Inside Innovation: How Executives Build Cultures That Sustain Change
Unlock sustainable innovation inside your enterprise. Learn how top executives foster intrapreneurship, resilience, and culture for lasting growth.
Executives face a paradox: the world demands constant innovation, but sustaining disruptive change inside mature organizations is harder than ever. In this edition of Experimenters Mindset, I sit down with Louis Gump—author of The Inside Innovator and an executive with a track record leading mobile strategy at CNN, The Weather Channel, and multiple startups—to unpack why “intrapreneurship” is vastly misunderstood, what sets exceptional intrapreneurs apart, and how leaders can build environments where innovation isn’t just tolerated but thrives at scale.
Louis shares pivotal lessons from his own journey—spanning pre-iPhone wireless experimentation to steering digital businesses through boom and bust cycles—illustrating how curiosity, bridge-building, and integrity underpin not just innovation, but cultural change. This episode dives deep into why relationships outweigh early wins, how to align internal stakeholders (from the boardroom to emerging talent), and why resilience—not hustle—is the most essential currency for inside innovators.
If you’re wrestling with stagnant culture, burnout, or the challenge of translating bold ideas into business value, you’ll find actionable guidance, candid war stories, and a blueprint for reshaping not just your process, but your people—so your next “overnight success” might just arrive a little faster.
Breakdown of the conversation
Every executive wants sustained innovation—but in most organizations, the odds seem stacked against real progress. Despite investments in incubators, “skunkworks” teams, and hackathons, few companies translate disruptive ideas into lasting business value. As someone who has worked across Fortune 100s, venture-backed startups, and enterprise product teams, I’ve lived both sides of this conundrum. That’s why conversations with leaders like Louis Gump stand out. He’s not only navigated the muddy waters of corporate entrepreneurship (“intrapreneurship”), but has distilled his experience and research into a framework designed for executives who want more than buzzwords—they want outcomes.
In this interview, we get granular about what makes inside innovation work. Louis’s story at CNN—building mobile platforms in a pager-and-PDA era, long before the iPhone—reminds me that transformational change is rarely a sprint; it’s a marathon with moments of explosive velocity. His “seven-year overnight success” narrative drives home how compounding experiments, stakeholder alignment, and a relentless focus on value—from financial returns to culture—are not luxuries but necessities.
What struck me most was Louis’s emphasis on relationships as the real levers for scale. Whether you’re a new joiner eager to make your mark, or a veteran leader looking for your next breakthrough, your ability to navigate politics (aka, relationships) determines not just your pace, but whether you get to play at all. Yet, as Louis candidly shares, it’s just as critical to recognize when the best contribution you can make is somewhere else—resilience, self-awareness, and healthy boundaries matter just as much as grit.
The Intrapreneurship Imperative: Rethinking Value Creation From Within
The Executive Innovation Paradox
Let’s face it—most organizations are built to scale efficiency, not to disrupt themselves. According to McKinsey’s 2023 State of Innovation Report, over 84% of executives say innovation is critical to their strategy, but only 6% feel satisfied with the outcomes1. This “innovation theater” is everywhere: lots of pilots, but little business impact.
Louis Gump’s experience paints a roadmap for making innovation truly stick. His years leading mobile at The Weather Channel and CNN (before most people had smartphones) taught him that real enterprise innovation isn’t glamorous. “It’s a seven-year overnight success,” he says—an iterative, often thankless process of layering experiments and relationships until a so-called “transformational” moment suddenly looks inevitable in hindsight.
Entrepreneur vs. Intrapreneur: Cousins, Not Clones
Many people, myself included, have bridged roles in both startups and corporate settings. The temptation is to treat the two as interchangeable—but Louis is clear: the mindset, risk, and stakeholders are fundamentally different.
As he puts it:
“Intrapreneurship is the practice of creating value through innovation and growth within a larger organization.”
Unlike entrepreneurs—who have founder’s authority and can pivot decisively—intrapreneurs must navigate layers of priorities, politics, and legacy infrastructure. That means success hinges less on individual brilliance and more on navigation, persuasion, and resilience.
When I led customer product teams at AWS, it wasn’t enough to build a great prototype. Success came from reading the room: Who do I need to influence? What’s the board’s strategic imperative? Who are my blockers—and who can become an unexpected champion?
Setting a North Star: Why Clarity of Purpose Outranks Speed
The Perils (and Power) of the “End in Mind”
Inside innovation is messy, but starting without a clear goal is a recipe for drifting mediocrity. In large organizations, “the end” isn’t always a revenue target. It might be user adoption, market leadership, or even a strategic cultural shift.
At CNN, Louis’s team defined success with a mix of quantitative targets (unique users, revenue) and qualitative ones—brand alignment, product quality that matched the organization’s world-class standards. What’s critical is that this North Star is shared up and down the org chart. That meant involving not just his immediate team, but stakeholders from legal, sales, product, finance, and even entry-level contributors, in a “round table” process. The effect? When challenges arose—like holding back a product launch to protect the brand—the team had the confidence and buy-in to make principled decisions, rather than just force compromises.
Stakeholder Alignment: Early and Often
Alignment isn’t a one-off meeting—it’s continuous. The most successful initiatives I’ve witnessed, like the ones detailed in Google’s Sprint methodology2, involve upfront participation of both decision-makers and implementers. Having board-level support matters, but so does the energy and insight of your newest hires. When you crowdsource vision (not just execution), you achieve both better ideas and deeper emotional investment.
But beware the “skunkworks” myth. While isolated innovation units can occasionally outperform—think Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works or Apple’s “secret teams”—Louis’s research and my own experience suggest that most breakthroughs in large, interconnected companies require broad organizational touchpoints. Isolation can create speed, but often at the cost of scalable adoption and leverage.
The Social (and Emotional) Architecture of Inside Innovation
Ambition is Easy—Relationships are Hard
The myth of innovation often minimizes the social complexity of big corporations. As Louis emphasizes, even the best new joiner can trip up by misreading culture or alienating vital players. “One of the quickest ways to make a misstep is to do or say something that goes against the culture,” he notes.
In my career, I’ve learned this the hard way. At Amazon, success wasn’t just about delivering; it was about evangelizing relentlessly—aligning with engineering, product, compliance, and, critically, with my boss’s boss’s boss. In Louis’s story, the partnership with a technology leader named Mark—who fundamentally understood CNN’s landscape—accelerated execution. Their shared vision and complimentary expertise drove progress that neither could have accomplished solo.
The Politics of “Yes” and the Art of Saying “No”
One of the most subversive dangers for innovators is the expertly deployed “no.” Mature organizations often develop managers whose core competence is risk mitigation—knowing how to block more than to build. While downside protection is necessary (the Harvard Business Review has documented how unchecked innovation leads to costly distractions3), organizations that tip too far into “no” mode become brittle, lose talent, and eventually, relevance.
As an intrapreneur, your opportunity—and often your test—is to distinguish between constructive friction (the feedback that improves your case) and culture-driven inertia. When your ideas are met with non-negotiable roadblocks, that’s a signal: either you haven’t done your organizational homework, or you may be in the wrong environment to have real impact.
Integrity & Trust: The Non-Negotiables
Louis is unapologetic:
“It’s critically important to continuously reinforce integrity.”
His point rings true across industries—slippage in standards, even in small matters, erodes trust and undermines innovation over time. Whether it’s expense reporting or representing product readiness, honesty scales.
This is especially poignant given recent high-profile innovations gone wrong—from Theranos to Enron. As Deloitte research notes, “high-trust” cultures outperform in both innovation and resilience, partly because people are empowered to call out risks and errors without fear4.
Compensation, Recognition, and the Motivation Puzzle
Why Money Isn’t Enough—But Incentives Still Matter
Let’s be honest: most successful intrapreneurs are not purely coin-operated. Intrinsic rewards—curiosity, impact, growth—are prime motivators. But leaders ignore smart incentive structures at their peril.
Louis shares that meaningful bonus structures, long-term incentive plans (LTIPs), and public recognition (at team, company, and even industry levels) can help maintain energy, especially when heroic efforts are required.
However, as organizations adapt to younger talent with different expectations—especially Gen Z, who, according to Accenture’s workforce research, prioritize flexibility, autonomy, and “meaning” as ranking higher than pay5—compensation strategies must evolve. Shorter tenure cycles and lower organizational loyalty require less emphasis on pensions and more on immediate, milestone-driven rewards.
Burnout and Boundaries: Balancing Innovation with Wellbeing
We need to address the burnout myth: real innovation will always require sprints of extra effort—but endless overwork is counterproductive. Studies from Stanford Business School show that chronic overwork can actually reduce overall output and retention6.
In my teams, I’ve found that recognizing when someone is “moonlighting” for a new project (on top of their day job responsibilities) is essential to retention and morale. If your innovation effort depends on heroes going 80 hours every week, you don’t have a system—you have a slow-motion disaster.
Louis offers a pragmatic approach: always negotiate what comes off the plate when you add something new. Celebrate sprints, but also create space for recovery. Sustainable innovation is a team sport, not an individual marathon.
When to Stay, When to Move: The Individual Innovator’s Dilemma
Personal Accountability vs. Environment Fit
Too many innovators blame their environment before truly auditing their own behaviors. As Louis puts it, “It’s very, very important to take personal accountability for how you show up,” but once you’ve done that introspection and still find cultural, political, or values mismatches, it’s time to strategize a move.
I’ve felt this acutely—sometimes your strengths aren’t valued, and you spend more energy surviving than building. Burns out not just your morale, but your capacity for contribution. As Wharton School research shows, emotional energy and the ability to contribute “disproportionate value” are leading indicators of both individual and organizational health7.
Optionality: Why There’s Always More Than One Path
Quoting from Designing Your Life (Evans & Burnett): “There isn’t such a thing as living your best life; there are multiple paths, each with tradeoffs.” For intrapreneurs, this means that hitting an organizational wall doesn’t mean the end of impact; it often means there’s a better fit, sometimes in another team, sometimes another company.
I encourage my direct reports to cultivate optionality. Don’t let the “rim of your rut become your horizon,” if you’re hitting diminishing returns, look for new ways to apply your curiosity and drive.
The Anatomy of an Intrapreneur: What Executives Should Seek (And Build)
Five Markers of Exceptional Inside Innovators
Louis’s research surfaced five core qualities:
1. Curiosity
Curiosity is the drive to explore, ask questions, and seek out new knowledge and possibilities—fueling the discovery of innovative solutions and opportunities
2. Action Orientation
Action orientation means moving beyond ideas to execution—taking initiative, making decisions, and delivering tangible results even amid uncertainty
3. Ability to Build Bridges
Bridge building is the ability to connect and collaborate across teams, functions, and perspectives, aligning stakeholders and fostering buy-in to move ideas forward
4. Risk Tolerance
Risk tolerance is the willingness to experiment, accept uncertainty, and learn from failure - essential for pursuing new paths and driving meaningful change within an organization
5. Grounded Optimism
Grounded optimism is maintaining a positive, forward-looking mindset rooted in reality; seeing opportunities, inspiring others, and persisting toward a vision while staying attuned to practical constraints
Across the board, every successful innovation driver in my experience possessed a meaningful dose of each. Not all in equal measure, but their presence is non-negotiable. As an executive, hire for these, coach them, and build your teams to complement gaps - not just in skills, but in temperament.
Strength-based Team Design and the “Letting Go” Principle
Strong leaders don’t micromanage, they empower. Louis calls out the ability to “know when you’re adding too much value.” In my own leadership journey, I’ve seen teams accelerate when I step back, resist the urge to solve directly, and let new talent surprise me with their approach.
Especially with Gen Z—whose digital nativity and worldview can surface blind spots for veteran teams—this is doubly true. Let your team own the “how” as well as the “what.” Cross-pollinate new and seasoned talent, and measure the long-term effect not just in KPIs, but in cultural resilience.
Valuing Differences: Diversity Beyond the Buzzword
Moving from Policy to Practice
Diversity - of thought, background, temperament, and skill - has always been good business. BCG found that organizations with above-average diversity scores achieved 19% higher innovation revenue8. However, as Louis notes, the language of “DEI” risks politicization. I frame it as “valuing differences” - from introverts to extroverts, technologists to liberal arts thinkers, generational variety and more.
When you bring together people with dissimilar perspectives, you get better, more holistic solutions. This is not just a compliance exercise—it's a core driver of differentiated, defensible innovation.
Synthesis: The Future of Inside Innovation
Our conversation makes it clear: successful enterprise innovation isn’t about lone geniuses or lucky bets. It’s about process and people, ambition and alignment, experimentation and integrity.
The Big Picture Takeaway:
As executives, our job is to build environments where curiosity and courage are recognized, not repressed. That means focusing as much on relationship architecture as on product roadmaps, and being prepared to step aside when our skills or energy can bring more return elsewhere.
Whether you’re seeking your next “seven-year overnight success,” or nurturing the next wave of inside innovators, remember: real revolution comes from cultivating experiments, resilience, and above all, trust - one relationship at a time.
McKinsey & Company. (2023). The State of Innovation. (https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-state-of-innovation-2023)
Knapp, J., Zeratsky, J., & Kowitz, B. (2016). Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. (https://www.gv.com/sprint/)
Birkinshaw, J., & Gibson, C. (2004). “Building Ambidexterity Into an Organization.” Harvard Business Review. (https://hbr.org/2004/06/building-ambidexterity-into-an-organization)
Deloitte Insights. (2022). The Trust Imperative. (https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/leadership/trust-in-innovation.html)
Accenture. (2023). The Gen Z Effect: New Rules for a New Workforce. Accenture Study (https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/workforce/gen-z-effect)
Pfeffer, J. (2018). “Dying for a Paycheck.” Stanford Graduate School of Business. Stanford GSB (https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/books/dying-paycheck)
Grant, A. M. (2013). “Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.” Wharton School. Give and Take (https://giveandtake.com)
BCG Henderson Institute. (2018). How Diverse Leadership Teams Boost Innovation. BCG Report (https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation)