The Intrapreneur

Confessions of a Corporate Insurgent

Gib Bulloch

• Publisher: Unbound Digital
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781912618415
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Wirtschaftssethik

Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Have you ever sat at your desk and asked yourself, why am I here? Is this really all there is? Believe me, it isn't.

Over the past three decades, my generation created the enormous machines we call multinational corporations. Today, over half of the largest economies in the world are global businesses - controlled by the few, while impacting the many. Business has the power to change the world. But what if we, as individuals, had the power to change the world of business?

We are in the age of the intrapreneur: where mavericks and rebels bring their entrepreneurial prowess to big business, to change it from the inside out and bottom up. The Intrapreneur is the story of my dream to do exactly that and how you can too.

For over a decade, I led a team within one of the world's largest global consulting organisations – a corporate "guerrilla movement" working deep within the system, to try to change the system. Our goals were huge: we wanted to revolutionise the role of business in the aid and development sector and offer our skills and expertise to not-for-profits in parts of the world with greatest need, but least access.

This was my dream but, until now, I have never admitted the personal toll that it took on me.

It ultimately cost me my job, my health and perhaps even my sanity as I landed myself in a psychiatric hospital for five days and five nights.

I had found my purpose, but had I lost my mind?

The Intrapreneur is a call to action for a new breed of social activist working within, about to join or completely disillusioned by today's business world - to be the change you want to see in your company.

So my message is a simple one. If you feel that description applies to you, either change company or better still, change the company you're in – for the better.

If we strive to create the organisations we desire to work in, which build the societies we want to live in, then we'll be helping not only ourselves and our colleagues, but the world as a whole. Join us today.

NIGHT III – SCALING UP

‘ I dream of painting

and then I paint my dream . ’

Vincent Van Gogh

Chapter 10 - The Empire Strikes Back

Thomson Psychiatric Ward, Saturday morning. November 2014

It was a very new experience for me. Doing nothing. That’s what I’d been doing, or not doing, for most of the day since breakfast. Absolutely nothing. And it was really quite enjoyable. I had no computer. No phone. No diary crammed full of back-to-back meetings and calls. Nope, I had nothing to do and it felt great – even cathartic. The time had flown by as I lost myself in quiet thought in the spartan surroundings of the day room – a bit like the meditation I’d dabbled with in India a couple of weeks before I got ill. The day room was bright and airy with some comfy chairs and a couple of shelves of books that ranged from trashy novels to self-help books – neither genre appealed greatly. Hard to believe that I was already into my third day on the Thomson Ward and, to my surprise, I was beginning to settle in. Was that a good sign or a bad sign? I wondered.

I badly needed some fresh air. After three days in the warm, safe cocoon of care that the ward offered, it was time for a walk, and I ventured out into the little garden through the sliding glass doors leading out from the canteen. It was a bright, sunny morning, in contrast to the dreary, drizzly past few days. The garden was a wee bit drab (that’s dull and uninteresting for those who don’t speak Scottish) – we’re talking the odd flimsy tree, mostly lawn with a couple of little paved paths running in different directions. I nodded and smiled as I walked past one or two fellow patients sitting on the benches beside the shelters. One elderly woman sat staring vacantly into space, puffing away on a cigarette, which hung from her fingers, on the verge of falling. On the ground around her feet, 20 – 30 cigarette butts lay in a small pile. I’ve no idea whether she’d smoked all of these while sitting there, but they certainly looked fairly fresh.

I followed the little path round the back of what seemed like a separate building. There, I stumbled across another grassy courtyard with more benches and shelters. On one bench, a young girl sat slowly rocking backwards and forwards. Her lips seemed to be mouthing something but no sound was coming out. Well, not that I could hear anyway. She saw me out of the corner of her eye and turned round and stared with an expression that was two-parts fear, one-part surprise.

‘Hi, how are you doing?’ I said with a smile, trying to reassure her. ‘My name’s Gib. Just arrived a couple of days ago. And you? What’s your name?’

The young girl turned abruptly and caught me with a penetrating, slightly puzzled glare . Then stood up and walked off. Well done, Gib, you’ve done it again, I thought to myself. No, I’d not been trying to hit on a teenage girl in a psychiatric hospital. But it was a classic ‘knock-back’, reminiscent of asking girls to dance at the school disco aged 14. Or, indeed, if they’d like a drink in some club, aged 40-something. Slick one-liners and confident pick-ups were never my forte .

I retraced my steps and this time went along the path in the other direction. There was a grassy bank that led down to a car park and then what looked like the main road around the hospital complex. A mini-cab and a delivery truck were driving past. WOT, no large perimeter fences? I thought to myself. That’s where the place differed from asylum scenes in films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where huge walls ensured patients didn’t escape – or at least weren’t meant to without the help of The Chief throwing the marble water fountain out of the window. Oops ! Spoiler alert, but surely everyone’s seen that film by now. If not, it’s your own fault. Anyway, here it seemed like anyone could just saunter on out. I wonder what would happen if I escaped from here? I thought. It seemed, well, just too easy.

Caution got the better of me. I slowly wandered back round to where I’d come from, retracing my steps, and found myself back in the familiar little grassy courtyard with the same woman sitting on the same bench, still chain-smoking. As I came back into the canteen, I bumped into Christine, one of the friendly duty nurses who was passing through to grab a coffee.

‘Got a quick moment, Christine?’ I said.

She gave a smile that I took to mean, not really, but go on.

‘So what’s the score with going outside then? Are we allowed out whenever we want, for as long as we want, or what? I mean, what’s to stop us?’

‘Not quite, Gib. We have different rules for different patients depending on their condition,’ she explained. ‘For example, Jeannie over there can go out for several hours each day. She goes shopping or to visit friends, although she has to be back in here by the agreed time of 9pm. But she’s an unusual case. For most people we lock the doors at 6pm.’

‘And what are the rules for me then, Christine?’

‘Right now, you’re not allowed further than the end of the courtya...