The Covid developments of 2020 have been overwhelming and humanly unfortunate but, truth be told, they also shed new lights on entrepreneurial mindsets being more than ever a source of corporate resilience.
Needless to say, but as days and weeks passed (slowly), we all noticed the beginning of a new era. On the business side of things, business owners and corporate managers lived an interruption, a bit as if someone had pulled the plug without notice yet shifting their business priority to people.
More and more employees had to stay home. Some did home-office, others didn't have the luck to keep their jobs. And some realized that there was another way to operate, from home, and discovered new skill-set they could experiment. The rise of a more entrepreneurial mindset, that is.
Overall, more and more have realized that the ‘behind-the-desk 9-5’ corporate model isn't mandatory anymore as time management became a strength of many. Interestingly, these developments point towards change that the corporate world simply must consider.
Curiosity isn't killing the cat anymore.
The shift in mentalities we just described has (and will increasingly have) a major impact on the way things work out there.
First, corporate leaders needed to rethink the way their structures worked, and they had to juggle between the risk of losing everything, due to bad fate, but also due to inaction.
Second, corporate leaders also had to manage the impact of the shift on people. Beyond the risk of job losses, the Covid developments have created a major paradigm shift which forced managers to reconsider the way people work and the way they manage people at work.
Except that this immutable truth is now shaking. To some extent, the 'better safe than sorry' mindset is pushing people to think for themselves and to question the existing model.
Making the most of entrepreneurial curiosity.
Said differently, entrepreneurial curiosity isn't killing the cat anymore. It’s making it stronger. The question is, how to adapt and rethink the system to make the most of those more entrepreneurial mindsets? The good news is, business as usual isn't working anymore, but there is light at the end of the tunnel because corporates can use entrepreneurial curiosity to their advantage.
Joining a big firm used to be a life dream for many but nowadays the fantasy is either to get out of the corporate mold or ultimately rethink ways to benefit from mindsets they never thought possible and applicable within an organization.
Bloggers and Instagramers have become key opinion leaders people fantasize about (including corporates), because they managed to break free of usual frameworks and take their business karma back inside their own hands. Reference books on their bookshelves are Ferriss' 4 Hour Workweek and Guillebeau's $100 Startup, because the idea that you can rely on yourself and dare make a difference outside of corporate constraints attracts free and ambitious minds. The entrepreneurial mindset is growing.
Understanding entrepreneurial mindsets.
First things first: how can we define entrepreneurial mindsets?
The word entrepreneurship derives from the word “entreprendre”, which (in French) means daring and taking action in order to get to a result. Having an entrepreneurial mindset relates to daring and embracing problems until they because solutions that benefit others. Having an entrepreneurial mindset means being resourceful (when others expect directions) and ambitious (when others are happy with the status quo).
Entrepreneurial curiosity, that is, is therefore both a risk and an opportunity for the corporate world. A risk because curiosity can lead to transforming systems in unexpected ways, and an opportunity because it leads to pushing doors and to transforming systems in unexpected ways.
The difficulty, accordingly, is to find the resources to turn a possible threat into a strength and into an opportunity. While for years the structure of the corporate world has created an immobile framework, giving room to more entrepreneurial minds can make businesses smarter and more efficient. Again, the difficulty is to dare.
Agile. For real.
The idea leads us to talk about agile companies very naturally. In theory, Agile mindsets are increasingly spreading in corporate structures which want to bring more innovation and more flexibility in their processes. Agile methods mean more engagement, more empowerment, and more room for spontaneous thinking, which is very entrepreneurial.
Nonetheless, are those organizations that lean and agile in practice? Did agility turn into actual operational agility? How did being agile help when Covid happened? Did that make any difference at all? Did agile thinking help set up different working framework? Did it help building smarter teams and systems capable of compensating for the shock? Maybe, maybe not, but there is definitely a need for more flexible thinking in the corporate world, and there is definitely room for focusing more on solving problems. Or perhaps should we say on trusting people’s ability to solve problems in productive and impactful ways.
Intrapreneurship
Agile is one method among others, but our point is really that what matters is to realize that people should be given a chance to handle problems more than tasks. The point is not to run an organization, it is to engage its members so as to run a better, more impactful organization. The point is not to give people workload, it is to help them make sure that their workload is smart and makes a difference down the road.
The difference is big for a company.
Under the usual model, leadership often acts as a form of chain of command in which autonomy is replaced by standards and processes. In doing so, uncertainty and decision-making risks are lowered and the group can keep its uniformity under a specific frame.
Under a more entrepreneurial model, however, the key is to empower people and, internally, turn team members into leaders in their own field, because every team member can lead on one aspect of the work. Every member of the team can contribute. Every member of the team can help to solve a problem and create a solution rather than merely execute a task. To get there, however, businesses must increase engagement and push teams to get involved.
Is this easier said than done? Not really. For instance, many businesses have never heard of design thinking but the discipline has been around for several decades and creates impressive results, because it pushes for more involvement, action and problem-solving.
Too many businesses nowadays hardly have big picture discussions on a regular basis, hardly involve their staff in the development strategy of the structure, and hardly see their staff as a problem-solving resource at all. This is precisely the reason why entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship are becoming vital to corporates, if you ask us.
Using human resources differently.
The point, overall, is to say that the recent Covid developments are acting like a very disturbing enabler which brutally shows us that businesses need to use human resources differently. Not as a generic and pointless word, but as a smarter, human, form of resource capable of solving problem through engagement and problem-solving.
Think about it. The situation is showing us that the usual model doesn’t work that well, for starters, but it will make other trends resurface. The question of leveraging the skills of more senior people will need to be reconsidered, while the nomad skills of others will need to be addressed.
And, of course, the role of millennials (not happy to follow their parents’ path) will also matter a lot because they will challenge the models even more now that they have seen that their dreams can materialize. What they want is fulfilment, social and environmental justice, not to forget having an Impact. The time it takes doesn't matter, but the experience and the results do. And with these come a far more entrepreneurial mind which rarely finds its place in corporate environments.
A need for a new logic.
In sum, the corporate mold lags behind and has a hard time adapting and, if anything, confinements showed that new models need to be invented.
From an organizational perspective, the ability of many to work from home will make them realize that what matters is the technical, human and transferable skills they have, and that such skills can be used in many other ways. Offices aren’t necessary, but the nomad mindset is appealing to those who need consideration and freedom. Human relations, agile thinking and technical leverage matter more than heavy, inflexible structures. And value creation somehow becomes more challenging than comforting routines.
The logic is changing. A few years from now, the positions occupied by corporate executives might become intra-preneurial positions in which end of the year results won't be as important as problem-solving, daring and lean-oriented skills every entrepreneur craves for. Structural constraints and routines will be replaced by test-oriented habits while failure will be more accepted, because failing is a natural consequence of trying and only those who don't try never fail.
Said differently? The future resilience of corporations nowadays characterized by a global reach could well depend on their ability to attract (not to say become) impact-focused entrepreneurs interested by the results down the road as much as by the experience along the way. And what that means is very simple: while the challenge will be to train entrepreneurs and intra-preneurs, the risk lies in believing that there is no need to embrace the trend.
About the authors:
Vittoria Collu is a business adviser who believes in the power of the intrapreneurship approach to corporate development. She is the Smart Architect beyond ThymusConsulting.com, the platform to unlock your organization's potential.
Antoine Martin (Ph.D) is a business adviser who challenges entrepreneurs and writes about the rise of the entrepreneurial age. He is the co-founder of Impactified.com, the toolbox for entrepreneurs who rock.