In the teaching and practice of business we devote a lot of time to tools, processes and management information. Regrettably we devote insufficient time and attention to the break through ideas that shape an industry or perhaps the world. Examples of profound thoughts that shape an industry are:
- Bill Gates--put a computer in every home
- Nicholas Negroponte--build a $100 laptop to educate the children of the world
- Eric Schmidt--we need 1 gigabyte broadband connections to the home
One could argue that each of these examples involves an exceptional business thinker with a large organization behind them (respectively Microsoft, MIT and Google). I would point out that when each of these statements were originally made, the respective organizations were quite small. (As a telecom carrier Google is quite small.) Negroponte and Schmidt do not even care who executed their idea and Gates surely realized Windows would not have a 100% market share.
What is common in all three examples are men who think profoundly about a problem, do not assume constraints and limitations and look for solutions that have significant social value. Many of us have the ability to think at this level, but we lack the discipline to think about problems on this scale (perhaps because of training). This is the scale that produces world changing ideas (and great organizations).
Many have said that in the 21st century developing intellectual property will be the "business of business". For this to be more than mere economic growth, we need more business people thinking about issues of significant scale. It may not be easy but we need to do it.