ARE YOU SABOTAGING INNOVATION?

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HOW TO BROACH THE IDEA OF MEDIATION

How to Engage Your Intrapreneurs

By Shona Welsh, MCEd, CHRL

Discovering I was an intrapreneur was a revelation. After 25 years of struggling with why I didn’t fit in, I finally understood.

An intrapreneur is an entrepreneurial employee who isn’t interested in starting their own business. They like being part of a team, contributing to a vision bigger than them, and treat the company as if it were their own.

As an HR professional, I was keen to understand how we could better engage and retain such employees. So, I spoke with intrapreneurs across all sectors, from entry level to the C-suite– and everything in between. This is what I discovered.

Most organizations are great at hiring intrapreneurs. They love their energy, creativity, and focus on results.

Unfortunately, most organizations are not particularly skilled at engaging and retaining intrapreneurs. Here’s why.

1 / BLOCKING IDEAS Intrapreneurs are, by nature, creative and action oriented. But when they’ve done the leg work and still get repeatedly rejected, they eventually stop contributing. And when that happens, it’s only a matter of time before they leave. If you can’t provide opportunities for idea development, they’ll find a place that will. And that organization is often your competitor.

The Chrysler Minivan is a perfect example. Ford engineer Hal Sperlich developed the idea, but Ford wasn’t interested. Chrysler was. And the Minivan became its largest profit centre in decades. All because they took a chance on Hal.

2 / MULTIPLE, SLOW APPROVAL PROCESSES When you stifle innovation through lengthy approval processes you miss opportunities. Many intrapreneurs are frustrated by watching competitors go to market with similar ideas while they remain in bureaucratic limbo.

I once received budget approval for a $400,000 client project with a tight, three-month deadline. A week later, I was reprimanded over a $3,000 expenditure. Apparently, I had to go through three levels of approval for every expenditure within that budget, no matter how small the amount. Worse, it would take two months for each process. We lost the contract.

3 / RISK AVERSION I’ve often had business plans rejected despite thorough preparation including risk identification and mitigation. My intrapreneur interviewees had the same complaint. “What would it take for my company to try anything?” one intrapreneur asked. Contrary to popular belief, the best entrepreneurs are not overly risky — they’re actually great at minimizing risk because they balance it with caution in other areas (Grant, 2016).

My former CEO talked a good line about innovation, but when some colleagues and I presented an exciting partnership opportunity, we were rejected. The business case was sound with risks identified and mitigated. But she demanded examples of similar organizations who had done such a project. We couldn’t provide them because it had never been done before — exactly the point of innovation! Today, our potential partner is enjoying success with my former company’s competitor.

Now that you have some understanding of the all too common intrapreneur experience, let’s discuss what HR professionals can do about it.

4 / IDENTIFY ‘AT RISK’ INTRAPRENEURS The good news is intrapreneurs are generally easy to identify because they can be quite annoying. While they’re often nice people who enjoy professional respect, they question things. All the time. They’re not trying to be critical. They’re trying to understand why things function the way they do and how they can make them more effective. Chances are, they’ve got an idea bubbling in their brain and they’re assessing its viability. They can’t do that without understanding the current situation — hence all the questions.

Spend some time identifying your ‘annoying’ employees. Ask line managers about staff who regularly question things. Depending on your organizational size, you may already know who they are. I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill troublemakers — I’m talking about great performers who irritate people because they’ve got an idea to a, minute and want to get things done — quickly.

The bad news is, if those people have gone silent, you’ve got a problem. Intrapreneurs who have stopped questioning and sharing ideas often have one foot out the door.

But all is not lost! If you can re-engage silent intrapreneurs, they will recommit. How do you do that? Keep reading.

5 / CREATE ‘SPACE’ FOR INNOVATION Lockheed Martin is famous for its ‘Skunk Works’, a term now widely used to describe an internal group that is given a high degree of autonomy, unhampered by bureaucracy. Forward-thinking organizations are increasingly creating innovation centres — places where employees are either seconded to specific projects or develop not-yetapproved ideas.

If you can’t devote a specific space to innovation, you can still give intrapreneurs protected time. Establish an Innovation Committee charged with vetting ideas, provide release time to individuals, or form an Innovation Community of Practice.

You can also run periodic Innovation Tournaments that connect employees from all levels. They spend a day or more contributing ideas, identifying priorities, learning how to present business cases well, and deciding which concepts to pursue.

6 / BUILD RISK TOLERANCE INTO

LEADERSHIP TRAINING

Pharmaceutical giant Merck once engaged in an exercise called Kill the Company (Bodell, 2012). Leaders spent several hours pretending to be from competitors, generating ideas that would put Merck out of business. Several more hours were devoted to devising strategies to overcome those threats. When the leaders realized how their competitors could beat them, they knew it was a risk not to innovate (Grant, 2016).

The understanding that status quo can actually be a threat needs to be a key part of any leadership training. Regardless of your sector, the rapid pace of change requires equally rapid response — the kind of response that intrapreneurs thrive on. Whether you’re contending with government cutbacks, restrictive grant rules, or an upstart competitor, time is not your friend if leaders insist on doing things the same way they always have.

HR professionals are uniquely positioned to spearhead intrapreneur engagement, innovation, and leadership development initiatives that support and help them feel valued. Leveraging the talents of intrapreneurs also shows leaders that HR truly can and does play a strategic role in organizational success.

REFERENCES:

Grant, A. (2016). Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World. New York: Viking. Bodell, L. (2012). Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution. New York: Bibliomotion).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shona Welsh, MCEd, CHRL used to be an intrapreneur but she’s okay now. She and her partner at Ovation: Experts in Speaker Training travel the world helping leaders discover their unique voice as well as transform their organizations through Innovation Tournaments. Shona is an award-winning speaker and trainer and the author of numerous books. She cannot be left alone in the house with chocolate. Contact her at shona@OvationSpeakerTraining.com.