Rebel Intrapreneur

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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Book: From purpose to profit: How to avoid costly mistakes, build a self-selling brand, & achieve effortless business profitability

096 Erin Andrea Craske Why you shouldn’t be a rebel intrapreneur

Bill Cushard — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 20:50:35 GMT

The one question we have not explored on this podcast, for obvious reasons, is whether one should be a rebel intrapreneur in the first place? Maybe we shouldn’t. Erin Andrea Craske makes the case that pursuing a rebel intrapreneurial career is a recipe for stress and disillusionment.

In one part of our conversation, Erin talks about three types of people at work. Those who:

Blend in.
Do their best, even though they don’t really accept or believe what is going on in the organization. Those people eventually burn out.
Disagree and quit.

None of these are rebel intrapreneurs.

So, does this mean we should not pursue intrapreneurship? That is what we discuss.

Prepare to be challenged.

More about Erin Andrea Craske:

Erin’s Linktree

Her website

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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The Secrets of Product Management Podcast

095 Nils Davis Your resume should show how amazing you are

Bill Cushard — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:46:57 GMT

Rebel Intrapreneurs use the Strategyzer Business Model Canvas FigJam template to turn possibilities into plans. Learn about the business model canvas FigJam template here and Try FigJam for free: https://psxid.figma.com/d8auy7

In one Linkedin post, Nils Davis showed me how my resume (all of ours) should tell the story I want the hiring manager to know. Primarily that I am the role they are looking for.

Let’s face it, we have 6-10 seconds to get the hiring manager to know we are the one for them.

How?

Redesign our summary section.

Nils suggests the following format:

I am a …
I have …
I have a reputation for …

This seems one heck of a lot better than a summary section with a bullet point list of skills.

Rebel Intrapreneurs are good at positioning themselves in their areas of expertise and selling themselves and their ideas. Nils and I discuss the importance of treating our resume as a sales letter.

More about Nils Davis:

His Linkedin post that we talked about

Nils Davis on Linkedin

The Perfect PM Resume

His Book: The Secret Product Manager Handbook

Today’s episode is brought to you by Figma. Two important tools of the Rebel Intrapreneur are the business model canvas and the value proposition canvas. Figma has templates for both, so you can design your innovation projects fast. I used the value proposition canvas template to design the listener profile and value map for this show. Try Figma for free.

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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094 Gus Bessalel Should you work for a startup?

Bill Cushard — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 21:36:20 GMT

People join startups thinking they will strike it rich, but successful startup opportunities like this are the exception, not the rule. As Gus Bessalel, author of “The Startup Lottery: Your Guide to Navigating Risk and Reward,” tells me on Rebel Intrapreneur, “Don’t go into a startup, thinking you’re going to become an instant millionaire. You go into startups because of all of the experiences that you gain from being in that environment.”

Startups are intense. And it takes a certain personality type and risk profile to make the experience of working at a startup worthwhile.

Bessalel wrote The Startup Lottery to help Rebel Intrapreneurs like us evaluate start up opportunities. The evaluation has essentially three parts:

A self evaluation: Should I work for a startup?

A financial evaluation: What will it take for my equity to pay off?

A progress evaluation: Should I stay or have this startup?

A Rebel Intrapreneur should put all of these parts together before deciding on joining any startup. Bessalel’s book will help us do that.

I learned a lot from reading The Startup Lottery and my conversation with Gus. I hope you find it useful.

More about Gus Bessalel:

Gus Bessalel’s book, The Startup Lottery: Your Guide to Navigating Risk and Reward

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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Spotify
Audible

093 Robyn Bolton People decide with their hearts and justify with their heads

Bill Cushard — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 22:12:40 GMT

I admit that I do not have a codified set of core beliefs, values, principles, or whatever else you want to call them. I know that I should have them, but I don’t. It’s something I’ve procrastinated. Successful people I know have told me that they procrastinated it too, but when they finally put in the work to write out their core beliefs, everything changed for the better.

So when I had the opportunity to talk to Robyn Bolton, founder & chief navigator at MileZero, about innovation, I wanted to spend time talking about her 5 core beliefs because her short list says a ton about how she views innovation and how she helps her clients do great things.

Robyn Bolton’s 5 core beliefs:

Innovation is something different that creates value.
Innovation requires curiosity, courage, and commitment.
Any organization can innovate, and any person can be an innovator.
People (even your customers and your boss) decide with their hearts and justify with their heads.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Decisions are priceless. Action is perfection.

To me, this list tells me much of what I need to know about Robyn and her innovation approach.

The lesson here for Rebel Intrapreneurs (and me personally) is this: written core beliefs clarify what we think about a topic and how we approach it. All of us should write down our core beliefs.

More about Robyn Bolton:

Robyn’s 5 Core Beliefs

Her company, MileZero

Robyn’s Innovation Assessment

The Adobe Kickbox story blog

On X

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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Her book: An Insider’s Perspective on the Chief of Staff: Why You Need One and How to Be a Great One

092 Emily Sander The Chief of Staff is the plastic rings on the six pack

Bill Cushard — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:42:14 GMT

When most of us hear “Chief of Staff,” we think of the president’s chief of staff. We think of that role as a government (or public sector) role. That might have been true in the olden days, but the chief of staff has been growing in the private sector, especially in tech companies.

As I am writing this, I searched job listings on Linkedin and found 626 openings for chiefs of staff.

I don’t know about you, but it’s blowing my mind.

It looks like a perfect role for rebel intrapreneurs who want to make an outsized contribution to an organization. I think to myself, “Where has this role been my whole life?”

I had to learn more.

Then I discovered Emily Sander. She has been a chief of staff. She coaches chiefs of staff. And she wrote the book on chiefs of staff.

After reading Emily’s book and talking to her, I am coming to believe that the chief of staff role is made for Rebel Intrapreneurs like us.

After you listen to this conversation, I wonder if you agree.

More about Emily Sander:

Her company: Next Level Coaching

Her podcast: Leveraging Leadership

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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Lori speaking engagements

091 Lori Sussle Bonanni is a non-traditional publicist

Bill Cushard — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 12:34:09 GMT

Anytime someone comes to us at the Rebel Intrapreneur podcast using the term non-traditional, our ears stand up. Our guest today is no different.

Lori Sussle Bonanni is the founder of elssus, a multi-disciplinary communications consultancy. She is also a self-described non-traditional publicist. She helps her clients go beyond press releases about announcements and launches and helps them communicate with their ideal customers in a more sustainable way.

In this episode we talked about:

Lori’s rebel intrapreneur career journey in communications
The career transitions she made across multiple disciplines and how she did it
Starting her own company
Lesson about sustaining communications to our markets and ideal customers beyond our launches and announcements

And no…it is not OK to find a press release template from a Google search, alter the company name and middle paragraph, and then send it out.

That’s not gonna work.

More about Lori Sussle Bonanni:

Her company, elssus

Lori on Linkedin

Lori’s Ask Me Anything sessions

Need a plan but can execute on your own? Lori has you covered

Lori’s Funding Announcement services
Lori can ghostwrite for you

All of elssus services

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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090 Team Anywhere: The Atlassian approach to distributed work

Bill Cushard — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 21:38:06 GMT

Atlassian just released a report based on over three years of its official location policy that says employees can choose where they work. They call it Team Anywhere. Atlassians, as people who work at Atlassian are known, have been able to choose to work from home, in one of their 12 global offices, a mix of both, or somewhere else entirely (within some stated parameters).

This report documents Atlassian’s experience, results, and a copy of its location policy.

In this episode, I share four main takeaways that Rebel Intrapreneurs can use to influence the cultures in their organizations.

Takeaway #1: The RTO crowd is analog native. The distributed crowd is digital native

Borrowing a concept from Christopher Lochhead, analog natives and digital natives have a fundamental difference in worldview. Analog natives want people to come back to the office because in-person means in the office. Digital natives don’t want to come back to the office because in person means any means by which people communicate with each other; online or off.

The best example of this tension is manifested in a corporate video released by a company called Internet Brands, which is the parent company of WebMD. It is a video of the analog natives communicating with the digital natives and the conflict that has yet to be resolved.

Time will tell.

Takeaway #2: As Atlassian says, teams are already distributed

Let’s face it, many companies and teams are already distributed and have been for a long time. Companies like Accenture have largely been distributed for decades and have grown to multi-billion businesses. So the question is not, where do we get our best work done, but HOW!

Companies that prioritize where are fighting an inevitable wave washing distributed work architectures onto the beach.

Takeaway #3: We should also admit that it’s easier to be distributed when our product is digital

It is difficult to work remotely when a company has factories and inventory and physical products and warehouses and retail stories. You cannot make or serve coffee remotely.

So let’s admit: For some types of businesses, distributed work works. For others it does not.

Of course that does not mean digital product companies automatically choose remote work. Notion, which makes collaboration software, hires people (On-Site) and makes this clear in their job postings. Atlassian, which makes similar software, has distributed location policy.

Different strokes for different folks.

Takeaway #4: Rebel Intrapreneurs can use this report to both influence their company culture and to evaluate new work opportunities

How can a rebel intrapreneur use this report? I think of this in two ways:

As a leader running teams and culture (distributed or centralized); AND
As a high performing employee seeking places to work.

As a leader running teams

Whether you work in a distributed workplace already or want to make the case for being more distributed, understanding the data in this report can help you 1) make your case for a distributed work culture; and 2) design a work culture that improves performance and engagement.

As a rebel intrapreneur seeking a new opportunity

You can use this report, combined with your personal preferences, to analyze opportunities asking questions about flexibility, work culture, location policy, focus on where versus how work gets done, and how the company and the hiring manager operates its work culture. Rebel Intrapreneurs should look for contrasts between written company policies and what hiring managers say.

A fundamental principle of the Rebel Intrapreneur is to further the mission of the organization. Finding a culture and mission to further is critical to our success. Use this Atlassian report to ask questions and find the fit for you.

Resources and more about 1,000 Days of Distributed at Atlassian:

Atlassian Report: 1,000 Days of Distributed at Atlassian
Annie Dean’s post on Linkedin
Annie Dean on Linkedin
Annie Dean on X
The Internet Brand’s (Parent company of WebMD) Return to Office (RTO) video

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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The Customer-Led Manifesto

089 Jeff Ernst The Customer-Led Growth Manifesto

Bill Cushard — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 17:31:32 GMT

Buyers don’t trust us. They tell us that every day when they do research on their own, delay speaking with vendors as long as possible, and make up their minds when they finally talk to us.

Traditional sales and marketing is not solving this problem. It might be causing it.

So what are rebel intrapreneurs to do?

Learn customer marketing and customer-led growth.

Jeff Ernst, co-founder and CEO of SlapFive, has an ethos:

Anything that a company can do with its sales, marketing, and customer success people, customers can do better; with more authority, more trustworthiness, more authenticity, and more believability.

When I heard that all I could say was, “How is that possible?”

It’s the trust gap between buyers and sellers. Buyers want to hear from our customers. The real stories. Not the standard hero’s journey which makes the vendor the hero. Cringe.

Jeff Ernt started SlapFive and wrote the customer-led manifesto to close this gap and bring buyers and sellers together.

More about Jeff Ernst:

Jeff’s company: SlapFive

Jeff on Linkedin

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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088 Tools of the Rebel Intrapreneur

Bill Cushard — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 13:38:04 GMT

As I was doing some research around career planning tools, I came across this article from Indeed called, 7 Tools to Plan Your Career the Right Way. The article lists 7 useful tools:

SWOT Analysis
Career testing
Self-assessment
Research
Community resources
Personality tests
Career planning process

Not bad. Not great either. I look at this list and find myself asking, “How is this list useful?” I do a SWOT Analysis on myself. Then what?

I think of career tools a bit differently. Tools that are useful, specific to my needs, and appropriate for the right stage in my career.

Most careers progress through four stages.

Phase 1: Landing a job

Phase 2: Progressing in a job

Phase 3: Getting promoted

Phase 4: Transitioning to new career or function

We could add a fifth phase for people who start their own business, but those people then become entrepreneurs and have no further need for Rebel Intrapreneur. So we will leave that phase out.

In each of the above four phases, there is some level of career planning and execution that occurs with varying degrees. Some planning is deliberate, intentional, and in-depth. Some planning is a lot more spontaneous and opportunistic.

Both work.

The main point I want to make is that at each stage of our careers, we have different decisions to make and these decisions require different levels of thinking.

Let me show you what I mean. Here is a list of tools that I think is useful:

Business Model Canvas
90-day plan
Goal setting framework
Cadence system
Leadership style
Decision-making framework
Personal productivity system
Customer value / research tool

Each of the tools are useful in the context of a specific need and career stage. Some are useful in multiple career stages. For example, for starting anything new, one should use the business model canvas and the 90-day plan. For progressing in a current role, a goal setting framework, cadence system, and personal productivity system are necessary.

Just two examples.

The point is that you need a tool for the job, so you are always ready.

Let’s go through each of these tools in summary, so you can figure out what tools you need to learn.

Business model canvas

Instead of doing a generic SWOT analysis, a business model canvas is a specific way to design a career (or a new program, product, or project at work) because it considers what you do, the value you deliver, who it's for, and how you deliver that value. It is also useful in re-designing a career. I have used it to both redesign my career and make career transitions. It is quite useful. In fact, I think it’s a required tool for Rebel Intrapreneurs in all four stages of a career.

90-day plan

Everyone needs a 90-day plan template. Period. For starting a new job. New project. New anything. We need a way to plan out the first 90 days of any new endeavor. Why? Two reasons: 1) to think through the first 90 days and provide clarity for ourselves on what we should do; and 2) establish the quick wins we need to deliver in those critical first 90 days. Go find a 90-day plan template. Deb Liu, CEO of Ancestry has a good one on her Substack newsletter, Perspectives. The popular book, The First 90 Days (affiliate link, if you’d like to support the show). I found The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan (affiliate link) more useful. Search for “90-Day Plan template” and find one that you like.

Goal setting framework

Don’t take this for granted. Find, learn, and use a goal setting framework that works for you. There are many. Get one. Even if you have to use the goal setting process that your company uses, if you use the one you are most comfortable with, you will be more confident in your goals and it will certainly help you use the process at work.

Cadence system

This is especially important for rebel intrapreneurs who lead teams. A cadence system is a way of setting up a team on an operating system of predictable and scheduled ceremonies. To over simplify this, a cadence system would define what team events to do and when to do them. Publicly traded companies have this built into the business because every quarter, earnings reports must be delivered. So everything in the company needs to occur at specific intervals in order to deliver on the earning reports. Cadence systems could be SCRUM, EOS Traction, or David Sack’s process. Figure this one out. It might be the most under-valued tool and skill you can develop to level up your executive presence and effectiveness.

Leadership style

Rebel intrapreneurs need to be able to answer the question, “What is your leadership style?” And your answer cannot be vague (not that I’ve ever had a vague, meaningless answer). Your leadership style needs to be specific and describe the way you lead (people, teams, projects, etc). Your ability to articulate your leadership style establishes credibility and instills confidence in others. There are many leadership frameworks. Find one. Pick one. Make it your own.

Decision-making framework

Rebel intrapreneurs need a tool for how we evaluate questions, options, and opportunities, so that when something comes up, we can lead ourselves and our teams through a decision making process. Above all, using a decision-making tool demonstrates to others that we know what we are doing, even when we don’t. Of course, there are limitless ways to make decisions; Cost/Benefit analysis, OODA loop, principles, Vroom-Yetton decision-making model (yes, that’s a real thing), etc. Find one that works for you.

Personal Productivity System

No matter what tools and processes exist at your company, rebel intrapreneurs need to have a personal productivity system. One that grounds them, keeps them organized, focused on priorities, and doesn’t let things fall through the cracks. This is not about software. This is about having a system (as simple or complex as necessary) to make sure you stay on track. A productivity system could be as simple as just putting everything you need to do on your calendar or just making a to do list every day. OR it could be implementing David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) or Brian Tracy’s Eat that Frog. Search on YouTube for “personal productivity system” and see what happens. Whatever. Find one that works for you.

Customer value / research tool

You need a way to find out what customers actually want, what they value, and what they need, so you can figure out what product or service they are willing to pay for. There are many tools that do this. OR you can use the simple processes of just plain talking to as many customers/prospects/people as you can to figure this out. Either way, when the question comes up, “What should we work on next?” OR “What else do our customers need?” OR “Why aren’t our customers buying this or that?” You have an answer. Some examples, Customer Value Mapper, from Dave Martin (Ep 70) and Andrea Saez (Ep 74), the Value Proposition Canvas, the Customer-led Growth Framework Claire Sullentrop (Ep 56), the Value Creation Matrix from Grant Hunter (Ep 50). And this is a shirt list.

I don’t claim this to be a complete list, but I do claim this to be an essential list. Add these to your quiver.

It’s possible you already use some of these tools. To acquire the rest, just start with one and build up to this entire list over time. It’s better to learn one of these well, internalize it, and make it a habit, before moving on to the next one.

What other tools do you use? What did I miss?

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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ESG, Customer Success as a Service

087 Colby Bock Customer: “I want to cancel, but I can’t.”

Bill Cushard — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 22:32:17 GMT

Colby Bock, director of customer success program delivery at ESG, takes customer feedback seriously. He tells a story about how he’d brag to customers that he reads every survey response. All of them. One customer decided to test Colby and wrote in the survey comments, “Hey Colby. If you’re reading this, tell me what the weather is like in Colorado.”

When Colby read this, he got a colleague to go outside with him and take a picture with the mountains in the background and emailed it to the customer.

Colby goes on to say that this customer was so impressed with this action, that he [the customer] told that story at every user conference for the next 3 years.

When I say, Colby takes customer surveys seriously, I mean it.

More about Colby Bock:

Colby Bock on Linkedin

The NPS Debate hosted by TheySaid

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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086 Topsy Kola-Oyeneyin became general manager of Nigeria’s oldest bank at age 28

Bill Cushard — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 15:23:46 GMT

I’ll let you in on a little secret. One way I find guests for Rebel Intrapreneur is by searching on Amazon for books that are scheduled to be published in the next 30-60-90 days. I figure most authors want to promote their book at launch time and are very willing to get on a podcast to do so.

When I found Topsy Kola-Oyeneyin’s book, Unleash: The Blueprint for a Life that attracts Uncommon Opportunities, it wasn’t just the book that caught my eye, but the phrase from the book description, “You are not too young. At the age of twenty-eight, I became a General Manager in Nigeria’s oldest Bank — a role typically occupied by people in their fifties.”

The weight of that sentence would stop a team of oxen in its tracks.

It stopped me in mine.

General Manager?

Nigeria’s oldest bank?

Age 28?

How did she do that?

This episode is about that question, how did she do that?

Spoiler alert.

The answer to that question is largely in her book.

Topsy Kola-Oyeneyin is a self-described intrapreneur and a partner at McKinsey & Company where she is the inaugural co-lead of the payments practice for Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

More about Topsy Kola-Oyeneyin:

Book: Unleash: The Blueprint for a Life That Attracts Uncommon Opportunities (affiliate link, if you’d like to support my work)

Topsy’s website: TKO Insights

At McKinsey & Company

On X

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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085 Howard Head: When the floor needed sweeping, I swept it

Bill Cushard — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 14:19:42 GMT

In episode 77, I go on a little rant about how being tactical gets a bad rap. Tactical work is often devalued in favor of this so-called, high value strategic thinking. Of course strategy is critical, but it’s only 5% of the work. The other 95% is executing the tactical actions necessary to make the strategy happen.

As I continue to read Intrapreneuring: Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur (affiliate link, if you’d like to support my work) by Gifford Pinchot, I came across this passage with the heading, Pursuing the Pleasures of Mundane Work, which makes the point about tactical work beautifully:

From the book section, Pursuing the Pleasures of Mundane Work:

[Intrapreneurs] don’t have standards about what sorts of work are beneath them. They do the mundane work that is part of every new project. As entrepreneur Howard Head of Head Ski Company described the start up situation, “When the floor needed sweeping, I swept it. When the sales force needs a rousing speech, I gave it. I did whatever needed to be done.”
To only a slightly lesser degree, that is the lot of the intrapreneur.
Instead of thinking up ways to make their [intrapreneurs] services to the company into profit centers, and then wishing it could happen, intrapreneurs print brochures and solicit new customers.
This tendency to prefer hands-on work gets the job done and helps intrapreneurs stay quite literally in touch with all aspects of their intraprise.

When an entrepreneur starts their venture they do everything because they have to. As their venture grows, they must hire and delegate, but their tendency is still to “sweep the floor.”

Most traditional managers and individual contributors stick to their job description with the attitude, “That’s not my job.”

But Intrapreneurs are floor sweepers, though to a “lesser degree” than entrepreneurs. Intrapreneurs roll up their sleeves and do the work.

Traditional managers and individual contributors consider sweeping the floor low value work and won’t do it.

Low value work?

If no one sweeps the floor or takes out the trash, after a few days, employees don’t want to come to work and customers no longer want to come into the store. Even if I am exaggerating, the point is still true.

And you think sweeping the floor is low value work?

Sweeping the floor is a metaphor for work that needs doing.

I personally hate it (a pet peeve of mine) when people express the attitude that something isn’t their job.

My attitude is, “I’ll do it.”

Rebel intrapreneurs don’t judge levels of work. We do whatever work is necessary to further the mission.

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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084 Katrin Zimmermann on innovation and the future intelligent organization

Bill Cushard — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 13:10:37 GMT

Katrin Zimmerman, Managing Director of TLGG USA, isn’t just an innovation expert that advises clients on digital transformation and innovation. She was an operator who co-founded and led the Lufthansa Innovation Hub, which by the way was named the best digital lab by Capital Magazine in 2017 and 2018.

Who better to talk to us rebel intrapreneurs about how we can lead innovation efforts in our organizations?

We talked about:

Her experience co-founding and leading the Lufthansa Innovation Hub
How she leverages her experience helping clients build innovation functions
Innovation risk tolerances, time horizons, return expectations, and
The future of the intelligent organization
How to build an innovation team
An under-appreciated skills all rebel intrapreneurs should develop

More about Katrin Zimmerman:

Company: TLGG USA

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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083 The CEO who screens for giving a sh*t

Bill Cushard — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 14:06:08 GMT

I did an episode (Ep 36) about giving a damn about one’s work, in which I reacted to a Pascal Finette newsletter article called Give a Damn in his The Heretic newsletter, which I like. This article resonated with me because giving a damn is what rebel intrapreneurs do.

You know this. Rebel intrapreneurs want to further the missions of the organizations we serve. Yes, we also want to challenge/push/improve the system from within (the rebel part), but we do that in service of the mission.

Giving a damn.

So, rebel intrapreneurs, it is our responsibility to give a damn.

We chose to give a damn. With actions. And words. Both. Not faking it. Actually giving a damn.

So that’s our job as rebel intrapreneurs.

What about the other side of the coin? Entrepreneurs, founders, executives, hiring managers, etc. What’s their job? Their job is to hire people who give a shit.

There is a yin yang relationship going on here.

Intrapreneurs who give a damn and entrepreneurs who hire people who give a shit.

Hiring people who give a shit is not my phrase. I just learned about it from Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO of Scale.ai. He wrote a newsletter article back in November 2020 called “Hire people who give a shit. A simple formula for success.“

Alexandr makes two main points:

First:

“Over time interviewing, I’ve found that I mainly screen for one key thing: giving a shit. To be more specific, there’s actually two things to screen for:

they give a shit about Scale, and
they give a shit about their work in general.

The first is critical, and will only become more important as time goes on. There is no future if we hire people who do not identify with our mission, our product, and our problem. We will become an undifferentiated crowd of uninspired people who will not have a shot at creating a generational company. While it is not guaranteed that someone who gives shit will do great work, it is guaranteed that they will not do good work if they do not give a shit.”

Second:

The second (giving a shit about work in general) is equally important. It’s possible to fake fervor in the course of an interview and say the right things to convince us of enthusiasm for Scale, but the proof is in the pudding. If someone is applying to Scale and has never been deeply obsessed about something before, then it’s a bad bet to think Scale will be the first. I have a particular line of questioning around this…

He has a list of interview questions for figuring out whether people give a shit about their work in general, which I won’t list here. If you want those questions, please go subscribe to Alexandr’s newsletter.

The point I want to make is that there is a way that entrepreneurs can find and hire rebel intrapreneurs by screening for people who give a shit.

Links in the show:

My episode 36 about Pascale Finette newsletter (The Heretic) about giving a damn

Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO of Scale.ai, wrote a Substack newsletter article back in November 2020. Hire people who give a shit.

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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082 Steve Cross Why aren’t partners part of your GTM strategy?

Bill Cushard — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 13:24:26 GMT

Atlassian is an exceptionally successful enterprise software company, currently valued at $50 billion. When you look into why Atlassian has been so successful, one thing you will find is scores of articles that talk about how Atlassian had no sales team even well after its IPO.

While this is technically true, Atlassian did have a gigantic sales force all over the world in the form of resellers, services, and technology partners. Also known as, channel partners.

Steve Cross was one of the first partner managers at Atlassian, who managed a large territory of partners for Atlassian. He documents his experience at Atlassian and his entire career in channel sales in his new book called “Managing SaaS Partnerships.”

We talk to Steve about his career in channel management and why it’s so important to company growth.

More about Steve Cross:

His book, Managing SaaS Partnerships (affiliate link, if you’d like to support the show)

Steve Cross on Linkedin

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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081 Sorry BambooHR - Rebel intrapreneurs do not accept The Great Gloom

Bill Cushard — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 14:45:23 GMT

Jason Lemkin posted about BambooHR's survey, saying employee happiness is at a three-year low. BambooHR even called it, “The Great Gloom.” The Great Gloom? Thanks for the pep talk, sunshine. Is it really that bad, or just a tiny dip in a bigger upward trend? And seriously, what even is employee happiness, and does it really matter for a company's performance? I mean, people don't quit their jobs the minute they're unhappy, right? On the other hand, layoffs, stress, and pressure from higher-ups can certainly lead to anxiety and all that.

So, I dug a bit deeper. Checked out a few reports—BambooHR, Gallup, and the Conference Board. Turns out, they all tell slightly different stories about 2023. A mixed bag.

Now, here's the real question for rebel intrapreneurs: What can we do with this info?

I ask that question because I don’t accept The Great Gloom. I know that Rebel Intrapreneurs have enough agency in our spheres of influence that we can make a difference.

Cracking the Employee Engagement Code with Agency

First off, Quantum Workplace developed a cool model with six key drivers of employee engagement.

These are:

The leaders of their organization are committed to making it a great place to work.
Trust in the leaders of the organization to set the right course.
The belief that the organization will be successful in the future.
Understanding of how I fit into the organization’s future plans.
The leaders of the organization value people as their most important resource.
The organization makes investments to make employees more successful.

And they can be boiled down into two categories: "I trust leadership" and "Leadership cares about me." Nice and simple.

Let’s look at each and how Rebel Intrapreneurs can use them to maximize employee engagement.

My belief in leadership

Three of the drivers of employee engagement are about whether, and to what degree, employees believe in leadership’s ability to “steer the ship” successfully. In the context of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, people want to know they have a place to live and pay their bills and have a base level of safety and security. If leaders understand and respect these needs, then leaders also know that part of addressing those needs is to persuade people to believe that the organization will be successful.

Knowing this, let’s look at three of the key drivers of employee engagement together:

The leaders of their organization are committed to making it a great place to work.
Trust in the leaders of the organization to set the right course.
Belief that the organization will be successful in the future.

Notice how these drivers are about employee expectations for how the leadership team should act. People want to believe in the mission and the ability of leadership to make progress towards that mission. Pay attention rebel Intrapreneurs, this is on us. We must go beyond the superficial employee engagement tropes, and be conscious of how we instill confidence in our people that we know what we are doing, even when we don’t have all the answers.

OK, so how?

Quantum Workplace did some research on best practices for improving employee engagement that leadership teams should put into practice. These are:

Inspire committed and aligned leaders
Prioritize regular communications with employees

Let’s talk about each

First: Inspire committed and aligned leaders

It all starts with leadership. Of course that means the leadership / Exec team. But we rebel intrapreneurs can lead by example too. When you want to implement or communicate anything throughout your organization, we have to involve other leaders. We cannot skip layers of people. Going through managers is how we scale anything in our organizations. You must prioritize communications with managers by communicating with them first.

If you want to inspire committed and aligned leaders, you must show your managers respect and say to them, “You are important to this organization and we value your participation, which is why we are telling you first.” You want to give managers the opportunity to seek clarity about “why” this message or decision or program or initiative is happening. Managers must understand “why” so they can communicate most effectively with their teams. Give managers the opportunity to ask why, and to ask follow up questions, until they are “committed and aligned.”

The next thing to do with managers is to seek their input and hear them out about challenges and possible changes to the message, decision, or program. You might make changes with their input. If you don’t make changes, you can reiterate the “why,” which helps managers understand the reasoning so that if they don’t agree with the decision, they know why the decision was made and they have the tools to communicate with their teams.

When you do this, managers will have what they need to carry out cascading messages to their teams.

Prioritizing and involving managers is how you scale messages, decisions, and programs throughout your organization.

Even though I use the term manager, rebel intrapreneurs can apply this to any leader on the team. High performing individual contributors and other influential people. Include them first. Get them onboard. Make them feel included and heard. Give them a chance to question things. So they can process the information and get on board.

If you go from decision to announcing, you skip this vital step and risk your announcement falling flat, being ignored, or even downright sabotaged.

So, inspire committed and aligned leaders.

The next one is:

Prioritize regular communications with employees

Once you have inspired committed and aligned leaders by prioritizing your managers, you must still ensure there is a culture of consistent and ongoing communications with employees. Quantum Workplace suggests many ideas for how to do this, but the overall point is to use all communications channels at your disposal and do so frequently.

Although you should communicate with managers first and empower them to cascade communications to their teams, your communications job has just begun. Employees should see the c-suite communicate frequently across the entire organization, not to replace or override what the managers are communicating, but to support what the managers are communicating.

Your leadership team should continuously share information that shows progress, results, and status of decisions and programs that are priorities in the company. If your employees want to feel confident that you are steering the ship in the right direction, you must share progress.

Share.

Employees are watching, and they are looking for your ability to lead a successful company. If you want engaged employees, you must help people believe the company is making progress towards the company mission.

My belief they care about me

Let’s look at the second category: the leadership team cares about me. Engaged employees not only need to believe the company is going in the right direction, but that the company (leadership in particular) actually cares about them.

Look at these three drivers:

Understanding of how I fit into the organization’s future plans.
The leaders of the organization value people as their most important resource.
The organization makes investments to make employees more successful.

Let’s talk about some ideas for how to ensure our people that we actually care about them.

Encourage and support people on making progress and link it back to organization's future plans

People want to feel a sense of belonging and to know that the work they do is valued and makes a contribution. Exceptional leaders (that’s you rebel intrapreneurs) help people believe how their work matters. So, it’s not enough to set a clear vision for the company (or your team) and ask people to “get on board.” Leadership teams need to acknowledge when people are “getting on board.” The more visible these acknowledgements are, the better. We should catch people doing something positive and acknowledge it.

Every rebel intrapreneur should have a daily practice of writing ten meaningful comments on people’s posts in Slack or Workplace or Teams or in comments in Jira, Notion, Clickup, etc. A meaningful comment means, one must read the post, and possibly some of the other comments, and write a comment that acknowledges the behavior and reinforces the contribution it makes.

People will notice this. “OMG The CTO commented on my post. Wow. I’m going to do something else worth posting about.” People will be inspired that the CTO took the time to acknowledge their work.

Try it.

Ten meaningful comments a day.

Talk about the investments you are making

Your company has a tuition reimbursement, a leadership development program, a profit sharing plan, generous benefits, flexible work scheduling, and other meaningful perks. You are investing in your employees. Heavily. Do you know whether employees use these benefits and to what extent? Do you know whether employees value these benefits? Or want something else? Are you communicating with your teams about the benefits people are not using?

You should.

This goes for time and tools and other resources. “We bought this new software” or “we did that integration so that ……” OR “He hired someone” OR “we removed that unnecessary business work……..”

All of these things are to invest in people so they can make a difference. Rebel Intrapreneurs need to talk more about that.

These investments go beyond “talk” about caring for employees. It is one way an organization can “show” they care.

Actions speak louder than words.

Let’s wrap this up and summarize what employees want. Rebel intrapreneurs should understand what people want so we can contribute and do something to maximize employee engagement.

What employees want

There are two main takeaways from the Quantum Workplace research:

Engaged employees believe in the direction of the organization and that the leadership team is capable of leading the organization into that future.
Engagement employees believe the leadership team cares about them as individuals.

If you think about employee engagement in these two categories, it simplifies what action you need to take to improve employee engagement.

Links to Employee Engagement Reports:

Jason Lemkin’s Tweet

BambooHR Report: The Great Gloom: In 2023, Employees Are Unhappier Than Ever. Why?

Gallup: U.S. Employee Engagement Needs a Rebound in 2023

Conference Board Job Satisfaction 2023

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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080 Nic Bryson Effective leadership depends on better conversations

Bill Cushard — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 12:55:21 GMT

Rebel Intrapreneurs use the Strategyzer Business Model Canvas FigJam template to turn possibilities into plans. Learn about the business model canvas FigJam template here and Try FigJam for free.

I have always prioritized 1:1s with my direct reports; sometimes declining and canceling meetings with my bosses in favor of meetings with my team. In some work cultures, that was not always a good move on my part. But I told myself, early on in my people management career, that I would not be the kind of manager who, at the last minute, over and over, canceled or rescheduled meetings with people on my team.

I was not going to be THAT manager.

And I wasn’t.

I say that to say this.

Nic Bryson gets it. Being a people manager is a vital role and the 1:1 meeting is a vital tool of the people manager.

I know Nic knows this because he founded a company to help managers have better 1:1 meetings.

I approve.

As Nic says, “Effective leadership depends on better communications.”

Nic Bryson was employee #13 at Wrike.com, building and leading every customer-facing team across sales & CX over 9 years which lead to the $800 million acquisition by Vista Equity. Nic also led various CX functions at Workfront and was acting CCO during the $1.5 billion acquisition by Adobe. Nic has most recently launched Orgnized.com, in beta, as a new tool to help leaders better manage their 1-on-1 meetings with their team members.

More about Nic:

Nic Bryson’s Linkedin post about asking for raise

Nic Bryson on Linkedin

Nic Bryson’s company, Orgnized

Nic Bryson on X

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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079 Outcomes I envision for Rebel Intrapreneur listeners

Bill Cushard — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 12:21:23 GMT

Rebel Intrapreneurs use the Strategyzer Business Model Canvas FigJam template to turn possibilities into plans. Learn about the business model canvas FigJam template here and Try FigJam for free.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the guest asked the host, “Do you have an outcome that you want to create for your audience?“

I don’t think he had a good answer.

Here was the answer:

“What I am trying to create is to show optimism. Show light. Show the good in humanity and surround myself with that? But how do you measure that? I’m really trying to optimize for love. Love for my guests. Love for the audience.”

He goes on a little more. But I’ll stop there.

First of all, the good part. Optimism is good. Good for humanity is good. Love is good. But I really don’t know what any of those things mean.

I was thinking as I heard the answer, “That’s a vague answer.”

I also thought, “This host is not ready for that question.”

And then I thought, “What is my answer? Do I have a good answer? A bad answer? Any answer? Am I ready for that question?”

Anyway, it made me think about my answer to the question: “Do you have an outcome that you want to create for your audience?”

This episode is my answer to that question.

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

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078 Helene Cahen Sparking and sustaining innovation teams

Bill Cushard — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:09:03 GMT

Rebel Intrapreneurs use the Strategyzer Business Model Canvas FigJam template to turn possibilities into plans. Learn about the business model canvas FigJam template here and Try FigJam for free.

A rebel intrapreneur must learn the discipline of innovation. By definition, a rebel intrapreneur furthers the mission of the organization, while simultaneously challenging the system from within. This means improving existing things or launching new things. Innovation is required.

When Helene Cahen released her book, Fire Up Innovation: Sparking and Sustaining Innovation Teams, I thought, “She wrote this book for rebel intrapreneurs.” After listening to this episode, I think you will agree.

We talked about a lot of things, including:

4 Ps of creativity
Creating a culture of starting small, prototyping, and not asking for permission
The reality that if you don’t innovate, you are dead (organizationally, speaking)
Stay and fight for innovation or leave and go somewhere else
Some organizations are fast and some are slow and some have different definitions of fast and slow
Diversity in the way we solve problems
Understand the problem before we leap to solutions
Your role in innovation is moving the process along
The need to define success clearly
Brainstorming and clustering
Innovation is about change
The wall of assumptions
The key to innovation is to “Find a project you can start on”
4 principles of applied innovation

More about Helene Cahen and her book:

For more information about the book: https://www.fireupinnovation.com/book
Purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble or Independent bookstores Independent bookstores
Business Website: www.fireupinnovation.com
Blog: https://www.fireupinnovation.com/blog
Email: info@fireupinnovation.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fireupinnovation

Special offers for listeners to help grow your business and support your innovation teams

Sign up for Helene’s monthly newsletter for tips and invitations to webinars and events
Schedule a free consultation to discuss your unique challenges by contacting us on our website www.fireupinnovation.com
Curious about the book? Download a sneak peek of the first chapter at https://www.fireupinnovation.com/book

More about Bill:

Bill’s book: The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence

Get the show on: