Operating Principle

2–4 min read

Doing Everything Right Is How Incumbents Lose

Doing Everything Right Is How Incumbents Lose

Doing Everything Right Is How Incumbents Lose

Disruption isn’t caused by bad management; it’s caused by good management done too well.

Disruption isn’t caused by bad management; it’s caused by good management done too well.

Disruption isn’t caused by bad management; it’s caused by good management done too well.

Listening to top customers and chasing high margins can blind incumbents to disruptive entrants.

Listening to top customers and chasing high margins can blind incumbents to disruptive entrants.

Listening to top customers and chasing high margins can blind incumbents to disruptive entrants.

Christensen’s finding is that incumbents fail because they are well-run: they rationally prioritize profitable customers and reject low-margin entrants until those entrants improve into the mainstream.

Operating Question

What trade-off or assumption must be made explicit here?

What trade-off or assumption must be made explicit here?

What trade-off or assumption must be made explicit here?

Continue Reading

Main Journal

All entries

Return to the complete Operator Journal library.

Main Journal

All entries

Return to the complete Operator Journal library.

Next Observation

Next article

Keep moving through the field notes.

Open the next observation

Next Observation

Next article

Keep moving through the field notes.

Open the next observation

Why It Matters

Listening to top customers and chasing high margins can blind incumbents to disruptive entrants.

Supporting Evidence

Clayton Christensen, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”.

Research Notes

Treat as an operating heuristic and assess the applicable context, limits, and counterarguments.

Practical Actions

Protect a budget for things top customers would not request; review rejected low-end opportunities; separate sustaining and disruptive bets.