4 Steps to Encourage Your Entrepreneurial Spirit in the Workplace
Being an entrepreneur does not have to stop when you are working within an established organization. In fact, maintaining your entrepreneurship will allow your business to grow and flourish in today’s business world. Len Schlesinger and Charlie Kiefer call these managers “entrepreneurs inside”, and explain this idea in detail in the article Act Like an Entrepreneur Inside Your Organization.
The article mentioned above discusses four simple steps for “taking effective entrepreneurial action within an organization”:
Desire. In order to achieve improvement, you must want to do it. “Without personal motivation to take any step into the unknown, no matter how small, there is no possibility for success,” Kiefer and Schlesinger state. If you have a good idea but don’t personally care about it, you will not invest the time and energy to see it through.
“What am I willing to invest to take the first step?” As an entrepreneur, you must think about what you are willing to give up when you play the game of starting something new. It’s not so much a question of what you can gain, but what can you afford to lose if things don’t work out?
“Who can I bring with me?” Kiefer and Schlesinger explain, “Entrepreneurs inside do likewise but they are also acutely looking for employee partners and supportive bosses (or at least passive ones) as they build a marketplace and political support for their evolving idea.”
Act. The Act-Learn-Build cycle [link to page] is the proven and safe recipe for entrepreneurial success.
You can read more about the importance of an maintaining an entrepreneurial prospective in Chapter 23: The Entrepreneurial Foundation, Mentoring the Next Generation in The Prosperous Leader.
