IGNITING CORPORATE INNOVATION WITH CORPORATE EXPLORERS

Embracing a source of opportunity.

After two decades in insurance, Krisztian Kurtisz had had enough. He was disillusioned with an industry more focused on selling policies, administering them, and preventing losses, than on its customers. Kurtisz wanted to disrupt this consensus. He asked himself: What would online music streaming service Spotify do if it offered insurance? He knew that customers found insurance products complicated and expensive. They found the experience of submitting claims time-consuming and frustrating. Out of this insight, his new service, Cherrisk, was born. A user-friendly, low-cost insurer, offering monthly subscription, that assumes customers are honest and pay claims within two days. This sounds like a ‘FinTech’ or ‘InsurTech’ startup. However, Kurtisz is not an entrepreneur, he is a Corporate Explorer. He launched Cherrisk from inside UNIQA, a 200-year-old insurance company, one of the largest in Central and Eastern Europe.

There are many established firms that would like to do the same. They know that in the digital age, startups like Uber, Airbnb, and Spotify, can emerge at lightning speed. Even so, they struggle with investing in emerging, unproven ideas in this way. They are much better at defending what they have and the more successful they get, the more there is to defend. When disruption comes along, they often deny the risk. They say, “we are too big for that to matter” or “our customers are too loyal” or “our technology is too good.” That is exactly what Nokia, Polaroid, and Kodak were saying, but in the end, it was no defense against the emergence of the iPhone and other digital technologies.

A typical corporate strategy is to build innovation processes and venture labs. Corporates have rushed to transfer entrepreneurial practices into corporations building ‘lean startup’ processes and training people in ‘design thinking.’ These are worthy efforts, but it is a typical corporate response. Something isn’t working, let’s put a process in place to fix it. The problem is that it misses the one lesson corporates most need to learn from startups—great ideas come from people who see the world differently and have the commitment to pursue them with passion. This is Kurtisz, and his fellow Corporate Explorers. They are rule breakers who challenge the norms of an established company, helping to open new areas of potential growth. They point to opportunities and threats that others miss, even when it is inconvenient to hear. That’s uncomfortable, but then so is disruptive innovation.

Humans are social animals. We are highly responsive to signals about what it takes to fit into a group. It is about evolution. Humans learned it is safer to belong to a group. The pressure to conform can be irresistible. The problem for companies is that this pressure squeezes out diversity of thinking. Original thinkers get pushed to the margins, where they won’t threaten the harmony of the group. They are labeled variously as adventurous, unrealistic, or even crazy. We admire entrepreneurs and the explorers of the natural world for the grand quests they pursue. They overcome great obstacles for uncertain rewards, with little concern for personal security. We romanticize their exploits and are thrilled by the discoveries that follow a great expedition. However, we are uncertain about the value of such heroics. We may even doubt the sanity of those who take such risks. Even the Apollo lunar landings, now feted as a great moment in human history, were initially opposed. Throughout the 1960s, opinion polls recorded consistent public disapproval in the United States of the cost of its space program. Even scientists were critical of the plan to put a man on the moon. A poll of 113 scientists published by Science magazine found only three that gave unequivocal backing to NASA’s approach.

Every organization needs explorers that can point the way to a new future. Yes, they make life uncomfortable with unorthodox opinions and contrarian strategies. Organizations need to learn to code this as the spark of reinvention and renewal, not see them as dangerous renegades. In September, Cherrisk had its fifth birthday party, and is launching in five more countries. UNIQA is learning that embracing the rebel is a source of opportunity, not threat.