Break the Rules!

7What Entrepreneurs Can Do That Big Companies Can't: Instead of Asking Permission, Beg Forgiveness Later

 

As you saw at the outset of Chapters 4 and 6, many large companies have well‐established procedures for getting new initiatives underway and for funding the investment required. Apart from determining whether the opportunity is attractive and seeking the requisite capital to fund something new, those procedures often require an examination of the external environment to determine some other parameters, too. Is the venture legal? Are there regulations that might limit or forbid it? Are there risks, including some perhaps previously unseen, that should be considered?

Fortunately, in such companies, there are committees of all kinds and armies of lawyers whose main job is to protect the company from those unseen risks, avoid potential lawsuits, and keep its executives out of jail. Why? Many companies' leaders, at their core, don't like risk very much. They prefer as much certainty as they can get their hands on. If the company is listed on a stock exchange, they feel obliged to deliver the earnings that investors expect and deliver them consistently, quarter to quarter. No down quarters, please.

Similarly, in many business schools, there's coursework in business law so that graduates better understand what they can and cannot do. There are courses in business ethics, to ...