In the previous post “How do we manage disruption?” we described how Nokia’s market position in 2010 was compared with a blazing oil platform leaving employees the choice of either jumping into the water even it was 100 meters deep and freezing cold, or staying on the rig and getting burned. In 1996, Intel’s Andy Grove of Intel published “Only the Paranoid Survive”.
How do we manage disruption? Or more importantly, how do we recognize its dynamics, anticipate its likely effects, develop and manage responses and sustain the necessary changes? Disruption can come in any number of forms. These include shifts in the dynamics of competitive advantage, technological breakthroughs, shifts in cost structure, new rivals entering markets from converging sectors, regulatory upheavals, economic downturns, idiosyncratic geopolitical and natural events, unforeseen internal company events, deregulation, re-regulation, and political turbulence.