I LEARNT A NEW WORD THIS WEEK.

I have had the enormous privilege over the last week to connect with and interview the incredible speakers for the Global Intrapreneurs Summit and Awards Ceremony (#GISA24) coming up on the 7th of November. It is the annual flagship event for the Global Intrapreneurs Institute when we shine a light on the great work being done by talented, dedicated intrapreneurs all around the world. The theme this year is EMBRACING INTRAPRENEURIALISM: REDESIGNING THE FUTURE OF WORK.

It is such a relevant topic because so many of the major shifts taking place within workplaces right now have intrapreneurial principles at their core. Empowering employees, encouraging autonomy, flattening hierarchies, reducing bureaucracy, democratising leadership, fostering experimentation, facilitating collaboration, promoting agility, cultivating curiosity and creative problem-solving, nurturing multi-disciplinary thinking, the list goes on. If you have been reading my musings over the last decade or so – you will be familiar with this list. It is also the approach to work I teach through the Professional Certificate of Intrapreneurialism course.

This year at GISA24, the opening speaker will be Gary Bolles author of The Next Rules of Work and Global Fellow for Transformation with Singularity University in Silicon Valley. Gary is at the forefront of the emerging trends reshaping workplaces. One of the terms he used in our conversation was ….. UNBOSSING.

That was a new one for me! And I couldn’t wait to explore it further!

Essentially, it is a way of redesigning organisations by democratising leadership, flattening hierarchies and encouraging employee autonomy. It is about shifting away from rigid, hierarchical structures and empowering teams to take ownership of their work. It reflects a move away from ‘command and control’ towards leaders serving more as ‘talent curators’, a concept I explore in my book INTRAPRENEUR .

Intrapreneurs thrive in UNBOSSED environments

This is because they have the freedom to act, the space to experiment, and the responsibility to drive change. This idea of unbossing aligns with the broader shifts we are seeing across industries, where organisations are embracing agile, networked structures to adapt to rapid change.

One of the most well-known instances of unbossing being formally adopted as a leadership strategy comes from Novartis, a global healthcare company. Their CEO Vas Narasimhan used the term as part of a cultural transformation initiative when he became CEO in 2018. His goal was to overhaul the company's internal structure by shifting from a traditional, hierarchical model to a more empowered, agile, and innovation-driven organisation.

At Novartis, unbossed was part of a larger cultural strategy that emphasized inspired, curious, and unbossed leadership. Narasimhan believed that to drive innovation in a fast-evolving healthcare landscape, employees needed the freedom to take risks, lead initiatives, and make decisions without being micro-managed by top-level executives.

In other words, he wanted to unleash intrapreneurial talent across the organisation.

Register to join us at #GISA24 to hear more from Gary Bolles and our other speakers about emerging trends that are transforming workplaces around intrapreneurial principles.

And, of course, we’ll be celebrating the incredible achievements of this year’s Outstanding Intrapreneur Award recipients who are transforming their organisations from within.

I look forward to seeing you there!