issuing a round of seed funding that would allow him to build at a rapid pace and bring the product to market. He would have been praised for his daring entrepreneurialism and, if successful, thought of as a business savant.

But in the mid-1960’s the corporate world was different. The term “entrepreneur” wasn’t yet placed on a throne and worshiped as the apex of business success. No, these were instead the years of unwavering corporate commitment. I witnessed this first hand through my grandfather on my dad’s side who spent over 30 years working for the United States Postal Service and, more relevant to this story, through my grandfather on my mom’s side who spent 43 years at 3M before retiring happily. This workforce embodied the age of post-industrial World War II veterans, trusted pension plans, and an almost blind loyalty. The employee-employer bond was often stronger than friendships, even marriages. It is no surprise then that when Spencer Silver finally invented this new form of adhesive, he did not quit his job at 3M to build a start-up. Instead he built his start-up from within.

Silver wasn’t breaking any rules, in fact he was doing what his company wanted him to do. 3M’s corporate Bootlegging Policy allowed employees to spend up to 15% of their work time developing new ideas. This resulted in both an innovative culture and also a freedom for employees to think and act in the best interest for the company even when it did not fall within their nine-to-five responsibilities. Since then other organizations, namely Google and Microsoft, have implemented similar programs for their employees, encouraging their people to spend time working on projects that fall outside of their “swim lanes” as long as it is with the interest of the company.

Why was Silver successful? One could argue that his discovery was a result of the 15% free that 3M gave and encouraged him to take. However, thousands of other employees had the same opportunity to innovate yet they chose not to. There is no doubt then that Silver’s uniquely entrepreneurial mindset, manifested inside of 3M, is what brought his product to fruition. Silver goes down in business history as one of the first real Intrapreneurs, a term that, although rarely used in common-conversation, is imperative to the success of companies like 3M.

Silver’s big idea may seem incredible to us now after all of its success but the truth is that it did not catch on at first. In those first few years he often gathered his 3M colleagues together to show them this new chemical compound but no one seemed to see a vision of future profits. At least not until 1968, when Silver’s coworker at 3M, Arthur Frey, while singing hymns in church became increasingly frustrated that bookmarks continued to fall out of his hymnal book. Art Frey recalled a meeting he attended a few years prior, one led by Spencer Silver, in which Silver had gathered his colleagues together to show them the new adhesive. At the time of the meeting Frey didn’t think much of it but now it all seemed to make sense. Frey would then partner with him to create the Post-It note, becoming to Silver what I imagine Steve Jobs was to Steve Wozniak when Apple Computers was born. Silver the inventor, Frey the marketer. This duo would go on to create one of the most common household and office products of all time.

Today, almost as common as the Post-It note are the many ambitious corporate employees who possess entrepreneurial characteristics. Some of them are stuck in a Want Trap Manure (my previous post about being a Wantrepreneur), and others are simply stifling these ambitions and falling in line as a corporate cog in a wheel. But there is good news for these people: neither of these feelings of defeat are necessary. Wantrepreneurs can stop feeling down and instead start behaving like intrapreneurs.

Intrapreneurship is the act of behaving entrepreneurially even while working as an employee. It defies the logic that a person needs to be the CEO or President of their company in order to build new products, start interesting projects, and drive change. While an entrepreneur’s heart and soul might belong in Silicon Valley, they are more often found in cubicles, on assembly lines, and in retail stores, working for the companies we know and trust.

Maybe your employer doesn’t have a policy that encourages you to spend 15% of your time working on cool new ideas for the business, but who says you can’t think like that all of the time or spend some of your free time doing this work? A highly successful friend of mine who works as a manager within a Fortune 100 healthcare company once told me that every Friday afternoon, before going home for the weekend, he finds a quiet place with a notepad and pen and spends an hour brainstorming about how to improve his company’s business. This practice has led him to new ideas that have improved his own team as well as other areas of the business. This is intrapreneurship.

The opportunity for you to innovate, create, and lead new projects is probably right in front of you. Furthermore your company needs you to think this way and I will tell you why…

Since 1955, only 12% of the companies that started on the Fortune 500 remained on that list in 2016. 3M, however, is one of those that has stood the test of time. Other companies who were on the Fortune 500 list in 1955, such as American Motors, Brown Shoe, Studebaker, Collins Radio, and Detroit Steel have all fallen off, losing their places as top performing companies. Despite high revenues, tall buildings, and glamorous advertising, successful companies like these fail every year. (source)

Others companies however are growing stronger because of incredible employees and leaders like Spencer Silver and Art Frey. In 1955, 3M was ranked #151 on the Fortune 500 list with 14,411 employees and $230.9 million in revenue. Today, 3M is ranked #94 with $31.7 billion revenue (source).

In order to survive and thrive, established organizations need their inside individuals to step up and think differently about the business. Employees must push their bosses and their organizations to adapt, change, and build new businesses and services. Employers need entrepreneurs from within their organization. They need you to be an intrapreneur.

Want Trap Manure (Message to a Wantrepreneur)

I remember the time and place when I decided that I would someday be an entrepreneur. I was sitting alone in my college apartment, a senior at the University of Minnesota with a heart full of ambition and a blank resume to show for it.

Both my own parents and my then-girlfriend’s (now-wife’s) parents had given me an example of life as a business owner. My mom owned a successful tailoring business through which she had staked a corner in the wedding-dress category. She was an artist with dresses and people were willing to pay handsomely for her services. My would-be-father-in-law also ran his own company doing industrial construction and again, reaping the benefits. Both had a life that came with their business ownership: flexible schedules, interesting problems to solve, complete ownership over their product and their company, and, most importantly, a love for their work. Both were CEOs in their “company of one,” meaning they had no employees. Both worked from home and made a reasonable but not exorbitant wage.

My vision of business ownership was only slightly different. Skewed by the Silicon Valley culture of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk who flashed across Rolling Stones Magazine and Business Insider, my image of entrepreneurialism was more extravagant. Zuckerberg, the hoodie-wearing college drop-out induced awe. He and his Silicon Valley billionaire peers set a new standard for fame and wealth, replacing the rock-star images of previous idols such as Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Silicon Valley’s start-up culture had created a media-driven image of young geniuses who were living the dream.

I wanted that dream and I wanted it bad. But reluctantly, after graduating college I was forced to look for work in the real world with little experience and zero expertise in anything. I ended up working part-time jobs in marketing, sales, and operations, until I finally landed at the company I still work for today (where I have been very happy, I might add). Yet through many years working for big corporations, I still resolved that my ultimate goal was to be an entrepreneur. The appeal of freedom, solving interesting problems, and loving my work plagued me with the ideal that nothing other than starting my own company would ever satisfy.

This, my friends, is what we call being a wantrepeneur, someone who thinks, dreams, and talks about being an entrepreneur but still has not taken the leap to start his own company. And of all Wantrepreurs, and there are many, I rank among one of the biggest and best.

It wasn’t until recently that it struck me that even my own understanding of the word entrepreneur is ironic. Coming from the French origin “entreprende” which means to undertake, the word itself wasn’t used until the year 1800 when Jean-Baptiste Say coined it, saying “The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.” (source). That makes sense, sure, but to me the word carried more meaning; it was completely synonymous with someone who had achieved great wealth and fame. Although studies show that over 50% of businesses fail in just the first few years, my image of an entrepreneur was that of a rock star.

“Wantrepreneur” casts a more ridiculous image. A poser comes to mind; someone who often sits with friends brainstorming great new ideas for mobile apps or ground-breaking technologies that could be built, never to actually take action on said genius ideas. But more silly than the surface value of this word is the way it actually sounds if you say it out-loud slowly. “Want-Trap-Manure.” When I first realized this I couldn’t help but chuckle at the obviousness of my own ignorance.

A desire for fame and riches like that of Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs is actually a want-trap. It is a never-ending cycle of idealizing others and desiring to have more than one already has. It’s a never-ending lack of contentedness. Being a wantrepreneur is a vicious mental trap of always wanting more. Excuse my French, but obsessing over becoming an entrepreneur is, frankly, a big pile of manure. A want trap manure. Say it five times fast.

As a wantrepreneur extraordinaire I set my life goals on a pedestal: become a business owner, a start-up prodigy, and a creator of something great. This ambition gave me a fiery entrepreneurial attitude, always seeking to understand business and what makes the economy tick. I grew especially interested in capitalism, the stock market, and why companies are good or bad. I listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts like How I Built This by NPR and StartUp by Gimlet Media. I read books like Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff and Zero to One by Peter Thiel.

On the upside, all of this ambition, study, and thought gave me an edge in my jobs because I saw business from a CEO’s perspective (or at least tried to) and it made me work harder and smarter and it kept me focused on the profit-line of my company.

But being a wantrepeneur was also exhausting. It left me feeling empty as if a void in my work-life was unfilled and I wouldn’t be happy until I would find my Big Idea. This dream played like a movie I had seen: a lightbulb moment followed by sleepless nights working on my new passion which then led to securing millions of dollars in funding and finally hitting it big, making millions, and writing a book to tell about how I did it. It was all a beautiful story yet untold, and it was also a want trap — nothing but a pile of manure. It stunk.

Believe it or not, this realization, this “wake up and smell the manure” moment, was earth shattering for me. First, the realization that I may never have that great big idea, as sad as that may be. But secondly, and more importantly, the epiphany that my constant desire for more was a trap that I had locked myself into, one that would never allow me to feel fulfilled unless it came to fruition.

In order to enjoy life and be content in my work, my eyes would need to be opened to new possibilities in which my dreams were fulfilled without actually becoming a Silicon Valley stereotype. Maybe I would never start or run a company. Heck, maybe I would even be “stuck working for the man” all my life, as if that is the worst of all things.

For the first time in ten years, I was actually at peace with this possibility. I no longer feared the regret of not becoming an entrepreneur. I stopped dreaming unrealistic-big-goals and looking too far into the future. Instead, I started thinking tactically about tomorrow and looking at what and who was standing right in front of me. I realized that every day actually provides an opportunity to entrepende, to undertake. Every hour at work provides multiple opportunities to think like a CEO or a business operator. Every transaction can give the experience of running a business, solving interesting problems, and loving one’s work.

Even the lowest employee in the most established company has an opportunity to think like an entrepreneur, to work with grit, think outside of the box, and be obsessed with her work. In fact, I believe that companies should seek to hire more employees who think entrepreneurially. These will be their leaders in the future, those who care about the business as if it is their own, rather than simply looking for a paycheck; and those who will find opportunities to adapt the company to a changing economic landscape, rather than jumping ship when the company struggles. Hire these entrepreneurially spirited people, as long as they can get out of their own way, have realistic expectations, and focus on what is in front of them.

My advice to myself, and anyone else who has felt like a bit of a wantrepreneur, is not to stop thinking and dreaming big. No, it is these hopes and dreams that will eventually bring you to new heights. If your ultimate goal is to own your own business, hold on to it, but don’t expect it to happen now. Instead, I urge you to harvest these desires and interests by planting seeds in the garden right where you are, rather than thinking about what is far in the distance. Make sure that while you are planting and harvesting you don’t get stuck in the Want Trap Manure. Instead, realize that your entrepreneurial ambitions can be fulfilled in-part wherever you are. Exercise your skills and passions to the best of your ability today, even if you are working for someone else, and let tomorrow worry about itself.