Yet, when the entrepreneur and author Eric Ries first visited GE in 2012, he envisioned possibilities for how the company could apply the Silicon Valley playbook to the development of a new engine. The idea was to make the designers think more like they were working for a startup.
Build a management system that embraces entrepreneurship and uncertainty, counsels business management guru Eric Ries in a video interview with GE's Beth Comstock.
We're in an age when just about every new commercial enterprise proudly touts itself as a startup. But the fact is that a startup means something more than a company that has recently opened for business. It is shorthand for an ethos that the organization holds dear: speed, flexibility, a willingness to be daring and experiment.It’s not enough to simply “get” the startup mentality. Executives who want to use lean startup principles to compete in today’s fast-paced economy must do the hard work needed to transform their companies.
Every company seems to be a startup these days — or at least they try to act more like one.
Amid a growing fear of “Digital Darwinism,” executives are embracing the startup ethos to stay competitive in the fast-paced global economy.
Lean manufacturing, the idea that companies create more value with fewer resources, has been driving productivity for decades. But what if you are efficient at making something that nobody wants? “That’s what happened to most of the startups I’ve built,” says Eric Ries, entrepreneur and author of bestseller The Lean Startup. “Most of them failed.”