Page 100 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

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propositions about the way the world is (e.g., “people will love
this feature”) or about what you should do as a result (e.g., “we
should charge $100 for this service”), but they are not based on
complete information. If you had complete, solid data, you
wouldn’t need assumptions. For instance, you never know for
sure whether people will pay a certain price until they pay you.
Assumptions have a nasty way of becoming facts during the
development process, particularly after senior management
approves an action plan. When people see that the CEO has
signed off on a plan, they tend to start believing the assump-
tions involved as if they are representative of the way the world
is, even though they may still be just educated, well-researched
guesses. Remain vigilant in tracking your uncertainties and
assumptions to avoid being misled by your own brilliance.
We recommend listing all uncertainties in four categories, as
noted in the following list: 1

1. Product and/or service: Will it work?
2. Market: Will people buy it?
3. Resource: What will we have at risk?
4. Organizational: What internal organizational uncertainties
exist?

Companies too often overlook the fourth category, organi-
zational risk. This is perhaps the most important for corporate
entrepreneurs. We can do things to test the market, ensure that
the product works, or design a brand message that resonates,
but we can’t always be sure how our colleagues across the
company might react. This requires substantial political acu-
men and networking skills, described in other chapters of this
book. Addressing organizational and resource uncertainties is
the foundation of the four models of corporate entrepreneur-
ship that we will introduce in Chapter 3.