You know who I’m talking about.

Those fire-starters sitting in your office; the ones that will eventually have a profound impact on innovation and performance; the ones that will end up thinking differently, acting differently, and then achieving extraordinary success.

Alice Hooper, TIE Alumni who founded Leo Burnett Change, upon return of her TIE placement.

But how do you unleash their potential? How do you channel their energy?

Especially within the constraints of a big company or corporation?

It’s not easy, is it?

As Heidi Kikoler, League of Intrapreneurs advisor and TIE Leadership Coach says, “Pushing against the status quo is tough work. Companies are like biological organisms, they’re naturally wired to resist ‘foreign DNA’ and new ideas.”

But here is the hard truth.

We all know that companies, and our industry, need change. That’s the very thing that will ensure their survival.

Change is essential, but not easy. And it’s risky – for everyone involved. For the person driving it, as well as for the organization in question.

As you know, our goal with TIE is to inspire those innovators, change makers, future Intrapreneurs and Social Intrapreneurs of the Communications world.
To change the way the industry works, behaves and thinks from the inside, out.
But, what is the best way to harness and then channel the energy of these fire starters once they’ve been inspired? Once they’ve been injected with that horsepower to make change?
Throughout our many years of running TIE, we’ve figured out a few key tips that ensure success after transformational experiences like TIE.

  1. Provide a forum for your Future Leader to share their experience and learnings within the company or network.  It’s a fantastic opportunity to inspire other people and a wonderful way to talk about what they got up to.
  2. Ensure your Future Leader writes a case study on the experience! Going through the process of capturing an experience like TIE and realising what they have done is a really important exercise. It forces people to take a step back, have a breather, and capture the experience in some way. It’s also a very useful document to refer back to.
  3. Ask them to sit down and work out what inspired them most from the experience and if they feel differently. If so, how? Everyone will have got something unique from a transformational experience, although there will be some common themes. Once they have identified what it was that made the experience special for them, try and help them think about how they can incorporate that into their work and in outside projects.
  4. Get them to try and immerse themselves in something that will help them continue to grow and develop in the same way as the experience and continue to provide them with that sense of accomplishment. Is there a way to channel their passion into a project/initiative where their experience comes to bear? Is there a new role for them? Perhaps help them think about extracurricular projects within the company or elsewhere? How can you help them make the most of their newfound energy and how can it be channeled in the best possible way?
  5. Ensure they think about what they can do with what they have experienced and learnt. Can they write a thought piece to share with colleagues, clients, or the industry? Could they club together with other like-minded people in the company or network or industry?
  6. Suggest they surround themselves with like-minded to help ensure they’re able to keep the momentum up and help them hold onto that indescribable feeling of motivation and accomplishment.
  7. Really consider Leadership Coaching for your top talent. We offer this as part of the TIE experience, and it’s really important that all participants engage with it to get the most from the experience.   But if your Future Leader has engaged with another game changing training experience, and Leadership Coaching isn’t part of the package, we would suggest considering it. Coaching helps individuals harness what they’ve experienced and channel it in a productive way to set them up for long-term career success.

Lets support our innovators and our Future Leaders to ensure they can not only be the best that they can be, but can deliver what our industry needs to be sustainable. As Management Expert Gary Hamel says….

The thinking required is different for different waves of growth!