The Intrapreneur Mindset

This article by Mickey A. Feher originally appeared in Rapport Magazine on April 28th, 2022.

The rise of the intrapreneur idea

The term "intrapreneur" is a bend of the two words "internal" and "entrepreneur." It was first coined by Gifford Pinchot III and Elizabeth S. Pinchot in a 1978 white paper titled "Intra-Corporate Entrepreneurship" for the Tarrytown School for Entrepreneurs. After this white paper was released, the term began to gain traction.

In 1986 Steve Jobs was quoted in Newsweek saying that the Macintosh team exhibited the qualities of intrapreneurship. In 2014 Forbes declared that the most valuable employees are the intrapreneurs. The idea was that there are certain projects that require the leadership of an “internal entrepreneur,” such as the legendary creation of 3M or the Sony PlayStation.

The term “intrapreneur” has since evolved into the idea of an employee or leader who has the truly entrepreneurial attitude, mindset, the highest level of accountability, and inner drive.

The concept gained further traction with the Covid19 pandemic, where employees needed to become independent “intrapreneurs” overnight. Many of them still work from home or are in a “hybrid” arrangement and are under less direct, in-person supervision than ever. This requires the need to be more self-motivated, disciplined and have more freedom and empowerment than ever before. All of this leads to a new mindset for both the employees and those who lead them.

The power of Mindset

 One of my clients, has built a very successful company from scratch. 7 years ago, he and his partner worked from home. Today they have several hundred employees and one of the leading brands in their sector with revenues of revenues of hundreds of millions of dollars. The company seems unstoppable, and yet, my client’s biggest worry remains the mindset of his employees. He complains that most of the people on his team are reactive, magnify the negatives and don’t look for solutions independently. In our coaching sessions, he often wonders how he could get them to be more like internal entrepreneurs, rather than employees. Intrapreneurs, who care for the business as if it was their own and have the motivation to go to the extra mile. What is the mindset of a successful intrapreneur like?

 Before we define this so called “Intrapreneur Mindset,” let’s talk about what we understand about mindsets in general terms. Great teachers, philosophers and scientists throughout history have agreed that our mindset is the driving force behind our actions. 

“Our life is the creation of our mind,” said the Buddha.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” according to Shakespeare.

Mindset determines what we consider good or bad, whether we think a certain situation is unbearable or challenging and then how we respond to that what’s happening around us. Being aware of our mindset is so crucial. We need the competence and methodology to set our mind in the right way so that it supports the achievement of our goals.

 How does science define mindset?

 According to Meier & Kropp, “A mindset is a mental attitude. It shapes our actions and our thoughts,” *.  According to Gollwitzer, it is “The sum total of the activated cognitive procedures,”**. In this sense "mindset" refers to a set of beliefs (or attitudes) relative to some topic or object. Most discussions and books written about mindsets concern a specific attitude object like Carol Dweck's growth mindset***.  Researchers believe that mindset is a set of beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, feelings and emotions that one keeps in their mind regarding a certain issue at a certain time. In turn, our mindset shapes our thinking, feelings and behavior and ultimately, our outcomes.

According to our own research with Robert B. Dilts****, mindset—which is made up of our inner state, beliefs, attitude and thinking processes — is the primary engine behind the actions we take.

We have found that there are three distinctly different levels of what we refer to as mindset:

1. The meta mindset level is our big-picture clarity about life. It encompasses our fundamental inner attitude toward our world, the work we do and the way we see our roles and goals.

2. The macro mindset level relates to the inner attitude necessary to put mental disciplines and practices in place. This brings focus to the big picture and an ecological way of putting our personal and business vision into action.

3. The micro mindset level is a set of beliefs and inner attitudes. It produces the specific actions necessary to build a sustainable path for our venture, project or team.

One of our key findings is that specific elements of the meta, macro and micro mindset layers are necessary to achieve the core outcomes for personal and business success. Our discovery has led us to create an online tool called Success MindsetMaps Inventory to visualize them and help leaders to work with these mindset patterns.

The nature of the Intrapreneur Mindset

Let’s come back to the Intrapreneur Mindset. We know that there is a difference between an entrepreneur and intrapreneur. An entrepreneur starts a venture as a means of providing a good or service. An intrapreneur works inside an organization with multiple internal and external stakeholders, develops services or solutions, explores policies, technologies, builds teams, and form partnerships that will help improve the performance of an existing company or organization. As such, the intrapreneur needs to develop skills and competences that are very similar to that of an entrepreneur. No doubt, all employers would love to see their employees acting like an owner of their business as opposed to a passive follower or a paid contributor.

With that in mind, here is what we learned about the entrepreneurial mindset. The interviews and observations of successful entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leaders have led to the formulation of the SFM Circle of Success. We discovered that the founders of successful start-up ventures divide their focus of attention evenly between five fundamental perspectives: 1) themselves and their passion for what they are doing, 2) their vision for their customers and their products and/or services, 3) their ambition and the key stakeholders influencing the it’s realization, 4) clarity of  their role and the complimentary strategic partners and alliances and 5) their mission and purpose and the team members that are necessary to realize it.

To illustrate the five perspectives, I would like to use the example of a world-famous wildlife photographer and entrepreneur I recently interviewed. In his case, he was passionate about wildlife and wild animals. This has eventually led to a calling to do something for preserving wildlife and biodiversity, which originated in a personal story of seeing a wild animal killed. The calling became his purpose, to express the love and passion he felt for those animals and do something tangible by educating the world and take steps of activism to protect them. This led to a vision of the world where people live in a rediscovered connection to animals and plants; and adapt protocols and laws to protect endangered species. At this point, he had connected his passions to his talent or superpower, which is the particularly emotional style of photography of wild animals.  His approach includes spending intimate time with animals in the wilderness, to the level of living with them for a few days to capture their life in a truly authentic way. All of this has culminated in a sense of a mission and career to bring these powerful photos to the world and reconnect humans to animals and nature.  He quickly evolved from being a lonely artist to an inspirational activist who attracted a team around himself. His ambition to make visible differences led to the need to scale his business and develop a set of products built around the idea of promoting biodiversity. He also started seeking and getting grants and financial support for nature conservational initiatives. His vision and unique contribution in the form of a signature photo style attracted other partners who shared his values and the power of the effort was multiplied.

This is a powerful way of building what we call a “Circle of Success.” The mindset that has allowed him to succeed on this level is manifested in "a story” centered around the powerful building blocks of the meta mindset layer: his passion, vision, mission/purpose, ambition and role. All layers consciously put together become an energizing narrative that drives a powerful mindset.

This meta mindset is complimented with a set of powerful mental disciplines around feedback, scanning for opportunities, mental focus and the ability to lean in to potential risk (what we call the macro mindset). Finally, this meta and macro mindset defines a set of on-going priorities where the entrepreneur balances 9 different hats that they need to wear for success on a daily level, which is what we refer to as micro mindset.

Illustration 1. The SFM Circle of Success™ and the three layers of Mindset (Meta, Macro, Micro)

How does this relate to a leader in an organization?

A leader can be likened to a captain of a ship. They too need to find the right crew and convince them to board the ship with a powerful narrative. This takes passion, purpose and clarity of vision. The captain needs to share his vision and purpose and convince all crewmembers on board to bring their best to accomplish the common mission. This includes selecting and then developing the team members and giving them a sense of progress and purpose. A leader also needs to have clarity on what ambition and success looks like for them personally, as well as for the team. They also need to know the specific goals that they want to achieve within a set timeframe. They need to formulate a plan how they will influence all the stakeholders involved, and who can support or block their success. The journey is tough, so mental discipline is crucial on the way. Finally, the leader needs to balance many different types of people and roles on the team as well as in their own mind.

There will be moments and contexts when the leader needs to wear the hat of the “MarketMaker,” or the “Competence Builder,” the “FinanSourcerer,” and the “MatchMaker,” to mention four of the nine hats or micro mindsets. All the “outer game,” or the business context in entrepreneurship may be very different than the everyday realities of an organization, what we found the “inner game” or the mindset needed to succeed is surprisingly simila. The core components of the meta, macro and micro mindset of the intrapreneur leader are those of a successful entrepreneur.

Illustration 2. The SFM Circle of Success™ and the different micro mindsets

Building a more sustainable business culture with conscious leaders

We believe that organizations can’t stop at the goal-building a culture of growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. They also need pay conscious attention to developing their leader’s ability to be aware of their own mindset and teach them competences and skills necessary to align their mindset to support specific goals like increasing engagement, providing a sense of fulfillment, developing more innovation and creativity, or achieving certain financial targets. Each of these goals will require a particular pattern of mindset (inner attitude) that will support the attainment.

Teaching employees to become mindful intrapreneurs is the future-proof way. Self-motivation, sustainability and entrepreneurial qualities come from the core elements that constitute our inner attitude, our mindset. We need conscious leaders in our business who have systemic intelligence, emotional intelligence beyond IQ. We need to reconnect leaders to a compelling vision and purpose, not an egotistical ambition, if we are to succeed in building a more livable and sustainable world where people want to belong.

*J. D. Meier and Michael Kropp, Getting Results the Agile Way : A Personal Results System for Work and Life 

** Gollwitzer: Deliberative and Implemental Mind-Sets: Cognitive Tuning Toward Congruous Thoughts and Information, December 1990, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

*** Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Random House 2006

**** Robert B. Dilts, Next Generation Entrepreneurs: Live Your Dreams and Create a Better World Through Your Business (Success Factor Modeling Book 1)