Inspired by the impact of legendary entrepreneurs Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the garage is an important metaphor that represents renewal and reinvention of our organizations. In an established organization, taking a team into the garage is a commitment to:
- Dedicating entrepreneurial leadership
- Clearly defining a problem to solve with a given set of constraints
- Ensuring the right resources are enabled to focus and have the freedom to learn
- Deciding on a clear exit strategy and overarching objective the organization and team is aligned to
- All backed by the benefit of a connection to the core business
Whether your goal is combining existing capabilities or assets in new ways (integrating multiple offices, integrating new properties/companies after an acquisition, etc.), packaging up what you’ve already delivered to a client in order to drive scale, or developing and launching a completely new capability or product, the metaphor of “the garage” applies. A robust innovation and growth strategy includes three types of garages:
- “Attached” garages: a product/service/capability that is adjacent to the core business
- “Detached” garages: a product/service/capability that is a few steps away from the core business
- Garages right in the center of the house: reinvention/evolution of your core business/business model
Without the benefit of the structure of a garage, ideas progress slowly as they’re dependent on scarce resources consumed with the day-to-day business — that never seem to be available at the right time.
Inside a garage, ideas can progress with the right attention and resources — giving your organization the speed to produce tangible results and enough “at bats” to either prove the idea out or move on. The concept is simple. Yet, moving a team into a garage takes the courage to learn to do things differently and take smart, bold risks with resources.
Photo licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 via Flickr user: Pantagrapher
