The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen
Posted: March 3, 2003 at 4:04 pm in management, nonfiction ~ Permalink ~ TrackBack

This was a short book on how and why dominant companies consistently get undercut by disruptive technologies. It uses the disk drive industry as a case study to illustrate the decisions that get made by market leaders which make sense in context, but inevitably lead to obsolescence. I thought the second half of the book, exploring how to cultivate disruptive innovation, was more interesting, in its ideas of how to construct a company and its culture that would be open to new ideas. Sounded like the kind of place I would like to work at.

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  1. Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Vision, decisions and constraints || July || 2008 commented on July 6th, 2008 at 4:29 pm :

    […] Some companies try to address this question by putting processes in place by which to make decisions, step-by-step guides to guide employees. These processes may even use different decision criteria for different decisions. The problem with such processes is that they don’t cover new situations, so employees need to consult their bosses to ensure they make the “right” decision by company standards. This slows the company response time down, which means that it may miss the chance to exploit new opportunities (shades of The Innovator’s Dilemma). […]

 

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