Greetings Bullogers!
Welcome to my second edition of The Bullog – my attempt at a brief synopsis on recent articles, events and opinions from my world and the things that have caught my attention over the past few weeks and in this case, months. Yep, I do realize it’s been quite a while since you received the first Bullog. It wasn’t my intention to leave it quite as long as I have, but I’ve been a little pre-occupied by a project that has kept me busy for the best part of three years. Which is a perfect segway into my first and main bit of news.
I’ve just given birth….to a book! That’s right, The Intrapreneur: Confessions of a corporate insurgent has gone from idea to rough drafts to proof copy and is now materialized physically in the form of a paperback. That’s the main image I’m sharing as proof in case you’re in any doubt. I was delighted at the response to the crowd funding campaign and grateful to so many of you for your generous support. You can read a fuller status update on the Unbound website here and for those of you who haven’t preordered your copy, there’s still time to do so at Amazon here before it hits the bookshelves on 10th April. I’m told pre-sales are important and would very much appreciate your help with One-Click. Oh, and if you’re really desperate for a sneak preview, then you can check out the excerpt posted on Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global site.
It won’t surprise you that intrapreneurship has featured heavily in my activities of recent months. I was back at Davos at the end of January for the World Economic Forum annual ‘circus’ and took part in a panel discussion on Intrapreneurship in one of the fringe venues. At the end of last year I had a blog published in the Huffington Post called Managing the Mavericks co-authored with a former intrapreneurial management consultant from PwC who’d also quit her job. It talks about the issue of high attrition amongst frustrated entrepreneurial employees inside large companies and the challenges for leadership in retaining such people. Might you just have lost a future Richard Branson, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos through sheer frustration at a corporate culture that snuffs out entrepreneurial talent?
On the broader speaking front, I was in Oxford twice in November – once to engage in a debate where I (perhaps surprisingly) spoke against the motion “This House Believes Business is best placed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.” A few days later, I spoke at the Intrapreneurlab in front of about 100 employees from Barclays, Disney and BMW. But the highlight for me was a trip back to Macedonia 17 years after spending almost a year working as a VSO volunteer in 2000-2001. How the country has changed since then. I gave the Keynote at the Companies Doing Good Forum in Skopje and was able to catch up with many of my former work colleagues. Well, you know what they say about nostalgia….. it’s not what it used to be!
On the non-work front, the copious amounts of snow in the Alps has provided some great skiing opportunities including every skier’s dream – frequent outings on fresh powder snow. But it’s also worth mentioning a most enjoyable few days spent on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain late last year, where I joined two former colleagues, Chris Magennis and Mourad Ameziane on their pilgrimage in search of the post Accenture afterlife. I assured them that it does exist.
OK, that’s more than enough from me for now. It’s going to be a busy and exciting time over the coming months and I’ll do my best to keep you informed of where this adventure takes me.
Best wishes, Gib