Corporate Explorer Fieldbook

CHAPTER 16Strategic Diversity: Selecting and Developing Corporate Exploration Teams

Richard Robertson

EXPLORE TEAMS

Corporate Explorers are a unique breed of professionals who can recognize the innovation capabilities within corporate structures and utilize the available resources to start up new initiatives. Enabling them to do so is their ability to understand both the formal, structured, and rigid processes of corporate environments as well as the more informal, flexible, and fast‐moving environments of start‐ups. As a result, Corporate Explorers can navigate all the necessary phases of strategic innovation and growth: from ideation to incubation, scaling, maturation, and transformation.

However, even the best Corporate Explorer won't be able to do everything alone. They need a founding team to build a new venture. To do this, Corporate Explorers must be able to successfully identify and select the talents they need to help them execute their vision and priorities.

Building high‐performing teams that have the optimal composition to successfully take on complex challenges is an ongoing priority for every organization. Many concepts, frameworks, and assessments have been developed to aid in this challenge. The available tools deal with many different aspects of team building, ranging from personality profiles, communication styles, and skill and integrity assessments. These are most definitely critical characteristics to be looking at, and gathering information about them ...