Drea Knufken
2. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
by Clayton M. Christensen
1997
Examining a variety of leading well-managed companies that have failed to capitalize on innovative technologies, Christensen explains, with striking clarity and style, how to manage breakthrough products successfully when customers may not be ready for them.
His argument that overdependence on customer needs, or on the most profitable products, can damage a company’s success challenges the marketing and customer service books that put customer focus at the top of the corporate agenda. Considered a paradigmatic marketing visionary, Christensen highlights the problems inherent in what appears to be sound decision making, and rigorously demonstrates that companies will fall behind if they fail to adapt or adopt new technologies that will meet customers’ unstated or future needs.
Illustrating his points with anecdotes of historical figures, business leaders, and ordinary folks, Carnegie instructs the reader in how to change people, how to win them over to your way of thinking, without causing offense or resentment, and without making them feel manipulated. He teaches these skills through the underlying principle that people want to feel important and appreciated. Carnegie was the first to create a flourishing, credible, long-term business out of his ideas.
Click here for more information on The Innovator’s Dilemma
