Friday, September 28, 2012

Big Companies - Can They Innovate or Not?

I love the "Headlines" portion of  "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," especially when he shows two completely contradictory headlines, side-by-side, in the same newspaper!

Well, I just came across a similar situation in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) blog emails that I subscribe to. Yesterday, I saw an intriguing blog posting from Scott Anthony titled "Big Companies Can Unleash Innovation, Rather than Shackle It." He makes his case convincingly stating three reasons why "big companies" are better poised for innovation than their smaller counterparts.

Guess what? Today's email from the HBR prominently has a blog posting by Maxwell Wessel titled "Why Big Companies Can't Innovate." Not surprisingly, he too makes his case convincingly well. 

So, which is it? 

I know, it's easy to make the case that these postings are not contradictory at all. It just means that while big companies are not good at innovation in general, they are better poised to blow their smaller counterparts out of the water if they just put their hearts into innovation. Ok, I can buy that but I would have expected HBR (or the blog posters themselves) to make this connection for us.  

Regardless, HBR blogs are always informative to read... and just like today, can also sometimes help put a smile on your face.

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