THE QUEST FOR INTRAPRENEURSHIP / ENTREPRENEURSHIP
            Author :Sanjiv Narang,Innovation Systems,New Delhi.
 
 Entrepreneurs are the blood of an economy . The economy does not run on the shoulders of bureaucrats. It runs on that person who takes the courage to produce and market a product or service which not only satisfies needs but also triggers the expansion of income , output and employment.
 However , the sad part is that entrepreneurship has never been a serious contender for occupying the career mental patterns of achievement oriented persons.
 Even in organizations ,renewal occurs because someone in the organization takes courage and challenges a concept , product or  process to evolve a new or a better product or process.
Why do we see a decline in most of our traditionally managed organizations ?
 These organizations have managed to decimate the entrepreneural energy of their executives. The result is that what they have left is just the bonestructure of a human being who just does what he or she is told to do. The energy to create and do having drained away , the only instinct left is to play politics and get ahead.
 I have seen this phenomenon in countless executives who over a period of time lapsed into excessive dependence on the organization. In an organization A , the feeling of powerlessness was omnipresent among its middle and senior level managers. This translated itself into loss of self confidence and the incidence of perpetual fear that somebody else would get a higher increment or a promotion.
The fear of facing the fallout of negative consequences created the "Play safe"attitude exhibited by most executives.
 "Born free but everywhere in chains "
  The enormity of this statement is visible in the tremble in hands of executives , when they go to meet their CMD. The news that CMD wants to meet an executive significantly increases the palpitation of his/her heart.
 The question that an executive has to ask himself or herself is ," Is this mental slavery worth it ?" and the question that the organization should ask itself is "Would these kind of dominant mental patterns be catalytic to its becoming a celebrated leader "? If the answer is NO , then there is something dramatically wring in the way organizations look at and develop their human resource.
 How should an organization go about rekindling the enterpreneural fire which it has itself extinguished ?
 If organizations want to become leaders , they need to nurture champions. People in organizations who take the courage to challenge the status quo. Instead of looking at these people as iconodasts , organizations need to harness their energy not only to create new concepts but also to convert them into reality. Intrapreneurs are the engines which would take the organization to a new tomorrow and without them , the organization would slowly but surely dying.
 In order to rejuvinate itself , the organization needs to redesign its managers from a "loyal yes men to a "self respecting intrapreneurs".
 Since structure affects behaviour , hard processes have to be created to nurture risk taking among potential intrapreneurs. 
 
 This process would involve the collection & consolidation of new initiatives or risks  taken by executives,the resultant consequences,the learning in terms of success / failure & finally the potential of multiplication across the organization.In case of significant multiplication potential the seeds of the success pattern can be sown throughout the organization.
The resultant knowledge bank would not only transfer learning from the individual to the group,it would enable learning from one point of time to another.This knowledge bank would also act as an insurance against the loss of competence when a key individual leaves the organization.
Consequently, not only would the individual grow ,the institution would also reenergize itself with new knowledge.The,"Knowledge creating company would come into existence.
In a textile unit B,the executive director developed a process of monitoring all the units of the co. on a given set of selected performance parameters.Thereafter he would send small teams to whichever unit was the best performer on a given parameter,with the sole task of learning the process underlying the performance parameter.  This enabled knowledge creation & dissemination to such an extent that it did not take long for his unit to become the leader in most of the performance parameters in the group.
An organization needs to deploy multiple processes of this sort,both within & outside the organization, in order to become a knowledge creating co.
 The action of rewarding risks taken would be an added asset , though for an intrapreneur , the sheer chance of converting his / her idea into reality is an award in itself.
 This formal process would slowly create the cultural climate of expressing new ideas without the fear of getting a " dressing down ". The resultant freedom of thought and action is the catalyst for the creation of the visage of " The Thinker", who represents the thinking race of humans which has improved and renewed itself continuously .
 This not only creates a great work place but also catalyses innovation which enables organizational renewal.
 I took my tottering steps towards entrepreneurship about 1 1/2 years back. I must confess that the first few months were extremely painful.