What Killed 3M?

So, first, let's understand that 3M is not dead. The recent Business Week (is that all I read? No, it only seems that way.) article about how innovation was nearly killed off by James McNerney and his implementation of Six Sigma has been getting a lot of attention. Coincidentally, I was reading The Innovator's Solution when that article hit the stands and because of an interesting design decision by the authors, I ran across a thought provoking end-note that made me question the BW hypothosis.

Christensen and Raynor placed the end notes at the end of each chapter, rather than at the end of the book. This placement encouraged me to peruse the notes while transitioning between chapters and I noticed this bit regarding 3M at the end of chapter eight, "Managing the Strategy Development Process". From the note:

...[3M's] insistence that all new new products meet relatively high gross margin targets, however, has focused the company on a vast array of small, premium product niches and has prevented all but a few of its new products from becoming large mass-market businesses.

This may indicate there are other factors more deeply embedded in 3M that conspired to subvert innovation prior to the arrival of McNerney and the GE Six Sigma crew. The well known imperative that 3M grow a significant percentage of its profits from products developed in the previous five years is undermined by this countervailing corporate rule.