Five Intrapreneurial Tactics for Battling Bureaucracy
Strategies to overcome a major hurdle to innovating within your institution
When an awesomely innovative idea for your organization hits the bureaucratic brick wall, the natural reaction is to throw your hands up in the air and decide it’s just not worth it. Attempting to advance a new innovation in the workplace often creates friction with colleagues and skepticism from higher ups, making the process a daunting endeavor in addition to an already full work schedule.
The global economy is starting to grow again and companies need disruptive innovation to stay ahead of the competition. This has led to a rising call for innovation at large organizations, but the calls are not being met with a disarming of the bureaucratic obstacles facing most workers. To maneuver past the blockages we must think like an intrapreneur,an institutional employee who successfully adapts entrepreneurial and start-up practices.
Here are five intrapreneurial tactics to winning your battle against bureaucracy.
1. Go into stealth mode
Like established players looking to stamp out start-up competition, forces within the bureaucracy will be eager to expose weakness in your innovative idea. Intraprenerurs, like entrepreneurs, are able to fail fast and fail quickly, developing innovation through an iterative, learning approach. To have the breathing room necessary for risk taking inside your organization, you may need to go into stealth mode.
The longer you keep your burgeoning idea under the radar, the better chance it will have to succeed. There are a variety of tactics to employ for stealthiness; working outside of the normal office space, discussing ideas with external networks, and doing targeted, limited tests. Stealth mode can be a risky proposition, but intapreneurs are known for taking smart calculated risks. Keeping trusted office allies in the loop can also mitigate the risk to this approach.
2. Become a showcase innovation
Senior management may be more attracted to shiny objects rather then your gritty solutions. In some circumstances forgoing the nuanced, descriptive approach for a flashier alternative might help you get past the bureaucracy. There is a strong bias against new ideas, and you’ll need to overcome that for higher level buy-in to your innovation. Try grabbing a free conference room and filling it with white board diagrams, post-it notes and creativity inspiring chotchkies. Bring senior management by to “see the innovation magic happening”. By showcasing the energy in developing new ideas, it can get the decision makers more excited about the innovation process.
3. Collect evidence from internal stakeholders
The director of your organization has put innovation as a top priority. You have a strong hunch for a new idea, but when the time arrives to present at the team meeting you can’t quite articulate it. When our ideas are in their conceptual phase,they are easy targets for detractors and those comfortable with the status quo.
By gathering evidence from internal stakeholders that your idea is desirable and beneficial, you gain a strong defense against those trying to stop your idea from progressing. You can gather evidence by holding a focus group, sending out a survey, or collecting testimonials from internal stakeholders. Another strategy for collecting evidence is our next tactic, building an MVP.
4. Build an MVP
The Minimal Viable Product (or process, procedure, program, etc) is a principal from Eric Ries’ “Lean Start-Up” methodology.
A Minimum Viable Product has just those features that allow the product to be deployed, and no more. The product is typically deployed to a subset of possible customers, such as early adopters that are thought to be more forgiving, more likely to give feedback, and able to grasp a product vision from an early prototype or marketing information. It is a strategy targeted at avoiding building products that customers do not want, that seeks to maximize the information learned about the customer per dollar spent.”
The MVP can be adapted for large organizations as a pilot or prototype. In deploying this tactic you are able to keep expectations of the first iteration in check and gain hard evidence for convincing internal decision makers.
5. Be inclusive (but avoid design by committee)
Inclusion is a key strategy for bridging the start-up mentality into the established organization. If you push forward with your new innovative idea without getting everyone on board, you are likely to see obstruction not because the idea is bad, but because people feel excluded or worry about how the innovation will affect them. Early in the development process, invite everyone to join in on an innovation working group. Set some basic ground rules of obligations that must be met to be part of the group (i.e. attending weekly meetings, taking turn writing minutes, etc ) to weed out free riders. The more people feel part of the innovation the better chance you have of overcoming bureaucratic blockages.
However, be careful to avoid design by committee. Allowing too many inputs into your idea may water it down, cause confusion, and slow down the development process. The balancing act of inclusion is more art then skill, but one that can be practiced and improved over time.
Learn more about and intrapreneurial tactics and the power of interapreneurship in TC108a — Introduction to Intrapreneurship: Innovating Within an Institution a TechChange.org online professional development course facilitated by a UNICEF intrapreneur. The next course begins October 22nd.
