Managers Recharge in Startup Immersion Experience

To respond to the crisis in executive engagement and unlock innovation opportunities within both IT companies and large groups, start-up immersion is an excellent alternative to traditional training. Immersed in the daily life of small structures, employees experience frugal innovation that encourages the transfer of ideas within their company. An original and effective way to revitalize executives.

 

Another way to go on the field

"While traditional classroom training is still a good way to acquire new theoretical knowledge, it is no longer sufficient to guarantee a strong impact for managers whose commitment is declining" says Guillaume Soenen, academic director of emlyon business school in the Innovation for Growth program. This is a delicate situation for companies, already under pressure from the many transformations they are facing. Managers are therefore looking for new solutions to revitalize their managers and make them want to get involved and innovate within the company.

 

Immersion programs within start-ups make it possible to make the link between these two issues. Freed from vertical hierarchical relationships, processes, administrative burdens but in interaction with an optimistic and limited environment in terms of resources (human and financial), managers free their creativity to work on common projects. For Guillaume Soenenen, they are thus experimenting with "frugal innovation", a way to find motivation in their daily lives and to develop new forms of collaboration.

 

 

 

Des immersions guidées par le DARC

The tailor-made Innovation for Growth action learning programme is aimed at all companies wishing to unleash the creativity of their employees and improve the profitability of their investments in innovation. Modular and adaptable to the needs and challenges of each organization, this immersion in "unknown territory" is based on four key pedagogical principles: Off-centre, Action, Reflexivity and Collective Work (DARC).

Divided into groups of 15 to 25 people, the employees work with promising technology start-ups selected by emlyon for a period of six months to one year. "Within these structures, each group must take charge of a project that it will have to carry out to the end," explains Guillaume Soenen. The participants act in a concrete way for the start-up in order to be at odds with their usual environment. "In addition to this immersion phase, 3 seminars given by emlyon professors are integrated into the course to address the issue of innovation and change, and work on the associated human aspects. Essential days to help executives progress and provide them with a protocol for interaction with start-ups.

At the end of the training, the group of employees will seek the support of the members of the Executive Committee in order to set up a collective action based on their experience as start-ups: a way to boost their collaborative capacities and strengthen team spirit. It is not simply a question of making proposals to the company, but of asking for authorization to act, together and in concrete terms. The collective dynamic, born during the immersion, will be able to be perpetuated within the company.

Bouygues Telecom cultivates innovation with emlyon

Bouygues Telecom was the first to bet on immersion in start-ups with emlyon. Faced with fierce competition, the group's human resources department has chosen to focus on innovation to boost its executives and enable it to stand out in the market. Ready to take risks, the company entrusted emlyon with precise specifications to build its tailor-made training programme, supported by the four DARC pillars. 16 employees will thus move from the group scale to that of small start-ups for six months.

Result? During their immersion, the participants collectively imagined significant changes in the HR process for annual performance evaluation. More participatory, this new model introduces not only objectives shared with the N+1s, but also with the N-1s. By involving three levels of the company, the system accurately reflects the challenges and realities of the different strata of the company, making it more relevant and effective.

On the strength of the results of the first promotion, Bouygues Telecom continues to create fertile ground for innovation within the company by training new managers each year with the Innovation for Growth programme.

 

The tailor-made Innovation for Growth action learning programme is aimed at all companies wishing to unleash the creativity of their employees and improve the profitability of their investments in innovation. Modular and adaptable to the needs and challenges of each organization, this immersion in "unknown territory" is based on four key pedagogical principles: Off-centre, Action, Reflexivity and Collective Work (DARC).
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator