Making Work Matter by Nancy McGaw, excerpt

Fast forward to 15 years later, I have mentored nearly 300 innovators through the program who work in large companies and want their work to deliver economic value to their companies while creating a healthier, fairer, more just, and sustainable world. They see opportunities to deliver economic value for the companies and positive impact for people and planet that others may miss—or choose to ignore. Through my book, Making Work Matter: How to Create Positive Change in Your Company and Meaning in Your Career, I wanted to share their remarkable stories, lessons we have learned, and to introduce the strategies we have found to be effective. I believe thousands of people want to enact this kind of change in their companies and, by doing so, find more meaning in their careers.—Nancy McGaw

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I frequently hear corporate social intrapreneurs say their work can feel like a lonely endeavor. In fact, a narrative has emerged that they are lone wolves. It is certainly true that when you see a new opportunity to create value for your company by addressing a thorny social or environmental problem, not many others are likely to share your vision, at least initially.

So in the early stages, when you have no idea whether there are others within your company ready to help you drive change, you can feel very much alone. However, many intrapreneurs have found, to their relief, that if you reach out to others, ask for their insights, and ignite their willingness to solve big challenges, many colleagues want to get involved. Intrapreneurs also discover that these allies bring valuable expertise and fresh perspectives that lead to better outcomes.

We can learn more about how this kind of collaboration works from Amy Edmonson, a Harvard Business School professor who studies a phenomenon she calls “teaming on the fly.” By that, as she explained in a TED Salon talk, she means “coordinating and collaborating with people across boundaries of all kinds, expertise, distance, time zones … to get work done.”

That sounds just like the situations faced by many corporate social intrapreneurs. There is no team already in place to tackle the wicked problem they want to solve. They must work across departments and functional capabilities, identify the expertise they need, and offer their own. First Mover Fellows have taken various approaches to engaging others, as the examples below illustrate.

Meeting a Market Need

Feeding the world’s growing population will require a significant increase in crop production, but challenges faced by small farmers around the world inhibit their ability to increase their crop yields and improve their livelihoods. Several years ago, Josh Henretig, then working in sustainability at Microsoft, and another colleague who worked in research were wondering how they could apply Microsoft’s expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing to address these challenges. In the face of severe water shortages, pollution, and unpredictable weather conditions, these farmers needed data to manage their land more effectively. Although drone imaging and sensor technologies existed to collect useful data that would help farmers use their land more productively and profitably, the cost of this technology was beyond their reach. Moreover, in many places, farmers didn’t have access to the internet or weren’t sufficiently savvy about technology to take advantage of these tools.

Neither Josh nor his colleague had all the expertise needed to overcome these challenges. However, they learned that a talented Microsoft engineer, Ranveer Chandra, was already investigating the use of digital technologies in agriculture. They saw a perfect opportunity for teaming up.

Although Josh didn’t bring engineering expertise to the challenge, he knew he could play a critical collaborative role. Working across multiple teams, including Sustainability, Research, Engineering, and Corporate Affairs, he developed a shared project plan to present to management and secured a small seed investment to run an early-stage pilot. With that support, Ranveer Chandra and colleagues were able to deploy cost-effective technologies that helped farmers make better decisions to increase their crop yields and reduce natural resource consumption.

In one solution, for example, the team figured out how to take advantage of the unused spectrum between TV stations known as white space, abundantly available in rural areas, to transfer data collected from in-ground sensors to the cloud. With these data, combined with powerful algorithms, they created heat maps that farmers could use to help predict weather patterns and soil conditions. This information allowed farmers to make more informed decisions, like knowing when to apply fertilizer that works best on moist soil.

What started as a conversation between colleagues and outreach to an in-house expert grew into a pilot that has become an established program at Microsoft called FarmBeats, part of the company’s effort to enable data-driven farming. It is now part of AI for Earth, a program Josh helped establish at Microsoft in 2017, which offers grants and technical support to individuals and organizations that use Microsoft cloud and AI tools to solve environmental problems. There is much more work to do, including making these applications even more affordable for the poorest farmers around the world, but the potential is huge. As Bill Gates wrote, “When most people think of groundbreaking digital technology, they don’t picture soil sensors. But a farmer who knows the temperature, pH, and moisture level of his soil can make all sorts of informed decisions that save money and boost yield.”

See Yourself as a Catalyst

Corporate change agents often function as sparks that trigger an organizational reaction. Working as a catalyst, you have the opportunity to bring others into the “problem-solving tent.” That’s exactly what Josh Henretig did at Microsoft. He was not an engineer, and he knew engineers were in very high demand at his company, and very busy. However, by offering an opportunity to work on a problem that really mattered in the world, Josh got the attention of highly skilled and sought-after talent. “Engineers love to solve problems,” he explained. “It turns out that many love to solve problems so much that when they aren’t on a specific work assignment, they are willing to use some of their time to tackle other big ones. There is a higher calling for engineers who want to be connected to some part of positive change.”

In assembling a problem-solving team, Josh demonstrated what Deborah Ancona and Hal Gregersen, leadership experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), call “challenge-driven leadership.” Unlike more traditional models of leadership, in which leaders are motivated by authority or status, challenge-driven leadership attracts people who want to solve problems and have expertise and creativity to offer. Such leaders “excel at choreographing and directing the work of others, because their expert knowledge enables them to spot opportunities to innovate in a way that cannot be done by working alone,” write Ancona and Gregersen.

A key lesson for all corporate social intrapreneurs is that there is likely to be far more capacity and interest within your company to work on the problem that matters to you than you initially realize. When you use your institutional knowledge to find people with special expertise and invite them to help solve a problem, you stand a much better chance of influencing change in your company.