Links

I had the great pleasure of sitting down with my good friend (and all-around good egg) Mark Johnson last week to talk about his new book : The Innovator’s Guide To Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation To Work (Harvard Business Press; with co-authors Scott Anthony, Joseph Sinfield, and Elizabeth Altman). I really wanted to speak to him about it because I feel that this is a very valuable book. I caught a lot of my conversation with Mark on video, and will be cutting it up and putting bits here over the next while because I thought a lot of it is really terrific and useful. But first, about the book…

I didn’t exactly know what to expect with this book. I know that I was hoping for a very practical “work book” kind of thing, with specific steps that real companies could take. I also wanted something that a person could start using on their own and then expand into their team or organization. I know that there is a real need for something that could be of value to people at different levels of organizations, and even to different kinds of organizations.

Now I am fully aware that this is a very tall order, and normally such high expectations inevitably lead to disappointment (Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace comes to mind). But I know that Mark and his co-authors know more than probably anybody in the world about how you actually make disruptive innovation work in real-world organizations. So if anyone could really nail it - they could. All of which explains why I began reading this book with an unsettling combination of eager anticipation laced with an ‘expect to be disappointed’ kind of feeling.

It is fair to say that the challenge the authors faced in writing this book was significant. They set out to make disruptive innovation practical. Their objective was to provide something that companies could actually act on. In my mind, there are a number of obstacles that must be overcome to achieve that, but perhaps the greatest is simply making sure that the reader really understands what disruptive innovation is (and isn’t).

I am convinced that Christensen’s ideas of disruptive innovation, while well known, are not widely understood. Part of the difficulty just lies in the words themselves, which I feel have taken on a kind of chameleon-like ability to mean a lot of different things to different people. I have noticed that when you say “disruptive innovation” what a lot of people are really hearing is “radical technological breakthrough”, or “superior technology”, or “direct competitive assault”. While any of these may be true in some cases of disruptive innovation, they are neither necessary nor sufficient. Of course, the best examples of disruptive innovation are none of these things (think: rebar and steel mini-mills).

The authors therefore, attempt to weave the basic concepts of disruptive innovation into the fabric of the book. They are helped-along by a foreword written by Clayton Christensen himself, and their own introduction to the book, which together attempt to be a kind of disruptive innovation refresher. I actually found them to be excellent in how crisply they define the domain. However, I am not sure if, on their own, they are enough for someone that has not been exposed to the ideas of disruptive innovation through Christensen’s other books. On the other hand, if you have time for only one book on the subject, I will argue that it must be this one. The reason is that this book goes the furthest in taking disruptive innovation theory and showing how it can be put into practice.

A common complaint that I have heard about Christensen’s books on disruptive innovation is that they are somewhat academic and theoretical. To be fair, he is an academic and theoretician after all. But he is also very interested in making things work in reality, as evidenced by his work with Innosight and also by his support of this book. What makes me so excited about this book is that it really delivers on the need for an eminently practical guide to the things that every company can do to leverage disruptive innovation. The work is based on the authors’ own experience in trying to implement disruptive concepts in dozens of organizations over the past decade.

Mark co-founded Innosight eight years ago with Clayton Christensen as a way to help companies apply the principles and insights that Christensen’s research had produced and which many had read about in his books including The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution. This book is exactly the kind of volume of accumulated learnings that I have been craving.

At its core, it is a methodology for embedding disruptive innovation principles in the culture and activities of an organization. It is broken-down into four parts that take the reader through the process. It is filled with actual examples and case studies of each step and principle with companies and products that are familiar to the reader including: iTunes, Swiffer, Wii, Skype, YouTube, Google Adwords, Metro newspapers, Whitestrips, eBay, and more. These cases were probably the most satisfying part for me, and I would recommend the book for these if nothing else.

Fortunately, there is a lot more on the menu. The book is very readable, moves quickly, and doesn’t ever get bogged-down in theoretical or vague “management speak”. In fact, it is a lot like a workbook and includes a variety of templates and forms that you can copy and use right away to organize your thinking. I found these to be extremely valuable as they provide simple frameworks that allow you to translate what you are learning directly on to your own business model and situation.

In short, I was very satisfied with the book, and am recommending it to everyone. I think this is absolutely the best business book of 2008. And, for what it’s worth, I am currently starting my second read-through as I am anxious to begin following the exercises in the book in detail with my own company. Please add your comments and let me know what you think of the book. I will also be posting some videos of the interesting bits of my interview with Mark Johnson here on the blog so check back often!

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.