What has intrapreneurship meant in the reality of the business environment? The area of greatest impact has been, of course, in human resources. Intrapreneurship has not just become a method for revitalizing business processes, but of also revitalizing jobs.
In GTE's Information Systems Division that has paid off for the company and its employees too. This program was actually developed by a former GTE employee, Anthony Spadafore, who left GTE to form his own consultancy program, Pathfinders, which works towards developing self-directed employees. Spadafore spent extensive counselling the volunteer employees in this new way of thinking and working. From the initial group eight new projects were proposed and a number of them funded. A number of employees have defined totally new career paths for themselves. This program has totally redefined how GTE does business.
3M is another company that has reaped the rewards of intrapreneurism. 3M has a standard policy that allows all employees to work on developing their own business ideas at least 15 percent of the time they are at work. One of the big breakthroughs that came from this program was the concept of Post-It-Notes which was pioneered by an employees that wanted something that wouldn't fall out to mark pages in his hymn book at church.
One of the most exciting concepts in intrapreneurism is developing intrapreneurial competing teams within a company. The organization can be organized around teams that function as small businesses nested and networked together. These teams can be focused on a product such as a new car, a process, such as public relation or a service, such as the secretarial services of the organization. What evolves is a free market system with work coordinated more effectively and responsibility distributed more widely.
