Corporations think they need a bigger boat, but what they really need is to build the shark

One of the areas I explore in the book I’m writing, currently titled, Thrive, centers around the innovator’s dilemma. Clayton Christensen wrote his iconic book that lays out this philosophy in 1997. Wikipedia describes it as:

…the innovator’s ‘dilemma’ comes from the idea that businesses or organizations will reject innovations based on the fact that customers cannot currently use them, thus allowing these ideas with great potential to go to waste. Christensen goes into great detail about the way in which ‘successful’ companies adhered to customer needs, adopted new technologies and took rivals into consideration, but still ended up losing dominance in their market.

The idea is pretty simple. Companies usually start small and create something new for the market. They grow, and then they change their strategy from “create something new” to “protect what we built.” And therefore, they fail to innovate any further.

Zuckerburg (and in fact many other entrepreneurs) is famous for saying: “We try to figure out what is going to kill Facebook, and then we try to build it.” 

In Thrive, I make the point that this is exactly what large corporations need to be doing. I spoke with a friend last week at a large corporation and there is major disruption happening in his industry that is sure to completely flip his business on its head in the future, if not completely destroy it. I was so excited when he explained that they are embracing that day and actively figuring out how to ride the wave of change vs. struggling against it. Or, to follow the narrative of the title of this blog, to build a bigger boat.