The synonyms for the verb change include “alter,” “modify,” “vary,” “transform,” “revolutionize,” “adjust,” and “amend,” expressing that change can be incremental or complete. It can imply positive or negative outcomes, dissatisfaction, fear, experimentation, or curiosity. Change is inevitable because business is changing, our employees are changing, and our customers are changing.
There is a movement in corporations shifting from an autocratic approach of leading individuals in groups to corporate entrepreneurial leadership that emphasizes vision, motivation, and mutual guarantee based on the relatability and adaptability of change. Rapidly changing external conditions and environments are causing companies to question the effectiveness of their traditional centralized, standardized, and formalized bureaucratic organizational paradigm. Change in a dynamic environment like we have today requires leaders to be wakeful of the organizations core values and communicate them to those that will be affected by the change through strategy, communication, and personal actions.
Corporate entrepreneurial creative transformation is the art and science of leading others to embrace the thoughts, speech and actions that will embed change within the organizational structure and produce a mutual benefit culture
Marc Gilenson
Corporate entrepreneurial leaders will initiate creative transformation that will modify organizational frameworks and define the change process for the enterprise, subsidiary, department, group, and the individual. Corporate entrepreneurs are internal change agents for the organization, someone who proposes change that is usually at the expense of existing attitudes and structure already in existence.
Corporate entrepreneurs will use change to support responsible behavior, promote self-discipline, maintain high level of ethics, ensure compliance with company values, embrace laws of nature, promote human behavior, instill self-motivation…self-management…self-awareness, and wakefulness of collective responsibility.
Change must emphasize the corporate entrepreneurial principles of:
By embracing these principles, creativity, risk-taking and learning, corporate entrepreneurship will enable individuals in the organization to interpret and translate signals from the leaders into new products and services while uncovering process improvements. Corporate entrepreneurial leaders address change with an emphasis on flexibility that allows for meeting the demands of an uncertain and ever-changing business environment.
By utilizing the S.M.A.R.T. framework wrapped in a mutual benefit culture, change will have a focus on the enterprise which will involve participation of all employees to meet the needs of an organization experiencing a rapidly changing environment. It will ensure that change is or can be systemic by being wakeful to the interconnectedness of their decisions and actions.
Points of critical success will be embedded in the change process to ensure that the desired goals are working for the whole and not just the individual or department making the change. These metrics will be aligned with the goals and culture of the organization. The points of critical success will reinforce the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and goals of the organization, the department and individual.
If corporate entrepreneurship is “managed disruption,” then corporate entrepreneurs must be tolerated and even motivated to slowly introduce change. The corporate entrepreneur will then cause the rest of the organization to change and before long, the company will not be subject to status quo leadership (complacency).
Listen to the 8 Hidden Killers of Change & Innovation Podcast:
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