Pivot: How Top Entrepreneurs Adapt and Change Course to Find Ultimate Success

Chapter 8

Entrepreneur and Corporate Entrepreneur Perspectives: Pursuit of Opportunities

We (Gina and Lois) are back to offer our commentary on the Plant or Discovery Chapters 6 and 7. As part of building on the Plant, Pivot, and Propel concepts, it was clear in reading these chapters that the term plant means to plant a seed that could grow, not plant your feet on the ground and don't move. This chapter covers the perspectives of the entrepreneur and the corporate entrepreneur in how they transform ideas into opportunities and position to attract interest in those opportunities.

Getting from Idea to Opportunity

What comes through very clearly is that an idea is not an opportunity. Opportunities require recognition of a match between a need and a potential technology or solution. They also require development and elaboration of how this may flesh out. In other words, they take work. They are not “aha” moments.

Who are opportunity recognizers? Lately there's talk about T-shaped people. These are people who know a little about a lot of things (broad) and a lot about at least one thing (deep). Remy talked in Chapter 7 about how opportunity recognizers have experience in a domain and across domains. They develop their T-shape that way.

Who are opportunity elaborators? Joanne's story in Chapter 6 about Dylan and Frank highlights the required characteristics for elaborating opportunities. Dylan thought about possibilities. Imagination and curiosity and openness and lateral thinking are ...