How to succeed in any environment
Intrepreneurship and entrepreneurship are key drivers in any organisation, and can have a profound effect on a company’s success and sustainability. At a recent conference hosted by AIESEC, speakers from a wide variety of companies enlightened attendees, many soon-to-be graduates, about the finer points of intrepreneurship and entrepreneurship. The presenters—business managers and owners—shared what their companies are doing to encourage past, current and future employees and stakeholders to be more proactive with their ideas.
Intrepreneurship
The first half of the conference dealt with intrepreneurship within large companies. David Hickey, Managing Director, Hong Kong Meltwater Group defined intrepreneurship as, “A process of innovation and change in an organisation.” The other presenters agreed that innovation and acceptance of change are not only what makes companies successful, but are also vital ingredients for a successful, productive employee.
Starting big…
Shanthi Flynn, Vice President, People, Wal-mart Asia shared her view on what makes the largest company in the world so successful. Stating, “With 2.2 million people in the company, you can imagine that in our organisation, our biggest challenge is about people.” With a company as big as Wal-mart, there are constant problems and threats concerning the company stifling the entrepreneurial spirit of the local markets the company operates in. She said, “We, as a company, want to grow, but we cannot afford to stifle local entrepreneurial spirit, because every market, every culture is different.” In order to showcase this, Flynn went on to describe the company as ‘glo-cal’ or, globally local. The company owns over 55 ‘local’ brands offering products tailored to the local markets. With its local and global brands, they employ two philosophies to drive the prices as low as possible to benefit the customers: Every Day Low Price (EDLP) and Every Day Low Cost (EDLC).
Flynn talked about the Direct Farm Program as her favourite example of innovation and intrepreneurship, “The program is in India and China, and tries to facilitate local farmers to keep their farms small. In order to drive our products and keep quality high, we don’t want to industrialise farming. Doing this is much better for the local economy, as they can keep their jobs. In fact, most farmers that work with us have increased their yield and profitability.” She went on to highlight, “This drives intrepreneurship; you can’t apply a ‘cookie cutter’ global approach when dealing with the farmers. You cannot be one size fits all.” To foster this, the company has established supply lines from the farm to the market, they train the farmers in better farming techniques so the produce can meet the required standards. Flynn summed up, “We are living in a globalised world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be innovative in the way we interact locally with our markets. We rely on these interactions, the need to be continuously innovative at the coalface is incredibly important.”
Diversity: a good thing
Hayden Majajas, Head of Diversity, Asia Pacific, UBS AG offered a different view on intrepreneurship, one that takes into account diversity of the people working within a company. He started by giving HR managers a very practical piece of advice on what could be holding them back from advancement, “We don’t want people to come in and just do their jobs…What will take you to the next stage is going above and beyond in your job, and that is the entrepreneurial and intrepreneurial spirit and drive.”
In order to find people who can ‘think outside of the box’, and who will do more than just their jobs, the company goes to different areas to find recruits, rather than just going to the same schools, with the same jobs. Majajas notes that this monotonous way of recruiting can lead to competition and companies that do this will generally end up with the same type of talent, and little to no diversity. UBS will work with LGBT student groups, and conduct female only hiring fairs. Doing this will guarantee that you will find staff whom are diverse and can bring a different way of thinking to any organisation.
He noted that not all staff members have intrepreneurial spirit and HR managers should adopt ways to help foster this spirit. Citing an example of an employee with clients who were not interested in the Rugby Sevens, the company came up with the idea of having a pop-up day spa in Hong Kong. He said, “We had this spa, and reached out to our female clients who we thought might be interested in doing that. Not every client wants a day spa, or to go to the Rugby Sevens. We are all different, and having bespoke programmes and initiatives that target different clients will help the business. As a result of this day spa, one client increased her investment with the firm by USD 10 million the very next day.” The firm has also committed to a multitude of employee networking and affairs programmes where staff can help with various charities in their free time.
Majajas provided a number of techniques HR managers can use to help boost their own intrepreneural spirit and success:
- Have a platform on which to base your visions
- Build your profile
- Allow managers and staff to develop skills beyond their role.
He stated these tips, “Allow people to see you and your role.”
Maintaining entrepreneurial spirit within a large company
David Hickey, Managing Director, Hong Kong Meltwater Group provided his views on how to keep an entrepreneurial spirit within a company while it grows into a large company.
Hickey began with some advice to the younger demographic in attendance, “It’s exciting to see so many Gen-Y here about to embark on their first career after university…when thinking about which is the right platform, and which is the right company, it is important to think about it from an entrepreneurial/intrepreneurial perspective, think: what can the company provide for me, and what do they have to offer that is different?”
He went on to describe the history of intrepreneuralship. Companies in America and the UK were being out-innovated by smaller companies in emerging markets. They realised that creating smaller business units run by ‘yes-men’ would make innovation more ineffective. By studying the emerging markets, the companies realised they had to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit of employees within the organisations to allow growth.
As a good example of intrepreneurship, Hickey used Google and its 20% Free Time Model, where employees are allowed to spend up to 20% of their free time each week working on their own projects and developing new products within the company. If the products are successful, the employee is allowed to ‘own’ the project and develop it further.
Suggesting to the Gen-Y’s in the room, “Make sure your first step is a good one, and make sure it is something that can allow you to become entrepreneurial or intrepreneural. It will give you the freedom and scope to do something that you really want to do while working for a company you want to work for.”
Entrepreneurship
The second part of the conference was on tapping into the entrepreneur within, two speakers with considerable experience provided their insights and learning to the primarily Gen-Y audience.
Entrepreneurship: a chair with four legs.
Clement Woo, 2007 National President Junior Chamber International, Hong Kong presented his view of what makes a successful and sustainable entrepreneur. Starting with giving a valuable piece of advice to anyone wishing to expand their entrepreneurial knowledge and network, “Grasp the opportunity to be committee members of any NGO or voluntary organisation. This will bring good managerial, entrepreneurial and leadership experience.”
Using his own experience as an example, he gave some key advice to any entrepreneur, “Stay focused, believe in what your interests are and your goals. There are a lot of distractions along the way, and when I look back I am glad I stuck to my goals, and made the right decisions.” He went on to suggest that when entrepreneurs act, it should not be just for themselves, but beneficial to the people around them including their family, colleagues and society in general. Sharing his thoughts on how to become a sustainable leader and entrepreneur, Woo used the four legs of a chair as a metaphor to represent the four key pillars that must be established to support sustainable leadership. The four key pillars are:
- Health: never think that your health is not an issue…you are lucky to have good health, do not take it for granted.
- Family and beliefs: everyone needs something or someone to rely on in the bad times, and to share their success with.
- Knowledge: in order to be successful in business, people must be a knowledgeable leader.
- Social responsibility: we all have the ability to help improve Hong Kong, and we should all have the courage to pick up the issues and help. A vast majority of people will benefit from what we do.
Woo added, “Most successful people excel at the first three legs, but to be truly successful, they should also focus on social responsibility.”
Blazing new trails
Chris Justice, Managing Director, Quamnet shared his experience as an entrepreneur. Starting out with an example of how climbing a sand dune is often extremely challenging, with forward progress being very slow. He said, “You have to be willing to take the challenges. Where it feels like you are taking two steps forward and one back, and that you’re climbing it alone, and blazing your own trail.” He went on to note that as an entrepreneur, you can never be alone, there must be people to work with, and you must be able to build a team.
Justice defined entrepreneurship as, “About having and applying a new enterprise, venture or idea.” He added, “An entrepreneur is someone who is willing to take risks in order to generate an outcome that they feel is important. You want to try to minimise the risk, while you maximise the outcome.”
From his definition, Justice highlighted three different kinds of entrepreneurs:
One time ‘Grand Slam’: entrepreneurs that have the right idea, at the right time, and in the right circumstance.
Serial: entrepreneurs who are opportunistic, talented, and creative leaders. They implement one business idea after another.
Experience-led: entrepreneurs who learn from others, and apply the learning in a new circumstance, or situation. Regarding experience-led entrepreneurship, Justice noted, “China is particularly good at this.” He went on to point out that the entrepreneurs in this category are not the first to come up with the idea, but they are the first to successfully adapt and apply the idea to a local culture.
After establishing what an entrepreneur was, and what type of entrepreneur they could be, Justice gave suggestions on how to gauge your own propensity to be an entrepreneur. According to Justice, entrepreneurs should:
- have knowledge;
- have valuable and unique experience;
- be excited about what they do;
- love what they do; and
- want to expand their horizons.
- Five key elements of entrepreneurship
- The idea: if you do not have a good idea, it is going to be hard to build a good business around it.
- Timing: if you have a good idea at the wrong time, it is not worth very much.
- Funding: if you do not have the funds to invest, you are not going to get very far.
- Team: you cannot do everything yourself. If you are not a good leader of people, you will be challenged as an entrepreneur. You need to attract and build a good team around you.
- Passion and commitment: you must have passion and commitment to be successful.
Justice concluded by sharing some personal lessons that had helped him both identify and foster entrepreneurship within his own organisation:
- Always look for opportunities
- Keep your mind open
- Learn from your experiences
- Follow your interests and passions
- Be quick and bold
- Always look at the timing, do not be too early
- Hire great people, and motivate them
- Know your strengths and weaknesses
- Take care of your relationships along the way
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
