Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • July 2020
  • Case
  • HBS Case Collection

Kathy Fish at Procter & Gamble: Navigating Industry Disruption by Disrupting from Within

By: Emily Truelove, Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:24
ShareBar

Abstract

When Kathy Fish, Procter & Gamble’s Chief Research, Development & Innovation Officer, and a 40-year company veteran, stepped into her role in 2014, she was concerned that the world’s leading consumer packaged goods company had lost its capability to produce a steady stream of disruptive innovations. This, coupled with intensifying competition from more agile, digitally-savvy direct-to-consumer companies, convinced Fish that P&G needed to renew its value proposition. She believed it was essential that all 100,000 employees see innovation as their job, and that all aspects of the consumer experience—not only the product itself—be “irresistibly superior.” But making this change would require wholesale transformation, which was challenging because P&G’s business units had decision-making rights for their businesses. Thus, when she launched GrowthWorks, an initiative to bring lean innovation to scale at P&G, Fish designed it to be business unit-led and corporately-supported.
Fish and her team tackled challenges as they emerged along the way, such as the need to adapt career systems. Fish took a “pull” versus “push” approach and it caught on like “wildfire,” eventually producing a portfolio of over 130 projects, and momentum that led P&G to headline the Consumer Electronics Show for the first time. While progress indicators were strong, the business units still struggled to incubate innovations, and Fish feared that unless P&G’s overall innovation performance management and reward systems changed, the new approach to innovation would not take hold in a sustainable way. Fish grapples with whether to take a more “push” approach and add innovation metrics to the business unit presidents’ annual scorecards, which typically focused on short term deliverables.

Keywords

Female Protagonist; Organizational Change; Organizational Behavior; Culture Change; Digital; Innovation; Lean Startup; Experimentation; Metrics; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Leadership; Leading Change; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruption; Innovation and Invention; Digital Transformation

Citation

Truelove, Emily, Linda A. Hill, and Emily Tedards. "Kathy Fish at Procter & Gamble: Navigating Industry Disruption by Disrupting from Within." Harvard Business School Case 421-012, July 2020.
  • Educators
  • Purchase

About The Authors

Emily Truelove

Organizational Behavior
→More Publications

Linda A. Hill

Organizational Behavior
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • March 2023
    • Faculty Research

    OneTen at Delta Air Lines: Catalyzing Family-Sustaining Careers for Black Talent (A)

    By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag
    • February 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Astyanax Kanakakis at norbloc: A Founder's Experience with the DIFC Fintech Hive

    By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag
    • February 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Accelerating the Accelerator: Raja Al Mazrouei at DIFC Fintech Hive

    By: Linda A. Hill, Emily Tedards and Lydia Begag
More from the Authors
  • OneTen at Delta Air Lines: Catalyzing Family-Sustaining Careers for Black Talent (A) By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag
  • Astyanax Kanakakis at norbloc: A Founder's Experience with the DIFC Fintech Hive By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag
  • Accelerating the Accelerator: Raja Al Mazrouei at DIFC Fintech Hive By: Linda A. Hill, Emily Tedards and Lydia Begag
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College