How Will You Measure Your Life? Clay Christensen at TEDxBoston. Forum for Growth and Innovation | HBS Research Initiative. The Forum for Growth and Innovation is a research initiative funded by the Harvard Business School and guided by Professor Clayton Christensen. The goal of the Forum is to discover, develop and disseminate robust, accessible theory in the areas of innovation and general management. Its research activities seek to develop actionable, prescriptive theory that can guide general managers in the decisions they must make, re-invigorating general management research by following a proven research process, refining it through collaboration with practitioners, and then distributing it to a broad audience In pursuit of these goals, the Forum both hosts conferences to bring together academic experts, leading practitioners, and Harvard Business School alumni to develop current ideas and engages in extensive publishing activities.
Recent conferences have focused on the Forum’s emerging research on mergers and acquisitions, as well as new approaches to and theories for investment strategy. The Innovator’s DNA. The Idea in Brief The habits of Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and other innovative CEOs reveal much about the underpinnings of their creative thinking. Research shows that five discovery skills distinguish the most innovative entrepreneurs from other executives.
Doing Questioning allows innovators to break out of the status quo and consider new possibilities. Thinking The four patterns of action together help innovators associate to cultivate new insights. “How do I find innovative people for my organization? These are questions that stump senior executives, who understand that the ability to innovate is the “secret sauce” of business success. In searching for answers, we undertook a six-year study to uncover the origins of creative—and often disruptive—business strategies in particularly innovative companies. We were intrigued to learn that at most companies, top executives do not feel personally responsible for coming up with strategic innovations.
But how do they do it? The Innovator's DNA by Clayton Christensen. Disruptive Innovation. Some examples of disruptive innovation include: As companies tend to innovate faster than their customers’ needs evolve, most organizations eventually end up producing products or services that are actually too sophisticated, too expensive, and too complicated for many customers in their market. Companies pursue these “sustaining innovations” at the higher tiers of their markets because this is what has historically helped them succeed: by charging the highest prices to their most demanding and sophisticated customers at the top of the market, companies will achieve the greatest profitability. However, by doing so, companies unwittingly open the door to “disruptive innovations” at the bottom of the market.
An innovation that is disruptive allows a whole new population of consumers at the bottom of a market access to a product or service that was historically only accessible to consumers with a lot of money or a lot of skill.