The only real way out: Entrepreneurship
– Robert C. Wolcott is the founder and executive director of the Kellogg Innovation Network at Northwestern University. Michael J. Lippitz is the senior research fellow at the Center for Research in Technology & Innovation at Kellogg and a consultant to the federal government. Their book, “Grow From Within: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation” launched in October. The views expressed are their own. –
The news the U.S. economy grew at a 5.6 percent pace in the fourth quarter – the best showing in years – is tempered by the fact it was fueled by government-supported spending and revving of depleted inventories.
How can America again create quality growth? Though growth appears around the corner, many fear it’s based on governments worldwide flooding markets with liquidity and public spending. To address a crisis born partly of excessive private debt, we’re writing public IOUs to the future. But public largess only buys us time. Eventually, the future will come calling.
There is only one attractive way out: creating new value through innovation and entrepreneurship.
The alternatives—higher taxes or monetizing debt through inflation—won’t provide the jobs and productivity that sustain a rising standard of living. In 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted mass starvation and conflagration: “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.” The world proved Malthusians wrong by vastly increasing agricultural and manufacturing productivity through innovation and entrepreneurship.
Many governments seek to enhance innovation through funding research and development or special initiatives. The recently announced U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship aims to help the U.S. connect “the great ideas to the great company builders,” mostly by supporting small business access to capital and technology.
These types of efforts are helpful, but they’re too narrow. Entrepreneurship is about more than the stereotype of mavericks risking it all to become the next Steve Jobs. We need people across all sectors to become entrepreneurial; empowered to define visions for meaningful change and then make them real. We need to nurture entrepreneurial capabilities and actions within large companies, non-profits and even governments, not just startups.
In the 50 years since the creation of the mis-named Small Business Administration, it is arguable that there is less entrepreneurial activity than before the government got involved. Now we get the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship? Which is different from the SBA how?
The government is as far from entrepreneurship as any entity possible. The very nature of government is antithetical to it. I don’t want my government in the business of risks, passion, dreams, and impossible odds. Stick to protecting me from all threats foreign and domestic.