Internal project entrepreneurship
Projects routinely go wrong. Error creeps in and escalates. Relationships ossify and a contractual mindset takes hold where everyone looks merely to minimise their own risk.
Leaders must spot the onset of project risk, of conflict, of negligent attitudes and behaviour, of substandard outcomes, and of actors scuttling into selfish risk aversion, and they must respond skilfully, imaginatively.
“Internal project entrepreneurship” is when leaders launch projects within The Project, to keep The Project on track.
But the leader can’t do everything. She must enlist help. She is accountable, but she needs to propagate that same accountability in someone else who can do the thing.
Say a subcontractor is struggling with a bit of project software but is reluctant to admit it, and it’s creating friction.
Something like a diplomatic mission is needed to engage with the subcontractor, defuse the situation, save the subcontractor’s face while getting them to use the software correctly.
A competent person must be enlisted to bring about the outcome. Leaders can’t do everything.