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I will admit upfront that my process for identifying my intrapreneur sample was not totally scientific. I knew that intrapreneurs are a very small subset of the entire work force. So, to expedite the discovery process of intrapreneurs, I compared my personal definition of “intrapreneur” against my existing network of friends and colleagues. Then, I reached out to the ones that I thought met many of the aspects of my intrapreneur definition and sent out formal interview requests. To make sure that my sample wasn’t too insular, I also sought assistance of entrepreneurial friends for names and contact information for the people that they thought fit my definition. I have included the email that I used for this process in the back of the book. Simply put, I created the intrapreneur sample based on my immediate and extended network.

I produced a list of questions that I believed would surface unique findings that would either confirm or negate the definitions that I was using to describe intrapreneurs. I used a Microsoft Word template to help me keep to the script with each of my interviews. The template helped gather specific bits and pieces of information from one interview to the next, but I did allow for free flow of the conversation with each person.

Here’s the script of questions that I tried to use during each of the interviews:

What’s your story? What’s your education? Where have you worked? What have been your titles and general responsibilities, both on paper and the things that you have just done?

How do you define ‘intrapreneur’? Do you consider yourself a moderate or strong intrapreneur? Why?

How do you get work done within your organization? What are your intrapreneur-specific skills, capabilities, or attributes? What is an example about how you applied these skills, capabilities, and attributes to get work done within your organization?

What resources (money, people, technology, etc) do you have at your disposal to be able to do the work that you do? How do you access these resources? Do you have direct control over these resources?

What have been the critical organizational elements that have allowed you to be intrapreneurial?

What’s your proudest accomplishment as an intrapreneur?

How are you recognized as an intrapreneur within your organization? Does this recognition positively influence your ability to continue to do your work?

What motivates you as an intrapreneur?

Why do you stay at your current employer and continue to do intrapreneurial things?

Did you leave another employer when you started to work for your current employer? What were factors and criteria that made you decide to leave your former employer and accept the position with your current employer?

Have you ever considered leaving your current employer and starting your own business? If so, what factors delayed your jump to the outside?

Have you ever done a personality test like Myers-Briggs, Discover Your Strengths, Insights, or Belbin®? If so, what were your results?

Can intrapreneurs be successful entrepreneurs?

What’s your advice for intrapreneurs that are working for organizations?

What’s your advice for intrapreneurs that are transitioning to be an entrepreneur?

Do you know other intrapreneurs? Are they just like you or are they different in the way that they get work done or stay motivated?

How do you keep connected to these other intrapreneurs?

Who are they? May I contact them for an interview?

Interviews ranged from 60 -120 minutes; it really depended on how many tangents I allowed during the interview process. The excerpts included later in this book are a result of my 10^th grade typing class because I was able to ask questions and type quickly to document the interviewee’s responses almost word for word.