Page 156 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Which Model Is Right for You? 143

team really needed was entrepreneurial and venture capital
skills. Sound obvious? It can be, but we’ve found that many
corporate entrepreneurship teams fail to select people with the
necessary skills and tools as a result of insufficient mission
focus and clarity.
Let’s consider the top-level objectives stated earlier. If a com-
pany is seeking to conquer new growth domains, discover
breakthrough opportunities, or thwart potentially disruptive
competition, then it should consider the Producer Model. In
general, business units are unlikely to pursue disruptive con-
cepts and often face strong near-term pressures that discour-
age investments in new growth platforms. The Producer
Model helps overcome this, and it can provide the necessary
coordination for initiatives that involve complex technology or
require the integration of certain capabilities across different
business units.
For companies that want to accelerate the growth of estab-
lished divisions, the Advocate Model might be the best option.
Because of the limited resources of that model, companies must
tailor their initiatives to the interests of existing lines of busi-
ness, and employees have to collaborate intensively through-
out the organization. This enhances the potential fit of
opportunities with a company’s operations, but also requires
the leaders to ensure that projects do not become too incre-
mental. Advocates exist to help business units do what they
cannot accomplish on their own but should pursue if they are
to remain vital and relevant. Moreover, the Advocate Model
(as well as the Producer Model) can prevent corporate entre-
preneurship from becoming a casualty of powerful business
units or competing silos.
Enabler programs can support efforts to enhance a firm’s
culture, but keep in mind the “culture change traps” high-
lighted in Chapter 1. When a company already enjoys substan-