Knowledge of managing sustaining innovations is incommensurable with disruptive innovations

Most executives only know how to manage sustaining innovations, but what they think they know about managing “innovation” does not transfer between the paradigm of sustaining innovations to that of disruptive innovations.

What this means, however, is that much of what the best executives in successful companies have learned about managing innovation is not relevant to disruptive technologies. … These processes demand crisply quantified information when none exists, accurate estimates of financial returns when neither revenues nor costs can be known, and management according to detailed plans and budgets that cannot be formulated.^[1]

#innovation #knowledge #management

See also:

• Most executives only know how to manage sustaining innovations