MANAGEMENT SPECIAL .........WHEN EVERY EMPLOYEE IS AN ENTREPRENEUR..

WHEN EVERY EMPLOYEE IS AN ENTREPRENEUR...





how organisations can nurture intrapreneurship

Entrepreneurs exhibit certain special characteristics. Being dreamers, they are driven by new ideas all the time. Converting these ideas into profitable reality excites them the most. Also, their focus is mostly on creation of wealth. In most cases, they are highly effective managers and always find ways to manage limited resources to chase unlimited opportunities. They are open to taking prudent risks and have a tremendous sense of urgency. They are aware of customer needs and demonstrate a positive image. HR functions can play a key role in connecting the dots and making the best of these characteristics. Here are two steps that can help an organisation build an entrepreneurship culture, also referred to as intrapreneurship'.

STEP1: AWARENESS
It's all about economics.
Employees need to be sensitised about their respective contributions towards the organisation. Let us see how this works.

An individual's presence in an organisation incurs a cer tain cost. Meanwhile, the individual's work output leads to some economic value addition to the organisation. The difference between these two is that particular individual's contribution. A negative value of this contribution has an adverse impact on the business. For instance, an individual idling between two projects for too long can have a negative contribution. On the other hand, an individual whose contribution is positive could have a robust impact on the business. For instance, while idling between two projects, an individual contributes towards certain common initiatives or acquires additional capabilities through learning, etc. This helps to reduce his idle time between two projects.

STEP 2: BUILDING ON WHAT YOU HAVE
People-related practices in the organisation comprise a set of complex policies, processes, and guidelines that ensure that people are taken care of while serving business interests. Changing people practices in an organisation could become a big transformation initiative.
Building on what you have could be a more prudent way. Some of these initiatives include leadership development, learning and development, performance management, talent acquisition, employee engagement, HR analytics, etc.

Traditional performance management processes focus on employee assessment.
The objective of these processes should be instead redefined to focus on identifying developmental needs and coaching. It should be separated from the compensation process to eliminate employees' `fight or flight' behaviour, which happens to be one of the negative effects of performance management processes in most organisations.

In conclusion, developing a culture of entrepreneurship will surely have a long-lasting positive impact on organisations and their employees. It will allow people to be dreamers, take prudent risks, be selfmotivated to tackle challenging situations, and focus on wealth creation. This will enable organisations to maneuver through changing business environments confidently and successfully.

Nitinchandra Shende ,Sr General Manager (HR) and Head Talent Management, Persistent Systems Ltd  ET140701