THE INTRAPRENEUR IN "WONDERLAND"
- Rita Oliveira Pelica
- Jul 9
- 4 min read
Between shifting metrics and fragile coherence, today’s organizations resemble Wonderland more than we care to admit. The next lines and words follow the intrapreneur as Alice: not chasing novelty, but choosing the rabbit hole as the only honest route when the old maps stop making sense.
THE RABBIT HOLE
In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll invites us into a world where logic bends, rules contradict themselves, and certainty dissolves. What may look like fantasy at first glance, reads today, like an uncannily accurate description of organizational life. The intrapreneur who chooses to go down the rabbit hole does so knowingly. They step away from the comfort of manuals and procedures and enter territory where answers are partial and outcomes unclear.
This decision rarely comes from recklessness. It comes from awareness. When familiar frameworks stop explaining reality, staying put requires more denial than courage. The rabbit hole appears precisely at that moment.
“The intrapreneur deliberately abandons the safety of corporate manuals to explore uncertain territory.”
WHY ALICE?
Alice has endured for more than a century because her story was never really about childhood. Carroll wrote at a time of rapid industrialization and expanding global systems, when rationality and control were elevated almost to the level of moral virtues. His response was not a treatise but a narrative that exposed the absurdities of rigid logic by pushing it to its extremes. This is why Alice continues to resonate inside organizations today. The tension between structure and sensemaking has not disappeared. It has intensified. Intrapreneurs recognize themselves in Alice because they, too, operate in environments where rules exist but coherence is fragile.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERS
Wonderland feels familiar because its characters mirror the figures that populate modern organizations. The White Rabbit rushes endlessly, driven by urgency and metrics, convinced that speed itself is a strategy. Anxious management that runs without direction, bound to schedules and KPIs. The Queen of Hearts governs through reaction rather than reflection, cutting off debate and complexity with force.
“Off with their heads, and everything is fine.”
The Mad Hatter presides over meetings that repeat themselves without producing movement, where ritual replaces progress. The Cheshire Cat observes everything with intelligence and irony while remaining carefully detached from responsibility. The March Hare continues the same routines day after day, mistaking repetition for stability.
These figures are exaggerated, but the dynamics they represent are not. They emerge whenever systems grow faster than the capacity to reflect on them.
QUESTIONING REALITY
Alice survives Wonderland because she refuses to accept things simply because they are presented as normal. She notices inconsistencies, challenges arbitrary rules, and asks questions that destabilize false certainty.
“Questioning what once seemed natural is the first intrapreneurial gesture.”
This form of curiosity carries weight. It is attentive and disciplined. It recognizes when language drifts away from lived experience and when processes continue long after their purpose has dissolved. In organizations, intrapreneurs often step in at precisely this point, when repeating established answers begins to erode trust and effectiveness. Innovation starts here, not with ideas, but with attention.
IDENTITY TENSION
One of the most striking moments in Wonderland occurs when the Caterpillar asks Alice who she is. The question is simple, yet deeply unsettling. Inside organizations, intrapreneurs encounter this same moment again and again. Intrapreneurs are rarely indifferent. They care about the mission and the people, which makes misalignment difficult to ignore. They find themselves negotiating between belonging and integrity, between loyalty to the organization and loyalty to what feels meaningful.
“The Caterpillar invites us to introspection, transformation, and questioning identity.”
This identity tension is not a side effect of intrapreneurship. It is part of the work itself.
Without space to reflect on who they are becoming, intrapreneurs lose orientation. With that space, they develop clarity and steadiness, even under pressure.
CREATIVE LUCIDITY
Alice does not rely on imagination alone. She observes carefully, reflects on what she sees, and resists nonsense even when it is backed by authority.
“She combines creativity with critical thinking, two essential competencies for the intrapreneur.”
This combination has become increasingly vital. Organizations are saturated with the language of innovation, transformation, and disruption. In such environments, intrapreneurs play a crucial role as anchors of lucidity. They test ideas against reality, distinguish novelty from value, and insist on coherence where narratives multiply faster than results.
Their contribution often lies less in proposing solutions than in sharpening collective thinking.
LIVING WITH UNCERTAINTY
The future does not arrive in orderly stages. It appears fragmented, ambiguous, and incomplete.
Innovating with meaning requires accepting the plunge into chaos while maintaining the ability to think independently. Intrapreneurs tend to understand this instinctively. They do not wait for perfect conditions or total clarity. They learn to move within uncertainty while staying connected to purpose and judgment. This capacity allows organizations to remain adaptive without losing their ethical or strategic bearings.
Meaningful innovation grows out of this tension, not from its elimination.
ENTERING FORWARD
There is no official passage into the future. The entrance to the future is not made through a door, but through a rabbit hole.
Intrapreneurs recognize that entrance when established explanations stop working and new questions demand attention. What follows is rarely dramatic. It is a sustained willingness to remain engaged, to think carefully, and to act responsibly while outcomes are still forming.
Organizations continue to evolve because some people choose to stay present at this edge. They hold complexity without rushing to premature closure. They keep sensemaking alive when direction is still emerging.
If this story feels familiar, it is likely because the rabbit hole has already appeared. The challenge is not to find it, but to decide how to relate to it.
PhD & lifelong learner. Innerpreneur, netweaver & curious mind with the mission to help executives & teams to be more entrepreneurial, playful & conscious, through training, facilitation and mentoring.