You have built your company Pierre by Pierre. You have a talented team, running out processes and a market that you believe in control. And then one day, a former collaborator presents a product that strangely resembles your flagship idea, but better. Surprise: your next competitor has not come from outside … He was born inside your own team.
Welcome to the unexpected world of internal competition. An increasingly common phenomenon, especially in innovative startups and companies, where employees experience, learn and sometimes decide to stand on their own feet.
The Talent Revolution
Today’s companies form, coach and exhibit their employees to increasingly strategic missions. Each employee becomes a concentrate of know-how, networks and experience. And with this skill rise, the risk of seeing an internal competitor appears increases.
Managers have long considered turnover as the main risk: losing a key talent meant losing know-how. Today, the risk is more subtle: that this same talent transforms this know-how into an opportunity to create a company that directly competes with yours.
Why employees become entrepreneurs
Several factors explain this trend:
- Access to knowledge and resources: working on strategic projects gives employees a global vision of the company and the market.
- The desire for freedom: many talents seek autonomy and the possibility of making decisions that they cannot always have within a hierarchical framework.
- Start-up and Lean culture: learning to test ideas quickly and launching projects becomes almost an automation.
- External inspiration: exposure to incubators, conferences and entrepreneurial networks sharpens the desire to create.
The warning signs to monitor
Companies can detect certain clues that suggest that an employee could one day turn into a competitor:
- Excessive curiosity for market trends and economic models.
- The constant research of personal initiatives or parallel projects.
- An active network outside the company, often very involved.
- The desire to test new ideas, even apart from its main missions.
Identifying these signs is not a question of paranoia, but of strategic vigilance.
The double opportunity
Rather than considering this dynamic only as a risk, some leaders see it as an opportunity. An employee motivated to create can be an incubator living with new ideas. The objective is not to remember it at all costs, but to capitalize on your energy and skills as long as it is in the company and to create internal intrapreneurship programs to channel this creativity. This also makes it possible to establish healthy relations with former employees, because an ex-employee who creates a company can become a future partner, investor or collaborator.
How to transform the risk into an advantage
1/ Promote intrapreneurship: allow employees to test innovative ideas internally before they leave with them.
2./ Promote transparency and dialogue: Understanding individual aspirations and channeling them towards projects aligned with the company.
3/ Create a culture of recognition and opportunities: those who want to create must see that they can evolve, experiment and take risks without leaving the company.
4/ Prepare intelligent clauses: in certain situations, non-competition or confidentiality clauses, well negotiated, protect the company without stifling creativity.
The example of Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is full of stories where employees have become formidable competitors. The founders of Google saw several of their former employees launching competing services. At Apple, engineers left the company to create startups which were then bought or became competitors. These cases show that the leakage of a talent is not inevitable: it is a dynamic inherent in any innovative environment.
The role of the leader in this dynamic
The modern leader must accept a paradoxical reality: the more competent and motivated your team, the more you increase the probability that one day, one of your employees becomes an entrepreneur and competitor. But it is also a sign of success in the development of talents.
The role of the leader is therefore not to lock, but to prepare and support. This supposes to transform the competitor potential into a strategic ally and channel entrepreneurial energy towards internal or collaborative projects. But also, this implies building lasting relations with former collaborators, because a well-supported ex-employee can become a partner, an investor or an ambassador.
Anticipate without creating tension
The objective is not to create a climate of mistrust, but to anticipate and plan. By integrating mentoring, intrapreneurship and talent development practices, the company protects itself and transforms. Former employees can return enriched, with experiences that feed your network and your projects.
