Intrapreneurship isn’t a programme to be rolled out – it’s a behaviour set that needs to be practised.

In the modern workplace, organisations often mistake visibility activity for progress. 

In fast-paced environments, we’ve no time for subtleties. When change is needed, whether because progress is stalling or performance is slipping, leaders often reach for a familiar enabling construct: the programme. 

Skills development is typically implemented via a structured cohort-led approach with associated training modules and ‘development opportunities’ advertised internally and externally. A 2024 UK government survey found that two-thirds of employers reported offering training courses, with 95% of large employers doing so. CIPD research also highlighted in-house development programs as the most common method of learning and development, although only 23% used performance support at the point of need to develop skills and behaviour.

A program approach to skills training for intrapreneurial-type skills, those focused on observation, synthesis, sensemaking, and decision architecture, has a number of challenges. Such skills are becoming increasingly important in an AI world where information is becoming rapidly commoditised. However, these skills don’t transfer easily. Employees may learn the concepts, but many organisations still reward compliance and route authority upwards. The programme therefore asks people to behave in one way, yet the system is designed for something else. Innovation’s encouraged; conformity is rewarded.

When structural fixes fail

Systems thinking describes this pattern as ‘Fixes That Fail’. When a visible problem arises in an organization the leader attempts to fix the symptom of the skills gap and, in the short term, all appears to be well. However, the root causes of the behavior remain and, after a time, the symptoms re-emerge as the previous enthusiasm for the ‘solution’ has worn off. Worse, each failed initiative erodes trust, making the next attempt harder.

Treating intrapreneurship as a capability programme addresses only the surface. People complete independent courses, attend workshops or pursue loosely connected development opportunities. Such abstract learning may build awareness, but it rarely changes what happens when someone questions a long-held assumption or tries to experiment with an idea. Once everyday pressures return, people drift back towards the behaviours the organisation actually reinforces.

What a programme leaves untouched

Behind these programmes sit mental models that shape how teams behave. Fear and urgency direct attention towards what is most visible, prioritising speed over long-term quality. Status quo bias turns past success into a template for the future: if it worked before, it should work again. Individualistic thinking encourages people to avoid personal exposure, which limits opportunities for knowledge sharing. Outcomes become prioritised over process. 

Training programme design reinforces these dynamics. Created at the top and rolled out below; programmes allow leaders to instruct others to complete them without examining how their own behaviour constrains adoption in real life. Intrapreneurial capabilities advance only through provisional judgements, small tests, and opaque evidence. Yet programmes bounded by start and end dates struggle to accommodate this continuing practice.

I experienced this tension firsthand when I wanted a new team to co-create our strategy over three months. My aim was to break down organisational layers and build shared ownership. My manager preferred a familiar top-down route: ‘You develop it, then share what they need to do.’ Participation was acceptable in principle, but control still shaped the method. Empowerment remained a message, not a behaviour.

Practice the behaviour, change the system

The most damaging consequence is that programmes also place the burden of change on individuals. Employees are told to be bolder and more accountable while the surrounding system penalises those behaviours. When their efforts stall, they lose faith in subsequent initiatives. The result is fewer volunteers, lower trust and greater cynicism.

A more durable approach starts with behaviours practised in real work: surfacing weak signals before they become crises; questioning assumptions without attacking status; running small, reversible experiments; sharing unfinished thinking; inviting challenge from outside one’s function; and recording and transferring learning. Decisions should be judged by the quality of the process, not just the outcome. Leaders must practise the same behaviours by embracing uncertainty, changing their minds when evidence shifts, protecting thoughtful dissent and distributing authority.

Training programs are not inherently wrong. But a program that fosters intrapreneurship needs to support translating this behaviour into new ways of behaving and interacting, and thus be practised in the employee’s normal work. But intrapreneurship takes hold only when those behaviours become part of everyday work: in meetings, incentives, decisions and responses to failure.

The question for leaders is not, ‘How do we roll out intrapreneurship?’ It is, ‘Which everyday behaviours does our system make difficult, and what will we practise differently?’

Justin Pennington is a global transformation executive and author of The Intrapreneur Leader: A Playbook for Next-Generation Human Leadership