Page 39 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

26 grow from within

Some have asserted that anyone can become entrepreneur-
ial, but it is perhaps true that in such a statement, the concept
of the “entrepreneur” has become diluted to the point of feel-
good wordplay. Living in a society that aspires to equal oppor-
tunity and political correctness, we might like to believe that
everyone can be entrepreneurial, that all we require to culti-
vate an environment in which anyone can create new busi-
nesses is enabling organizational structures and intelligent
processes. This is only partially true.
This is the “nature versus nurture” question of corporate
entrepreneurship. To what extent can corporate culture, struc-
tures, and processes create a company that is full of corporate
entrepreneurs? To what extent is personnel selection the fun-
damental issue, in that some people are born entrepreneurs
and most are not? Could large companies truly hire people
with entrepreneurial skills en masse and then provide them
with an environment in which they can excel?
Fortunately, the answer to these questions is simple: they’re
not the right questions. Hiring or creating thousands of entre-
preneurs in your company is probably not the objective. There
is no reason why any given company needs to be made up of
thousands of individual entrepreneurs. One of the authors
received a call from an executive with a large, privately held
German industrial company with the inquiry, “Professor, how
might we help all of our people become entrepreneurial?” To
this, the professor responded, “Are you sure? Are you sure that
you want all of your employees to be entrepreneurial? What
about the quality control manager at the end of the manufac-
turing line? Do you want him to be entrepreneurial?” We need
people who are focused on optimization and process efficiency,
honing things that already exist, and extending and defending
the core turf. But we also need people who are building turfs
for the future.