To make top management aware of the innovation paradox: their current success depends on doing and improving upon what they now do well, but their future success requires creating entirely new capabilities.
One of the authors is director of development at Cisco, a firm that acquires disruptive technology through it's M&A program. The other author is one of the world's leading authorities on innovation.
A critical element of the solution to the disruptive innovation dilemma lies in setting up an autonomous organization that can adopt radically different resources, processes and values.
A subsequent article will detail the M&A search for firms with technology needed or disruptive innovation.
In a firm with no history of innovation disruption, executives must use their personal authority to create a strategy process that is more emergent than intentional, focus on customers that appear unattractive, and develop new capabilities.
The authors propose that to achieve renewal via disruptive innovation that CEOs must become integral leaders, who learn to go beyond trade offs between constituencies within a set of constraints and see the necessity of changing the constraints themselves.
