How to Foster an Intrapreneurial Culture in Your Organization?

[Abstract - full article available in the free e-book]

Launching an intrapreneurship program is great. But making the rest of the company receptive enough to spread an intrapreneurship culture that would encourage all your employees to be more committed to the company’s strategy is even better. Here’s how to get there in ten steps.

Make your Board of Directors Model and Sponsor

The board of directors defines the general strategic directions of the corporation and mustn’t be overlooked when you consider transforming your company’s culture, as is the case with intrapreneurship. The directors have to present themselves as solid sponsors for intrapreneurship, and mustn’t lose an occasion to speak on the matter when relevant. That will help intrapreneurship be even more anchored in the company strategy and development.

Get all your Employees Involved

For a real diffusion of the intrapreneurship culture, you need all your employees to get a taste of it. This can happen thanks to a regular update on the projects’ progress, by putting the employees’ skills to use, or by their testing of the prototyped products and services. The ways you can involve your employees into these company-wide projects are countless. 

Evangelize the Managers

As for other types of transformations, the managers are the key to cultural diffusion. Your intrapreneurs’ managers are fundamental to the success of intrapreneurial projects: on the one hand, they are the ones who choose to spare enough time for the intrapreneurs to develop their projects; on the other hand, they benefit from relying on the intrapreneurs, employees who are learning new ways of working, to pollinate the rest of their team. 

Create your Own Formula

Intrapreneurship projects are thriving in big corporations. Some offer weekly follow-ups of the projects, others have each intrapreneur go through a design sprint that tests the feasibility of their first ideas, other still ask of them to develop compulsory development axes. It’s up to you to find the best method for the intrapreneurial culture to blend harmoniously in your corporation’s one.

Help the Projects to Emerge

Intrapreneurs need suitable frames and tools to prototype innovative projects in a limited amount of time. First, create a dedicated space away from their office, so as to free them from the constraints of their daily work routine. Simultaneously, find people who will know how to give your intrapreneurs the most efficient innovation methodologies.

Find the Intrapreneurs

You certainly have rare birds among your employees: individuals with skills that are put to no use, yet a lot of ideas and the will to accomplish them over all. It’s by empowering these people that you will make an intrapreneurial culture go mainstream in your company. To find them, rely on their managers, make calls for projects, and organize information and quick prototyping workshops open to all employees.

Find the Best Time Frame for Innovation and Creativity

For cultural diffusion, you need time – or at least steps that are to define the projects’ progress. The perfect delivery dates respond to a subtle balance: they need to leave enough time for the projects to grow, yet leaving too much time may cause the intrapreneurs to refine them too much. Part of what’s at stake with intrapreneurship is learning agility, adjustment, and adaptation. If a product’s perfect when it’s released, it’s been worked on too much!

Find more ways to foster intrapreneurial culture in your company and much more in our e-book! Free to download, created by the beautiful team of Change Factory :)