The “Hope” Factor

As an intrapreneur, one of the biggest factors that I have found to win over people’s hearts is hope. Yes, providing hope can be one of the greatest ways to attract people’s attention and cut through the layers of resistance and bureaucracy. As I mentioned previously, I had been invited to a leads meeting (meeting that is attended by all the chip leads, directors and VPs) to give a presentation on the software I developed. I saw that everybody became super excited and provided insights on how much this tool can help our projects. If I should summarize one factor that won their hearts, I would say - “hope that some of the outstanding challenges will be addressed”.

Even when I did the 10 minute presentation to a senior VP over a month back (which resulted in this invitation), I focused specifically on things the tool will help solve. These are not trivial problems, these are the problems that the industry is concerned about. I showed how we are already a step ahead in addressing these challenges. This tool provided the hope that we can be leaders in spearheading this process.

As an intrapreneur it is important to pick problems to solve early in your career. Picking tough problems and solving them is one third of the path. Doing this without making a lot of noise is one third of the path. The last third of the path can only be conquered by knowing how to present/woo. The hope factor helps a great deal in conquering the final frontier. If you think about this early on while you are thinking about the problem to solve, it will also help you pick the problems to solve.

Hope is a magnet