Entrepreneurshi p is not as glamourous as it is made out to be. It is a hard road, and you get knocked down more times than you can count. But imagine being given a masterclass by Roger Federer if you were playing leisurely tennis, or a boxing class by Freddie Roach. An Entrepreneur in residence is a coach who has done the hard yards, so you don’t have to.

Entrepreneurs in residence have become a recent trend to have in large corporations. Companies like Telstra have adopted this approach to create this temporary position for employees to be mentored by. Though it may seem like a far-fetched concept, and probably destined to fail in the long run as businesses find they don’t fit.

Those of you who have read the book or watched the film Pinocchio, you would be all too familiar with the character of Jiminy Cricket. For those that don’t, Pinocchio is an allegorical tale by Carlo Collodi about a little wooden puppet that longs to be a “real boy”. In the tale, Pinocchio is guided by a small cricket known as Jiminy Cricket. He is the ultimate guide for Pinocchio in his quest to become a real boy.

Now, before we continue with the children’s book analogy, let’s pay attention to the resemblance of the character of Jiminy Cricket to the Entrepreneur in residence. An Entrepreneur in residence will have experienced many lessons in their time as an entrepreneur. From these experiences, they can use what they have learned to teach others. For most large organisations, especially those lacking a heroic founder, their quest to be a “real company” started by a founder is especially important.

For businesses that lack an origin story, finding their “why” can be tough. Telstra is a classic example of this, having been privatised from Telecom Australia many years ago. For a company like this, lacking a heroic founder means that it retains many old-world structures and standards of thinking. This can lead to stagnation, as we have seen with Telstra’s continuously paying dividend instead of reinvesting for growth.

The theory behind the entrepreneur in residence is that they provide a guiding light for many of the company’s internal projects. The projects are generally designed in such a way as to resemble the “start-up” style, to build out an entirely new way of doing things in the company to keep it fresh. Being a mentor in these projects, the entrepreneur in residence can’t really affect the outcome of many of them, but they can give the company an ideal to strive towards. When the going gets tough, the entrepreneur in residence gets going, and shows the company how it can push forward in times of hardship.

The entrepreneur in residence has done what they have done so you don’t have to. It might seem like a vain attempt at relevance, but rest assured it is incredibly useful to have someone who has learned the lessons about working alone that most only dream of.