(Continued from front flap)
is the Horace
Beesley Professor of Strategy at the Marriott School, Brigham
Young University. He is widely published in strategy and business journals and was the fourth most cited management scholar from
1996–2006.
is a professor of leadership at INSEAD. He consults to organizations around the world on innovation, globalization, and transformation and has published extensively in leading academic and business journals.
is the Robert and Jane
Cizik Professor of Business
Administration at Harvard
Business School and the architect of and the world’s foremost authority on disruptive innovation.
“Businesses worldwide have been guided and in uenced by e Innovator’s Dilemma and
e
…show more content…
Christensen
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dyer, Jeff.
The innovator’s DNA : mastering the five skills of disruptive innovators/
Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, Clayton M. Christensen.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4221-3481-8 (hardback)
1. Creative ability in business. 2. Technological innovations.
3. Entrepreneurship. I. Gregersen, Hal B., 1958– II. Christensen,
Clayton M. III. Title.
HD53.D94 2011
658.4 '063—dc22
2011008440
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American
National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives Z39.48-1992.
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5/13/11
6:52 PM
Page v
Contents
Introduction
1
Part One
Disruptive Innovation Starts with You
1
The DNA of Disruptive Innovators
17
2
Discovery Skill
Alongside the entrepreneur spirit, Innovation is the process of taking new ideas and implementing them into the market. Key word being “new”, an innovation can be sometimes viewed as the application to better solutions that meet new demand-requirements, inarticulated needs or existing market needs. Innovative ideas range from: goods, services, products, processes, services, technologies or ideas that create value for which customers will pay for. For an idea to be an innovation, it must be replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy a specific need. This means is that one must be ready and willing put their new idea to the test. On the other hand, there is recognition that “innovation is also critical to cultural, environmental, social, and artistic progress as well” (Bullinger, 2006). With this stated, high-tech innovation is ultimately the reason why we can be thankful for the many new conveniences of the 21st century. Although we might see the forefront of innovation being very prominent in today’s world, innovation is truly nothing new. From the start of modern man times, innovative ideas have paved the way for civilization to advance and develop into what we are today and at the same time, we have barely begin to chip away at the tip of the iceberg of our true human potential. Some scholars believe that innovation is a
Initiated in 1995 by Bower Christensen, The disruptive innovation was improved by Christensen in 1997 from his book “Innovators dilemma” wherein questioning why vast corporations follow innovation through conventional marketing by not focusing on the needs and wants of consumers but the want of the company to sell such specific goods in the market. (Corsi and Di Minin 2014)
These investors understand that innovation is what separates winners from losers in the long-term (Drake, 2014, p. 30). Research shows that many ventures wind up within their initial three years of operation (Benn, Dunphy, and Griffiths, 2014, p.4). For example, a closer analysis of the technological world shows how emerging technologies have led to the demise of some global corporations and the rapid rise of emerging businesses. Indeed, failure to adapt to the new world of technological advancement and innovation has led to many businesses losing their market dominance to new players (West, Salter, Vanhaverbeke, and Chesbrough, 2014, p. 806). Therefore, sophisticated investors know that to remain sustainable in the long-term, businesspersons launching new ventures must demonstrate how they intend to use innovation to create competitive advantages in their relevant markets or
Enhancing creativity in the workplace is not just for artists, writers, musicians, and designers anymore. Creativity and innovation are critical factors for a company’s success in today’s intensely competitive business environment. In order to compete in this environment, a company must create a culture of innovation in which every employee is encouraged and empowered to innovate – whether it’s in processes, products, or services (Bayt.com, 2014). Innovation is everyone’s job.
Leaders of innovation must imprint their DNA onto their organization to the extent that it resonates throughout the workforce. If a leader is able to successfully accomplish this task, the workforce will become an integral part of the innovative process within their organization. Former CEOs, Vineet Nayer of HCL Technologies, Steve Jobs of Apple and Jeff Bezos of Amazon are examples of leaders who were able to successfully utilize the five discovery skills described by Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen (2011) to develop an innovative culture throughout their respective workforces in order to boost the overall innovation of their companies. Specifically, Nayer, was able to quickly surmise that his IT company was at risk of losing market shares, struggling to keep up with their competitors and were not prepared to face the changes that here taking place in the IT services industry at the time. The following paper will explore the global trends that influenced the need for Nayar to create a more innovative organization and the relationship between the global trends and Nayar 's role as a leader of innovation. In addition, the article will analyze Nayar’s use of the five discovery skills as an innovation leader and finally explore recommendations for better use of the discovery skills.
“Innovation usually discusses the altering or generating more effective developments, products and ideas, and can rise the possibility of a business get to the top. Businesses that innovate produce more effective work methods and have better output and performance. Innovation can be a promoter for the progression and success of your business, and help you adjust and grow in the marketplace. Being innovative does not mean inventing; innovation can mean changing your business model and adapting to changes in your environment to deliver better products or services. Successful innovation should be an in-built part of your business strategy, where you create a culture of innovation and lead the way in innovative thinking and creative problem solving.”
Creativity, in the form of the ability to effectively generate unusual solutions to relevant problems, can be a source of significant competitive advantage, especially in rapidly changing environments. Creativity is important to entrepreneurs because it is the first stage in the process of innovation, providing the stimulus for opportunity discovery and new venture creation. As new entrants, entrepreneurs often justify themselves upon the same dimensions as creativity: novelty, usefulness, and appropriateness. Arguably, one of the first tasks demanded of an entrepreneur is to manifest creative ability through the conceiving of new product-market opportunities and unique value propositions. From these initial acts of creativity, entrepreneurs must build effective organizations that can repeatedly bring ideas to commercially valuable forms in order to survive and grow.
When the global downturn began, They began innovation discussions again by revisiting Point A. “Rather than engage in layoffs or restructuring, I asked employees for ways to help us get through the bad times. They offered many suggestions. Some of them related to cost cutting, but most of them focused on how to increase revenues”. (Nayar, 2010)This was an ongoing use of Discovery Skill # 1,(Associating) forever canvassing and spreading innovation through questioning and the sharing of ideas.
“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision” (Shore, 2014). Innovation is the process of translating an idea such as invention, information, practice, product, service, technology to create knowledge and valued to customers (Skarzynski and Gilbson, 2008). In today’ world, leaders, organizations, and countries are adopting innovation culture by demanding every member of the team to be creative to protect the organization success. Leaders from all over the world, have proven innovation changes the way of doing business by understanding the past and present generates a brighter future. For instance, Jack Ma was born in China; he is a self-made billionaire because he is the founder and the CEO of Alibaba; which is the world’s biggest online marketplace (Polk, 2015). Moreover, Carlos Slim was born in Mexico City; he is the richest man alive because he has dominated the industry of telecommunication known as Telmex (Mehta, n.d). Furthermore, Thierry Hermes born in Germany is the creator of Hermes; which is the leading finest brand for fashion in Europe (NMA, 2015). The element of each organization’s culture is supported through invention, capitalize intrapreneurship, process, and systems, and fostering innovation architect. Alibaba, Telmex, and Hermes are one of the most innovated companies generating billions of dollars each year.
Companies stumble for many reasons: arrogance, poor planning, inadequate skills and resources, and bad luck. The Innovator’s Dilemma describes how companies can stumble if they are not prepared to confront certain types of market disruptions. The author, Clayton Christensen, illustrates this message by using insights from the hard disk drive industry and explaining nine specific failures of strong companies. Companies’ known for innovations and execution that most managers have admired and strive to emulate. Specifically, Christensen discusses how the logical, experienced decisions of management that are critical to the success of their companies are also the reasons why they lose their position of leadership. (Christensen, 1997.)
To quote one of the most notable executive coaches, Marshall Goldsmith, “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There”. This applies to corporate approaches to innovation as much as it does to great leaders. Realistically, leadership and the ability to innovate are highly correlated, but even the brightest people can miss the foundational elements required to help their smart energetic peers and subordinates, at a successful firm, focus on what’s important. Most successful companies struggle to balance their attention between incrementalism, hygiene,
Innovators are vital to the health of an organization because they are able to view things from a
In their study Dyer., Gregersen., & Christensen. (2009) discovered that great innovators of our time Apple’s Steve Jobs, Amazon’s Jeff Bezo and Skype cofounder Niklas Zennström are enthusiastically willing to make a difference from the way things and frequently “take risks” to create change. Further the results under “championing change” was also not good enough meaning that the author has an element of resistance to change which is a recipe for failure in business because an entrepreneur must be ready to embrace and deal with changes on the market due to innovation which brings about new and sophisticated products on the market thereby threatening the existence of the business if the business leader is unable to champion the change.
Companies live and breathe innovation; or, at the terribly least, notice it basic to their success. Such companies are those that others ought to emulate for they recognize that to do business, as Peter Drucker prompt in an exceedingly recent Harvard Business review article, “Every firm—not simply businesses—needs one core competence: innovation.”
Historically, most executives referred to innovation primarily with the development of new technologies or products. However, innovation is increasingly seen as the development of new service offerings, business models, pricing plans, distribution channels, or management practices. There is a greater recognition that great ideas can transform any part of the value chain and those products and services represent just a small segment of innovation. This broadening of focus has implications for those who are responsible to innovate. It used to be just a selected group of employees, usually within R&D: engineers, designers, or scientists, whose job was to generate and pursue new ideas. Nowadays, organizations are trying to induce an innovative culture across the hierarchy to achieve holistic transformations. Making innovation everyone’s business sounds intuitively appealing but is hard to implement. Employees face capacity issues, time constraints, and motivation issues that restrain them. There is often a lack of consistent follow-through of well-intentioned schemes. Additionally, there is typically some level of disconnection between the priorities of senior management and the efforts of those lower down in the organization. This becomes more evident in large corporations where established processes are already in place and leave very little room to innovate.