Cardinal may not yet be a household name, but he is important to the flourishing landscape of American business. Cardinal is what you would call a corporate entrepreneur.
Putting the words "corporate" and "entrepreneur" together may seem like an oxymoron to anyone who has toiled in corporate America. Yet Cardinal has managed to become a successful corporate entrepreneur three different times in his career: at Charles Schwab, at Automated Call Processing Corporation, and now as president of Gale Group, a subsidiary of Thomson Publishing.
What does the term corporate entrepreneur mean? According to Neal Thornberry, professor of management and faculty director in the School of Executive Education at Babson College, any entrepreneur can be defined as "an individual who rearranges resources in new and unique patterns, which create a unique value proposition." The difference is that a corporate entrepreneur works within the framework of a corporate environment. The Wellesley, MA, college is home to the nation's leading MBA program for entrepreneurial business.
"With a startup," says Thornberry, "you have a grub start, meaning that you start from scratch. You don't have to answer to your boss. You seek venture capital or any other source of capital that you want. There is no limit to your upside potential for success--or downside potential for failure--and you choose the teams you want to work with. At the end of the day, you were the genesis for the idea."
"Within a corporation," he counters, "you answer to your boss and use company resources, including a team you often don't select. You have a limited upside potential but a cushioned downside, and your idea has to fit within the corporate identity. The mentality is completely different. But," he adds, "you have a safer route as a corporate entrepreneur. You have a predictable paycheck, and you don't have to put your house up for collateral."
So what does one do to become a corporate entrepreneur? Thornberry and Cardinal agree that there are at four criteria for success.
Passion. "You have to have an idea you love, or you won't have the desire to continue. The corporation will erode your desire after awhile," says Thornberry.
"You need to have passion," echoes Cardinal, "because you need to enroll people who are either not under your direct control or would otherwise put your project at the bottom of their priority lists."
A motivated team. "You need a big vision that will help people get motivated," says Cardinal. "If people are going to have a major impact on the business or society, that's worth going to work for. You want to get people excited about what you're doing, so they'll try to help you be successful."
A culture that doesn't shoot risk-takers. "If you're not learning, it's not entrepreneurial," advises Thornberry. "When you learn, you make mistakes."
And if the boss isn't receptive to your new idea? "You have to decide whether to push against the system, or get the message that you should just go back to what you were doing," says Thornberry. "It all depends on how many windmills you want to tilt. It's very hard to succeed in a company that has a lot of antibodies."
A high-level senior person to protect and support you. "It helps to have a CFO who thinks like a venture capitalist and is willing to invest in smaller seed projects," says Thornberry, "rather than betting the bank on one or two larger projects or who isn't willing to pursue opportunities because it's not in the budget."
For Cardinal, it was Charles E. Schwab. "Schwab was personally involved in the spin off I was working on," says Cardinal. "Everybody knew it was important to Chuck Schwab. It's critical for a corporate entrepreneur to have a sponsor who can break through the logjams, obstacles and priority issues that will arise."
If You Build It, They Will Come
Politics plays a large part in the success or failure of a corporate entrepreneur, but not in the way that you would expect. "To be effective," notes Cardinal, "you can't be a person motivated by political gain. You have to be results-oriented as opposed to just wanting to climb the corporate ladder--that's inconsistent with being an entrepreneur."
That is not to say that political know-how doesn't come in handy. "You need political savvy to determine who the people are that you need on your side," says Thornberry, "and the organization must want to make changes."
Interpersonal skills, not political backbiting, will help tremendously. "You need to have very good negotiation and interpersonal skills, because you need cooperation from people who aren't motivated," says Cardinal. "But don't get involved in power games. Create something new--an idea for a new business outside of the standard corporate activity that will get people excited."
