274: Go Intrapreneur to Entrepreneur with Karen Hills Pruden

Dr. Karen Hills Pruden, Founder and CEO of Pruden Global Business Solutions Consulting and the Sister Leaders Community, is driven by a mission to increase the number of women in senior leadership and help them go from intrapreneur to entrepreneur with the tools to sustain long-term success.

We learn about Karen’s journey from struggling to find mentorship in middle management to breaking into senior leadership and founding organizations that empower women professionals. She explains the Learn, Practice, Teach Framework, a structured approach that helps professionals transition from intrapreneurship (working for others) to entrepreneurship (leading their own ventures). She also introduces the Professional Equity Model, emphasizing relationships, reputation, and expertise as key drivers of career and business success. She highlights the power of mentorship, strategic growth, and continuous learning in building expertise and staying competitive.

Go Intrapreneur to Entrepreneur with Karen Hills Pruden

Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Karen Hills Pruden, the founder and CEO of Pruden Global Business Solutions Consulting and the Sister Leaders Community, a global community of exceptional men and women leaders of every generation committed to increasing the number of women in senior leadership. Karen is an expert in empowering businesses to build high performing leaders, and the author or co-author of, wait for this, 32 books. Karen, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. I’m excited about this conversation.

Well, I am excited too. I’ve never met such a prolific author as you are. So, let’s start with your “Why,” because someone like you, I’m sure, has a very powerful “Why.” So, what is your personal “Why,” and what are you doing in your practice and in your business to manifest it?

Absolutely. So my “Why” in helping women professionals acquire and sustain themselves in senior leadership has to do with a pain point that happened in my career about 16 years ago. 16 years ago, I was in middle management, had lingered there for about a decade and I wanted to go into leadership, but I did not know of any senior leaders who happened to be women. And so at that time in my career, LinkedIn was about five years old. I jumped on LinkedIn, I did some research, looked for women leaders who look like me, African American, who were in a vice president position and who had been in that position for at least a decade because I wanted a mentor. So I got my two, number one and number two choices, shot off a direct message through LinkedIn with a copy of my resume with the request for mentorship. And then they made me wait about two weeks. And then at that two-week mark, my number one selection came through and said she will be glad to be my mentor for $350 an hour. Now, back then, I wasn’t rolling like that so $350 an hour was a lot for me but what do you do when you are looking to achieve a goal and someone has achieved it and they can share that blueprint with you. So I negotiated one hour a month for one year. So my contract with her was one $350 for one hour a month for one year. And I worked with her for one year, four months after that one year, I was invited to apply for a senior leadership position. I went through the 4 month process and I have been in senior leadership since then. And so, in terms of my personal “Why,” I devised my professional development corporation for women professionals because it should not be this difficult to find a mentor when you are looking to go to leadership. And so, that is the whole vision and mission of my organization. The mission is to increase the number of women in senior leadership and allow them the experience and education to sustain themselves. Share on X

That’s great. That’s very good work. And you were very smart to invest in a great mentor because that’s one of the best things a young person, even a not so young person can do to basically follow the people who’ve already done it and just to do what they are doing and what they learn and cut years out of your learning curve. So that’s amazing. And you also launched this big community, the sister leaders community. So you’re helping other people. So how are you helping other people? And we are a podcast of frameworks and you have several frameworks that you talked about and it was kind of hard to pick, but we picked one which helps intrapreneurs to evolve into entrepreneurs. So first, please share with us what’s the difference between an intrapreneur and an entrepreneur and then what is your three-step process to get there?

Yeah, absolutely. So, an intrapreneur is simply someone who works for someone else to facilitate their mission and their goals. So, if you are not the owner of where you work, then you are an intrapreneur. You have the same competencies as an entrepreneur, but an entrepreneur actually works for themselves to facilitate their own vision. So, if you’re working for someone else, you are an intrapreneur. If you’re facilitating your own company, facilitating your own goals, then you are an entrepreneur. And yes, I do have several frameworks that I work with high-performing professionals. And one is the Learn, Practice, Teach framework that I have. Share on X And that is for professionals who want to take all of their years of experience you’ve worked for someone else. You’ve got all of this experience and knowledge on the job training. And in some cases, we’ve got an accommodating education to go along with it. And now you’ve reached a point in your career where you decide, hey, I want to work for myself. So you want to move from intrapreneurship to entrepreneurship. I require that individuals first be expert practitioners before you go into the marketplace. It is not as easy as it looks like on social media, Instagram, where you can just go get an LLC and then you’re going to make a million dollars in 30 days. That is not realistic. You have to be very intentional and strategic. And so the Learn, Practice, Teach framework is where you learn through your experience and your education. You acquire that knowledge and that wisdom from working in your particular industry through being a practitioner, doing the work, working with others, and in some cases, leading with others, because I work with a lot of leaders, before you decide to go out on your own and teach, whether it is through writing books or through workshop facilitation or keynote speaking. And so, all of my clients are required to really know what they’re talking about, have worked in the field that they’re consulting and coaching. And so, L.P.T. framework, which is Learn, Practice, Teach, is the evolution from practitioner to entrepreneur for an intrapreneur and an entrepreneur. And I have quite a bit of business of individuals who want to go into business for themselves. So, we are strategic and intentionally planning on how they’re going to do that, so that they can be profitable and it won’t be a hobby.

Yeah. Well, I had a boss many years ago, maybe 30 years ago, I was working at a big bank and I was the assistant to the CEO of this bank, and I would attend all the executive meetings and take notes. And in one of the meetings, the CEO said, first, you have to work and then you can manage. And it was about someone who was wanting to be promoted, but they didn’t have the practical experience. And he basically said the same thing. First, you have to be really good at what you do. And in order to even practice, you have to learn the craft so that they allow you to practice. You won’t allow a brain surgeon to operate before they have done their medical school and their residency and all that stuff. Very good. So what is the typical framework for going from learn to teach? What’s the timeframe that most people are looking at if they start with the learning phase?

Well, there’s no standard timeframe because, of course, it depends on the individual, their skill set, their capability, and their commitment, their commitment to elevation. But I can tell you if you are doing something every day, all day, generally, if you learn from your opportunities that you have and working in that industry, because we have all of our challenges and opportunities, you will become more than just proficient. Share on X And so, when you go into business for yourself, preferably that you will be an individual who is extraordinary and not just ordinary. Now, ordinary people go into business for themselves every day, and some people can make a good living from it. But when you want to set yourself out from like individuals who have similar businesses, then you want to be extraordinary in how you facilitate your process, your products and your services, so that you’re more competitive than someone who has like skill set or like business such as your own. But no, there’s not a timeframe. It’s more based on individuals’ commitments and capabilities that they have, because you can have some people that can be super awesome in two years. Some people can be super awesome in five years. It depends on the opportunities that were presented to them for them to cultivate their skills to a point where they are more than just proficient.

Yeah. I mean, we’re all familiar with the famous 10,000 hour rule that Malcolm Gladwell popularized. I think he also talks about this, that there’s a big difference between practice and intentional practice. And they say that some people have 15 years experience and other people have one year experience 15 times. So how do you make sure that someone will have that 5 or 10 or 15 year experience and not, you know, how do you become intentional about your experience so that you move fast in this?

Awesome question. I love it. So you are looking at what are the receipts that one has generated by the work in the marketplace? And when I say receipts, what are the results that you have generated as you’re doing the work? And so, your work will tell how well you are doing what it is that you do. For instance, my area of expertise was 28 years, I worked at head of HR. While working HR for 28 years, head of HR for about 15. And so, my metrics, because I believe in, that’s my love language, metrics and technology are my love language, my metrics would show that I help populate the workforce of organizations with the right people, with the right skills at the right time, based on the departmental’s capabilities of achieving their departmental goals. And so, you have to have quantitative results-based metrics associated with your work to show how proficient you are. And again, that can be acquired at 15 times or 15 years. It just depends on what is your proficiency doing that period of time.

Okay. So there’s no rhyme and reason of how to be intentional about, if it’s more about KPIs, how do you measure the output and the effectiveness and the deliverables? And I mean, I can see that if someone is winning work for their employer and they are successfully executing projects, then essentially, they are creating those receipts that you’re talking about?

Absolutely. So I will say that the more that you practice your skills, the more opportunities you have to reach those different anomalies that happen just by operating business. And you’ll get that, you’ll acquire the knowledge of how to address those ancillary situations that happen just by you doing the things that you do. So, you gave an example of someone doing something 15 times or someone doing something 15 years. I’ve never been an advocate about how long someone has held a job.

And so just rolling on the clock and being in a position for a period of years does not mean that you’ve actually hands-on done the work, dealt with the complexities of the work, have dealt with the evolution of the work, because work does evolve. How we do it in terms of processes, systems that we use, the talent that is required to do the work evolves over time. And sometimes that, depending on the industry that you work in, that can be a lot. That can be a lot of change. I have IT professionals that jump jobs every two to three years because they get different certifications based on the new software and hardware that are out that have changed the game. If you think about just the number of different programs that we have out here that have changed how we do business. Think about AI. People are incorporating AI, talking about AI, the impact of AI. We weren’t talking about AI five years ago, not the way that we’re talking about it now. And so, the individual who’s going to be extraordinary and super proficient using their skill set is the person who grows. They stay current and they grow what’s going on in their industry and they are constantly doing the work. Or at least supervising those who are doing the work so they know what the strengths, the weaknesses and the opportunities and the threats are of doing business the way that they do business at that time versus how they did it previously.

Now, you also talk about this concept of professional equity. So it’s interesting because it also rhymes with this idea that even when you’re an entrepreneur, you can start building your professional equity. Maybe you don’t have a business where you are accumulating financial equity, but you can build your professional equity. So, how do you accumulate professional equity and how does it help you start the business?

Absolutely. So, equity is really something that you can tap into when needed. A lot of us think about equity when we think about those things that increase in value over time. If anyone has home ownership, it is commonly associated with home ownership. Professional equity has three components to it. It is relationships, reputation, and area expertise. And I’m going to explain each very quickly. So, the reason why it is three is because

And what I mean by in and out of business is that sometimes lunch and dinner with vendors, with supervisors outside of the office, a lot of deals are talked through, a lot of deals evolve and are made during those particular times. And so, there are opportunities for us to elevate our value within the workplace when we have those working lunches, working dinners, and different things like that. So, relationships are the people you work with, the peers you have, your customers, your vendors, your volunteers, your potential vendors, because you always want to always have one or two potential vendors on deck in case you lose a particular vendor. Otherwise, your business comes to a standstill. So, relationships is one leg. The second leg is reputation. What are you known for? What problem do you solve in your market that you are known for? When someone hears your business name or hear you as an individual, what do they think of? And usually it has a lot to do with the problem that you solve. And so, in order for people to be aware of that, you have to put that out into the ether. You have to make it common knowledge as to what problem you solve. You usually have to have a track record or some receipt that are known, that can be validated and that are repeated. And so, that is your reputation. And then your area expertise. Generalists are wonderful. They understand how everything kind of works together, but it is the expert that is called upon to save the day. And so, when you have an area expertise that everyone knows that this is your area expertise and know that you operate very well in this area expertise, when it is needed, people will think of you. People will hire your business, create opportunities. And so, professional equity is what you tap into during market chaos, why one customer may choose your business over another. For a professional, the way that we can leverage it is doing a reduction in force. When they have everybody’s name on the table, when they’re talking about the pros and cons, the strengths and opportunities of each of these employees and what they can afford to lose, such as critical positions versus those that they possibly can afford to lose, your name may make the cut simply because they know what it is that you offer and you resolve in terms of your skill set within an organization. And that is how you leverage your professional equity doing industry chaos or market chaos.

Yeah. I mean, it’s really interesting how you articulate this because I was vaguely aware of this before I started my business at the age of 35. I felt like it helped me to have accumulated experience and built relationship, but I didn’t think about it as a professional equity, which is kind of the equity I was bringing into my business. Whereas if I started at 21, I would not have had this equity and it would have been much, much, much harder to do. So that’s interesting. Yeah, even when I came to America, I didn’t know anyone, but at least I had the expertise. I had my reputation on LinkedIn, so people could check me out. I already had a couple of books. So talking about books, I’d like to ask you, so you have authored and co-authored 32 books, and many of them are bestsellers. So, if someone would like to get familiar with your work, where should they start? What should they read?

Two books in particular. One for the professional or one that wants to be a high-performing professional is Pruden Principles, 10 Strategies to Propel Women to the C-Suite. C-Suite is a synonym for senior leadership because every business does not necessarily have officers who begin with a C, but it is strategically written and intentionally written 10 whole chapters that talk about everything about data analytics and the power of data analytics. It talks about for women leaders that you don’t have to act like one of the boys so that you don’t have to simulate and emulate a man and men-like mannerisms when you make it to leadership. It talks about images more than a blazer. It talks about having a specialty. It talks about how to negotiate your salary and 20 different things that you can ask for in addition to salary to increase your total compensation. And so, it really is an in-depth blueprint for that professional who is looking to move into senior leadership and want to know exactly what it is that they should at least start by taking a look at. And then I have my most recent book, which is the Comprehensive Business Audit, which is part of my Amplify Your Value series, which is 100 questions that you can ask within your business. It determines your organizational readiness.

You can determine whether or not you have the right system operating for what it is that you need your business to do utilizing the system. And then it can help you determine where you are in terms of your processes and how efficient those processes are. And so, it’s broke down to those three sections. There are about 33 questions each section. And once you go through that book, you will have a very good idea on where the gaps are within your business and those things. And then you can kind of prioritize those things that you want to address based on capabilities, financial capabilities and talent capabilities.

Wow. That’s very comprehensive. So, the Pruden Principles is all about someone trying to get on the C-suite and what are the 10 areas they’d have to master to be successful and the other one is 100 questions to essentially maximize your business and make your business as good as it possibly can. That’s great. I mean, if you gather the C-suite and then you have your 100-question plan and you execute that, you’re probably going to make it to CEO.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Or you at least have a plan, information that you can devise a plan based on what it is that you consider to be your priorities, whether it’s for your career or for your business.

Wow. Okay, well, as you’re winding down this conversation, I’d like to ask you this last question. So, you transitioned from intrapreneur to entrepreneur, you are running and CEO of Pruden Global Business Solutions Consulting. So as an entrepreneur, what is the most important question that you suggest any entrepreneur should ask themselves?

It depends on where they are in their entrepreneurship. So if you are a new entrepreneur, I would ask you, what do you believe is your value in the marketplace? Because that is going to determine where your customers come from. Are your customers going to be looking for you or are you going to be spending most of your money marketing and branding, trying to find your customers? So I would ask, what is your value in the marketplace if you’re a beginning entrepreneur? If you are an entrepreneur who have been in business for more than five years, I would caution you to look and make sure that your infrastructure is set up for your success. Because if you reach the five year mark, a lot of businesses go out of business by five years. So congratulations if you have made it to five years. But now let’s take a hard look at your infrastructure to make sure that you are set up in terms of your system, your processes, and your talent to take you beyond five years so that you can not only be competitive, so you can sustain yourself to another five years. And then if you are a seasoned entrepreneur, I would challenge you to shake up the way that you do things. You cannot continue to do things the way that you do things and have done things for the last two or five years, there are always going to be small changes that you can make even if your company is successfully doing it the way that you’re doing it. Figure out how you can incorporate some software, systems, or processes so that you can stay more competitive in your market by maybe having a leg up on your competitors because you’re constantly revising, tweaking your business. And so based on where you are in your entrepreneur journey, whether you just got your LLC, whether you’ve made it to five years, or whether you’re a seasoned individual, there is always ongoing work to do.

Yeah, that’s a never-ending process and the world is fast commoditizing. That’s how I see it and you have to be, I mean, this is the old Ray Kroc, McDonald’s founder, when the staff was complaining that Burger King and Wendy’s were all copying McDonald’s and he said, ladies and gentlemen, we just have to innovate faster than people can copy us. So that’s the thing. So Dr. Karen Hills Pruden, the founder and CEO of multiple organizations. If people would like to learn more about what you do, connect with you, where should they go?

Absolutely. So I would direct you to LinkedIn. That is my playground. That’s kind of where I hang out at. I also have a website that is my namesake where you can stay in contact with me, www.drkarenhillspruden.com. But I also want to offer a free gift to anyone who is listening to me. And so, I will provide a link to a free downloadable that will give you 20 additional things that you can ask an employer for if you happen to be an entrepreneur that are not salaried. So, it will give you the opportunity to see those things that maybe you can negotiate. And listen, I’ll let you in on a secret. You do not have to be new and applying for a job, you can be asking these things of your ongoing employer as well. So, I will provide that to be part of the podcast notes so that you can download it and maybe we can increase your total compensation by next quarter.

Okay, I’m all for that. Thank you, Dr. Karen Hills Pruden. Thank you, Karen, for coming and sharing your wisdom with us. And I look forward to the download as well. And those of you listening, stay tuned because we have successful entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes and colors coming to the show and sharing their experience with us. Thanks for coming and thank you for listening.

Important Links:

• Karen’s LinkedIn
• Dr. Karen Hills Pruden
• Book a call with Karen 
• Pruden Principles: 10 Strategies to Propel Women to the C-Suite by Dr. Karen Hills Pruden
• Comprehensive Business Audit Checklist: Future-Focused Anticipating Change and Carving Paths to Success by Dr. Karen Hills Pruden
• Test-drive the Summit OS^® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/
• Management Blueprint^® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT 
• Steve Preda’s books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks 
• Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/