Page 259 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

244 Appendix B

Over time, many companies came to the conclusion that their
corporate laboratories and separated new business groups were
not sufficiently successful in developing opportunities that their
business units could or would pursue. Dedicated, protected
new business development teams often operated more like
enhanced, privileged versions of centralized R&D than like
truly alternative corporate entrepreneurial groups. In the
extreme, conglomerate pioneer Harold Geneen of ITT wrote in
1984 in his book Managing that “entrepreneurism [sic] is the
very antithesis of large corporations.” Some companies spun
out their corporate labs as independent contract research com-
panies that would continue to do business with the original par-
ent company but could also pursue other opportunities if
sufficient internal interest could not be generated.
Rather than set up a separate new business development
organization, other companies tried to reinvigorate their inter-
nal conceptualization and commercialization prowess by emu-
lating the practices and culture of an acknowledged leader. For
instance, 3M was famous in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s for con-
sistently introducing new businesses built around innovative
technology platforms. A look inside the 3M organization
revealed two particular factors that accounted for its ability to
repeatedly generate new businesses: 3M allowed its engineers
and scientists to (1) spend up to 15 percent of their time on proj-
ects of their own design, and (2) seek resources and mentoring
from anywhere in the company, should an individual’s imme-
diate supervisors reject requests for support. Joe Bailey, a VP of
R&D in 1999, noted in 3M’s 2002 self-published history, A Cen-
tury of Innovation, that “the most successful people at 3M were
good at getting out of their offices, meeting people, interacting
and knowing where to find the expertise they needed.” Teams
could form flexibly around new business concepts, and, if these
concepts were successful, the individuals involved might take