Innovating in a large organization is a topic that hits home (literal) for me. As a Business Development Manager I spend much of day trying to innovate our sales process by identifying new markets to attack with technological advancement. I also chose Vijay Govindarajan for my 10-10 innovator presentation. VG is a Professor of International Business at the Tuck School at Dartmouth. VG is an expert on strategy and innovation. He shares the opinion of Mr. Wessel that large organization have large hurdles to overcome in order to innovate at all. However, it is neither my professional experience nor my current studies in ETR500 that made this topic hit home.
I rushed home on Friday night to have dinner with my family after a long drive back from a conference in NYC. My one year daughter is screeching with happiness as she throws her dinner on the floor for the dogs to feast on. My seven year old son is loudly insisting on playing with his friends all weekend. I quick peak at the family calendar uncovers a busy weekend; pumpkin carving with my sister, dinner with friends, CCD for my son, church for the family, hours of yard work, and dinner with the in-laws was the weekend agenda. Of course I must find some time to fit in school work as well. I quickly realize what Wessel and Govindaraja are referring to when they say big companies cannot innovate.
As a graduate student in the school of business at WPI I am trying to innovate myself. As CEO of my family I can relate to the difficulties of innovation of big companies. There is no doubt that the advice of Wessel and Govindaraja would help me to better innovate. I need to somehow create an autonomous version of myself in order to properly innovate. Unfortunately, I have tried this method and I find that my wife does not accept such a solution. My presence is too valuable at home to focus solely on innovation. Unfortunately I find that such autonomy is the only solution to properly innovate and earn my MBA. The rules of everyday life do not properly enable me to innovate myself via the MBA.
However, much like a good corporation, some hard work and creative norm breaking will have to get me through the process.
