Columbia Faculty on “What is the Entrepreneurial Mindset”
Entrepreneurship is one of those terms that’s a bit like the old saw about art or pornography - “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it”. If you want to bring a collection of entrepreneurship academics to a screeching halt, just ask the question “What is entrepreneurship?” This will provoke such a long and heated debate that all other purposes of coming together get lost in the shuffle. This has gone on at least as long as the 18 years I’ve been in the field.
It was therefore interesting for Columbia’s entrepreneurship center to collect different faculty members’ perspectives on the notion of entrepreneurial mindset in one place. You’ll find their definitions and observations here.
Share this article: 
- Posted Rita McGrath on December 20, 2007
Dumbest moments in business 2007 - I do miss Business 2.0
Each year, I had come to look forward to Business 2.0’s compilation of idiotic things that happen in the world of business. As that magazine is now unfortunately defunct, Fortune appears to be picking up the onerous burden of remining us all just how Stupid people in business can be sometimes.
Here are a few that I hadn’t heard about before checking out the list (you can find a complete index of all 100 here).
13. Disneyland
It’s a fat world, after all
Disneyland announces plans to close the “It’s a Small World” attraction to deepen its water channel after the ride’s boats start getting stuck under loads of heavy passengers. Employees ask larger passengers to disembark - and compensate them with coupons for free food.
44. Another subprime stunt. A Bank of America branch in Ashland, Mass., is evacuated after it receives a fax with the image of a lit match being held to a bomb’s fuse. The fax, sent by the company to alert employees to an upcoming promotion, somehow comes through without its text, which should read “The Countdown Begins—Small Business Commitment Week June 4-8.”
50. The Defense Department
Makes you wonder what it would cost to ship a million German screws
Exploiting a flaw in a Defense Department purchasing system, South Carolina parts supplier C&D Distributors rakes in $20.5 million in shipping fees on just $68,000 in sales. The scheme is finally detected when a Pentagon clerk spots a $969,000 bill for shipping two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas.
Share this article:
- Posted Rita McGrath on December 19, 2007
Tips for Cognitive Fitness
An article in the November Harvard Business Review recommends the following program for exercising your brain:
Manage by walking about
Read funny books
Play games
Act out (improvisation and acting)
Find what you’re not learning
Get the most out of business trips
Take notes - and then go back and read them
Try new technologies
Learn a new language or instrument
Exercise, exercise, exercise
All good food for thought. The original article is: Cognitive Fitness by Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts, HBR November 2007.
You can get a copy of the article here
Share this article:
- Posted Rita McGrath on December 17, 2007
Fascinating study on R&D Spending and return on innovation by Booz Allen & Hamilton
My colleague, Gray Hammond, drew attention to this year’s installment of the fascinating study of innovation conducted annually by Booz Allen and Hamilton. To access the study click here
Synopsis:
Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study of the world’s largest corporate R&D spenders finds two primary success factors: aligning the innovation model to corporate strategy and listening to customers every step of the way.
They have also identified three types of innovators among firms that spend the most on R&D. To quote their study:
Need Seekers: These companies actively engage current and potential customers to shape new products, services, and processes; they strive to be first to market with those products.
Market Readers: These companies watch their markets carefully, but they maintain a more cautious approach, focusing largely on creating value through incremental change.
Technology Drivers: These companies follow the direction suggested by their technological capabilities, leveraging their investment in research and development to drive breakthrough innovation and incremental change, often seeking to solve the unarticulated needs of their customers.
Perhaps the most important finding that emerged from the study was that no one of these strategies performed consistently better than any other — indeed, high-leverage innovators can be found in each of the strategy categories. The most significant performance differences correlated not with their innovation strategies but with those critical factors mentioned above: strategic alignment and customer focus. Over the past three years, companies that say their innovation strategies are tightly aligned with overall corporate objectives boasted 40 percent higher growth in operating income and 100 percent higher total shareholder returns than those whose innovation strategies are less aligned. Companies more focused on customer insight or market needs are also more successful than their less-customer-focused peers. In particular, companies that directly engaged their customer base had twice the return on assets and triple the growth in operating income of the other survey respondents.
There are loads more interesting statistics and conclusions in the report. Worth having a look at!
Share this article:
- Posted Rita McGrath on December 12, 2007
Overcoming resistance - Monsanto’s stealth strategy
In the book MarketBusters, we strongly encourage would-be growth companies to give some careful thought to the forces that might lead to delay or resistance as the new initiatives are rolled out. One of our poster children for this was Mosanto, whose genetically modified seeds created a firestorm of opposition, particularly in Europe, as the products were launched. In 2002, the company’s stock price dropped by 50% and it announced a $1.7 billion loss, due largely to its inability to overcome the opposition of critics, who included Paul McCartney and Prince Charles among their number.
From this seemingly-hopeless situation, Monsanto has been able to stage a comeback by deploying what you might think of as a ‘stealth’ strategy.
Share this article:
- Posted Rita McGrath on December 10, 2007
