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To Succeed at Intrapreneurship, You Must Stop Blaming the Culture


Organizations, culture and silos do not make things happen. Real people working on systems and processes do. I recently hosted a webinar titled Overcoming Corporate Culture to Succeed at Intrapreneurship where I tackled this very issue. Organizations, culture and silos are words we use in our daily work life that make it easy for us to blame others and not take responsibility for our own actions in perpetuating poor behaviours.

Words like silos, organization, and culture go a long way in defusing or hiding real problems, allowing people to resist change and disenfranchising employees willing to take action for the benefit of the company. How many time do we hear leaders state:

“It’s not our fault, we work in silos here.”

“There is nothing I can do, it’s the way the organization is.”

“This will never work here, it’s not in our culture.”

To succeed at intrapreneurship you must realize one important thing, organizations, culture and silos do not make things happen. Real people working on systems and processes do. Ultimately, everyone in a company is paid to leverage approved systems to execute processes with the ultimate goal of meeting client needs.

The trick is to understand how to break down culture into what it really is:

  1. Behaviours such as rituals, routines, stories and symbols

  2. Systems and processes used to do the work

  3. Control systems as a function of risk tolerance

  4. Organizational structure and how they centralize or distribute power

  5. Communications as a reflection of information sharing and transparency

Once you demystify “culture” you will be able to narrow down the specific aspects in your organization that need to be addressed to successfully position an intrapreneurship initiative. This narrowing down will help you establish a clear action plan to begin moving your company on the path to winning at intrapreneurship.


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