Page 215 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

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tunity with at least $100 million of quantifiable, verifiable bene-
fits accruing to BP, and a set of smaller wins referred to as “tech-
nology transfers.” The team knows how many potential game
changers and technology transfers it needs to have in progress
at any time to hit this objective. Tracking this is an ongoing focus
at the weekly meetings, and it has helped lead to the group’s
success. If your team’s role is to support innovation within
and/or transfer new businesses to business units, consider track-
ing “customer satisfaction” within your business unit partners.
This can be frustrating, as many people in line businesses don’t
really understand what goes into building a new business; how-
ever, if your team will be evaluated on its ability to show clear
value to business units, make sure you track the value created
and the business unit partners’ perspectives. The point is, create
simple metrics focused on the team’s fundamental objectives
and track progress. You’ll need to have the data handy when
people start questioning why you’re spending resources on a
corporate entrepreneurship group.
Note that it is not a requirement that one person performs
all of these activities. Some corporate entrepreneurship pro-
grams leverage the CEO/COO team model, reinforcing one
another with complementary capabilities. BP’s Darukhanavala
excels at building and motivating a high-performance team,
navigating the $250+ billion global company, and helping to
discern and evolve an effective project portfolio. His “chief of
staff,” John Baumgartner, fills the role of a chief operating offi-
cer, not only managing the infrastructure and operational func-
tions but also assisting Darukhanavala in the strategic direction
of the team. They make an ideal partnership, especially given
the group of high-level professionals that make up BP’s office
of the CTO. However, no matter how your corporate entre-
preneurship team is structured, all of the leadership functions
listed earlier need to be accounted for.