A robust innovation strategy can play a critical role in keeping companies relevant and competitive, but it needs to be built around intrapreneurship.
Happy employees can come up with good ones. The solutions they develop could be breakthrough, fashionable items or relatively straightforward operations – it might even surprise itself!
Encourage creativity
You need intrapreneurs to stay ahead of customers, technologies and markets. It is through their innovation and new thought processes that companies solve challenges which could otherwise slow down the organization’s growth or disrupt it.
Encourage creativity and innovation in your workplace by creating an environment in which employees feel comfortable voicing new ideas. Establish an idea submission system so employees know who is responsible for moving new ones forward – this way everyone knows that their contributions are valued.
Also, creativity should be promoted through an ethos of failure-teaching. Leaders have to foster an environment where mistakes can be tolerated, and where people feel safe trying something new and experimenting to help your organization be successful.
Establish a secure zone.
For big companies, it’s often about staying the course instead of adapting to time and customer demands or climate change. But alas, businesses that don’t move fast will eventually find it more and more difficult to meet customer demands or protect the environment.
Facilitate intrapreneurship in your organization and you will promote innovation from top to bottom as well as employee productivity and retention. Even if creating intrapreneurship takes time, energy, and effort – it’s worth it!
Intrapreneurship is entrepreneurialism with a safety net. By encouraging intrapreneurship within your organization, you are providing employees with a sense of freedom to experiment with their ideas without fear of financial retribution if their concept fails. This makes employees more willing to take risks and try new ones without being penalized financially if their idea does fail – creating a cycle that leads to significant company growth and innovation. Examples of successful intrapreneurs are 3M Post-it notes, Google Gmail, and Facebook “like” button which all originated during hackathons – as examples of encouraging collaboration across departments while developing their ideas without fear.
Give your employees a second chance.
An intrapreneurship culture will expand companies and will encourage people to experiment more. If you want to recognize intrapreneurs, look for those team members who come up with new ideas on a regular basis and want to streamline their organization. Your company can spur innovation and creativity inside the company itself, by providing these employees with the tools for success.
Intrapreneurs are the heart and soul of today’s best companies. They are not only creative, imaginative and risk-taking but they also understand how to coordinate and get things done.
The formula for great intrapreneurship requires bold leadership. A leader with courage needs to implement a necessary change in order to expand, if this requires that it at first loses money, despite more innovative competition. PlayStation was built by an intrapreneur, Sony senior engineer Ken Kutaragi.
Take risks
Risk-taking is a key part of intrapreneurship. This is especially important in groups where current behaviour might be perceived as potentially dangerous or even unsustainable; individuals who are able to push their ideas forwards against colleagues’ resistance are more likely to succeed.
Some companies have the illusory habit of resisting change. Yet companies that don’t learn will be taken out of business and intrapreneurship to create innovation for businesses and intrapreneurship is how you can keep up with the industry and your customers are happy.
If you want employees to be intrapreneurs and creativity then give them all of the tools and help they need – for example, trainings and making your place an incubator for new ideas. And, once you have a process in place for these projects, then your employees will have an easier time implementing their thoughts into the real world, and your organization will become a leader in the field. Through these, you can train the next generation of innovators who will take your business to the next level as it matures and becomes an industry leader.
