Intrapreneurship

Teresa Chahine: Welcome to Impact & Innovation. I’m Teresa Chahine, and I’m inviting you inside my classroom at Yale School of Management as we grapple with questions on social entrepreneurship and impact. Welcome back, everyone. It’s episode two of our new season, and I’m here with my dear former student, Victoria Bush, who’s an SOM alum, and she took this course that I’m teaching now, “Public Health, Entrepreneurship, and Intrapreneurship,” two and a half years ago, and then came back today as a guest speaker to talk about her framework that she created, that kind of came out of that course. I’m so excited to share it with you all. Victoria, welcome. It’s been such a treat to have you here today.

Victoria Bush: I’ve loved getting to be back, getting to spend time with you, getting to meet the students. It’s been, it’s been so—

Teresa Chahine: You’re a natural. You are amazing in the classroom, and I’m so excited to share your work with our listeners and with a broader audience. I think that it can really impact so many people because you developed this framework on intrapreneurship, which I’ll ask you to go to in a moment, but as you were speaking today, I was thinking there’s this mental barrier that many people have against innovating. They think they have to have this grand idea, but your approach, which I won’t ruin, I’ll let you share it, but I think it will help people realize that it doesn’t have to be that. So I guess before you tell us your framework, though, tell us more about the background and how it all came to be and what you’ve been up to since you graduated two years ago.

Victoria Bush: Is it two? Yeah, I guess two years ago. Time flies. But yeah, so I guess just taking your class was the first time I ever heard this word intrapreneurship with an i. And I had at SOM, I took a lot of entrepreneurship classes and loved this spirit of innovation of how can we build new things, how can we solve problems by creating, I loved all those classes, had so much fun thinking of concepts and building and prototyping and testing in the Start-up Founders Practicum, but it was one of those things where I had this idea that I was really excited about. I had so much fun prototyping it in my kitchen. And then when it came to like, “okay, now how would I actually go about building this into a real company?” I kept hitting against this feeling of I feel like I’m in reinventing the wheel. I feel like there are people out there doing this much better than I am. And I had this feeling of, I wish I could sort of give the idea to somebody who already has a supply chain in place, already has this infrastructure in place. And there was something that just the efficiency in me was like, “Oh, I feel like what I’m doing is inefficient, and I think entrepreneurship is a beautiful thing,” creating something completely from scratch, from zero.

But I thought, I was like, I wish there was something where I could have that system in place and innovate within something that already exists. There was something I felt like was missing. And then when I took your class, that’s when I first learned about this term intrapreneurship with an i. And I fell in love with this concept. I thought, this is exactly sort of the sentiment that I was looking for. This idea of having an entrepreneurial spirit, but within an existing organization. Exactly. And so I got super interested in it. And also being at SOM, most of us, when we graduate, we go work for an existing company. And so I thought this is a skill that I want to build. I want to become better at internal innovation in the same way that we learn entrepreneurship principles and skill sets and things like that. I thought I want to learn those skills, but to innovate within an existing organization.

Teresa Chahine: There’s organization, there’s so many courses and resources for entrepreneurship, but given the fact that the minority of people will not start a new company, they’ll get a job in an existing company, there’s relatively fewer resources for entrepreneurship.

Victoria Bush: Exactly. And that’s how I was like, this is such a cool thing, and it’s something that we all will do in our lifetimes. I hope so. And even if it’s not in your work organization, let’s say it’s in a local nonprofit that you volunteer with

Teresa Chahine: Or your kid’s school...

Victoria Bush: A religious organization, yeah, your kid’s school, all these places are organizations that you’re a part of and can sort of contribute to in this sort of entrepreneurial spirit. And so that’s what I just got really excited about. And so I started doing research on what are people saying about intrapreneurship, what research has been done, and then just pulling together my own experiences, finding little ways to innovate within things I was a part of already. And so that’s how the framework came to be, the initial version of it. And then after graduation, working in startups, that framework has sort of evolved based on my experiences with innovating there and especially because innovation within an existing organization looks so different from just starting something from zero. And so that’s why it felt like I wanted to learn this very specific skill that felt separate from the entrepreneurship skills that I had learned in things like Start-up Founders Practicum.

Teresa Chahine: And it’s really interesting that actually when you wrote an intrapreneurship framework straight out of grad school, and then I had it in mind like, “Oh, that’s what you’re going to teach.” And then having been out there and worked in not one but two startups since graduating with Inbox Health and August Schools, you kind of iterated the framework to reflect what you’ve learned being an innovator within these existing institutions and came back with this beautiful three Cs of intrapreneurship, which I love. So are you ready to share it?

Victoria Bush: Yes.

Teresa Chahine: All right, let’s hear it.

Victoria Bush: So the three C’s, in classic business school fashion.

Teresa Chahine: Yeah, exactly.

Victoria Bush: It has to be three or four of a certain letter. So it’s the first C is “constrain,” the second is “create,” and lastly, “champion,” and it sort of reflects to me the difference between the unique challenges of innovating within an existing system. And so to start with “constrain,” what I think of as the most important first step is sort of understanding what are your constraints within this organization. Every organization has constraints, from giant global corporations to early-stage startup. The constraints just look different. And so I think that first step is just acknowledging and really understanding, what are the constraints that you’re up against. And it’s so funny, I was talking to a school counselor the other day and I was sharing about this framework and she was saying, she was like, it’s sort of similar to what you talk about in therapy, about identifying what is within your control, what you have control over and what’s outside of your control.

And realizing that there are things you can’t change. And so by acknowledging those, you can focus on the things that you can, which I loved. So it applies in lots of different contexts, but to me that first C is just sort of that critical first step before you can ever jump into a solution, just sort of sitting with the problem, relishing in the constraints. And I sort of think of it as before you can think outside the box, you have to understand the box that you’re in. So what size is the box, what color is the box, what is the box made of? And it’s going to look so different in each person’s organization, whether it’s limitations on resources, time, energy, money. Is it the culture within the organization? Is it your leadership’s priorities? What do they consider important? I see that first step is understanding, defining that friction, that problem that you want to tackle, and then understanding the constraints. What have people tried and done unsuccessfully? What constraints are you facing? Who are the stakeholders involved? Who does this issue affect? Who could be an ally, who could be a blocker? And starting to map that out so that you know the ecosystem that you’re working within.

Teresa Chahine: And you did this great exercise in class with the ducks. I love that, with the Lego.

Victoria Bush: Yes. So I’m a huge Lego fan. And so this was sort of a really fun activity just to sort of illustrate the fact that constraints aren’t necessarily sort of blockers, that constraints can actually drive innovation and drive imagination and creativity in a lot of ways. And so it’s an exercise that’s used in sort of Lego professional development workshops.

Teresa Chahine: I love that.

Victoria Bush: And basically a group of people, any number of people are given six Lego blocks. It’s like two red blocks, four yellow blocks, and a variety. One of the blocks has a little eye on it. And the task that you give people is to build a duck. And you try to get people who are sitting next to each other so they don’t see each other’s work. And inevitably, every single time people, you think, “Oh, there’s one way to build a duck with a certain amount of blocks.” You have six blocks, that’s your constraint. But inevitably, you never get the same duck. Every single person builds a wildly different duck. And to me, that’s sort of the beauty of it, is that these constraints, even though “constraints” has sort of a negative connotation, that it’s, if anything, it’s a driver of imagination and creativity and that when you’re given sort of limited resources, it sort of forces you to be more creative than you would have to be otherwise. And I think in the startup context, often you don’t have as much funding, and you have to figure out a creative way to do things with fewer resources. And so I love that Lego duck—

Teresa Chahine: It was so fun.

Victoria Bush: ...activity because it shows you how creative you can be with a very limited set of people.

Teresa Chahine: I’ll comment on the “constraints” part of the three Cs framework is that as you’re speaking, I’m thinking that you’re applying it to intrapreneurship, to innovating within existing institutions, but one could apply it more broadly to any kind of social change, as long as you’re working with existing institutions. This spring I’m going to teach a course on social movements for the first time. And I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can emerge from social enterprises into social movements, into thinking about as we’re innovating and for social change, what movement do we need to be part of? What movement do we need to be building? And I keep thinking about students who are part of a protest or a movement or something, and it’s like a lot of the time they don’t have a plan. They don’t understand the institutions they’re working with and how decisions are made, and they don’t have a theory of change that’s linking their action to the change that they’re hoping will happen.

Victoria Bush: Yeah.

Teresa Chahine: And that’s basically part of what you’re describing with the constraints, understanding the stakeholders and the culture and where you’re going to meet with resistance and who decides and things like that. So I found that really interesting.

Victoria Bush: Yeah, and I feel like it helps you sort of preempt future problems. It’s like, “Okay, this is somebody who’s maybe going to resist this. What can I do?” Whether it’s find a workaround or find some compelling way to have them see the value of this innovation or movement in that way. And so that’s why it’s fun to jump to the creation stage of building something, finding a solution, but especially when you’re an intrapreneur and you have to be really realistic and practical and efficient, starting with those constraints, the path of least resistance.

Teresa Chahine: And when we put this into practice at the end of class, you used an expression when advising the students for this part that I loved, and I remember writing it on the board: Sit with the problem. Spend a little bit more time getting to know the problem before you jump into the solution.

Victoria Bush: Yeah, no, I think it’s easy. It’s tempting, and I’m guilty of this myself.

Teresa Chahine: We want to be action-oriented.

Victoria Bush: Yeah, you want to just like, do it.

Teresa Chahine: If you want it to be effective, do your research.

Victoria Bush: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The time and time again, it’s so tempting. You just want to solve it and you want to take action. And that’s the fun part is ideating and coming up with ways to solve the problem. But yeah, there’s a lesson I’ve learned, it’s sitting with the problem. And that’s a great segue to the second C—

Teresa Chahine: The second C.

Victoria Bush: ...which is “create.” And so that’s when you get to, once you’ve identified that friction, you’ve identified the constraints that you’re working within, that’s when you get to what I consider the most fun part, is getting to ideate and think of possible solutions. And so here really key is generating ideas that then you can test, you can prototype, you can sort start with a little pilot program, listen, receive feedback, and then go from there. And so I think especially for entrepreneurs, you always want to make a big change.

You want to like, “Oh, this isn’t working, let’s reinvent the whole thing.” But when you’re working within an organization, it’s not something you can feasibly do, overhaul a whole organization overnight. And so I think the key here, and something that we talked about in class is just really starting small. It doesn’t need to be anything big, it’s just, find something that you can do this week, this month, not something grand that will take a ton of levels of approval or all this stuff. It’s this incrementalism of, let me pick one little thing that I can control that I can make better and then build momentum that way.

Teresa Chahine: This is the part that I thought would really resonate with people who feel held back by the need to have the next big idea. And I remember one of the students in class was sharing an example that ties the constraint to the creativity part when you asked, what are some organizations you’ve worked with? And she said she used to work in a food bank, and she’d have so many ideas that she wanted to create and people would say, “Well, we might run into compliance issues.” And this kind of goes back to the constraint part as much as the create. And she’d be like, “Great, let’s find out what those are and then maybe we can implement and we can just test something small and make it better.” And imagine if each person had that attitude where the world was full of people making small changes in existing institutions, imagine how much it would add up. So it’s exciting when you frame it in that way. Then I think more people will take action.

Victoria Bush: And someone came up after class to chat about basically the beauty of intrapreneurship is that you want to spread it around. You want other people to be intrapreneurs, you want everyone to be an intrapreneur. And so I think that’s what’s so fun about it is, imagine if everyone thought that way of “How can I make this better?” How can, like I said at the end of the class, just always asking that question of “how can I leave this better than I found it?” I think that’s like the intrapreneur’s ethos, which I love.

Teresa Chahine: Ideally you want an organization full of intrapreneurs, right? Yeah.

Victoria Bush: I guess that takes us to the third seat. So “constrain,” “create,” and then the last one is “champion.” And I think this is the one, the most important one. It’s the last one because it’s often where these things get stuck. You come up with an awesome idea and then you go to try to implement it, execute on it, and people either say no, or you can’t get people to make that change. And at the beginning of the class, I mentioned that intrapreneurship is really hard, and it has its own unique challenges. You’re fighting against inertia. It’s hard to get people to change the way they do things. Change management is really difficult. And so you’re often fighting against this resistance. It’s just people have done it that way for a long time.

Teresa Chahine: The biggest competitor is inertia.

Victoria Bush: Exactly. And so people will just keep doing it unless pushed by an opposing force. So I think that champion piece is so key of, you basically need to become the salesperson for your idea. And I think within that is this idea that often people coming up with these amazing ideas, they’re not senior leadership, they’re not the CEO, in a lot of cases. The people who are closest to the problem are the ones coming up with these ideas. And so how can you use soft power in the absence of formal authority to push your idea along? Especially if you’re new to an organization, you don’t yet have that sort of credibility. How can you use that soft power and use that sort of the storytelling to really make sure that your idea gets adopted, that people see the value. And something we talked about in class is that when you’re selling your idea, you could have the most amazing idea in the world, but in order to have other people see how amazing that idea is, you really sort of need to frame it in terms that matter to them. So if you have this amazing idea, but the other person doesn’t see how it could improve their life or help them achieve their goals, why should they take time out of out of their day to adopt your innovation or your idea?

Teresa Chahine: Yeah. You gave an example from your work about how you got a few early adopters to test something that you came up with and then how it got integrated, right? Can you share that?

Victoria Bush: Yeah. So at August Schools there was basically this software that I’d found that I thought was really cool, and it basically supports the sales process.

Teresa Chahine: Tell us real quick what August Schools does. I don’t think I asked.

Victoria Bush: So it’s a platform for school nurses, school counselors, like K–12 schools, that allows them to document meetings with students. So think if a student comes to talk to the school counselor about academic anxiety, that’s something that they can then record in a secure platform rather than something like Google Docs.

Teresa Chahine: So it’s like an electronic health record for K–12?

Victoria Bush: Exactly, yes. It’s like an EHR for physical and mental health. And then what’s really cool is, once you start documenting in that more structured way, you can then get insights, you can get analytics out the other side. One of my favorite parts of my job has just been seeing how schools use that data to then cater their programming in a really thoughtful way. So being able to see in our platform, we have charts that show when there are certain times of year where let’s say there’s a spike in academic anxiety. So now as a school, let’s get to the root cause of that. Let’s figure out why that’s happening, what can we do in terms of programming to act proactively, do something that mitigates that and supports students before things snowball, which is really cool. So I loved getting to hear from these schools and hear how they’re using the data to better support their student communities, which has been amazing.

Teresa Chahine: And you got a small number of people in your team to adopt your idea and suggestion.

Victoria Bush: So it was a software that I had found that I thought was really cool, and it was basically sort of a very different way of doing things during the sales process. And it’s basically sort of a software that allows you to create almost like a mini custom website for the school that’s deciding whether they want to buy the software. And it basically just allows them to continue interacting and engaging with you even when they’re not in the meeting. And for education technology, the sales process are a little longer. Schools have a certain way of doing things, and you often have to get approval from many different people. And so it’s just a cool way to be able to continue that engagement even when you’re not, let’s say on a Zoom call with them, which was cool. And so we were able to basically have a couple people try it out and see if this was something that they liked.

We tried it for one school, and it went really well. And so then we were able to continue using it, which was really fun. And it’s been a really helpful tool. And so it wasn’t something I created, but it was fun to get to bring it in and sort of trial it, get feedback on, okay, how can we modify this to better serve the needs of the schools evaluating the product? And we keep iterating it to this day of adding content, removing this, adding that, what’s successful, what’s working? And so that was sort of a fun example of, okay, how can we make this process better, not just for our team, but for the schools that are evaluating whether or not to buy the software.

Teresa Chahine: I think you really are an intrapreneur by nature, I mean every institution you’re part of, you add so much to it. Even here as a student at SOM, we just ran into someone from student affairs and they’re like, “Oh, and Victoria started this contest and this production and this tradition and this show.” I think one of them was also related to Lego. You keep, there’s so many Lego examples.

Victoria Bush: I do love Lego! Yes. One of the, well, the two I feel like proudest things I’m most proud of from SOM are the Lego build championship, which was so fun where we basically had the different cohorts compete to do a Lego build and we had professors as the judges and assign a winner, which was just really fun to see all these people in their twenties and thirties sitting for hours playing with Lego. It just makes your day. But then the other thing was the musical, that was sort of one of the absolute highlights of my time here starting the SOM musical, which I was so happy to run into the guy who’s now sort of carrying that torch and doing the musical. He did the musical last year and now this year. So I don’t know, it made me a little emotional hearing. They’ve made it so much bigger and better than the first year that we did it.

Teresa Chahine: That’s awesome! That’s the idea. That’s what the third C is about, is that eventually you want it to keep growing without you. You’re the spark that gets it going and then it gets institutionalized.

Victoria Bush: Yeah, and with that, like, the champion, often you’re not the one who’s going to get to take it to the finish line, and so, that’s sort of what I love about intrapreneurship is that a lot of that ego is removed from it, where your goal is just to make this thing better. And it doesn’t mean that you’re the one making it better. Often it means you plant the seed and then somebody else carries it on, which is sort of cool to hear a lot of the examples today in class where people said, “I’m graduating in the spring, I’m not going to get to finish this work, but I want to start it. And then in a way that it can be carried on in the future.”

Teresa Chahine: Yeah, exactly. Recognize the need, get something started. One thing that came up today in class when we were talking about the three Cs of intrapreneurship is the role that the workplace itself can play and how to intentionally foster a culture of intrapreneurship and how innovation needs time that’s allocated and needs resources and needs a different rewards and incentive system where experimenting is good and failing is good, instead of just “same thing, different day.” What are your thoughts on what workplaces can do to foster that culture of innovation?

Victoria Bush: Yeah, I mean I think the biggest thing is just making space for it. And I mean even today the in-class activity we did was, people got into groups with others who are within their same organization. And so in this class it was we’re all SOM students or we’re all School of Public Health students, we’re all Jackson students. And then that’s the organization that you’re sort of innovating within. And I think even just having an opportunity, just having time set aside to say, what’s an issue that we can solve? What’s something that’s this little friction, something that’s like, we know it could be better, but just like we’re going to take a second, we’re going to take a beat to acknowledge it and then think about what we can do. And that in-class activity was maybe 30 minutes max. And yet I think people came up with these amazing ideas that I hope that—

Teresa Chahine: I hope so too.

Victoria Bush: ...they go and continue to do because it just felt like even just in 30 minutes you could come up with all these amazing ideas for improving the organization that you’re in. And so I think just making space, making time for those sorts of taking a beat, taking a step back and thinking about those things is already a huge first step.

Teresa Chahine: And I do think that you need leadership or at least administration that wants people to innovate and wants to see them through. Another great example you gave was from Adobe, and I love how they’re not just open to innovation, but they’re catalyzing it. Tell us a little bit about that.

Victoria Bush: The Adobe Kickbox is what they call it. I think it’s genius. I think it’s such a great example of the three Cs put into practice because basically in this case study, Adobe had realized that all these people on the ground employees had these amazing ideas, but they kept getting stuck because the first step was to go pitch it to management. And so they thought, “Okay, how can we remove that barrier, remove that roadblock?” And so they created, they’re these, look, I don’t know, they’re not that big. They’re like 8½-by-11 or something, red boxes called Kickbox that as soon as you have an idea, if you’re an employee at Adobe, as soon as you have an idea, you can request one of these Kickboxes. And the Kickbox contains, I think it’s like a bar of chocolate, a Starbucks gift card, some Post-it notes, and then an a-thousand-dollar gift card, or not gift card, like a thousand-dollar prepaid credit card to basically use to prototype, to test out your idea, create something. And so I love it because a lot of companies say, “Oh, we’re innovative. We want people to innovate,” but they really just put their money where their mouth is. They say, if we care about innovation, we need to give people the resources to do that. I love that acknowledgment that, okay, we have this roadblock to innovation, which is that people, in order to get money to do stuff, they have to go pitch it to management. And so all these amazing ideas are getting lost. They’re just sort of dead in the water.

And so by having the Kickbox, people are basically able to create something, build something, prototype, and only once they’ve gone through that whole process, then pitch it to leadership, which is just so cool. So it’s just sort of reframing that approach. And I think it’s just a beautiful way to incentivize idea generation and just sort of testing.

Teresa Chahine: And I don’t think you have to be a tech giant to do that. I think public-sector institutions can do that as well and need to do that as well. There was a study by Jacobson et al. many years ago, I think it was 2015, and they surveyed public health government workers, and they wanted to innovate and they wanted to be intrapreneurial, but they weren’t explicitly given the time and the budget to do that, and they weren’t working in an institution that rewarded risk and failure because to experiment, you have to fail. It’s part of it. And so the incentive was to just keep the status quo because you’ll get fired if you expend and fail instead of being rewarded to do that. So there does need to be an intentional strategy at the highest levels to create an environment not only where people have the time and budget to innovate, but where you also, as the leadership, have allocated time and budget to implement and pilot and scale those innovations. I think it’s really intentional and also to build the skills for intrapreneurship, like what you did today in class.

Victoria Bush: Yeah, because even just learning those skills, I think it’s just having that framework in your head while it’s like, “Oh, I have an idea,” or “I’m seeing a problem that I think could be better.” It just helps you sort of think through it and think through, how can I actually bring this to fruition?

Teresa Chahine: Yeah. So thanks so much for sharing this framework with us. I really think that anyone can apply it whether in a business setting or in a civic society setting or in an academic setting like we did today. Anything else you want to add? Any closing thoughts about the framework or intrapreneurship in general?

Victoria Bush: I mean, in terms of closing thoughts, I think the spirit behind intrapreneurship is just wanting to improve things, wanting to leave things better than you found them. And I always think back to going on field trips to a park or something where the teacher would always say, “If you see litter, pick it up. Leave it better than you found it.” But I think just having that, and that was sort of my final message to the class, is just constantly asking yourself, how can I leave this better than I found it? And whether it’s in a work setting or just in life in your interactions with people, how can I leave this better than I found it? How can I help this person? I think that sort of thinking is what really just drives innovation. It’s what drives that sort of intrapreneurship with an i. So yeah, that’s the final note I would end on is just sort of that question, how can I leave this better than I found it?

Teresa Chahine: I think that’s the perfect note to end on. And even zooming back away from institutions and intrapreneurship, just life, how can we leave this earth, this society, this family, this job, this world, a little bit better than when we came into it? I think if each person is asking that question as they’re living, they will make such a huge difference.

Victoria Bush: And there’s no problem. Too small.

Teresa Chahine: Yeah.

Victoria Bush: We’re just picking up a piece of litter, still leaving it better than you found it.

Teresa Chahine: Thank you so much, Victoria. You’re truly an inspiration, and I can’t wait to see what you end up doing over your career as you make each place you’re in a little bit better than you found it, and I hope you’ll continue to come back and share it with us. Yeah. I’m Teresa Chahine, and you’ve been listening to Impact & Innovation. Subscribe to stay tuned and follow us at Teresa Chahine and SOM Ventures. Special thanks to the broadcast center at Yale School of Management.