Giant corporations need big innovations to move the needle
Entrepreneurs need big ideas to get attention
Investors need big returns to take risks
But innovation thrives in constraints.
And “Go Small” may be the biggest constraint out there.
Here are three stories about small innovations that created big value
Lollipops Reduce Violence
Closing time at the bars is never pretty. It can be downright dangerous. What starts as a few insults shouted back and forth between individuals or groups of friends can quickly devolve into brawls, assaults, and even murder.
Every year, dozens of cities and towns run experiments to find ways to decrease incidences of violence around bars and clubs:
Closing bars earlier
Keeping bars open 24/7
Training bouncers in crowd control tactics
Pre-positioning taxis
Better landscaping
And lollipops.
In 2001, various cities and towns in the UK began giving lollipops to people as they streamed out of pubs and clubs. The rationale varied:
“It’s hard to suck and fight at the same time.” – Leicester, 2001
“Research shows the sugar content helps to stabilise the behaviour of those who have consumed alcohol.” – West Oxfordshire, 2006
“[Offering food] can stop people shouting, make them less aggressive and prevent post-alcohol hunger” – Camden Town, 2010
It’s estimated that these efforts, which eventually expanded to include flip flops and cookies, cost “tens of thousands of pounds,” a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of pounds spent each year on police and medical resources to deal with the drunken behavior.
Waffle Maker Saves the Planet
Imagine throwing away 20 BILLION wax-coated bowls and plastic spoons every year.
Imagine that you could keep 12 BILLION of those out of the waste system by doing just one thing.
Giving up ice cream.
Would you do it?
Yeah, me neither.
This is why we should be very thankful to a Syrian waffle vendor at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
Even though ice cream cones were in use as early as the 19th century, it wasn’t until a chance encounter at the World’s Fair that they went mainstream. In the sweltering summer heat, ice cream was a popular treat for the 20 million people visiting the fair. So, it’s not surprising that vendors eventually ran out of serving bowls.
Luckily for us and the planet, one of those popular ice cream vendors was next to Ernest A. Hamwi and his very unpopular warm waffle stand. Seeing his fellow vendor’s plight, Ernest took one of his waffles, rolled it into a cone, and a tasty partnership was born.
Town Crier Out Shares Facebook
On Thursday, August 11, as thousands of tourists arrived in Provincetown eager to begin celebrating the Cape Cod town’s largest summer festival, the sewer system failed. Although only 356 of the town’s 1500 properties were affected, most of those affected were the restaurants, hotels, and businesses at the heart of the town’s tourist industry.
Naturally, officials took to social media to alert businesses and residents of the impact. In a Facebook post, restaurants were told to close, and residents were told they “must reduce water use, including dishwashing, laundry, showering, and only flush when absolutely necessary,”
Naturally, such restrictions created problems for businesses and residents alike. But what about the thousands of tourists just arriving who were not subscribers to Provincetown’s Facebook account?
The Town Crier
In 1864, Provincetown created the position of Town Crier as a way to spread news throughout the community quickly. Over time, as technology made spreading information easier and faster, the Town Crier became more of a tourist attraction, responsible for greeting visitors and promoting members of the Chamber of Commerce.
Until August 11, when the 22nd Town Crier was called back to duty.
“All is not well in Provincetown,” the Town Crier proclaimed as he stood in front of Town Hall dressed, as usual, in historical garb and swinging his heavy bell. As Thursday turned into Friday, the Town Crier issued updates, listing the re-opened restaurants and the areas where toilet flushing and showers were now allowed.
“Let us pray to the supreme architect of the universe that the system will have been rectified,” he pleaded. I’m sure town officials gave thanks to the supreme architect of the universe that their small investment in maintaining an old solution was, again, creating quite a lot of value for the town.
Size doesn’t matter
Innovation is something new that creates value, and, as innovators, we naturally want to create BIG value. Heck, we want to change the world!
It’s easy to forget that Small can have a big impact, whether physically small like lollipops, a small distance away like waffle and ice cream vendors, or only able to reach a small audience like the Town Crier.
So when you find yourself obsessing about size, just paraphrase Dr. Seuss, “An innovation’s an innovation, no matter how small!”
You have, no doubt, seen the design squiggle. The ubiquitous scribble is all loopy and knotty in the beginning until it finally sorts itself into a straight line by the end.
It illustrates the design process – “the journey of researching, uncovering insights, generating creative concepts, iteration of prototypes and eventually concluding in one single designed solution” – and its elegant simplicity has led it to be adopted by all sorts of other disciplines, including innovation.
But when I showed it to a client, her immediate response was, “It’s Jeremy Bearimy!”*
Wha????
And that is how I discovered The Good Place, a sitcom about four humans who die, go to The Good Place, and struggle to learn what it means to be good.
The show, created by Michael Schur of The Office and Parks and Recreation fame, is a brilliant treatise on ethics and moral philosophy. It also contains valuable wisdom about what innovators need to succeed.
Questions
With all due respect, “It’s the way it’s always been done” is an excuse that’s been used for hundreds of years to justify racism, misogyny…
Tahani Al-Jamil
This quote was a gut punch from the show’s fourth and final season. As innovators, we often hear people ask why change is needed. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” they proclaim.
But sometimes it is broke, and we don’t know it. At the very least, it can always be better.
So, while “it’s the way it’s always been done” at your company probably (hopefully) doesn’t include racism, misogyny, sexism, and other genuinely horrible things, framing the status quo as an enabler of those horrors is a harsh wake-up call to the dangers of an unquestioning commitment to continuing to do things the way they’ve always been done.
Decisions (not just Ideas)
If you’re always frozen in fear and taking too long to figure out what to do, you’ll miss your opportunity, and maybe get sucked into the propeller of a swamp boat.
Jason Mendoza
Even though Jason Mendoza is the resident idiot of The Good Place, he occasionally (and very accidentally) has moments of profound insight. This one to a situation that innovators are all too familiar with – analysis paralysis.
How often do requests for more data, more (or more relevant) benchmarks, or input from more people slow down decisions and progress? These requests are rarely rooted in doubt about the data, benchmarks, or information you presented. They are rooted in fear – the fear of making the wrong decision, being blamed or shamed, and losing a reputation or even a job.
But worse than being wrong, blamed, shamed, or unemployed is missing an opportunity to radically improve your business, team, or even the world. It’s the business equivalent of getting sucked into the propeller of a swamp boat.
Actions (not just decisions)
In football, trying to run out the clock and hoping for the best never works. It’s called “prevent defense.” You don’t take any chances and just try and hold on to your lead. But prevent defense just PREVENTS you from winning! It’s always better to try something.
Jason Mendoza
Jason does it again, this time invoking a lesson learned from his beloved Jacksonville Jaguars.
Few companies publicly admit to adopting a prevent defense, even though most companies engage in it. They play prevent defense when they don’t invest in innovation, focus exclusively on maintaining or incrementally improving what they currently do, or confine their innovation efforts to events like hackathons and shark tanks.
Incremental improvements and innovation theater keep you competitive. But they won’t get you ahead of the competition or make you a leader in your industry. In fact, they prevent it by making you feel good and safe when you’re really just running out the clock.
Perseverance
Come on, you know how this works. You fail and then you try something else. And you fail again and again, and you fail a thousand times, and you keep trying because maybe the 1,001st idea might work. Now, I’m gonna and try to find our 1,001st idea.
Michael
It’s hard to explain this quote without sharing massive spoilers, so let’s just say that The Good Place is an experiment that fails. A lot.
But it’s also an experiment that generates profound learning and universe-altering changes, things that would not have been possible without the failures.
Yes, smart innovators know when to kill a project. They also know when to try one more time. Wise innovators know the difference.
One final bit of wisdom
Innovation is hard. You will run into more resistance than expected, and things will rarely work out as planned. As long as you keep trying and learning, you won’t fail.
To paraphrase Jason Mendoza (again), you’re not a failed innovator, you’re pre-successful.
*For those of you who are, like I was, unfamiliar with Jeremy Bearimy, here’s a clip explaining it (WARNING: SPOILERS)
Before setting off on a journey to strange lands, most travelers take time to learn an essential phrase or two in the native tongue. After all, the ability to say “Hello” or “Help” or “Where’s the bathroom?” in the local language can mean the difference between a trip you remember forever and one that you want to forget immediately.
The same is true for people in large companies who set off on a quest to innovate – you’re in a strange land, and having a few handy phrases at the tip of your tongue can mean the difference between success and failure.
Here are the four most important phrases you should know as a corporate innovator
What does success look like?
Ask this at the beginning of every innovation effort. If you don’t, it’s very likely that what you view as success and what decision-makers view as success will be two different things.
Staffing up a new innovation team? What does success look like?
Starting a new project? What does success look like?
Developing and testing a prototype? What does success look like?
And don’t accept a vague or even qualitative answer to the question, like “we’ll know it when we see it” or “better employee engagement.” You need to know precisely what an effort contributes to and how leaders will evaluate the effort. Otherwise, it’s easy for managers to “move the goalposts” right when you think you’re about to score.
We expect a new innovation team to hold five brainstorming sessions and test 3 new products this year
We need this project to generate $10M revenue in 3 years from today
We need to understand how consumers will use this if we don’t give them any directions
Will you help me?
This question is perhaps the most challenging but most potent phrase in the innovation-to-corporate dictionary.
By the very nature of your work – making something new that creates value – you’re doing something that doesn’t fit cleanly into the existing structure. While that can be liberating, it also means that there are few, if any, people obligated to give you advice, resources, or support. That’s where this phrase comes in.
We all love to feel important and valued, and nothing makes people feel more important or valued than being asked for help. Plus, when you ask for help, people feel like they’re contributing to what you’re doing and start to feel a bit of ownership (or at least fondness) for it. Soon, you not only have advisors, but you also have partners, advocates, and champions.
Tell me more
This phrase is the ultimate innovation jiu-jitsu phrase because it turns your opponents’ strength (of opinion) against them and gives you powerful insights.
That will never work. Intriguing, tell me more.
We tried it, and it failed; the same thing will happen this time. I didn’t know that, tell me more.
If you do that, you’ll be fired. We don’t want that, so tell me more about why that would result.
Sometimes the rationale behind powerfully delivered dogmatic statements is logical and valid. Often, it’s emotional. The person who said it would never work is afraid that, if it does, their job will be in jeopardy. The person who remembers when it was tried before still bears the scars of that attempt and wants to protect you from the same experience. The person who says you’ll be fired for doing something may think that the rules are stricter than they are, and they’re trying to help you.
This phrase helps you figure out the reason behind the statement, the Why behind the What, so you can figure out what is true versus believed and how to get to your desired outcome.
What do you need to see to say “Yes”?
This question is my personal favorite, taught to me by a good friend, career innovator, and successful entrepreneur.
It is easy to say “No” and, in fact, that is the purpose of many people in a large organization.
Legal says No to keep the company o the right side of the law and out of lawsuits.
Accounting says No to keep the company financially healthy
Your boss says no because you have more work than you can handle, and this doesn’t seem essential.
Sometimes “No” is the correct answer. But if you start there, you’ll never know if it is the right answer or just the first, easiest, or most instinctual answer.
So, once you hear “No,” engage the person you’re talking to in a quick intellectual exercise and ask what they need to see to say “Yes.” By engaging them as an expert and your thought partner, you’re lowering their defenses and bringing them into a problem-solving mindset. Plus, you’re getting valuable insight into the type of data and evidence required to make progress.
What are other phrases every innovator should know?
As anyone who has ever tried to quickly learn a language for an extended trip, you’re best served by seeking out multiple sources.
After all, if I relied solely on Rosetta Stone to learn Danish before I moved to Copenhagen, I would have arrived knowing only how to say “the girl is on top of the airplane” (phonetically, it’s “pia pa flu-va-ma-skine”) and not “Hello” or “Help” or “Where’s the bathroom?”
So what are the phrases you repeatedly use to navigate your corporate innovation journey?
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post using quotes from “Moneyball” (the movie, not the book) to describe the experience of trying to innovate within a corporate setting.
It was great fun to write, I received tons of feedback, and had many fascinating conversations (plus a fact check on the year the Red Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino), so I started searching for other movies that inadvertently but accurately describe the journey of corporate innovators.
The Princess Bride
If you have not seen The Princess Bride, stop reading and immediately go watch it. Seriously, there is nothing more important for you to do right now than to crawl out from the cultural rock you’ve been under since 1987 and watch this movie.
If you’re reading this, you’ve clearly watched the movie and know that it is packed with life lessons and quotable quotes. It also captures the reality of innovation within the walls of large companies
The Beginning
“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya
A company’s focus on Innovation usually begins the moment a senior executive, usually the CEO, declares it to be a key strategic priority and promises Wall Street analysts that significant investments will be made.
It then trickles down to business units and functions, with each subsequent layer told to “be more innovative” and “come up with more innovation.”
Then, one day, the responsibility for innovation lands in someone’s lap and stays there. To be honest, it’s usually an exciting day for the person because they’ve been asking questions, suggesting ideas, and pushing for innovation for a long time, and now the powers that be have permitted them to do something about it. They may even have been given a title and budget specific for innovation.
But “innovation” was never defined.
The CEO may think it is an entirely new business, something flashy and new that rivals anything coming out of Silicon Valley.
The Business Unit and Functional Heads may think it’s a new product or technology, something just different enough from the current business to be newsworthy but not so different that it changes how things are done.
And the new Innovation owner thinks it’s new ideas, lots of brainstorming sessions, and networking with entrepreneurs and startups.
Without alignment as to what “innovation” means and what it needs to deliver, the stage is set for misalignment, frustration, and ultimately failure. Al because that word, “Innovation,” does not mean what you think it means.
The Middle
“We’ll never survive.” – Buttercup, the Princess Bride
“Nonsense, you’re only saying that because nobody ever has.” – Westley
Let’s imagine for a moment that a common definition and set of expectations for innovation is established and everyone up and down the corporate hierarchy is in agreement (this actually does happen, but it takes effort).
The innovation owner has a clear mandate and is hard at work building an innovation pipeline – they’re having lots of qualitative interviews to build customer empathy, they’re facilitating brainstorming sessions to get ideas, they’re building prototypes to get customer feedback. Most importantly, they’re sharing their work with anyone who will listen, asking for feedback, and building supporters and champions.
And then, the chorus begins.
“This will never work”
“You’ll never get approval for that”
“If we do that, we’ll lose customers”
“If you do that, you’ll be fired.”
In these moments, the dark seeds of doubt are planted. The innovation owner must dig deep, reminding themselves that people are only saying those things because it hasn’t worked yet, no one got approval yet, customers haven’t yet weighed in, and you haven’t tried to do that yet.
After all, just because something has never been done, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.
The End
“Thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you’re at it, why don’t you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it.” – Buttercup, the Princess Bride
Let’s be honest, most corporate innovation efforts don’t result in the world-changing, life-affirming successes we hop for. Innovators are, by nature and necessity, an optimistic bunch so when things don’t work out as we hope, it hurts. It hurts as much as a paper cut with lemon juice poured on it.
But there is one truth that cuts across all attempts at corporate innovation, no matter whether the journey ends with wild success in the form of massive business growth, happy success in the form of new products and revenue streams, satisfying success in the form of improvements and greater efficiencies, or bitter disappointment because nothing changes and everyone goes on to old or new jobs.
“I supposed you think you’re brave, don’t you?” – Vizzini
“Only compared to some.” – Buttercup, the Princess Bride
Those who took on the work and responsibility of innovation are brave.
Not only compared to some but compared to most.
It takes guts to try something new. To ask questions. To challenge the status quo. To continue seeking a yes amongst a thousand no’s. To put your reputation, your bonus, and maybe even your job on the line.
And that’s what corporate innovators need to remember – that whatever happens, they were brave. They worked hard, they battled the odds, they did make change happen. Even if it was only how they see and understand the world. Even if it only to get smarter and stronger and prepare for the next time they are called upon to drive change.
Because in that moment, innovators must be ready to say “As you wish.”
I am not a soccer fan but my husband is. So why, as a non-soccer fan, would I watch so many World Cup games?
I could spin a high-minded tale about the importance of diverse experiences in driving empathy and creativity and that “getting out of your comfort zone” and experiencing new things can be as simple as watching a new channel or program.
I could go all business guru and pratter on about the fact that sports tend to produce wonderful case studies of what to do and not to do in the areas of leadership, teaming, and all other things management
But the truth is that I spent most of June sick in bed with something that exactly mirrored Whooping Cough (it wasn’t) and, during the Group Phase, I didn’t have the energy to commandeer the remote control and change the channel. By the time we got to the knock-out phase, however, I had a bit more energy, had adopted several teams as my own (Sweden, Denmark, and England) and was peppering my husband with questions about players, teams, rules, and all other things soccer.
So, with the Final match scheduled for Sunday, thought I would share what I’ve learned about leadership and innovation from watching 40 soccer games.
#1: Teams need Leaders, not managers
Argentina’s coach, Jorge Sampaoli, yelling from the sidelines (SOURCE: Getty — Contributor)
Untold books have been written on this subject and it played out for the world to see during Argentina’s World Cup run.
Argentina was considered one of the top contenders for the World Cup, having come in 2nd during the 2014 World Cup. The country has some of the world’s greatest players and perhaps none are greater than “The Magician,” Lionel Messi. With such a dominant line-up, it would seem that the coach’s job would be relatively easy — win the trust and respect of the team’s stars, inspire them to play well together as a team and then get out of the way.
But Argentina’s coach, Jorge Sampaoli, couldn’t seem to do that.
During Argentina’s first game, three top players were inexplicably benched and the game, which Argentina should have won easily, ended in a tie (more on that in the next lesson). For the next game, Sampaoli “went with a bizarre 3-man backline” (I don’t know exactly what that means but “bizarre” is never a word you want associated with your starting line-up) and the “disconnect between Aguero, Messi, and the others was apparent from the first minute.”
The result? Argentina lost to Croatia 0–3 and the players staged a coup, holding a meeting with the Argentine FA chiefs (basically the “front office” of the team) to demand that Sampaoli and the entire coaching staff be fired as part of a “pact for life” because “the players want to build a team.”
The coup failed. Sampaoli was allowed to keep his job (but was told he would be fired at the end of the competition). And the players, having no confidence or respect for the coach, resisted, fielding their own starting line-up for the third and final game of the Group Stage, a 2–1 victory over Nigeria.
Argentina struggled in the lead-up to the World Cup and underperformed during its first two games because it didn’t have a Leader (someone the team respects and wants to follow), it had a Manager (someone who demands obedience based on a title or organization hierarchy). When leaders finally rose up, it was too late — Argentina barely qualified for the Knock-out stage and promptly lost 4–3 to France.
#2: Don’t get hung up on job titles. Hire for skills.
Lionel Messi takes his shot at Iceland’s goalie
In the first game of the Group Stage, Iceland, the smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup, found itself playing Argentina. As if that were not challenging enough, in the 64th minute of a tied game, Argentina was granted a penalty kick and Lionel “The Magician” Messi stepped to the line. All he had to do was send the ball past Iceland’s goalie and his team would have a 2–1 lead.
He missed.
To be more specific, one of the greatest soccer players of all time, one who makes 76% of his penalty kicks, had his kick blocked by a goalie who is better known for directing a Coca-Cola commercial than for playing soccer. When asked how he achieved such an impossible feat, Hannes Halldorsson, a former filmmaker turned goalie, attributed his success to “film study.”
Sure, Halldorsson has soccer skills (basic job requirements) but kudos to Iceland’s coach for seeing value in non-traditional experience and to Halldorsson for using them to prepare for the big game.
#3: If you’re going to talk smack, you better be able to back it up
Denmark’s goalie, Kasper Schmeichel, is PUMPED
Sticking with the theme of Nordic goalies, let’s talk about Denmark’s Kasper Schmeichel. If there were such a thing as Danish soccer royalty, it would be the Schmeichels.
Peter Schmeichel, the family patriarch, was voted world’s best goalkeeper in 1992 and 1993, captained Denmark to a championship in the 1992 UEFA World, AND captained Manchester United to the 1999 Champions League title and the Treble (it’s like the Triple Crown but for English soccer and it happens about as frequently…which is rarely). His son, Kasper made his World Cup debut this year and promptly beat his father’s record of most playing minutes (533 to be exact) for Denmark without conceding a goal.
So yeah, if Kasper talks smack to opposing players, daring them to try to get the ball past him, it’s pretty certain that he can back it up.
Until he can’t.
In Denmark’s match against Australia, Schmeichel came out of the goal to get in the face of a Mile Jedinak while the player was lining up for his penalty kick. Trash talk is nothing new in sports (in fact, I’d argue that it has been honed to a fine and humorous art form) but whatever Schmeichel said apparently went too far for commentators on social media, in the press, and even game officials who warned him about getting too close to the Australian.
A few seconds later, the ball went screaming past Schmeichel, scoring the tying goal for Australia and ending Schmeichel’s record.
#4: Don’t be afraid to experiment (and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re experimenting too much)
Mexico’s Tinkerer-In-Chief, Juan Carlos Osorio
Juan Carlos Osorio, Mexico’s coach, has the highest winning percentage of any Mexican national coach in the past 80 years. So why were 85,000 fans shouting “Fuera!” (Out!) at him during the team’s 1–0 victory over Scotland during a World Cup warm-up game in June?
Because he took the field with a new starting line-up.
It was his 48th different starting line-up in his 48 games as a national coach. That is a new line-up Every. Single. Game.
His tinkering continued into the World Cup where a new line-up beat defending World Cup Champions Germany only to be replaced by a new new line-up for game 2’s match-up against South Korea (which Mexico also won).
In his 52nd game as Mexico’s coach, Osorio changed tactics and did NOT change his line-up. They lost 3–0 to Sweden.
#5: Your performance, not your reputation, matters most
German players Mario Gomez (23) and Mats Hummels (5) react to losing to South Korea and their elimination from the tournament
Speaking of Germany, 2014’s World Cup champs came into the tournament ready to defend their title, ranked #1 in the world by FIFA, and with a 10–0 record in qualifying rounds.
They didn’t even make it out of the Group Stage.
How shocking was this? I think The Guardian summed it up nicely:
This, then, is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper. There are certain events so apocalyptic that it feels they cannot just happen. They should be signalled beneath thunderous skies as owls catch falcons and horses turn and eat themselves. At the very least there should be a sense of fury, of thwarted effort, of energies exhausted. And yet Germany went out of the World Cup in the first round for the first time in 80 years on a pleasantly sunny afternoon with barely a flicker of resistance. There was no Sturm. There was no Drang.
Sports, business, heck, even life, is tough. Past performance should count for something and it usually does — it earns an opportunity. But it’s what you do with that opportunity that determines whether you win or lose.
#6: When all else fails, have a signature hairstyle
After watching 40 games, I have concluded that (1) hair is a big deal in soccer and (2) players must have access to hair product that the general public doesn’t because their hair maintains its original style of 90+ minutes of intense exercise. Some cases in point…
Brazilian star Neymar debuts his World Cup hairstyle against Switzerland. For the next game, delighted fans responded by gluing raw clumps of ramen noodles to their foreheads in support of this style choice (SOURCE: Getty Images)
French player Olivier Giroud’s hair defies gravity. Seriously, this is his hair at the END of a game! How is this even possible?!?!
OK, I know that Portuguese star Christian Ronaldo’s hair doesn’t look as crazy as some others but it’s no less important. Prior to their World Cup match against Uruguay, the story of a 2010 match re-surfaced in which one of Uruguay’s players was asked how the team planned to stop Ronaldo. Plan A was to take him out with a tackle. If that didn’t work, Plan B was to “ruffle his hair to annoy him.” Plan A was enacted in the 6th minute of the game and didn’t work, so Uruguay when with Plan B. Ronaldo responded so furiously he was almost kicked out of the game. In the post-game press conference, Marcelo “Hair Ruffler” Sosa commented with amusement that Ronaldo seemed “more upset by me messing up his hair than the foul!”
There you have it. Every business/innovation/leadership/personal style lesson I learned from watching the World Cup. Now it’s off to the hair salon…
I’ve had more than one conversation recently in which an Intrapreneur will ask me, with downcast eyes and voice barely above a whisper, “Has my career been a lie? Is making innovation happen in a big company actually impossible?”
Intrapreneurs have the hardest jobs in the world so it’s understandable that they often get frustrated and sometimes burned out. After all, they face a massive system of hundreds (thousands?) of people who are not only motivated to defend and extend the status quo but who are rewarded for doing so.
While we can’t give up (never give up!), sometimes we need a break. But what is an Intrapreneur to do when they need a break from corporate innovation?
Happily there are lots of options because Intrapreneurs have many valuable yet rare skills than can easily be applied in other roles. Let’s take a look at just a few alternative professions that draw on an Intrapreneur’s unique skillset.
Intrapreneur Skill #1: Making things happen with very few resources
Remember that time you submitted a budget request for $3M to support a team of 5 working to test 3 new businesses that, if launched, would generate $450M annual revenue? Remember when you actually received $1.5M for a team of 3 to test 6 new businesses that, when launched, would generate $1B in new revenue? Remember when you come this close to actually nailing that crazy goal?
You could be a public school teacher
According to to the OECD, from 2010–2014 education spending per student increased 5% across its 35 member companies. In the US, spending per student decreased 4% over the same time frame thanks to a 3% decrease in spending and a 1% increase in student population. Yes, public school teachers are being asked to teach more with fewer resources.
To add insult to injury, according to a survey by Scholastic, teachers spend $530, on average, out of their own pockets and teachers in high poverty schools spend, on average, $750 out of their own pockets. Now consider that, according to another OECD report, on average, US teachers are paid “less than 60 percent of the salaries of similarly educated professionals…the lowest relative earnings across all OECD countries with data.”
Intrapreneur Skill #2: Maintaining enthusiasm despite being wrong
Remember that time that you ran an experiment to test your customers’ willingness to pay only to find out that it was half of what you needed to be? Then remember how you spun that result into a positive thing because it allowed you to quickly kill the project and start investing in the next one?
You could be a meteorologist.
Have you ever seen a depressed meteorologist? Nope, neither have I. Even though they’re wrong all the time (actually, they are, on average, wrong only 20% of the time according to this Kansas City meteorologist who has absolutely no reason to doctor the data), they get on TV multiple times a day to predict the 1-day, 5-day, 7-day, and even 10-day forecasts.
They spend hours cranking through computer models to tell us at 6am that there’s a 20% chance of rain today. Armed with this information, we leave home without our umbrellas only to get drenched in something that can only be described as a monsoon during our commutes home. Then they pop back up at 11pm happy about the day’s “beneficial rain” and peppily predicting sun tomorrow.
Intrapreneur Skill #3: Optimism in the face of incredible odds
Remember that time you were super excited to be asked to join a new team at your company that would focus in creating new business models and launching new businesses? Remember how excited you were to present your first batch of ideas to management? Remember how you were only momentarily bummed when all your ideas were crushed because they didn’t support the current business or fit the current business model? Remember coming in the next day full of energy and optimism that you’ll get ’em next time?
You could be a lifelong Cleveland Browns’ fan.
OK, I know that being a Browns’ fan isn’t a profession (it’s an identity) but Browns fans are the world’s best example of this trait. Not only did the Browns lose Every Single Game during the 2017 season, they have put together the worst 3 season record in NFL history, “including all existing franchises from 1920 until now. Of the 32 existing franchises, in every season they have played in every city they have played in, with every wacky nickname attached, no one has had a worse three-season run.” Yet, despite being the worst team in history, Browns fans still show up to games, even when the bitter winter wind whips off Lake Erie and swirls around the stadium. They’re so steadfast that The New York Timesactually wrote an article about them and their unwavering belief that “there’s always next year.”
There you go, dear Intrapreneurs, just a few of the thrilling careers where you can apply the skills you’ve honed fighting the good fight in corporate America.
As for me, I’m going to stick with Intrapreneurship because dealing with kids all day is my version of hell, I’m pretty sure meteorology requires math, and my heart is still broken for the 1997 Cleveland Indians so I can’t take on any more Cleveland sports pain. More importantly, I still think Intrapreneurship is a hell of a lot of fun. Most of the time.
