Companies need entrepreneurs but tapping such talent difficult

Donahue pointed out that many forces are increasing the value of internal entrepreneurs, particularly in technology-intensive companies. Among them are the poor recent track record for traditional in-house R&D, a scarcity of longer-term resources among publicly traded companies fixated on quarter-to-quarter results and a need for more flexible development of new technologies.

While many companies pay lip service to identifying entrepreneurial managers, few have been successful at tapping such talent. Donahue says one reason is that the most powerful talents of these entrepreneurs are also the ones that make them difficult to work with in a traditional organization. Hearing this from Donahue, we were reminded of how easy it is for a manager to focus on more personally comfortable things than the performance that really counts.

It’s easy to keep the folks who are easiest to get along with, straightforward to manage and pleasant to talk with.

The entrepreneurial manager is likely to be anything but these things. In Donahue’s view, the chief characteristic of an entrepreneurial manager in a large organization is a driving impatience, often coupled with a roving curiosity.

They are often the ones who aren’t working well with others because they think the product should have been out four months ago or is missing critical features or could open a new market. They aren’t committed to organizational goals because they have thought of six new goals and think that two of the three current goals are short-sighted. Interpersonally skilled? Absolutely, but that may be just what is under your skin after they persuade the head of a different division to give funding to their pet project.

Although these managers can be trying, they are precisely the managers you need to seek out and give the reins for the new product, the stagnant service, the solution no one can think of. Deciding to give them the reins will require some mental toughness from you, and sticking with your decision will require a lot more. After all, entrepreneurial managers are going to be in your office all the time with problems and complaints about how things are being done. When they have a great idea about how to change things, you can bet they will feel that any schedule takes too long and is under-funded.

When they aren’t complaining, their colleagues will be complaining to you about them. You’ll have some tough calls to make: Are the entrepreneurial managers really stirring things up to change them for the better? If they aren’t, you don’t need to give free rein to plain orneriness. But if they are, you will have to live by your commitments to performance as you deal with other managers, workers and customers.

Donahue gave us a great example of this being done right by a locally based international high-tech company. One of its engineers was passionate about a new product application, an application based on several technologies with which he had previously been involved there, and one he felt strongly the company should develop.

When the company made a strategic decision not to “mainstream” the technology, the company provided the opportunity and some backing to the engineer so that he could start an entrepreneurial venture to develop it, with assistance from Boulder Technology Incubator. Sometime later, one of the company’s subsidiaries had a significant product setback. After going to other sources for solutions that didn’t work, they turned to the technology developed by their engineer-entrepreneur, and are now successfully incorporating it into their next-generation product.

Had that technology been left dormant inside the company, it would have never been available to solve the unanticipated problem, and a skilled engineer might have gone down the road to become a competitor.

Next time you are thinking about what kind of managers you really need, remember these lessons from Donahue about what you learn from an entrepreneur. Look for people who are impatient with the status quo and have the capacities to change it. Look for people who care more about getting it right than simply getting along. Look for people who will get it right, and then work like hell to get the resources it takes to get it done. Then make your own commitment to performance to help them get it done.

You can learn more from entrepreneurs at the Boulder Technology Incubator Annual Fall Conference and Technology Fair, sponsored in part by The Boulder County Business Report, from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 11, with a keynote speaker and panel of successful entrepreneurs. For information on how to register, call (303) 938-4890.

2

on Facebook on LinkedIn