Here's the funny thing.
Most executives who I talk to,
they're worried about how will I assign the
right people to the entrepreneurial projects.
And I think that's so quaint
that executives think that they're in
charge of who gets assigned to what.
I find that hilarious.
Because you were all middle managers once,
you know.
The art to being assigned to the correct project
is something that middle managers study assiduously.
And the idea is to make sure that the
boss feels like it was their idea.
But
if you can't be assigned to the right project,
you're not a very good middle manager.
You're not going far.
The same is true for entrepreneurs inside the organization.
We don't have to worry about it.
We just have to let people know that this
new thing is available and they will find us.
So I'll give you an example.
I was once
asked to do a lecture like this for up and
coming finance leaders in a corporation.
A hundred of two hundred of them.
And I explained at Lean Startup and all this stuff how it works.
And one of the finance people said,
how would you compensate people
if
they're doing entrepreneurial type work?
I said,
listen,
you probably won't want to do this,
but
here's how we do it in Silicon Valley.
You get paid less guaranteed compensation,
but you get a stake in the outcome.
You have upside if it works.
So why don't you give people the option to choose if they'd like
to be removed from the corporate bonus plan and take a lower salary
in exchange for which they can get,
they can be paid more if the project is a huge success.
And I thought that people were going to
throw tomatoes at me in this audience.
They were like,
you're trying to lower my salary?
Take me out of the corporate bonus plan?
Like get the hell out of here.
It was very rude response.
But after the lecture was over,
like maybe 10 of the people in the
audience came up to me after and they said,
that thing you were talking about with the bonet,
is that available in this company?
Could I sign up for that?
And they didn't want to ask the question in front of everybody,
but they were happy to ask me privately.
And like,
I got the question over and over again.
Certain people are like, yeah,
wait a minute.
Like,
how many times have you been pitched something
from corporate strategy or one of these functions?
Someone's like,
this is going to make the company an extra billion dollars one day.
Like if you,
and you're like,
do you really believe that?
Are you really,
are you really content to help the company make a billion dollars,
but you personally just get paid your salary?
See,
to me, it's like a BS detector, if I can say so.
Oh, you think, like great.
You think the company's going to make a billion dollars?
Like,
would you be happy to be paid a percentage of that when it happens?
Most people will say no,
but some people will say yes.
Who would you rather have working on that project?
Someone who believes or someone who doesn't.
So that's,
that's really how it works.
And I can,
you know,
obviously every company is different.
So the mechanics that we put in place for the training programs,
the coaching program is usually required.
The way that executives do the assignment,
like there's a lot of art to it.
So I feel like I'm skipping over a lot of detail.
But the fundamental fact is these people exist in
your organization already and they will find you.
Just shoot up the signal flare.
That's all you have to do.