Time for Courage? 3 ways you can bring your braver self to work
by Maggie De Pree
In the stories we tell, entrepreneurship and risk are inextricably linked. Entrepreneurs are brave souls who max out their credit cards and remortgage their homes all in pursuit of an idea the world thinks is bonkers. We tell and retell these stories — like that of FedEx CEO, Frederick Smith, who wagered his last $5,000 on blackjack to keep the company afloat — to celebrate the courage required of startup founders.
The field of social entrepreneurship takes the meaning of risk to an entirely new level. Skoll Foundation Awardee Sakena Jacoobi puts her life on the line working to empower women and girls in her native Afghanistan, and Cecilia Flores-Oebanda was imprisoned for her work combatting human trafficking in the Phillipines.
Set against this context, intrapreneurship — innovating for the public good from within incumbent institutions — looks pretty tame.* You’re not likely to lose your home or go to prison for being an intrapreneur. That said, the threats you face will be of a different, insidious kind. Navigating challenging, and fear-inducing, work terrains to bring about positive impact will require courage.
In her book Fear Less, Dr. Pippa Grange outlines the difference between two types of fear. The first is “in the moment” fear — worrying about physical harm to yourself or others. The second is “not good enough” fear. And, it is this second type of fear that presents itself on a regular basis in different shapes and forms in our companies and bureaucratic institutions.
It shows up when we don’t speak up for fear of being judged. Or when we go along for fear of ‘rocking the boat.’ It’s present when we don’t bring our full selves to work or keep good ideas or powerful questions to ourselves. And it’s behind the voice that says “stay in your lane,” or “that’s not your job” or “who am I to make a difference?” when you see a real world problem that needs solving.
But, in this moment of uncertainty about our planetary future, we cannot afford to accommodate these fears. We are at an inflection point that will require each of us to face our discomfort and step into our braver selves so we can put our companies and communities on new, regenerative paths.
As intrapreneurs, you are in the heart of the system where the inertia is greatest, but so too is the potential — the potential to harness supply chains, brands, finances, customers and human ingenuity in service of your moonshot mission. By moving through your fears, you can be a part of transforming our organizations for good.
So, what will it take?
Here are three ways we will be called to step into our courage at work.
Courage to Speak the Truth to Power
In today’s challenging economic climate, you can be sure that delivering an improvement in short-term financial performance and share price is at the top of your boss’s to-do list. If you work in the public sector, politicians will be laser focused on getting re-elected in the next cycle.
So, if you want your Leadership Team to invest in the things you care about — like equality and climate change — you may need to engage in some difficult conversations about organizational priorities with people above you in the corporate food chain.
An intrapreneur recently shared with me how he emailed his company’s CEO over frustration that his social impact project had been shut down. A potential career-ending move. But, while the project wasn’t reinstated, the intrapreneur was promoted to a more senior role where he now has influence over which social impact projects get funding.
And, remember, you don’t have to have these challenging conversations alone. There is strength in numbers. A group of 50 Amazon employees recently came together to pressure the company into doing more on climate change.
But do proceed with caution. Your views may not always be well received, as Timnit Gebru discovered at Google when she was fired, as she alleges, for urging the company to address inequity and racial bias in AI.
Courage to Take a Long-Term View
Intrapreneurs are often ahead of their time. You see the future so clearly while so many are stuck in today’s paradigm. In a society dominated by short-term thinking, it requires courage to advocate for the long term. But, if you can remain steadfast, the world will slowly catch up.
Think of intrapreneur Julian Weber, who led the electric vehicle program at BMW in the early 00’s. His was often a lone voice in a sea of others focused on growing markets for internal combustion engines. But, a decade on, it’s taken as a given that electric is the future of transport.
Or there’s the pioneering Danish team at Ørsted who saw the writing on the wall for fossil fuel energy. They made a big bet to transition their energy company from black to green and are now leading the wind energy revolution.
And, as always, continuing to push the boundaries on long-term thinking, Patagonia announced last week that its only shareholder is the earth. What would the world look like if the rest of us channeled this kind of courage?
Courage to Bring Love & Soul to Work
I am often struck by the war-like language that gets used to describe organizational cultures. The ‘back-stabbing’, ‘the armoring up’, ‘the covert operations to avoid detection’. These are certainly not domains for the faint of heart, let alone places that invite you to be vulnerable.
So, it is indeed a brave act to lead with love and compassion in traditional work environments. To bring your full self or soul to your day job and invite others to do the same.
Dr. Grange worked with the Richmond Tigers Australian Football team to do just this. She took them on a journey to move beyond transactions to relationships and soul. And the results were astounding. The team turned around its losing streak and won three consecutive League championships. She worked similarly with the England men’s football team to break the “penalty curse.”
In a podcast with Brené Brown, she shares: “…when [soul] shows up, then game on, everything is possible. …we can take so many more risks, we can go much closer to the edge of what we’re capable of, we can imagine in ways that we couldn’t possibly imagine before, when we can let soul in.”
So, if we want results. If we want to win. If we want to change the world. We cannot forget our humanity. It is by connecting with ourselves and others in authentic, trusted relationships that we will find the capacity to try new things, to break the mold and to reach for the stars.
What if I was just 5% more courageous?
You don’t have to start your courage journey by leaping off a cliff. You can build these muscles by taking small steps that instill confidence for the next.
Ask yourself: “What would it look like if I was just 5% more courageous at work?”
What conversation would you have, what meeting would you arrange, what action would you take? And what resources do you need to help you step into this braver version of yourself?
And, don’t confuse the invitation to be more brave, with the invitation to become a lone hero. Intrapreneurs don’t fly solo. Like wolves, intrapreneurs operate in packs. They foster a community of support and practice that helps them to take bold action. As a League Fellow recently shared, “Whenever I feel afraid, I imagine the collective hands of the League on my back. I channel this energy to find my courage.”
And as Maya Mehta, Intrapreneur at BNP Paribas and founder of Putting the Soul Back into Business, shared with our community recently, “Remember, the great, mighty oak is just a small nut who stood her ground.”
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#GIW2022 will gather virtually as well as dedicated in-person events across the globe. Join the movement: intrapreneurweek.net
- Intrapreneur, n. 1. An employee who harnesses the assets of their organization to solve real world problems that need solving, e.g. the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 2. An entrepreneur on the inside.
About the Author
Maggie De Pree is a co-founder of The League of Intrapreneurs, a global learning community for social ‘intrapreneurs’ — people working for a better world from inside our incumbent institutions — influential corporates, governments and NGOs. She has spent over a decade harnessing the innovation potential of business to address issues ranging from climate change to healthcare and has worked with companies such as GSK, BMW, Nike, Barclays, Shell, BP and SC Johnson. She regularly speaks and writes on the topic of sustainable innovation and intrapreneurship and is the co-author of The Intrapreneur’s Guide to Pathfinding and The Social Intrapreneur: A Field Guide for Corporate Changemakers. She is a recipient of the Grant Thornton 100 Faces of a Vibrant Economy Award.
Maggie is a native Oregonian who has spent the past 15 years in the UK developing an appreciation for milky tea, cricket and cold-water swimming. She is a passionate advocate for girls’ sport and is a trained soccer (aka football) and cricket coach.
