Page 158 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Which Model Is Right for You? 145

Thinking about Your Corporate Context

Baxter’s Path to a Corporate Entrepreneurship Group

The story of Andrea Hunt and Norbert Riedel of Baxter Inter-
national is an example of how a corporate entrepreneurship
effort can emerge from broader thinking about corporate strat-
egy and context. It is illustrative of the kind of progression in
thinking seen in several companies that have made corporate
entrepreneurship a priority.
Andrea Hunt joined the Chicago area–based medical prod-
ucts company Baxter International in 1988 as part of an inter-
nally focused Total Quality Management (TQM) team. At the
time, Baxter owned a large distribution business that provided
many disposable medical products (gauze, bed linens, tubing,
and so on) to hospitals and other health-care providers around
the country. After Baxter implemented TQM internally across
its own divisions and realized that it could apply its TQM capa-
bilities to the challenges of its suppliers, Hunt’s team went from
an internal focus to an external focus, providing TQM consult-
ing services. This exposed her to the challenges of product sup-
pliers, integrated delivery networks, and big hospital systems.
By 1992, the TQM consultancy had become a business-as-
usual initiative, and Hunt was ready for something new. Bax-
ter’s CEO, Dave Auld, was thinking about how Baxter could
do a better job of customer satisfaction beyond just the issue of
quality. Internally, Baxter faced long-standing employee satis-
faction issues that Auld wanted to address. Hunt joined a team
that was focused on helping Baxter enhance the underlying
values that affect behaviors and performance. The group stud-
ied initiatives at leading companies as well as emerging
thought leadership. These investigations led to the Baxter
Shared Values Initiative: What are the values that are most
important to us as a company, and what do we stand for?