Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation

I first encountered this book while in an "intraprise" training session provided by the author (Gifford Pinchot) and his team of consultants for my corporate business unit. The practice sessions, business plan training, and creativity training was basic but I could tell a lot of our team (of 30 senior managers) had never encountered this type of thinking. That's when it dawned on me - what I've treated as "common sense" really wasn't so common after all.This book is rather short but it does provide a lot of practical theory on what I believe is a very basic concept - foster and SUPPORT creativity and innovation in the workplace. Let people build the proverbial "better mousetrap," in fact, be their biggest champion. It is only through creative, innovative, RADICAL thinking that we in the corporate world can ever hope to remain competitive. Unfortunately, most managers just don't get "it." It being the concept of investing time and money in people's creative ideas. The only down side to this book is that it really isn't an action plan. It speaks a lot about creating an environment of creativity and innovation but doesn't spell out the "how." It merely explains the importance and emphasizes the fact that you need to champion said efforts.If I had merely read the book and not gone through the training, I would have given this book 5 stars, based on the concept alone (which I STRONGLY support and implement). After receiving the training, I wondered how much practical experience the author really had. He appeared to struggle a LOT in the training and his sessions around creating a business plan were EXTREMELY lacking.Due to the brevity of this work and the fact that it is not common knowledge, I have recommended it to all of my staff as a baseline understanding of a concept to which I am firmly committed.

Gifford Pinchot and Ron Pellman describe a hands-on plan of action for moving from an idea's creation to its implementation in a company setting. They focus on the support an idea needs from an intrapreneur, who runs with the idea, whether he/she originated it or not. This individual is much like an executive producer who shepherds a film through the stages of development necessary for production. These stages include developing an intrapreneurial team to work on the project and getting sponsors throughout the organization to support it. Organizational leaders should act as "climate makers" to create a climate that supports innovation.This well-written, well-organized book combines some basic principles about what makes innovation work with examples of companies that have effectively developed new ideas. It provides guidelines for what to do. The basic principles of innovation may sound familiar to anyone already involved in idea creation and development. However, this handbook provides a useful guide or reminder summarizing these basic principles and showing how to put them to work in any organization.