Please be advised: the information contained on this page is a general overview of the course. As course information is subject to change from one semester to another, please check Duke Hub for the most accurate and up-to-date information about EGRMGMT courses.
At a Glance
- Instructor(s) Kevin M Wright
- Semester(s) typically taught: Fall
- Units: 3
- Grading scale:Graded (A-F)
- Required or elective for MEM degree? Elective
- If elective, applicable elective track(s): Customer Experience and Product Design, Entrepreneurship, Product Management, Technology Development and Commercialization
- Pre-requisites: n/a
What is ACHIEVING TRANSFORMATION OUTCOMES?
Professor: Kevin M Wright
By definition almost all companies are in the middle of some type of transition. Recent events and how the whole is evolving has significant impact on the number of companies going through major transformation and the rate , pace , and complexity of those transformations are increasing exponentially. Key thought leaders have suggested we have entered a new age of business dynamics characterized by Volatility (V), Uncertainty (U), Complexity (C), and Ambiguity (A) or represented by the acronym VUCA. Logic would say that at many points in your career you will be challenged on how to succeed in this new environment which is dramatically different from what we have known in the past and where many of the tools, methods, and techniques which were considered best practices in the past are now lacking key ingredients for success in the future.
The good news we can prepare ourselves for this new world by learning new principles, methods, and approaches. This is a class that focuses on developing Corporate Explorers. Corporate Explorers is the name given to individuals who build innovative business processes / products inside existing corporations. Corporate innovation is often understood as an oxymoron (a phrase that contradicts itself). However, that need not be the case. Corporate explorers build successful, disruptive business using assets of existing companies to accelerate their work. It is hard work, and some fail, but it is happening now in corporations around the world.
In this class you will learn how Corporate Explorers act as part entrepreneurs using innovation disciplines to jump start cutting ideas, and part change agents, capable of creating support for investment within the corporation. They see that corporations already own the ideas, resources, and the talent to build new ventures. Corporate Explorers enable their companies to put available assets to use and gain an upper hand over startups that threaten to disrupt them.
We will use a framework for developing Corporate Explorers to build the class around.
The professor, Kevin Wright, has spent the majority of his professional career of over 30 years at GE and IBM and over 10 years academic teaching career practicing and refining the skills attributed to a Corporate Explorer. He has been a driving force in initiatives ranging from transitioning IBM’s PC Company to a build to order business model (out-performing Dell) to helping to develop and announce one of IBM’s first personal computers for the home, to establishing an innovation incubator system that was used to validate both technical feasibility of emerging new technologies and properly position the new technologies with a valid business valid proposition into a commercialization venture with the company. This class will be unlike any class you have had before and can become one of the essential ingredients in the trajectory and long term success of your professional career in the future.
