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Resources for those (congratulations!) tagged with starting an innovation unit

Over at my Harvard Publishing Online blog I had posted about starting a new venture unit within a firm.  Among the responses I received were requests for additional resources for those lucky people who are going to be running innovation groups in their companies.  This is what I answered to them:

Thanks all for the great comments and additional ideas.  For those of you (and there are going to be a LOT of you, once companies realize how hollowed-out their innovation processes have become) who need to get up to speed quickly on the venturing idea, I can recommend some resources to get you started.

Our own recent book, “Discovery Driven Growth” contains two chapters on leadership behavior that is required to drive growth and how different companies have structured for growth.

One of the all-around classic reference books on driving growth is Block and MacMillan’s Corporate Venturing:
Block, Z. & MacMillan, I. C. 1993. Corporate venturing : creating new businesses within the firm. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

There are also a few classic HBR articles that anyone tasked with developing a growth group might want to check out:

MacMillan, I. C. 1983. The Politics of New Venture Management. Harvard Business Review, 62: 8-13.

McGrath, R. G. & MacMillan, I. C. 1995. Discovery Driven Planning. Harvard Business Review, 73(4): 44-54.

Christensen, C. M. & Raynor, M. E. 2003. The innovator’s solution:  Creating and sustaining successful growth. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School.

Also- feel free to email me with any specific questions.  I’ll post the answers on the blog for the benefit of everybody interested in this issue.  .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

All the best, Rita

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• Posted: Friday, November 13, 2009
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