The Innovatorâs Solution summarises a set of theories that can guide managers who need to grow new businesses with predictable successâto become the disruptors rather than the disrupteesâand ultimately kill the well-run, established competitors. To succeed predictably, disruptors must be good theorists. As they shape their growth business to be disruptive, they must align every critical process and decision to fit the disruptive circumstance.
Apoptosis provides a fitting metaphor for what must happen in organisations to survive continuous cycles of change. Rather than letting the entire organisation die, the corporate body’s sectors, departments, and business units must regularly renew, just like a human body. Like any healthy process, the end of one cycle is the beginning of another, and it is better to embrace this law than to resist it. Easier said than done.
Our guestâs award-winning research introduces a new perspective on value creation and competition when industry boundaries break down in the wake of ecosystem disruption. His two books, The Wide Lens and Winning the Right Game, have been heralded as landmark contributions to strategy literature. Clayton Christensen described his work as âPath-breakingâ, and Jim Collins has called him âOne of our most important strategic thinkers for the 21st century.â
It is a pleasure to welcome Ron Adner.Â
Find Ron here: https://ronadner.com
Using the rational, analytical investment processes that most well-managed companies have developed, it is nearly impossible to build a logical case for diverting resources from known customer needs in established markets to markets and customers that seem insignificant or do not yet exist.
Clark G. Gilbert on Clayton Christensen, “Dual Transformation” and âFrom Resource Allocation to Strategyâ
As Clayton Christensen reiterated throughout his work, capable managers do not become incapable overnight; they act in what they believe is in the best interests of the organisation they serve. For the executives in Western Union, there was simply no way they could have anticipated that the telephone would ever get good enough to be a competitive threat. As the great innovator Buckminster Fuller said, âThere is nothing in the caterpillar that tells you it will be a butterfly.âÂ
Joseph L. Bower is the father of Resource Allocation theory included in his 1970 groundbreaking book, Managing the Resource Allocation Process.
He has been a leader in general management at Harvard Business School for over 5 decades where he is the Donald K. David Professor Emeritus.
He was Clayton Christensenâs doctoral thesis adviser and worked with Clay to develop and stress test his theories.
He is with us today to recognise his friend and revisit that famous 1995 article,
âDisruptive Technologies: Catching the Waveâ that preceded the Innovatorâs Dilemma
In a way this episode is a prequel to part one.
It is a great honour to welcome for the hour or Bower: Professor Joseph L. Bower
How do you maintain the message of your company vision across generations?
“Many of us are living a very narrow life; we have self-inflicted blinkers on. Widen your view, widen your mind, widen your life.â â Marcus Aurelius
The information we absorb dramatically impacts how we perceive the world.
Itâs a pleasure to welcome the authors of The Language Game- How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World., Nick Chater and Morten H. Christiansen