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Transformation
Hello Raphael. Can you introduce yourself?
Hello, I'm Raphaël, co-founder and president of CreateRocks. My background is in telecom engineering, I've been involved in software development and project management. More particularly at Thales - where I worked for ten years - I wanted to do more. Several projects were launched with a lot of failures and some successes. That's when I became an intrapreneur, without knowing it!
Can you tell us more about CreateRocks and its activity ?
CreateRocks was co-founded with Gautier, Yannis and Jule who shared my past at Thales. Myra joined us and brought her skills in HR development and digital transformation. We started from two observations:
1. The treasure of a company is its people.
2. It's hard to encourage and mobilize around intrapreneurship and above all to transform it into success.
CreateRocks was created to help companies to federate their employees around a visible community that offers new ideas while including employees who have the skills, interest or managerial role necessary for the project. It is, for us, the most fruitful method to create a sustainable intrapreneurship that wins business and organizational victories.
How did CreateRocks support France Televisions on the "Hacktion! » ?
We started working with you, Hélène and Frédéric, helping you define what you really wanted, how far you wanted to go and why, finding together how to think big while starting small.
Then came the time to find the volunteers through the animation of several workshops around intrapreneurship: being an intrapreneur, why and how to start, etc.
Then we made calls for projects - thanks to our application - to launch our MakeItUp, where in two days we found our team, targeted the problem and the users while imagining a first business model, a prototype, and finally how to tell it to internal sponsors to convince them.
Since then, every month we accompany each team to discuss their objectives, the difficulties encountered, and their strategy for the future.
How does the "Hacktion! "is original? And why does it seem relevant to you in a company like France Télévisions?
Responding to the France Télévisions call for tenders was to contribute to the Public Service. For me, the role of France Télévisions is to contribute to understanding, imagining and building the world we want on a planet in full transition (climate, digital, political) and the employees who work in such a company must have this sense of civic commitment.
The Hacktion project aims precisely to move the lines, freeing the talents of the group on core business or organizational themes to gain agility.
Part of its originality comes from you, Hélène and Frédéric. Efficient and pragmatic, you have allowed yourself the agility to develop it according to events. The originality of the experimental approach gives us a glimpse of a fantastic Season 2!
Halfway through the 1st season of "Hacktion! "what is your view on our intrapreneurs and their projects?
They have determination, involvement and devotion to their mission even if, as everywhere, they face the same problems when it comes to intrapreneurship: learning to juggle between work and new projects, managing internal obstacles when faced with new things that are rushing around while continuing to build an ecosystem to ensure their success!
They have changed since the beginning of the adventure. Diplomats when necessary, they have learned to manage a risky project in conditions of uncommon uncertainty. Learning how to communicate, market and recruit is not simple.
What advice would you give to intrapreneurs in general?
Our empirical learning has taught us that :
- You have to find people who want to get involved as much as you do in your project, from the expert to the local sponsor. The team comes first.
- Intrapreneur is an initial personal investment.
The success of a project is the resilience of the team at the start, "doing", in precarious conditions (which should not last, but should exist).
- A project always ends up stopping, you have to know how to manage what comes next.
Either a project turns into a success, so you are no longer an intrapreneur, but something else (e.g. project manager) and it's no longer the same role.
- Or the project stops, whatever the reason and in any case, you have lived an enriching experience from where you grew up.
Afterwards, you have a duty to give back to the community, to encourage so that the next ones also learn and dare to take the plunge, like you did at the time.
Managers clearly have an important role to play in intrapreneurial arrangements. What do you think is the most important? How can they best support the members of their team invested in an intrapreneurship project?
Managers are essential. We would not have been able to do anything at Thalès at the time if we hadn't had very committed sponsors! The support of the HR department and managers is essential in new ways of collaborating and considering the uses of tomorrow.
On a project, we meet two types of managers (who are sometimes the same person):
1/ Managers who see an employee leaving who wants/will become "intra",
For him, it is important that the company makes his vision on the subject well understood, his real will to go further in what is intrapreneurship so that he can become aware that he is thus participating in innovation and the future of his company by letting his collaborator launch a new product. It is also important for the company to help this manager so as not to penalize him in his achievement of objectives.
2/ Sponsor managers, those that the "intras" manage to convince in order to obtainsupport (communication, relational or financial). This manager will have to become aware of the profound change that impacts management. It is up to him to invent this role which enables him to contribute to the rapid evolution of an intrapreneurial project by giving means (financial, physical, others) or by opening up his internal network or customers.
In order to exchange with many COMEX members, this is where the new leadership model is expected to be found, this dual capacity to know how to manage the present and foresee the future.
Innovation must be at the heart of our organizations, and our managers are responsible for building the adaptability of their employees.
What's CreateRocks' little extra to help intrapreneurs?
You should ask your intrapreneurs! I would tend to think that this is our story: in the team, we lived it. We've all been intrapreneurs and we've all been open to the world of entrepreneurship for a long time. The impact on our solutions, whether human or digital, is therefore a path that is perfectly suited to employees who are living or wish to live this intrapreneurial adventure.
To learn more about CreateRocks: http://fr.createrocks.com/
To know more about it :
To learn more about "Hacktion! "you can contact us:
Frédéric Lecoin, Innovation and Prospective Department, frederic.lecoin@francetv.fr
Hélène Amoussou, Strategy Department, HR Foresight, helene.amoussou@francetv.fr
