I won’t venture to tell you that the lessons I’ve learned from my years “struggling” in the service of the start-up/large group relationship have taught me everything. As I like to say, it’s just what I know and I realize that it’s probably a very small part of the complexity of this type of relationship.

On the other hand, I believe that my observations based on actors’ experiences can enlighten you whether you are a manager, an open innovation professional or an entrepreneur. Indeed, it is first of all a question of taking the measure of the challenge, avoiding thinking that we can manage open innovation as we manage a classic activity. When you open the doors of a house to let people in, you necessarily disturb the balance that has existed until then.

So, let me propose the following metaphor: the house is the large group. Whoever enters is the entrepreneur. The latter will inexorably upset the balance of the house. The large group knows this and is suspicious of it. The corporate open innovation system is the chamber that can, if properly implemented, allow the entrepreneur to avoid colliding with members of the house. The corporate open innovation system is the chamber that can allow the large group to avoid being hurt by entrepreneurs. This assumes that the corporate open innovation system becomes something special, a boundary zone, host to the two protagonists, the start-ups and the large group.

The corporate open innovation system, which aims to produce innovation in a different way because it is ultimately a boundary zone between external and internal, is intended to allow a new balance to take shape. It is the skills of its members, the resources that the large group will want to endow them with, as well as the interactions forged that will leave their mark on the security of interactions towards a result.

Without being presumptuous, I think one of the biggest problems we face today is that companies that are willing to promote open innovation are going about it in the wrong way. I don’t believe that teaching Lean start-up, Agile, etc. methods will help develop employees’ propensity to better understand start-ups and, beyond that, to better experience their digital transformation. That is what this is all about. When we talk about the digital transformation of companies, we forget that too often it is neither a logo nor a structure that will or must be transformed, but people. Do we believe that we can make this passage into another world without leaving the human being and without taking into account their ability to learn long-term only through their own experience?