The MERIT Regional Summit in Manchester on 13 November 2019 was brimming with tips on intrapreneurial culture. Experts as well as HR and L&D executives proposed interventions that are shown by research to have a high impact.

Here are ten surprising, practical ideas HR can use in any company to create a more intrapreneurial culture. The good news: none of these involve restructuring or new technology. They are easy to implement, cost little to nothing, and you can start today.

1. Make sure managers offer regular feedback.

While most employees want to acquire new, future-ready skills, the vast majority do not feel they are receiving adequate training. Just 20% of employees in Germany strongly agree that their company helps them broaden their digital skill set, according to Gallup data. The percentages are only slightly higher for Spain, France, and the UK.

Surprisingly, however, the best solution to this widespread dissatisfaction does not involve more training or a larger L&D budget. “Continuous feedback from your manager is much better than a training in making employees strongly agree their company supports them in developing the skills needed for the future,” said Jeremie Brecheisen, Senior Managing Consultant at Gallup.

A low-tech, low-cost intervention to encourage regular feedback can increase employee satisfaction, performance, and motivation to learn.

2. Focus on people’s strengths – not on weaknesses.

Another crucial way that L&D can increase return on investment is to develop people based on their strengths, rather than their weaknesses. Jeremie of Gallup called this a “game-changing cultural move”.

“People don’t change that much,” Jeremie said in a MERIT interview. That may be a discouraging thought – but, on the upside, “If you can focus in on people’s strengths, they can grow more than they ever thought they could.” Multiple studies show that “when people focus on their strengths, they’re happier, they have less stress… they also are higher performers. They’re in the flow. They get in their zone of genius.”

Corporate learning is typically designed to remedy weaknesses. Instead, Jeremie suggested, we should ask people to reflect on what they do best. Programmes should start with questions such as, “What are you especially good at? What have been your greatest successes? What’s your best day at work?”

As people become more aware of their strengths as well as shortcomings, they can collaborate with others to fill their respective gaps. This skill-sharing builds a more agile company.

3. Smaller-scale culture programmes can have more impact.

If they target leaders, that is. People will trust that a culture change programme is genuine if they see their C-level executives setting the tone. “Someone needs to go first. And that somebody needs to really be the leader,” said Ginette Oliver of the consultancy Rising Vibe. While programmes at the middle management or lower level may also work, transformative initiatives typically start at the top.

This means that training fewer people at the top management level can make a bigger difference. This is also borne out in research by Margarita Mayo, professor of Leadership at IE University (Spain) and 2019 Business Book Award winner in the UK for her book Yours Truly: Staying Authentic in Leadership and Life. While getting top management on board requires a bigger initial investment of time and effort, it takes less work overall, and returns are much greater.

To put it differently: if we side-line top management, a culture change programme is likely to fail. In that case, employees may feel that the programme is only “ticking boxes”, as Ginette of Rising Vibe said. People are likely to join the effort when leaders have a stake in it.

4. Use a diagram for talking about emotions.

Emotions are a crucial part of building a better culture – but they are also confusing, contradictory, and rarely part of established company processes.

The lack of initiative around emotions, especially negative ones, belies their importance. Surveys consistently show that the majority of people are disengaged and unhappy at work. Rising Vibe found similar sentiments in all kinds of workplaces: from SMEs to multinationals, and from charity organisations to finance and airlines. Across the board, employees reported stress and burnout, as well as a disconnect with leadership. These issues are negatively affecting performance. Ignoring emotions is not working, and we should create a framework for addressing them.

“When it comes to talking about emotion, we need to make it easy for people,” Ginette said. She suggests a seesaw diagram with “low-vibe” emotions, like discouragement, on one end, and “high-vibe” emotions, including anger and aggression, on the other. People can locate themselves on the spectrum – towards either extreme, or in the middle. This diagram makes sure that we are not addressing just one set of negative behaviours at the expense of another, and it provides information about the kind of support a person might need.

Those in the “low-vibe” part of the spectrum need a boost of confidence, while those on the “high” end should be made aware of their own behaviour. In both cases, emotions should be recognised and named so they can be addressed.

5. Tackle the main barrier to cross-team collaboration.

One troubling effect of negative emotions at work is that they can dismantle interdepartmental collaboration. The number one reason two teams do not collaborate, Gallup found, is that their respective leaders do not like each other. “I don’t care how much they say they respect each other, if they’re not getting along and they’re avoiding each other, so are their people,” Jeremie said.  

This shocking finding proves that, when it comes to culture and intrapreneurship, we are not picking the low-hanging fruit. No restructuring or digital tools are needed to address personal antagonism. In this case, a smaller intervention, such as mediation, can make a big difference.

6. In emotional wellbeing programmes, do not neglect men.

Men may be less willing to seek help when they are affected by mental health issues. Ginette of Rising Vibe asked, “Where are the role models who are supporting businessmen with their emotional wellbeing? We are asked numerous times to support female talent programmes, we’re asked to come to speak at female networking groups; we have never, ever been asked to come and support a male-only support group, yet the statistics are telling us that men are struggling with emotional wellbeing.”

If men make more use of the mental health benefits available to them, this can increase overall wellbeing. Breaking the taboo and addressing men directly, Ginette argued, can have company-wide culture benefits.

7. Evaluate and compensate intrapreneurs differently.

Rather than awarding promotions, companies should encourage their best people to become intrapreneurs, said Guillermo Cisneros, professor of Strategy and General Management at ESADE Business School (Spain). They should also compensate intrapreneurs accordingly.

A team working on a new venture may be providing less immediate returns, but it is facing more uncertainty and solving more challenges. Guillermo, a serial entrepreneur, argued that HR cannot evaluate such teams based on traditional criteria. Compensation and benefits should reflect the risk they are taking on. This will increase motivation and can help the venture’s success.

Additionally, Guillermo advised HR executives to anticipate different outcomes. Whether a venture succeeds or fails, how is the team that worked on it going to be reintegrated in the company? Having a plan will make the transition easier.

8. Teach (and practise) storytelling.

In a study of nine key competences of “authentic leadership” – including humility, accepting feedback, and learning new habits – Margarita Mayo found that, surprisingly, people performed the worst on storytelling. Companies are distracted by the allure of data, Margarita believes, while it is human stories that build identity and trust, both internally and externally.

At the MERIT Regional Summit in Manchester, the topic of intrapreneurship emerged in the unconference session, where it became the focus for a roundtable discussion. Delegates pointed out the rise of podcasting, which shows people’s hunger for stories. They agreed that narrative can create a sense of purpose. Further, storytelling can aid intrapreneurship: by crafting your own story, you can change how you are perceived in the organisation.

L&D can address the competency gap when it comes to storytelling by designing programmes and activities around this often neglected skill.

9. Think of yourself as a business leader – and learn from the sales team.

One strategic way HR can use storytelling is in negotiating with leaders about corporate change programmes. As Margarita Mayo has shown, change initiatives work when C-level executives get on board – and 70% of them fail because they do not. In that case, telling a good story about why an intrapreneurship programme matters is crucial.

Jeremie of Gallup suggested that L&D executives present a business case to their leaders and show them the opportunity such a programme can leverage. He offered an example: “You say, 60% of our teams are not doing this, and the 40% that are are making this much money. All we have to do is invest this much and we’ll make that.”

There is already a team at the company that excels at such conversations: the sales team. A skill-sharing exercise, such as a workshop for L&D executives led by Sales, would cost nothing and could lead to better results.

10. Understand that not everyone needs to be an intrapreneur.

“Not everybody is designed to be in a fast-paced kind of environment,” Jeremie of Gallup said – and this is a good thing. In the spirit of playing on people’s strengths, not their weaknesses, culture and learning programmes should anticipate that intrapreneurship is not the best fit for everyone. Some people may have complementary skills to offer.

“You don’t want the entire organisation to be agile. Someone’s got to be, like, slow down, let’s think through this, quality check the whole thing,” Jeremie said. You can identify sceptical, detail-oriented minds and find optimal roles for them, too. They can offer constructive feedback and help intrapreneurs catch mistakes early so they do better in the longer run. 

To create an agile, innovative company, large budgets matter less than a smart strategy backed by research. These are the interventions that can help you have the most impact early on. Good luck!

For more insight from experts and HR leaders on creating a mindset of innovation, join us at the MERIT Annual Summit in Seville on 5-6 February.

By Ani Kodjabasheva