Developing intrapreneur skills

Our letter this month is written by Midge Hilton-Green presently Headmaster of Bishops Prep school in Cape Town and co-founder of the Ka-Ching! Business parenting course.

Midge agrees that not everyone is an entrepreneur, but anyone who considers entering formal employment can benefit from developing 'intra-preneur' skills and attributes - characteristics that set employees apart.

'Way back in the 80's I attended a school speech Day and the guest speaker was Mike Sander, at that stage CEO of AECI. He had a message for the school leavers and the message was simply about "the TEN things that businesses look for when interviewing prospective employees". This topic captivated the audience and myself because there had been much publicity around unemployment and the fact that less than 10% of school leavers were likely to find employment in the formal sector and, worse still, less than 40% of tertiary graduates were likely to find employment in the formal sector!'

'Being the head of a Primary school at the time and keen to provide as much added value for the pupils in my school that I possibly could, I was keen not to miss any important points. As I was an invited guest I did not feel it would be respectful to get a pen out of my jacket and start scribbling down everything that was about to be said, so I fell back on something that I had been teaching our Grade 6 pupils during the previous few weeks.

What saved me that day was one of the Tony Buzan Memory Systems which is available in the Ka-Ching! manual. I had been fascinated by his ideas at this stage in my life and had been passing them onto my pupils, but I had not yet tried them out for myself and certainly not in a situation such as a formal Speech Day. It certainly focussed my attention!

At the outset, I decided to use the Number/Rhyme system – the easiest one to learn.

At the end of the 2 hour function, I raced back to my office, opened a foolscap pad and started jotting down what I had remembered. Here they are – still as clear in my mind as they were 27 years ago. The ten attributes that businesses look for when employing people are:

• Leadership
• Teamwork
• Problem solving skills
• Interpersonal Relations
• Drive and Determination
• Specific skills
• Honesty and Integrity
• Communication skills
• Open Mindedness
• Thinking skills

The skills I used on that day to recall the important speech that was made, can be found in the Success Skills section of your manual, as well as the original images in that system to recall the above ten characteristics – forwards (1 to 10) or backwards (10 to 1) or randomly! Turn to your manual now and try them out – I give you my word that you will use them for the rest of your life.

I have taught my wife this system and hardly a week goes by without her bragging to me in the morning about how she woke in the middle of the night with worries clouding her mind and how she was able to apply the system and then fall asleep knowing that she would wake in the morning and recall every issue that was a problem to her….all this without pencil or paper and all in the dark! To this day we both use they system regularly, not only during the night, but when we are driving long distances and often when we have to prepare speeches at short notice and cannot use pencil and paper!

This is just one of the many tools we cover, but I hope that you have explored the Ka-Ching! manual with your sons and daughters and made use of this brilliant tool – you certainly will not regret it.'

Midge Hilton-Green