Intrapreneurship land mines

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity under VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) conditions with the goal of creating user/stakeholder defined value through the deployment of innovation using a VAST business model.

Intrapreneurs are employees trying to act like entrepreneurs within their organizations or non-profits. Here is the textbook of physician intrapreneurship.

Here is how to get your ideas noticed:

If you are trying to develop and deploy an AI solution in your sickcare organization, have you answered these questions?

Here are some reasons why your initiative will fail. Do you have a VAST edupreneur business model?

Studies show that around 60 to 80% of new products fail. The same is probably true for programs and new educational offerings. It is difficult to determine the exact number of unreported cases, because who would like to talk about his innovation flops? The odds are against you.

So, what are the landmines to detect and avoid?

1. You did not do your homework because you where unwilling, unable to do so ,or ,you do not have an entrepreneurial mindset and think because you already have 2 people who said they were interested that you could forge ahead.
2. You did not have an exit strategy.
3. You did not read the field manual
4. You don't have the right sponsor with staying power.
5. You tried to bite off more than your stakeholders are willing or able to chew.
6. You are a bad rebel and chalk it up to "being authentic"
7. You do not have the right clinical champions on board.
8. You have empty seats on the bus or the wrong people sitting in them.
9. You are making these rookie intrapreneur mindset mistakes.
10. You are not addressing the dysfunction of teams.
11. You are not aligned with your organization's strategy or vision.
12. You are working in the wrong place with a toxic or fixed culture or for the wrong person.
13. You don't have an innovation strategy
14. You don't get sales and marketing
15. You didn't ask and answer these four questions before you started
16.  If you’ve got a major change on the horizon, here’s how to avoid three of the most common saboteurs of company transformation. First, understand that significant change will be harder than you think it will be to achieve. Next, be realistic about your organization’s capacity to implement changes. Finally, make sure your organization understands how and why the transformation is important to you.
17. You have not learned how to win at Survivor  1) Don’t expect friendship. Invest in relationships outside your company to meet your emotional needs; 2) Manage sideways. Your reputation with your peers becomes an important factor as you’re being considered for senior ranks; and 3) Hone your political skills. 

If you get too far ahead of your troops, it is hard to tell the difference between you and the enemy. De-risk yourself. Be careful out there.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Updated 7/2022