Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
The world of management is awash in buzzwords, fashionable phrases, and hollow concepts. This is a problem because misnaming a phenomenon prevents us from understanding it properly and therefore from managing it. A good example is the term “disruptive technology,” which is very misleading.
(more…)There are some very important thinkers who have been forgotten, and we would do well to rediscover them. Such is the case with Mary Parker Follett. She was a pioneer of management in the broadest sense in the 1920s. Many of her innovative ideas were taken up and developed by people who went on to become very famous, such as Peter Drucker, who acknowledged that he owed a great deal to her. In particular, she wrote some very important things about the relationship between conflict and creativity that should be of interest not only to entrepreneurs and innovators, but also to business leaders and, let’s face it, politicians.
(more…)To respond to the disruptions in their business environment, organizations often establish dedicated innovation units. These units, though named differently, often face a common hurdle: their promising ideas fail to translate into impactful market outcomes. This predicament stems from the approach itself and the underlying model.
(more…)We commonly refer to our society as “capitalist”. But that term misdescribes its nature. It’s not capitalist, it’s entrepreneurial, and that’s an important distinction.
(more…)We generally think of innovation, especially technological innovation, as socially and politically neutral, but this is not the case. Disruptive innovation in particular is subversive in the sense that it overturns the established order and accepted values. It drives democratic change, which explains why it is important and why it is fiercely resisted.
(more…)If you think forecasting is rational and objective, based on facts and data generated by dispassionate experts, think again. In fact, what we predict reflects who we are. A case in point is Théry Report on the Internet. It provides a fascinating case study of the dangerous interplay between expertise, identity, and technological foresight.
(more…)Innovation, the driving force behind progress, often faces a formidable adversary: entrenched mental models. These cognitive frameworks shape our understanding of the world and can become barriers to the acceptance of breakthrough ideas. Managing the dynamic between innovation and prevailing mental models is the innovator’s challenge. Thomas Edison’s promotion of electric lighting over gas provides an example of how this challenge was successfully met.
(more…)Organizations in decline tend to create an imaginary double in which they lock themselves. This double is themselves, but in an idealized version. It is a mask that they create to hide and to insulate themselves from a reality that they refuse, letting the world go without them, even against them. The dissolution of this double, i.e. the acceptance of reality, however unpleasant it may be, is a prerequisite for any recovery. A good illustration of this is provided by the Apple turnaround in 1997.
(more…)What do rich people do when they are bored? They embark on an innovation project. Conquer Mars, cross the Atlantic, extend human life, invent fundamental artificial intelligence, create a robot, etc. As an expression of their promoters’ ego, these projects are often considered useless and qualified as whims, i.e. a capricious and unreasonable envy. But is it so sure? What if (some of) the whims of today were the useful innovations of tomorrow? What if we should be careful not to pass moral judgment on both what is being done (useless!) and on those who are doing it (the rich and their whims)?
(more…)Just a few weeks after the launch of ChatGPT, Google has launched its own solution, called Bard. Such a quick response from an incumbent threatened by a disruption is not a surprise. But does that mean that Google will be able to maintain its leadership position in its market? Not quite.
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