2. Let’s start with this.
1. Innovation is driven by
entrepreneurial thinking.
2. Entrepreneurs are people.
3. Corporate are just groups
of people.
3. We brought together Global Leaders of
representing:
- 458,000 employees
- £85bn in revenues
- over 75 million customers
to discuss this question…
• International Banks
• Big Four Professional Services
• International Consultancies
• Global Telecommunications
• Big Energy
• and Tech entrepreneurs
7. We agreed that what drives
entrepreneurship is …
a profound sense of
OWNERSHIP
8. So does creating ownership
always mean entrepreneurship
is a done deal?
No!
“We have 850 owners (Partners) and
they are NOT entrepreneurial. It is an
attitude of mind.”
Big Four
10. “Entrepreneurs are the people in
your organisation with a passion for
something and a desire to create.”
Global Consultancy
“Entrepreneurs are talented people
who want to drive change”
Telecom
12. People think companies
like Kodak didn’t respond.
That is not accurate.
“They saw the need for change but
were not sufficiently broad-minded
to respond in the right direction.”
Global Consultancy
14. ‘If you look at your business
it’s the ‘entrepreneurs’ that
are responsible for how the
company really got here’.
“..and yet they are not sufficiently
nurtured and developed.”
Global Energy
16. It takes courage to persist
with time frames any longer
than a year or two even if it
is the right thing to do.
“That courage is entrepreneurship.”
Global Energy
19. Corporates are not good at
taking necessary risk.
“We’re not culturally prepared to
fail.”
Big Four
“Entrepreneurial businesses are the
opposite; they embrace failure, seek
change, believe everyone can win”
Tech Entrepreneur
21. Entrepreneurs define their
own success criteria but for
corporates…
“…if there is no immediate return we
fear shareholder value is not being
maximised.”
Global Energy
25. “If the risk is big enough to
make a difference to the
balance sheet, the risk is
big enough to destroy a
career…”
“ Getting egg on your face is major
disincentive to innovate.
Entrepreneurs have no such fear”
International Bank
27. Scale leads to complexity
(and diversity which
SHOULD breed innovation)
but corporates must
manage scale with rules.
“People with an entrepreneurial
mindset get bogged down by rules
and layers.”
Global Telecom.
29. Decisions are necessarily
slow and process constrains
passion.
“There is nothing more dangerous in
a large organisation than pivoting
too quickly without getting everyone
on board.”
Global Energy
31. “Corporates fear change. The
consistency of message is
prized. Change of message is
bad”
“There is vision at the top. Energy
at the bottom. Middle management
fears change and has little incentive
to change”
Professional Services
32. “Today’s visions seem to
be more about
incrementalism than real
change or growth”
“Perhaps the corporate vision isn’t
bold enough or brave enough any
more to allow for systematic
change”
Big Four
36. An entrepreneur is the person who
sees the totality of the business: its
purpose, its assets, its customers.
“She holds the universe in her
head”.
Tech. Entrepreneur
37. Entrepreneurial
behaviour:
• Innovative
• Taking measured risks
• Measuring success other than
financially
• Have a strong sense of
purpose
• On the offensive
• Embracing change accepting
failure
• Hunting
Corporate
behaviour:
• Consistent, repetitive
• Avoiding risk
• Measuring success financially
and in the short-term
• Not looking far into the future
• Protecting, defending
• Fearful of reputation
• Farming
38. Is it even possible for
Corporates to be
entrepreneurial?
39. In our experience of working with 120
Corporates it is possible but it is constrained
by:
• Pressure to deliver short-term results.
• Scale of the organisation. Scale leads to
complexity and that takes the eye off the
ball. The energy gets tied up in politics.
Global Performance Consultancy
40. The “Innovation Dilemma”
“Big companies have an imperative to
innovate to survive and yet structure and
culture acts against innovation.
Big companies fail because they fail to
change.
But change is not rewarded”.
Telecom.
42. “How do you resolve the
dilemma that large
organisations need to innovate
and yet culture, structure and
priorities prevent this?”
43. Through structure..
“You need to create a separate entity so as
not to strangle the entrepreneur or disrupt
the core.
That’s what Amazon does”
44. And decision making..
“It may scare the corporate but the velocity
in today’s world doesn't allow for central
control”
“Decision making MUST move closer to the
customer”
45. Through leadership..
“Brave and diverse leadership can reduce the
fear of failure in large organisations”
“If big organisations had bigger visions
they’d be given more space to innovate by
analysts”
“it’s about courage and leadership. People
should not fear to fail”
46. and Culture ..
“Create a culture of honesty and openness”
“A lot of this can be overcome if you connect
everyone to a sense of purpose and have the
courage to allow talented people autonomy.”
47. So, in summary, this
group of global leaders
and entrepreneurs think..
48. 1. Lead and inspire (internally and externally) around vision
and purpose.
2. Take the personal risk away for leaders and innovators.
Celebrate failure.
3. Coach leaders to embrace entrepreneurship and skill
them to the task
4. Build a personality around the best person in the
business, not the lowest common denominator.
5. Decouple ‘Business as Usual’ from Entrepreneurship.
Create space & limit ‘blast radius’. Innovate in ‘pods’.
Allowing some to break away doesn’t stop the
organisation still doing what it has historically done well.
49. 6. Become good at socialising and developing ideas, not
just having them.
7. Make the reporting structure work FOR innovation, not
against it.
8. Redefine recruitment to attract & retain entrepreneurs
(who least want to work for you), not luddites (who most
want to work for you).
9. Move closer to your customer. That’s where decisions
should be made.
51. “Shareholder value often comes from
doing what we do well and doing it again
and again”
“Entrepreneurship requires time. You can’t
innovate against quarterly reporting:
“So, let someone else create something
new. When 50,000 people want to buy it
then we’ll acquire the innovation”
52. “In that case we need to learn to
UNDERSTAND the entrepreneur and help
and nurture them outside the business.
“But we don’t speak ‘entrepreneur’!”
“And they don’t speak ‘us’”
54. We learnt..
“FACT: everything is about to change.
This is not a tech bubble. This is an
industrial revolution. The velocity is
unstoppable”
“If for no other reason, large companies
will die through bleeding talent. Good
people are already dying to break out.”
55. “Mass unemployment is on its way.
Culturally we need to learn to deal
with this”
“We always overestimate change in the
short terms and massively
underestimate change in the long term”
56. And scarily…
“In the next 10 years 40% of
FTSE companies will be gone.
They will try to innovate and fail.
They will pivot but not fast enough.
The corporate model is not doomed –
but its current expression is.”
57. “If we are brave enough you can
change in time”
“Being entrepreneurially
minded is your only
survival strategy in the
world that is coming”
