New to Big

When David Kidder was invited to speak at GE's annual leadership conference in 2012, he posed a rather unexpected question from the stage down to then-chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt, "How many $50 million companies did you launch last year?" His next provocation was, "I bet the answer is zero." But Immelt, rather than being offended by the radical candor, admitted to the 700 leaders in attendance, "That was the most important question in the thirty-seven years of this conference."

The fact is, as Kidder and Wallace show in New to Big, efficiency thinking and outdated bureaucracy is at war with new ideas. Established companies are skilled at growing big businesses into even bigger ones. Entrepreneurs and early-stage investors, on the other hand, are skilled at discovering new opportunities and turning them into big businesses. New to Big combines these two critical skills, introducing established companies to the methodology, tools, and systems of entrepreneurship and venture capital as a new form of management. It creates a way of working that they call the Growth Operating System.

New to Big is designed to unpack Bionic's Growth OS, which veteran venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs use to discover and build opportunities in a future that is unknowable. Because even most bets placed by VC's fail, more than 80 percent of the time. Which is why New to Big challenges business leaders to focus on what customers do, rather than what they say; to celebrate productive failure; and to embrace a portfolio approach, learning from the outside-in. The Growth OS ultimately creates a permanent capability for growth, empowering established companies to build the future and take on the grand challenges of our time.