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.

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Operating Question

What are you declining to build because your best customers do not want it yet?

What are you declining to build because your best customers do not want it yet?

What are you declining to build because your best customers do not want it yet?

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.

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