Fear of failure is a powerful deterrent to disruptive innovation

Disruptive innovation is process of discovering through trial and error. This requires courageous leadership and is unlikely to be welcomed by managers who are (typically) inclined to avoid risk and waste.

Because failure is intrinsic to the process of finding new markets for disruptive technologies, the inability or unwillingness of individual managers to put their careers at risk acts as a powerful deterrent to the movement of established firms into the value networks created by those technologies.[1]

This is why Disruptive innovation requires plans for learning rather than implementation.

#learning #innovation

See also:

  1. The Innovator’s Dilemma – Christensen (1997), ch. 7, 156. ↩︎