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We Need To Break The Disruption Mindset
In the 1990s, newly minted Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen began studying why good companies fail. What he found was surprising: They weren’t failing because they lost their way, but because they were following time-honored principles taught at institutions like his own. They listened to customers, invested in R&D and improved their products.
As he researched further he realized that, under certain circumstances, a market becomes over-served, the basis of competition changes and firms become vulnerable to a new type of competitor. In his 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, he coined the term disruptive technology to describe what he saw.
It was an idea whose time had come. The book became a bestseller and Christensen a global business icon. Yet many began to see disruption as more than a special case, but a mantra, an end in itself rather than a means to an end and, at this point, things have gone horribly wrong. We need to abandon the disruption mindset and focus on what really matters.
The Cult of Disruption
In 1982, when Steve Jobs was trying to lure John Sculley from Pepsi to Apple, he asked him, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” The ploy worked and Sculley became the first CEO of…
