Perspectives on Corporate Entrepreneurship

1. Companies must constantly innovate ... without innovation they tend to do what they've always done and run the risk of getting stale and becoming competitively disadvantaged.
2. For a company to thrive, it must tap the individual initiative of its team members ... this must be a major area of focus.
3. On any initiative being pursued, team-member buy-in is absolutely essential for success.
4. If a company want its people to be intrapreneurial in their thinking, they must be kept well informed about the company's processes and visions, and the impact of these processes and visions on profit.
5. Leaders must give team members everything they need to be self-motivated and take the initiative to succeed.
6. Companies must reward the creativity of their people.
7. If a team member owns an initiative, he or she should be accountable for all aspects of its success.
8. Companies must encourage resourcefulness and out-of-the-box thinking.
9. All thought leaders must be constantly focused on customer needs and now to satisfy and exceed them.
10. Leaders and managers must work to maximize team-member involvement in all key initiatives to tap the collective intellect of the team.

[Thank you, The One Minute Entrepreneur]

Are We Shooting Down Good Ideas?

1. You know whether or not an idea is good based who proposed it.
2. You observe from a distance rather than being lead down a path to the idea. (a.k.a. The Sniper)
3. You believe every idea is improved with your input.
4. Listing the top 10 ideas from your organization this year, half or more are your own.
5. Brainstorming means narrowing down to the best idea, instead of hearing all of them.
6. All ideas must be proven.
7. You only want BIG ideas.
8. You have no effective mechanisms to foster, collect, review, and implement ideas.
9. Your competition is your main source of ideas.
10. No matter how much you've talked about ideas, collected them, praised them, in the end you don't use them. (Like a maimed duck, you let them wander off and die.)

[Thank you, Dustin Staiger]