“There’s This Tension Between FOMO…and FOLP (Fear of Losing Power)." -Lessons from the Corporate Innovation Trenches

If you do this sort of thing long enough, you get used to the jokes. "Corporate innovation? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

In fact, it’s a line I hear so often, I used it myself in the interview below.

But here are the facts behind the jargon: with the world economy in an increasingly fragile state, we are still in the midst of an unprecedented run of corporate success. Corporate profits have seen the biggest annual increase in close to 50 years, while U.S. entrepreneurship continues a 40-year decline. Additionally, in spite of the hundreds of well-financed digital startups that often make headlines, there are fewer small businesses and early-stage companies in the United States right now than at any time since the late 1970’s. In fact, the majority of Americans no longer work at small or local businesses; they work at large firms.

We live in a world dominated by big, complex, multinational corporations. Corporate innovation, far from being an oxymoron, is essential if we want to solve the greatest challenges of our time, from the climate crisis, to income inequality, to the pursuit of racial and gender equity.?

This is core to what we believe at Idonea, and it is important context for the interview embedded in today’s newsletter.

A Fellow Traveler on the Road to Reinvention

As we steady ourselves for an uncertain economic future–and as tech stocks appear to be reaching the end of a bull run that lasted for more than a decade-–some business leaders argue that this downturn is exactly what’s needed in order to find out what’s real and what’s hype; which products or emerging technologies have been overvalued by the Fortune 500, and which have the power to genuinely transform legacy businesses–those institutions with nearly unprecedented power to impact the world.

One such business leader is Greg Larkin, author of This Might Get Me Fired and corporate transformation specialist, whose work with companies like Bloomberg, Google and Uber has placed him at the forefront of institutional reinvention time and again. While Greg’s particular methodology differs from what we do at Idonea, we have more in common than not, and he is an inspiring fellow traveler on the long, complicated road towards helping companies reinvent themselves from a position of strength.?

This was a wildly insightful conversation. Thank you, as ever, to my brilliant co-host Shai Tamary, and of course thank you to Greg for his insights, candor, and no-nonsense approach to transforming huge companies.?

00:28- The ‘Revving Engine’ Of Intrapreneurial Anxiety

04:22- Falling In Love With The Innovation Problem

06:19- Are Legacy Leaders In Their Own Way?

08:03- Is Corporate Innovation an Oxymoron?

13:08- The Four Obstructionist Personas: The Skeptic, The Cop, The Traditionalist, and The Territorialist

16:37- What Kind Of Impact Can An Intrapreneur Have In The ‘Real World’?

23:05- Dreams And Details for 2030

Next time: In honor of the closing day of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2022, we will share excerpts from the ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’ panel at our Dreams and Details summit, featuring leadership from WEF and their partners at EY and Bank of America.