creative disruption

Innovator’s Dilemma is when incumbents grow complacent and are challenged by emerging forces that disrupt and destroy them.

Gary Hamel in The Future of Management urges constant reinvention of management principles e.g. decision-making be pushed to the outer edges.  The point is, leaders are listeners, not lecturers.

That’s hard! For centuries, we are conditioned to sit passively, and take in whatever thrown at us from the pulpit.

Now, it is as our turn to be leaders, and we are told to ask “who else got anything to share”.

Organizations that don’t listen (or create a feedback loop) do so at their own peril.

A decade ago, if you worked at Microsoft, or Yahoo, you were set.

Now, Bill Gates is contemplating a Jobs-like return. Hard times.

In marketing class, I was told to observe high-school age groups, our future consumers.

Through them,  we found Micro Trends: knitting, the return of flannel shirts, and music mix (disco era and modern).

There is a T-shirt company which uses the winner’s design for mass release. Crowd-sourcing.

It’s been said that customer is King but the King isn’t listened to, until he screams at Customer Service  reps (Return and Exchange line)  rather than at product design stage (pre-mortem).

Some examples of successful “listening” are: Nissan‘s LEAF and Samsung electronics.

With more computing power, product design offers more choices. This leaves marketing staff with clip boards in hands to observe, listen, and PROBE.

The King will tell you. There will be a gush of feelings once customers are open up.  Or they will vote with their feet, by flocking to the nearest competitor. Some “disruptors” will always be there, lurking in the shadow, ready to eat your lunch. We got more ways for feedback now than ever. Just need work on the listening part.