Page 225 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

210 grow from within

Riedel has some advice for senior leaders on helping to
make transitions happen. First, he recommends that a new
business should not be moved out of incubation unless the new
business has attained a level of maturity that will allow it to
withstand absorption into the larger business.
Second, aggressively communicate your project within the
wider organization. You must give your project enough of an
identity to prevent the person in the office next to you from shoot-
ing it down. Maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the people
you bring into your business is also important. Be sure to check
in with them regularly and make sure that things are going well,
so that they feel that the leader is truly concerned and involved.
Finally, the burden is on the leader to make certain that the
heads of the operating units understand in a real and concrete
way what the new project or innovation means to the future of
the company. Riedel explains:

Whoever is in charge of incubators . . . has to make the incuba-
tors be tangible to the operating units. Because if I was to go
and say I think we can in five or ten or twenty years implant
pig organs into humans and overcome end-stage renal disease,
they would probably say, “That’s interesting but I really don’t
have any time right now to listen to it.” But if I can say,
“Look, I have a value proposition that I believe is aligned with
our overall strategy, is aligned even with our midterm goals,
benefits from either my technology or from your channels and
I want your opinion, I want to get a feeling from you as to
how you feel about it.” If I can’t do that, then I think these in-
cubators will always be looked at as too esoteric, with over-
heads I would rather live without.

It comes down to leadership. “The person in charge has to
have enough business acumen and has to be credible with the