Vesting for Success

Abstract

When A. G. Lafley took the helm as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 2000, he had grand visions to ensure the venerable consumer packaged goods giant remained at the forefront of innovation as it entered the twenty-first century. What came as a surprise to industry watchers was not Lafley’s focus on innovation but how he planned on leading P&G to success. Lafley declared that “half of our new products [will] come from our own labs, and half would come through them.”¹ He was willing to bet that looking beyond P&G walls would enable the company to produce highly profitable innovations that would drive value for both it and its partners.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance.

—Albert Einstein