Entrepreneurial Intrapreneurship
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
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Posted by: Matthew Montoya
By Mark Wehner
REEsults Coaching™
Since the times of
one-room schools to the marble halls of today’s higher education, success has
been measured by testing short-term memory. By and large, there have been few
changes. Most have perpetuated the myth that if you study hard and get good grades,
you will be able to get a job. If our collective business and entrepreneurial
curriculum truly worked, then why, according to the U.S. Small Business
Administration, do over 86 percent of small businesses fail every year? One
reason: We’ve taught them exactly "what” to do for over 100 years, not "how” to
do it.
The "what” has always
included goal setting, creation of a business plan, simulated situational
management, implementation and evaluation. Sadly, most have failed in the "how”
category. Why? Because "how” is not easily measured. "How’ includes terms like
belief, vision, coachability, persistence, and adaptability. Even though "how”
is hard to measure, it is critical to the success of the entrepreneur…or even
more so to the intrapreneurial business owner. Here is where your community
college can capitalize to fill the void created by conventional educational
offerings. It will require expanding your present level of entrepreneurship
programming and creating a new intrapreneurial culture, a new standard of
accomplishment that benefits both your community and your college.
Expanding your present
entrepreneurship curriculum by attracting and/or developing innovative
intrapreneurship programs has multiple benefits for today’s forward thinking
community colleges. Community colleges benefit three ways by incorporating
strains of intrapreneurial DNA that parallel your present entrepreneurial areas
of study. The three specific benefits include, increased revenues from new
student enrollments, expanded value to "established” business markets in the
community; and positioning your community college as the leader for innovative,
productivity-based studies.
What is
intrapreneurship? REEsults Coaching defines "intrapreneurship” as adopting
entrepreneurial mindsets and methods while taking ownership of your role and
actions that benefit an organization.
The
Benefits
First…increased
revenues. Are your willing to adapt your present entrepreneurship curriculum to
attract new students, including not only those unemployed or underemployed, but
those potential students – and maybe even past students – who are gainfully
employed with your community based businesses? Do the math. Calculate the
amount of net income per student over the past year. Once you know the monetary
value of each student, examine your present entrepreneurial curriculum and
decide if you have "something new” to offer.
That "something new”
would take them beyond business planning, simulators, trade skills, accounting
and human resource areas of study. That "something new” is intrapreneurship! It
has the potential to attract both past and new students, all adding to the
bottom line every time they invest or educationally reinvest in themselves. It
has been proven time and time again that it costs less to attract and retain
past customers (students) than it does to advertise and spend your marketing
dollars searching for new students. So, while you are spending money to find
the new students, you can tap a proven income stream by reengaging your past student
base with "something new!”
Second…expand your
community college’s value proposition to established businesses in your market.
Your business community may already be familiar with your entrepreneurship
programs. When you are willing to change your present entrepreneurial
perspective, you can create new markets that attract local businesses that want
their employees to adopt an intrapreneurial spirit by taking "ownership” of
their day-to-day work activities. This intrapreneurial change in your perspectives
can have a major positive impact on local businesses when you can demonstrate
your ability to get all of their employees on the same page. Through your
intrapreneurial coaching you can get every employee working together for the
mutual benefit of both the company and the individual. It has the power to
instantly create added value in your static entrepreneurship programming that
taught them "WHAT” to do to set-up their business. Now, by adding a dynamic
intrapreneurial course of study, you can coach them on exactly "HOW” to
succeed.
Third…With the right
set of matched entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial survival skills, your
community college will position itself at the center of the economic
development universe for all those that are attracted and influenced by your
proactive educational benefits! Imagine a world where vision and experience are
more valuable than goals and objectives. This is the world of the entrepreneur.
It’s time that
entrepreneurial educational institutions practice what they teach. Students
come to you with a dream…a dream to control their destiny. Imagine harnessing
that entrepreneurial energy, and channeling that energy back into your local
businesses in the form of highly motivated employees. It can increase
productivity, profits, and the perception that your community college was the
genesis of these increased benefits.
Remember, it is what
we learn after we think we know it all that makes all the difference.
NACCE partner Mark
Wehner can be reached at mark.wehner@reesultscoahing.com
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