I recently re-read one the most inspiring books on entrepreneurism: Start-up nation, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer . I quote from pages 120-121.
“Large organization, whether military or corporate, must be constantly wary of kowtowing and groupthink, or the entire apparatus can rush headlong into terrible mistakes. Yet most militaries, and many corporations, seem willing to sacrifice flexibility for discipline, initiative for organization and innovation for predictability.”
In one of my roles in the past in a senior position with a corporate, I was responsible for consumer insight and strategy and, thus, for building an outside-in culture, brand driven and consumer & customer centric.
Bringing in the outside world into this environment was centered on two objectives: getting leadership in front on their customer and consumer base, i.e. having them literally listen personally to what people thought of their products (customer safari’s is one of many labels for this exposure), and collecting more market facts, i.e. market data. In this role I held one mantra: the principle of intellectual honesty, brutal honesty or, phrased differently, professional truth. Bringing in the outside world with not only data but also behavioural observation combined with interpretation –what I believe to be true market intel – meant that my team had the obligation to challenge existing assumptions and preconceived ideas.
At a point in time i was asked to leave the company. The reason they ultimately gave me for resignation was that “although I was valuable for the company, they expected I would be too critical towards management.” On face value, the reasoning for my resignation might be confusing: why let someone go if they are of value? And being critical was part of the assignment, wasn’t it? Personally, I felt it to be a great compliment. As for the company, their line of thought was a direct reflection of the quote from the book Start-up Nation given above. And, also predictably, the company fell back into the old routine of M&A to grow the company instead of generating organic growth through innovation and better and deeper market understanding.
Building business, whether in a start-up or in a corporate, is about beating the competition, or in military terms, beating the enemy. Creating and maintaining an open, intellectual honest culture in which people can challenge reality or perceived reality, innovation and entrepreneurship will be continuously be fed by individual creativity. Having worked both in a start-up environment as well as a corporate environment, I feel this to be true for any area of value creation: from a start-up perspective this is invaluable, but also from an existing or growing business perspective, this is invaluable. Change comes about when you view the world with open eyes.
