Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Engaging Entrepreneurs as Employees



It excites to see a colleague (or an employee), take the needed lead in her/his area of the business and sort of self-manage.

It further excites when these sorts go to the next steps in execution and decision making within their scope of influence.

With their enhanced speed of execution and risk-taking within a given context these "thought leaders" may/will reach a point where they start hitting a certain edge up to which their decision making and/or execution is possible.  Obviously this happens much ahead of the normal progression expected/planned for their job function.

Then starts the phase of limited growth [suffocation] marked with increasing frequency of situations when they get limited (usually not due to execution or decision making abilities).

Acknowledging them as above-par their job function doesn't provide the needed impetus anymore to the entrepreneurial behavior that helped the business growth (in its own part).

Specially in a knowledge based, creative environment, this can manifest very differently. 

Expectation management with such sorts has to be specific and clear to enable a conducive environment for their entrepreneurial abilities to thrive. 

The rules of engagement have to be clear in terms of how the situations on "the edge" can be dealt.

As evident this cant be a part of a formal employee engagement handbook(s). Being able to act as "the catalyst" can make the key difference in enabling these "employee entrepreneurs" to continue performing both to quench their own desire to excel and be at peak while staying equally integrated and aligned with the business.

This is not about the "blue-eyed Top Performers" alone. This needs to extend to the next group who have the potential and out-perform themselves continuously.

Unlike the type and level of risks that an Entrepreneur takes, this breed also handles a certain level of business risk (At the Tactical/Operational levels coupled with swift execution abilities) which can otherwise have either short-term and/or medium-term impact on the ongoing/future business.

Watch out for the Louis Hamilton's driving taxis in your organization. Those capable of steering your organization to its next peak, wouldn't want to be limited to a taxi wheel.