Employees are more than cogs in the business machine. With the right guidance, they can become innovators that will help drive growth to the company and bring in significant commercial benefits.
How though can businesses help employees evolve into internal intrapreneurs?
What are intrapreneurs?
Intrapreneurs are a step up from the regular run-of-the-mill worker. While they do work that’s well within their actual job description, they are also tasked with coming up with innovative ideas that will help with the company’s growth.
Unlike entrepreneurs, they do not necessarily have to face the risks and challenges of running a business, as they only have to deal with the ideation aspect. They also usually have access to a larger pool of resources, something entrepreneurs have in limited amounts.
Why are intrapreneurs necessary?
The answer here is innovation. As an organisation co-opts the ideas that its intrapreneurs develop, it can further embrace innovation and adopt change that may or may not deliver a significant impact to the company.
Innovation, as we all know, drives growth in all or certain aspects of the business. Any change that improves the company’s products, services or internal and external processes can help boost its productivity, cost-effectiveness and efficiency.
Tips to transform your employee into an innovator
Easier said than done; how can a company sift out potential intrapreneurs from their hardworking staff and turn them into in-house innovators? Here are three helpful tips from Quartz:
Foster cultures of innovation
Innovation starts with the right company culture, and this will require a change within your organisation’s mindset. This shift does not have to be drastic; make small changes geared toward building intrapreneurial thinking.
Start with overt encouragement to tackle issues with innovative solutions. Additionally, it helps to keep an ear open to all sorts of ideas, however wild they may be.
Encourage regular experimentation
Innovation always starts with an idea, but it does not have to stay abstract. Encourage your team to come up with experiments to test their innovative concepts within the tried and true framework of the scientific method.
Experiments yield learning, regardless of the result. That said, be sure to adopt whatever works into your existing processes to demonstrate to your team the impact of their scientific investigations.
Maintain a structure for innovation
Ideation is spontaneous, but keeping it this way may not be advantageous in the long run. Keep it within a structured framework to ensure that your team continuously innovates.
One way to do so is by encouraging consistent iteration and focused learning. Here, intrapreneurs build upon the results of their tests, all within a set period of time.
To conclude
The fact that innovation is vital to any company’s growth is no secret. It has to be continuous, and fostering a culture of intrapreneurship is the key.