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Leadership from All Le vels     185


                 Cargill’s stated strategic frame is broad, but it provides its
              Emerging Business Accelerator (EBA) with a context within
              which to select ventures that fit where the company’s leader-
              ship intends to go: to be the “supplier of choice for customers
              in the agriculture, food and related risk management sectors.”
              Some companies have clear statements of where they will play;
              some unfortunately don’t. Either way, it is the corporate entre-
              preneur’s responsibility to figure out how his or her concept
              fits within this larger vision and communicate it as such. Top
              executives must recognize that the better articulated and more
              insightfully designed a strategic frame they can provide, the
              more it will help innovators companywide to build the future
              the company desires.
                 Corporate leaders also need to proselytize on behalf of inter-
              nal ventures. Use the bully pulpit by referring to innovative
              programs in meetings, lauding entrepreneurial successes early
              on to help them build momentum, and telling stories of inno-
              vative employees’ efforts. Simply attending meetings focused
              on new business creation can send the message across the com-
              pany that entrepreneurship is valued. If the company’s top
              people don’t spend time telling and showing commitment, then
              how can they expect anyone else to do so?
                 Allocating resources shows commitment. If you’ve asked a
              team to design and build new businesses to drive growth,
              make sure that team is given the appropriate resources. While
              some programs like IBM’s Emerging Business Opportunities
              (EBO) have annual budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions
              of dollars, most are more modest, as we’ve seen from examples
              such as BP’s and DuPont’s  Advocate Models. Either way,
              building new businesses requires commitment. Surging and
              shrinking budgets over time get in the way of productivity for
              any organization, but this is especially true when development
              horizons are measured in years. Senior leaders must not only
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