What is intrapreneurship
& why care?
What is intrapreneurhsip?
It’s entrepreneurship in already established companies or operations. Employee driven innovation in other words. It’s:
- A way to organize and steer an established company towards more competitiveness, profit and more employee engagement.
- A way to work; as an employee driving change and innovation from within the workplace.
Why care?
- The entrepreneurial movement is affecting all aspects of society. Entrepreneurs challenge the way we work and live our lives and how we all handle challenges. More people also looks up to them and sees them as role models – of course affecting the coming workforce’s demands on what future employers need to offer them. The challenges of today and tomorrow are mainly being led by entrepreneurs, but what about the established corporates – can entrepreneurs help them stay relevant and competitive in the future?
- The answer is spelled; intrapreneurship. These corporate entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs or as some call them; visionary doers / corporate rebels – act as change leaders and engines within established corporates in order to handle complex challenges with creative problem solving. Intrapreneurship can handle many of the complex challenges we face; digitalization, diversity, sustainability, war of talents etc. The intrapreneurs can also be described as ‘dreamers who do’ – they have both the visionary ability and the operational ability to make change happen. Their mission is to act on the great potential they see in their company, but way too often they are being stopped by hierarchies, egos, internal politics and so on.
In order to innovate smarter and faster. In times of crisis, or a pandemic like Corona, this really shows us how real uncertainty feels like. Corona teaches us that we really need to use our employees in a better and more creative way. We need to have employees with intrapreneurial skills and mindset, who can think and act by themselves, take initiatives and can contribute to foreseeing what the company should improve. So with intrapreneurship you will get more competitive companies, more innovations, more engaged employees and become more attractive as an employer – not to forget.
The majority of the global workforce sees entrepreneurship as the most optimal way of working because of the freedom and creativity it brings
... BUT THEY HESITATE, BECAUSE OF THE PERCEIVED RISKS
"Intrapreneurship is a slumbering and underutilized area within Swedish organizations"
- UPPSALA UNIVERSITY
So, the researchers want to see more employee-driven innovation. The employees want to act more like entrepreneurs. And companies need to become more innovative. What’s the sweet spot here?
Well, the solution is spelled intrapreneurship.
By combining entrepreneurship with employment, you can meet both the management’s need to solve complex challenges/steer the company – and at the same time meet the employees’ need of being able to act as an entrepreneur.
So how do you promote intrapreneurship? Here's a sneak peak...
- A belief that we as humans has untapped potential
- Management support
- “The double culture”: Ambitious + accepts mistakes as learning
- Decentralized organization with self-governing teams
- Calibration of ambition levels
- Encouraging and managing debates and questioning
- Flexible structures with room for creativity, initiatives and a certain level of chaos
- Innovation becoming a routine for everyone – where and how do you get help? Which tools can I use?
- Informal and communicative leadership – steer with trust, values, trust and vision