Unleashing the Innovators: How Mature Companies Find New Life with Startups

Description

Today's mature, established companies must find ways to rejuvenate themselves--or risk losing their way. By working with startup companies, legacy companies can acquire new technology and lines of business, relearn the need for speed, increase strategic risk-taking, spark innovation, improve the intimacy of their relationships with customers, and streamline their operations from within. Today's established companies must find new ways to reignite their entrepreneurial DNA and jumpstart revenues--or risk losing their way. By working with startup companies, Jim Stengel, renowned consultant to Fortune 500 companies and the former global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble, says that legacy companies can renew themselves- by acquiring new technology and creating new business lines; relearning the need for speed; sparking innovation; and learning from failures. At P&G, Stengel saw the importance of establishing partnerships with the startup world in order to learn how to better innovate. Relying on extensive interviews with innovation leaders at enterprise companies and startups, Stengel's Unleashing the Innovators takes readers inside such storied companies as GE and Wells Fargo, IBM and Target, Motorola Solutions and Toyota to see what they are learning from their alliances with entrepreneurs. Stengel also explores how even 20- and 30-year-old "startups" like Amazon, Google, and Facebook can reinvent themselves--and what managers at legacy companies everywhere can learn from them. Drawing on a specially commissioned global study of over 200 established corporations and startups, conducted by research consultancy OgilvyRED, Stengel found that companies with successful startup partnerships are three times more likely to change their culture to be more innovative. Filled with indepth stories from the front lines of today's most forward-looking companies, Unleashing the Innovators shows how companies of all sizes can better navigate today's changing landscape, accelerate innovation, increase revenues, and improve their customer relationships.

JIM STENGEL was the global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble, where he worked for 25 years. In 2008, he formed The Jim Stengel Company, helping clients from global companies to Silicon Valley startups to find their purpose, build their brands, and grow their businesses. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Grow. TOM POST is a former managing editor at Forbes Media, where he oversaw stories about legacy companies and entrepreneurs. As a journalist at Fortune, Newsweek, and ABC World News Tonight, he covered business and foreign affairs. He is currently senior VP for content at SnappConner PR

"Entrepreneurial imagination, enthusiasm and vision is core to startup success, and Jim Stengel teaches us it's just the prescription for reinvigorating larger legacy companies as well. Unleashing the Innovators can help managers harness this startup spirit to reenergize their companies and take them 'from old to bold.'" -Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and Founder, LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org "Fact: the business world is changing and changing fast. We have two options, learn from Jim Stengel or get left behind. With an open mind, a willingness to trying something different and a copy of Unleashing the Innovators in hand, executives at legacy companies can adapt the cultures to more effectively compete in a new generation." -Simon Sinek, Optimist and New York Times Bestselling author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last "The future belongs, as Stengel persuasively demonstrates, to those willing to embrace new ideas and new ways of working - combined with the speed and agility to act on them." -Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever "Unleashing the Innovators unleashes some wonderful wisdom and insights about what companies of all sizes can learn from each other. It's a great playbook - full of inspiring stories - on how to build successful partnerships." -Arianna Huffington, Founder of The Huffington Post and Founder and CEO of Thrive Global "By managing the tension between old and new, small and big, novel and established, both startups and big global brands can get in touch not just with who they are, but who they must become. And this insightful, useful book by one of the best growth minds I know is a great place to begin the journey." -Beth Comstock, Vice Chair, GE "Innovation and the ability to challenge the status quo are what ensures the long-term success of any company. The bigger, the more successful the enterprise, the tougher the challenge, and the greater the need. Jim Stengel and Unleashing the Innovators offers critical insight into how to evolve a company's culture to constantly innovate, disrupt accepted thinking, and actually benefit from the accelerating change we are all experiencing. Plus, Stengel's lessons will help any individual personally challenge themselves to improve." -Dawn Hudson, CMO, the National Football League, and Board of Directors, Nvidia and Interpublic Group "Jim takes us beyond the benefits of partnerships with startups. He forces us to understand two essential human truths critical to innovation - the humility to recognize that no one organization or individual has all the answers and the courage to act on that." -Salman Amin, COO, SC Johnson "Jim Stengel aims the invaluable lessons of Unleashing the Innovators squarely at the leaders of legacy companies who labor to stay fresh and innovative. Stengel shows how to invite startup innovators into the tent to shock incumbents into new thinking; how outsiders - or insiders who think like renegades - are essential to the longevity of established companies; and a set of 'how tos' - to avoid failure, and to make these unconventional and often uncomfortable partnerships with upstarts work." -Judy Olian, Dean and John E. Anderson Chair in Management, UCLA Anderson School of Management "In today's digital, customer-first world, businesses must disrupt or be disrupted. Jim Stengel's fresh perspectives on leadership and purpose are an inspiring call to action for business transformation. Unleashing the Innovators is the established company's playbook for how to re-ignite passion and innovation within corporate culture to survive and thrive." -Karen Quintos, Chief Customer Officer, Dell