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Rita McGrath

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July 31, 2010

Brilliant reflections on skunkworks

Ah, skunkworks.  Those small, agile units beloved of large organizations looking for the Next New Idea.  I've written about them in the past – and outlined some of the pitfalls of setting them up and expecting great things to happen without having some way of re-integrating them back to the core business.

 

I ran across this really interesting blog post this morning that adds a lot of rich texture to the subject of skunkworks and pulls together some really interesting examples.  For instance, I didn't know that the originator of "let a thousand flowers bloom" idea was Chairman Mao!  Definitely worth a look. 

Filed Under: Business Start Ups / Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Strategy Execution

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