Innovation — the internal capacity to generate new ideas, products, or processes that create value — is one of the engines of corporate success. Unfortunately, it is also an engine of corporate angst.

Don’t take my word for it. In a recent survey of CEOs, 81 percent said innovation was critical to their firms’ share price. The same survey found that most of these same CEOs felt they did not have the right mix of people and skills to drive internal innovation.

I was thinking of this a few months ago when I led a whiteboard session at the Intrapreneurship Conference (now Innov8rs) in Toronto, November 2017. A brainstorm on what is needed in corporate innovation from a talent perspective: both the personality traits and the skillset of individuals who excel in this role.

We often think that independent entrepreneurs and corporate intrapreneurs are cut from the same cloth. Indeed, they both need to have great vision, be able to sell concepts, and adapt quickly to changing situations.

However, there are differences in the risk-reward dynamic and level of autonomy. intrapreneurs must operate in a corporate culture not of their creation, and they often have to fight for resources and attention in a system that tries to maintain status quo.

During the brainstorming session, participants — intrapreneurial leaders themselves — came up with a mix of right- and left-brain traits that reflect the unique situation of corporate innovators.

Some of these traits include analytical and creative; thriving in chaos and driven by process; competitive and collaborative; good with people and able to offer raw honesty; empathetic and independent thinking; resilient and “don’t take ‘no’” leadership; calculated risk taker; futurist and realist; dreamer and executer.

Overall, it was agreed, intrapreneurs tend to be curious, intuitive, forward thinkers who love to challenge the status quo and to grow and learn from everything they do. They relish “saving the day” from a place of uncertainty.

In the second part of the brainstorm, I asked participants to list the required skills of intrapreneurs.

The list they came up with include: project management; tech, data, and ideation analysis; systems design; production processes, operations, and logistics; design thinking; innovation pipeline management and vetting; prototyping and MVP; sales and ability to sell to broad stakeholders; product and service development; UX; opportunity analysis; and change management.

A common theme was that intrapreneurs need to be “jack of all trades” businesspeople with a breadth of knowledge across all departments and skills, from finance, marketing, and operations, to strategy and human resources, with some unique skills as indicated above.

It is no wonder that organizations struggle to build bench strength in this area. Based on this list of traits and skills, intrapreneurs have to operate from all aspects of their brain, in terms of personality strengths and skills. They must exhibit classic left-brain tendencies as divergent and imaginative thinkers and be able to switch on a dime to understand organizational dynamics and execute with discipline.

That is a hard mix to find in one person.

The reality is that jobs in this space are growing exponentially. For many organizations, it is almost an existential challenge to build the internal team that can inspire and execute on innovative initiatives. They’ll need all the help that can get.

That’s why the Master of Management Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, exists. We find natural talent and strengths that match the intrapreneur profile described above, and through the program create leaders of corporate innovation — start-up and scale-up experts with entrepreneurial mindsets.

I'd like to invite you to join me, Simon Lee of LCBO and Alain Mootoo of Surrey Place Centre for a webinar Wednesday April 25th, 1:00pm EST to discuss what it takes for intrapreneurs to succeed and for organizational leaders to create the winning conditions for that to happen.

Participants will learn about:

  • Key skillset and personality traits of individuals who excel as intrapreneurs
  • How a major Canadian corporation with $6 billion in sales manages internal innovation
  • What intrapreneurship looks like in a not-for-profit enterprise
  • How intrapreneurs can identify and win over key stakeholders

It's free, and you can register via this link: https://smith.queensu.ca/insight/webinars/developing_the_intrapreneur_s_touch

This is a guest post by Shari Hugson, Director, Master of Management Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Smith School of Business, and speaker for Intrapreneurship Conference Toronto, November 2017.