I have met many MDs or CEOs who think that their company was customer-centric. I’ve been preached to time and time again about how “we know what products and services our customers like and we even know what they want us to improve upon”. It’s at this point I usually smile and politely respond; “I rest my case. Haven’t you’ve just told me all about your ‘stuff’ and nothing about your customer?” At this point the realisation that there’s a lack of something I call ‘organisational self-awareness’ usually kicks in. They realise that it’s not good enough to ask customer’s occasional questions but a necessity is to engage in constant dialogue in order to have a ‘relationship’ with them.

I’d like to issue a challenge to HR practitioners; actively start encouraging ‘intrapreneurship’. There’s no suggestion here that this isn’t already being done but if you’re not, please start and if you are, please turn up the volume! It’s a term which we all know is being used more and more, but with good reason. Frequently where we find intrapreneurship, we find innovation and that is something every organisation public, or private should be focusing on, but how?