Building support is important when you are bringing change to the organization. Employees bold enough to be intrepreneurs must recognize the challenge they are taking on from the organizational frame. Organizations have great momentum and are, in most cases, inherently resilient to change. This places a great strain on an innovative employee with an interesting idea because s/he is tasked not only with implementing the idea but also with communicating it to key decision-makers to gain approval.
Key Stakeholders
Intrapreneurs need to know who the key stakeholders are and how to capture their attention. For starters, upper management is often where the decision-making power lies. Having access to upper management, and understanding the strategic motivations behind their decisions, plays an integral role in building top-down support organizationally. Customers are also key stakeholders because their needs are the primary determinant of organizational trajectory. Recognizing what customers want and learning how to give it to them more effectively are integral to successful intrapreneurship.
One useful way to integrate stakeholders and speak the language of upper management is to numerically demonstrate that a new idea is financially and strategically feasible. A net present value (NPV) analysis factors in the total time it will take to initiate a new project, along with costs incurred and value generated over a given timeframe. This enables intrapreneurs a tool to communicate, in today's dollars, how much a given new venture will cost compared with how much it will bring in (i.e., a profit margin).
Being a Change Agent
A change agent
Marissa Mayer was recruited from Google to be the Yahoo CEO so she could set and execute the strategy that might turn the company around.
Change agents know how to get people in an organization involved in solving their own problems. A change agent's main strength is a comprehensive knowledge of human behavior supported by a number of intervention techniques. Understanding not only how to innovate but also how to operate as a catalyst for change is a useful characteristic for aspiring intrapreneurs. Building support is largely a social and behavioral challenge, and change agents understand how to communicate why a proposed change is important and how it is attainable.