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

If you were the CEO…

Say, you are the CEO or VP of your organization and you have a seriously cool idea to implement. What do you do? Maybe the following…

1) Gather some people who can implement this idea (Maybe directors, other VPs, Staff Managers, etc) and talk to them.

2) Hire people/interns who can explore the idea.

3) Push people to get these things done. If the idea ends up what you visualized, convince your bosses (board of directors) of a possible product based on this.

If I say that as an employee, you can still do the same, you might be giving me _are_you_insane?_ look. So, instead of seeing what CEOs/VPs do, let us rewrite the above tasks:

1) They get support of masses

2) They build momentum and prototype

3) They give it away and encourage (force) people to use it and later show the traction to their bosses.

Implementing an idea is principally same everywhere at any level in an organization. The biggest difference is the way of persuasion. A CEO or VP can use authority to persuade people to accept his/her idea. A “junior” employee does not have the same luxury. Hence, he has to woo people to get his support. Wooing can be by means of effective communication or playing politics or gathering friends and admirers, etc. However, the first step is to create something of substance (prototyping the idea). Then, giving it away for people to use it. I cannot emphasize the importance of giving your inventions or ideas for the global (in this case, corporate) good. It does not mean that you give away your raw idea. To be honest, an idea is not worth anything unless it is in a digestible form. Digestible form is a prototype, or even beyond that! If you are visualizing a new software that can revolutionize your field, work silently towards creating a beta version. When it is ready, invite your peers to use it. These people are going to be your evangelists.