Caution Intrapreneur on board
Sometimes we all trip-off and wonder how we ended up here, later wishing to go back in time to improvise. I have recently encountered my client cutting loose his fresh intrapreneur after misjudging by his payslip.
Times have changed, Its no longer the trend of management through intimidation and cold ultimatums. Money isn’t everything. Most of the people are money driven and want a higher salary. People who have everything they need still desire for more. A paycheck has to be understood for what it truly is. It may give you a better vantage point to buy luxury, power and secure life. How much is a day out with your daughter in the park worth/ cooking together with your spouse. For how many rupees would you sell that time. Money cannot be the measure of whether you have made the right decisions. Employers constantly talk about business, how to do it, how It was working for them and scout upon bringing more right people to value their team efforts and abilities, the confidence and capacity. Often mistaking the true potential of a freshmen as level zero.
This happens often a lot in our corporate world and thus has become an unfair norm. This could corner most people into jumping for a new job with better financial reward and laying off from employer.
As being a venture partner for start-up clients with limited resources and an urgent need to board his first manager could only be fulfilled by getting an executive with special energy and drive to develop new enterprise. It was not easy hiring this person even after adding profit sharing clause in her contract.
The founder was at work everyday from time we started until the time we left. This really inspired our new employee to roll up her sleeves and give full everyday until we built the start-up from scratch. She was smart and educated, ambitious and opinionated, full of new ideas and passionate energy to act upon. In years to come, that lure of partnership helped us attract a lot of good intrapreneurs whose productivity was twice than a wage driven manager. The essence of working together and progress is to have an integrity of freedom to try all kinds of crazy things themselves and a drive to get it done now and get on with it. She tried many new things from the day one, most didn’t turned out well, but she hadn’t made any mistakes she couldn’t correct quickly.
A year later when one of the competitor offered our first manager the COO position with stock options and three times her present salary, We all expected her departure. I still remember the day our founder knew she has got a better offer from a famous business man in middle-east. CEO was helpless to retain her, when he knew she was invited for a lunch by this business man. Ten minutes before she was about to leave for her lunch, Our CEO met her for wishing best and trying his best to keep her. He started admiring and told her to be the backbone of the company. He also formally offered her the position of COO which means more authority and higher pay(20% more). But she said ‘No. No, thanks. I don’t want your offer’. By this time our CEO lost his hope. But what she said next, really admired me to honor her great work ethics. ‘I want to renew my contract as it is. The company is not cash positive yet to draw more out of it.’. Our CEO asked ‘then are you not going for lunch meet? She said I am going to meet him and understand how to apply his success principles for our company’s growth.
This was the same girl who he first thought to be phony altruistic. I can only summarize this by quoting Ralph Waldo; Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.
This post originally appeared on oneup.in
Shaik Waseem is Entrepreneurial Educator and start-up influencer. He is on a mission to promote academia to be ICE(Innovative Creative Entrepreneurial). He has been co-founder and managing partner for multiple companies that are run under investment group members listed by Forbes middle east as top 100 Indian leaders in U.A.E.