Page 203 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

188 grow from within

companies, such as Cisco, Cargill, and Motorola, create advi-
sory boards for their incubating businesses. The boards provide
expertise and guidance, but they also exist to build support
from influential people, both inside and outside the company.
Some companies also have general leadership boards for their
corporate entrepreneurship programs. Baxter’s innovation
leadership team (ILT), modeled on a similar group at Motorola,
includes six senior executives and meets on a regular basis to
review progress on major new business opportunities.
There are many ways in which senior executives can help
drive internal ventures. Indeed, intentionally moving any sys-
tem outside its comfort zone requires leadership.

Dr. William Perry, DARPA, and the
Development of the Stealth Fighter

Earlier in this chapter, we referred to William Perry’s empow-
erment of others to tackle large-scale corporate entrepreneur-
ship challenges. We return to that example in the context of
America’s Cold War with the Soviet Union.
During the late 1970s, the Cold War was a fact of life for
much of the world, but especially so in Europe, where more
firepower was aimed across the continent than at any other
time or place in history. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw
Pact enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in conventional
forces, which, for a variety of reasons, the West could not
overcome simply by deploying more weapons or drafting
more soldiers. The United States and NATO held a small
nuclear advantage, although neither strategic nor smaller tac-
tical nuclear weapons were considered by most experts to be
viable options, given their radical destructive force and the
likelihood of escalation to global conflict. The West needed an
alternative.