What do Meg Whitman (former CEO of eBay), James McNerny (former CEO 3M and Boeing), Scott Cook (founder Intuit), Jeff Immelt (CEO of GE), Steve Case (cofounder of AOL), and Steve Ballmer (former CEO of Microsoft) all have in common? Besides transforming entrepreneurial enterprises into some of the world’s biggest companies, they all spent their formative careers at Procter and Gamble. Tell this to a business school student and they will likely be shocked. For many, the assumption is that to become a great entrepreneur, one must start at a small company; large blue-chip companies represent the opposite of fast, lean, innovative, and entrepreneurial. At face value, any company that has successfully survived for over 100 years must have the ability to adapt, but yet, the perception is that one can’t possibly learn entrepreneurship (just another word for successful business building) from a big company. As Steve Case says in his book, Third Wave: “The people I worked with (at P&G) were experts in understanding consumer preferences, doggedly pursuing R&D, and seeking breakthroughs that could give their products an edge against the competition.”
Image: (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
