Part 1 was all about the experience of working in Corporate Innovation so, naturally, Part 2 has to be about one of the biggest areas where time in a said career is spent: meetings.
After nearly pulling/spraining/breaking an ankle/wrist/elbow/shoulder/knee trying to navigate “The Fact of the Matter” (aka experiencing a career in innovation), I looked forward to the safety of the next installation.
Instead I walked into “The Differential Room”, aka every meeting a corporate innovator has to endure captured in a series of chalkboards.
The first team meeting
“Point Point Line” (2015) from “The Differential Room” (2018) by William Forsythe
Kinda weird, kinda fun.
Just like your first meeting as a member of the Innovation team.
This is the moment when you realize you’re in a very different world. Instead of working on things that exist, that can be touched or experienced, that are known and explainable, you are now in an abstract and intangible world that is relying on you to define it, make it tangible, and explain it.
You’ve been given tools (fingers that make “points”) like customer research, access to people in the company, maybe even a bit of money and you’re expected to connect them together to something (a line). It’s up to you what form it takes, whether it is a product, a service, a process (e.g. how long the line is, whether it’s vertical or horizontal or diagonal).
You find that it’s rather fun to play around with options, to imagine what’s possible and, eventually, you actually begin to see what you’re creating.
People walk by and give you strange looks. Some stop to ask what you’re doing. You respond, “I’d make a business (line)! See! Isn’t it cool?” And they back away slowly, shake their heads, and return to their business.
Meeting with the Innovation Team Leader
It’s been fun designing the business (line) but you can’t stay there forever. It’s time to move on, to go deeper into the process.
It’s time to meet with your boss.
“Standing on One Leg (1st Act)” (2018) from “The Differential Room” (2018) by William Forsythe
You know you have to be a bit more buttoned up and that you have to show her the option that you think is best (not all the lines you made, and tested, and discarded). So you prepare a presentation, excited to talk about lines
Yes, the meeting feels a bit like a performance, but that’s what meetings are. You’re surprised that, after presenting your business, your boss tells you that in addition to working on your business (line), you need to talk to this person in finance (stand on one leg), that person in legal (raise the heel of the standing foot), and these 3 people in supply chain (hop) AND do this all on the same deadline with no extra funding (not expressing exhaustion) BUT don’t let anyone know what you’re doing because that will slow you down (not…drawing any attention to yourself).
The Innovation Council Meeting
You’re now exhausted from hopping but you’ve successfully concealed that exhaustion and you can still make a line so it’s time to move deeper into the process and move one more rung up the ladder.
You and your boss prepare another presentation and you go to meet the Innovation Council — 5 people all one-level up from your boss and not involved in the team’s day to day work but definitely interested, somewhat supportive, and with budget to keep funding the work.
“Starting at Any Corner” (2018) from “The Differential Room” (2018) by William Forsythe
More of a performance than the last meeting but, again, to be expected.
For some reason, they think your business (line) should be an app-based service (bench) that bolsters the revenue of an existing business instead of being a new source of revenue. They ask you to prototype the app (walk around the bench), share the prototype with the existing business team (walk alternately backwards and forwards), revise the prototype based on the existing business team’s feedback (complete turn alternately left or right), and model out a 5 year NPV (alternately accelerating or decelerating).
You should have known there would be numbers involved.
The C-Suite Meeting
It took you several attempts to complete the wishes of the innovation council and took much longer than you thought. Your business idea (line) is a distant memory, you now have an app-based service (bench) that seems far more complicated than it needs to be but makes the existing business team happy, and a financial model that, if you’re honest, has great numbers because you used Goal Seek.
Time to move on, right to the end of the installation and the top of the organization!
“Without the Use of the Arms” (2018) from “The Differential Room” (2018) by William Forsythe
Before you could even start your presentation (performance), the questions and feedback started coming at you.
Some of the requests were understandable (lie flat on your back for thirteen counts, sit upright in thirteen counts) but then they slashed your budget (without the use of arms) while still expecting you to do what they asked.
Then they asked if you could launch in 2 months instead of 12 months (increase the angle of the leg to torso to one hundred eighty degrees) and get to $500M revenue in 12 months (keeping the elbows by the ribs, move the hands under the shoulders counting aloud to thirteen).
At some point you stopped listening because it all sounded like nonsense. What they were asking for was impossible.
You went in with an app-based service (bench) that everyone liked and looked good on paper and now you have…..what?
And BTW, the customer research (points) say that people want the business you designed 9 months ago (line)!
The “Planning for Next Year” Meeting
You’ve given up trying to understand, let alone act on, the last meeting. But you are no quitter. You carry on to the next installation. To the next meeting, the one in which the team is planning for next year, requesting the resources it will need to move faster and build bigger businesses.
“Towards the Diagnostic Gaze” (2013) by William Forsythe
“Looks like next year is going to be a down year for the company so they really need us to step up, do more, and generate at least $100M revenue. That said, they also have to cut our budget 75% and our team size in half.”
FML
In Summary…
To be fair, not all companies are like this. But, to be honest, I’ve had 6 conversations THIS WEEK that were some variation of this. Conversations with clients in VERY different industries and at VERY different companies that all said almost the same thing:
It is really really hard to do something new or different in a big company. It’s also really important to try but I am frustrated and exhausted and I’m starting to wonder it’s worth it. Or if it’s even possible.
I know that it pains them to say that. It pains me to hear it.
Making innovation happen in large organizations is about more than putting in place processes, structures, and KPIs (all necessary, but not sufficient, for success).
It’s about leaders learning how to think, act, and react in ways that are different from what is usually required when managing the existing business.
It requires a level of optimism, resilience, and belief in purpose that can be difficult for people to sustain in the face of ever more constrained resources, shorter timelines, and waning organizational patience.
So, when our belief wavers we do the only things we can: we share our experiences with others in similar situations, laugh about the nonsense, and take a deep breath or a small rest before we continue.
After all, the next room was filled with eighty hanging swinging pendulums that we have to dodge to continue through the exhibit.
Have you ever had that eery feeling of some secret you’ve been keeping being subtly exposed by someone or something that has absolutely no way of knowing it? Have you ever had a conversation with someone, or read something, or seen something, and thought to yourself, “How do they know?”
I had that feeling a few months ago at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston.
And it made me laugh. Mostly so I wouldn’t cry.
A Bit of Background
The exhibit William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects is “the first comprehensive American exhibition of performative objects, video installations, and interactive sculptures of the internationally celebrated choreographer William Forsythe.”
For the uninitiated (me), William Forsythe is a famous choreographer who “redefine(d) classical ballet” through his unique approach to “choreography, staging, lighting, and dance analysis.” Since the early 1990s, he’s also been developing art installations that are designed to “stimulate movement from visitors.”
This all sounds well and good and like a fun exhibit, and I needed to find something to do with my dad while he was in town, so off we went!
Welcome to the Jungle
William Forsythe, The Fact of The Matter, 2009
The second piece in the exhibit is Forsythe’s The Fact of the Matter — essentially a large room with hundreds of rings suspended from the ceiling by straps of various lengths, and accompanied by instructions to move from one end to the other using only the rings. This is the piece’s first showing in the US for (obvious) liability reasons.
Dad and I, overly confident in our physical fitness, decided that it would be a good idea to give it a try, and joined the line that circled the room (only 10 people were allowed on the piece at a time).
That’s when the feeling that I have experienced this before started to creep in.
45 minutes later, having made it only one-third of the way through the installation and narrowly avoiding breaking or spraining or pulling something on at least eight different occasions, I stepped out and collapsed against the wall.
After an embarrassing amount of recovery time, I walked to the next installation and realized why the whole experience felt so familiar.
It was the perfect encapsulation of a career in corporate innovation.
The Corporate Innovator’s experience in 45 minutes
The initial rush of excitement because “Yea! We’re going to do something fun and new!”
The gradual acceptance that you’re going to have to wait to get started because there are rules and we need to be safe and not take any risks
The eager learning as you patiently wait, watch others give it a try, and search the internet for tips on how to succeed
The rising confidence that, by watching and studying, you have learned enough to do better than the people currently trying
The helpful arrogance you display as you shout advice and guidance to people doing the work
The rush of adrenaline you feel when it is finally your turn
The certainty and strength you feel as you start, grabbing a ring in each hand and pulling yourself off the ground
The terror of placing your foot in the first ring and feeling it shoot out in a direction that it definitely should not go and realizing that this is SO MUCH HARDER than you thought it would be
The quiet resilience that takes root as you get your first foot back under control, your second foot in its ring, and realize that you can’t bail now because you haven’t gotten anywhere and all the people you gave advice to are standing along a different wall watching you (and probably feeling quite smug, if we’re going to be honest)
The sense of doom when you realize that, now that you have all your limbs under control, you need to move a foot out of its current ring and into another one
Repeat steps 8 through 10 until you are so physically and emotionally exhausted that you wonder what you were ever thinking, that you now have pain in muscles you didn’t even know you had, and that you’re definitely having wine with dinner tonight.
The relief of returning to solid ground and feeling supported as you lean against a wall, then watching all those young whipper-snappers who shouted advice at you and who are now hanging on to rings and straps for dear life
The hard soul-searching as you choose whether or not to do it all over again
What Forsythe (apparently) knows about corporate innovation that most don’t
You don’t know anything until you do something: I saw lots of ways to get from one end to the other and thought I had a brilliant plan. But the only thing I knew for sure after I grasped the first ring was that I needed to stay as close to the ground as possible.
Doing something is much harder than watching someone else do it: No matter how much you study or observe others, no matter how “good” your advice may seem, no matter how much experience you have in something like this (I spent my childhood playing on a jungle gym!), doing something is always, always harder than watching and critiquing others.
There is no one “best” way, just the way that works for you: I spent 30 minutes watching people move from ring to ring. Some people (mostly kids) went fast and made it look effortless, some people took a more measured approach, and some (mostly older folks) kept their feet on the ground and only moved their hands from ring to ring. Everyone approached the task differently, taking into account their abilities and working to achieve their own definitions of success.
The hardest part is moving forward: Every time I stabilized myself, I felt a warm rush of relief. “I’ve got this,” I would think to myself. And then I would realize that I had a choice — I could stand still and be safe OR I could move my foot to another ring, fundamentally de-stabilizing myself and sending limbs flying everywhere, but also getting closer to my goal.
You only fail when you start blaming: Yes, I bailed well short of my goal. I didn’t have the upper body strength to keep going. But did I fail? Nope. I learned that I need to work harder to strengthen my arms, shoulders, and core. Did other people bail before they got to the end? Yep. Did some of them fail? Yes they did. They blamed the exhibit (“of course I couldn’t make it to the end, it was designed by a professional choreographer, only professional dancers can do it”), they blamed things they couldn’t control (“I’m too old for this”), and they blamed other people (“that kid was always in my way!”). They didn’t celebrate their courage to start or recognize what they learned. They just moved on from that “stupid installation” that will never work.
The next room
Just when I thought Forsythe might have just gotten lucky with his “Experience a Career in Corporate Innovation” installation, I walked into the next room. Filled with chalkboards, he had somehow captured the progression of meetings corporate innovators endure as they present to ever higher levels of management…
My name is Robyn and I am a recovering Innovation Snob.
I didn’t realize I was an Innovation Snob until a few days ago when I read the following in CB Insights’ report State of Innovation: Survey of 677 Corporate Strategy Executives, “Despite deep fear and talk of disruption, companies invest in the small stuff… 78% of innovation portfolios are allocated to continuous innovation instead of disruptive risks.”
“That’s exactly what they should be doing,” I thought to myself. “After all, the Golden Ratio often preached when discussing innovation portfolios is that 70% should be allocated to Incremental or Sustaining innovations, 20% to Adjacent innovations, and 10% to Disruptive or Breakthrough Innovations.”
That’s when it hit me:
When talking about “Incremental Innovation,” we actually mean “Incremental Improvement.”
Because we mean “Improvement” (even when we say “Innovation”), we don’t value Incremental Innovation in the same way that we value the innovations that introduce truly new things (products, services, technologies, business models) to the world and dismissing it as “less than” those “higher forms” of innovation.
Dismissing Incremental Innovation as “less important/valuable than” other types of innovation is not only snobbish and hypocritical, it is incredibly ignorant. Incremental Innovation is exactly this type of innovation that a company must do in order to stay competitive today AND fund the Adjacent and Breakthrough innovations that will define it’s future.
I am 100% guilty of telling people that Incremental Innovation is important and then rolling my eyes when someone pitches an incremental improvement as innovation
I hate it when I get all self-righteous and judgey about someone or something only to realize that I am just as guilty.
Ooops, my bad
How did we get here?
There’s probably lots of reasons for this gap between what we say (“Incremental Innovation is an essential component of any innovation portfolio”) and what we do (“Incremental innovation isn’t real innovation”) but these are probably the 3 biggest drivers:
Incremental Innovation will not make you famous. No company has ever landed on Fast Company’s “Most Innovative” list because they launched better/faster/cheaper/easier to use versions of their existing products. No one has ever been invited to speak at TED because they made a slight improvement to someone else’s idea.
Incremental Innovation will not make you rich. Entrepreneurs with dreams of starting a unicorn company (and realizing the massive payout that comes with it) don’t look for things they can improve, they look for things they can “disrupt.” Companies know that Incremental Innovation is better suited to helping them maintain their place in their industry, not catapult ahead to the top of the heap. Consultants know that no company will hire them to help with Incremental Innovation, so they publish and preach and sell the promise of cheap and risk-free breakthroughs.
We are so desperate to be seen as Innovative that we’re afraid to be honest. Words matter and, even though it’s a buzz-word, companies love the word “innovation.” Their annual reports and quarterly calls are filled with it, employees are measured on it, valuation premiums are calculated using it. As a result, we know that we are more likely to get budget, people, support, recognitions, raises, and promotions if we say we’re working on “Innovation” even though, in our heart of hearts, we know it’s an improvement.
Where do we go from here?
Captain of the “Incremental is Innovation, Too!” campaign
We have 3 options:
Keep calling incremental changes “innovation
Stop calling incremental changes “innovation” and start calling them “improvements”
Start using more specific language to describe innovation instead of just using “innovation” as a one-size-fits-whatever-I-want-it-to term
Personally, I’m in favor of #3 because it recognizes that doing something new or different is innovation and therefore difficult and forces organizations to be more disciplined in how they make decisions, especially ones related to resources allocation.
For those wanting to pursue option #3, there are lots of ways to go about it and I’ll cover many of them in an upcoming post. But the easiest way to start is by asking three simple questions:
Does what we’re doing improve something that already exists (e.g. make it easier to use, cheaper, more accessible)?
Does what we’re doing change the way we go to market (e.g. from selling through a retailer to going DTC) or make money (e.g. selling subscriptions instead of having the consumer pay for an item when they buy it) or who we’re targeting (e.g. from targeting women to targeting children)?
Does what we’re doing change how we go to market and how we make money and who we target/compete against?
If you answered Yes to #1, you’re doing Incremental Innovation. Yes to #2 is Adjacent. Yes to #3 is Breakthrough.
All 3 are essential components of a health Innovation Portfolio. Each requires different people and processes to make them work. Each deserves recognition and respect from peers, leaders, press, stockholders, and the general public.
Let’s be honest, I’m not sure that I’ll ever be as excited for Incremental Innovation as I am for Breakthrough innovation. I can’t imagine ooohhh-ing and ahhhh-ing over it the way that I do with breakthroughs. But I need to respect, value, and celebrate it, and the people who do it, as much as I respect, value and celebrate other types of innovations and the teams that work on them.
My name is Robyn and I am a RECOVERING innovation snob.
My Mom was a nursery-school teacher. It was more than her profession, it was her gift. Long after my sister and I were grown and out of the house, my mom chose to spend her days with 4-year olds, teaching them everything from the ABCs to how to use the WC.
Like all moms, she was an innovator. She was constantly creating something different that had impact. Admittedly, sometimes “different” was just weird and “impact” wasn’t always ideal, but it’s only just recently that I’ve realized how much my mom (probably accidentally) role-modeled the traits of a world-class innovator.
The genius of stealth prototyping
In an effort to save a bit of money, I spent the summer before business school living with my parents. One day, while folding the laundry (it took less than 20 minutes!), I found one of my Dad’s white athletic tube socks. But it wasn’t like the other white athletic tube socks. This one had three circles drawn on the bottom of it in what appeared to be black Sharpie.
“Mom, what’s up with this sock?”
“Oh, I needed a ghost puppet for school so I just used one of your dad’s socks.”
When my dad got home from work, I showed him the sock and asked if he had noticed the black circles on the foot. He had not.
Ghost Puppet Prototype
Let me be very clear about what happened here:
In OCTOBER, my mom needed a ghost puppet for a Halloween lesson at nursery school
In OCTOBER, she took ONE of my dad’s socks and drew a “face” on it. Then, after using it as a puppet, threw it in the wash, refolded it with its mate, and put it back in my dad’s sock drawer
In JULY, my dad put on a pair of white tube socks (probably to go golfing) without realizing that one of them had a face on it
Proof that if you use what you’ve got to do what you need to do, management will be none the wiser.
The infectious nature of optimism
My Mom was raised by a Marine and while she went easier on us on a day-to-day basis, her standards were Marine-high when it came to weekend chores and Spring Cleaning. For example, when my sister’s boyfriend (now husband) came to visit for the first time, my Mom had me spend several hours laying on my stomach with a pair of tiny sewing scissors, trimming the entry-way rug to ensure all of its fibers were exactly the same length.
Every Saturday when we were growing up, immediately after rattling off a long list of chores to a chorus of groans and eye rolls, Mom would reassure us that “If we all work together, it will only take 20 minutes.”
We always knew it would take infinitely longer than 20 minutes. There is no way four people can clean an entire house up to Marine code standards in 20 minutes. It’s simply not possible. But despite this fact, we always hoped that this time, this time, it would only take 20 minutes.
It never took only 20 minutes. Never. But we always hoped it would.
The life-changing power of empathy
Children were drawn to my Mom. She was like the Pied Piper. Whenever we were in public, children would gravitate to her, walk beside her, wave to her. She connected with them in a way that defied explanation. So, when she passed away suddenly, it was not surprising that there were nearly as many children at her wake as there were adults.
But it was one little girl who passed on to me my mom’s final lesson.
As my dad, sister, and I shook hands, hugged, and thanked people for coming, I noticed a young girl, maybe 6 or 8 years old, standing along a wall sobbing uncontrollably. In a week filled with inconsolable people, she was the most inconsolable I’d seen. So I stepped out of line to talk to her.
I knelt in front of her and asked what was wrong (yes, it’s a stupid question but cut me some slack, I definitely did not inherit my mom’s “good with kids” gene).
“Your mom changed my life. When I was in her class, I didn’t have any friends and my parents were going to pull me out of school. But your mom heard me singing one day and she came over to sing with me. We sang together every day after that. She gave me to confidence to talk to the other kids. And now I’m still in school and I have friends and I even sing in the choir.”
My mom couldn’t sing. She was a terrible singer and she knew it (side note: I did inherit my mom’s “can’t carry a tune in a bucket” gene). But she saw a little girl in need of a friend so instead of worrying about how silly she would sound, she joined that little girl in singing a song. And, in doing so, changed a little girl’s life.
Our last family photo — Fenway Park, 2005, Indians vs. Red Sox
To all the Moms in my life and all the Moms in yours, Happy Mother’s Day. Thank you for all that you have done for us and taught us. You are many many things, brilliant world-class innovation OGs is just one.
A few weeks ago, my 5-year old niece and I spent the afternoon together at a paint-your-own-pottery place. My niece was adamant that she wanted to paint something for her dad and immediately zoned in on a piece — a 3D poop emoji.
Remembering my sister’s parenting advice, I started with a question, “Why do you want to paint that for Daddy?”
Her response was simple enough, “Because it’s chocolate.”
I could have easily left it at that.
But I didn’t.
“Ok….why don’t you paint the pegasus for Daddy instead?”
She looked up at me with her big brown eyes, “Why?”
“Ummm, well, I just think it’s better.”
She scrunched her nose as she usually does when she doesn’t understand something, looked back at the poop emoji, and then silently picked up the Pegasus and took it over to our table.
With a sigh of relief — I knew my sister would be none to happy with me explaining the poop emoji — I thought the issue was resolved. I was wrong.
An hour later, as we stood hand-in-hand on the sidewalk waiting for her dad to come pick us up, my niece asked, “Aunt Robyn, why didn’t you want me to paint the chocolate for Daddy?”
Crap (pun somewhat intended). I have to do this. I have to be honest and explain this, and I am going to be in SO much trouble when we get home.
“Well, darling, that’s not chocolate. It’s poop.”
She scrunched up her nose, pursed her lips, gave a quick nod, and continued staring out into the parking lot.
Later that night, I confessed the moment to her parents. They burst out laughing.
“That would have been hilarious!” my brother-in-law proclaimed.
“Why didn’t you just let her paint it? It’s not poop to her” my sister sighed.
That thought literally never occurred to me. It never crossed my mind that letting her paint what she thought was chocolate would result in a heart-felt (and amusing) gift to her dad of a rainbow (her favorite color at the moment and thus what everything gets painted) poop emoji to display in his office.
Instead, I thought I was saving her from embarrassment by correcting how she saw something so that her understanding was in-line with the status quo.
I’ve felt horrible about this since it happened but the experience, the ease with which it happened and the smug self-righteousness I felt about “saving” her, taught me a very important lesson about why creativity and innovation are so often killed in organizations.
For the first time, I could understand and empathize with every Dr. No I’ve ever encountered. You know who I’m writing about, the person in your organization who, whenever a new idea pops up, says, “No, we can’t do that because…
…that’s not how it’s done in our company/industry”
…we tried that back in 19XX and it didn’t work.”
…the bosses will never approve it.”
…now is not the right time.”
…it’s took risky/expensive.”
…you’ll get fired if it doesn’t work and I don’t want that to happen to you.”
My whole career, I’ve hated Dr. No and used him/her as motivation to innovate. I would focus all my energy on finding a way to prove them wrong by doing something new AND making sure that new thing was wildly successful.
What I thought I was saving everyone from
But, in that pottery shop, I was Dr. No and I didn’t realize it. In fact, I felt proud of myself.
I felt proud because I was acting out of love. I wanted to protect someone who is innocent and precious. I wanted to spare her the embarrassment and shame that I thought would surely result from giving her dad a rainbow-colored piece of poop pottery.
And maybe that is where other Dr. No’s are coming from. Maybe the are saying “No” as a way to protect you and/or the company. Maybe they tried to do what you’re suggesting and they are still smarting from the pain of it not working out. Maybe they are trying to spare you the embarrassment and shame of pursuing the proverbial corporate rainbow-colored poop pottery.
And no matter how often you try to explain that the new idea is chocolate and not poop, they won’t hear you. Because they are anchored in a status quo reality that demands things be seen in one, and only one, way.
And in that moment you, the innovator, has a choice. You can scrunch your nose and move on to something safer or you can defiantly insist on painting that poop, confident that it will become a rainbow work of art that is treasured by the people that matter the most.
And, hopefully, you can have a bit of compassion for Dr. No who is simply trying to help you because she loves you.
EPILOGUE
A few weeks after the poop pottery incident, my sister told me that my niece asked to send a text message to her dad. My niece’s text messages are entirely comprised of emojis and after a few seconds of tapping out flowers and suns and rainbows, my niece’s finger stopped, hovering briefly over the screen.
“What’s wrong, honey?” my sister asked
“Do you know what this is?” my niece responded, pointing to the poop emoji
“What do you think it is?”
“Aunt Robyn said it’s poop…”
“Well, a lot of people think that’s what it is. but your Daddy told me that he read an article that it was originally designed to be chocolate ice cream on top of an ice cream cone. So you can think of it that way too.” (my sister swears this is a true story).
“Ok. Then it’s chocolate ice cream!” my niece exclaimed before adding at least a dozen chocolate ice creams to her text
A few weeks ago, a friend sent me an HBR Online article that argued that there is no such thing as a Corporate Entrepreneur because people who are trying to innovate within big companies don’t take on the same level of personal or financial risk as “real” entrepreneurs.
Having spent time as a Corporate Entrepreneur launching Swiffer at P&G, I had a pretty strong NSFW reaction to the article. But, in an uncharacteristic fit of maturity, instead of ripping off a response, I decided to send the article to friends who are currently Corporate Entrepreneurs and ask for their thoughts. What I received back was also NSFW.
But it got me thinking….are we even debating the right thing?
What is an Entrepreneur?
There are lots of definitions floating around but the one I have heard used most often is from Professor Howard Stevenson, referred to as “the godfather of entrepreneurship studies” at Harvard Business School:
Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled
There it is. No mention of where the entrepreneur is working (start-up vs. corporation). No mention of the level of personal or financial risk taken on. No mention of the pace of work or the degree or politics and bureaucracy endured. An Entrepreneur is simply someone who recognizes an opportunity and pursues it even though they do not currently have all the resources they need.
Why should we care?
Great, we have a common definition of Entrepreneur. So what? Isn’t this just some theoretical debate best left to academics?
Not really. Defining what an Entrepreneur is (and is not) is important because if the label is applied too broadly then it risks becoming devalued. A buzzword said while rolling your eyes and discussing your weird unemployed cousin.
Entrepreneurship is hard work and it’s understandable that the people who pursue it want to be known by a term that communicates the effort and sacrifices required and that commands respect.
So we need to draw a line between the ingroup (Entrepreneurs) and the outgroup but we need to be sure that line is drawn appropriately and not based purely on what makes us feel special.
Beware the Wantrepreneurs!
Entrepreneurs PURSUE opportunities. They take action. They DO something new (innovation). They make things (innovation) happen.
Wantrepreneurs talk about opportunities. They go on field trips to Silicon Valley and create innovation spaces painted in bright colors and filled with beanbag chairs. They got to pitch competitions and lurk around at meet-ups. They host ideation sessions and share photos of all the post-its notes on the walls. They create and parade around shiny objects that get people excited but that have no chance of ever generating the measurable and meaningful impact required to be an innovation. They pretend to be Entrepreneurs. And they are everywhere — founding start-ups, in start-ups, and in companies.
Bottom line…
The line defining who is an entrepreneur and who isn’t should not be drawn based where they work or how the work gets done.
The line should be drawn based on what gets done. The should divide the Entrepreneurs who PURSUE opportunities and the Wantrepreneurs who PRETEND to innovate.
