Innovation: Essentials from Leader to Leader

EXECUTIVE FORUM

 

Assessing Your Organization’s Innovation Capabilities

BY CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN

Warnings are all about us that the pace of change is accelerating. The amount of information available to managers—as well as the amount of work and judgment required to sort the important from the less important—is increasing dramatically. The pervasive emergence of the Internet is exacerbating these trends.

This is scary news—because when the pace of change was slower, most managers’ track records in dealing with change weren’t that good. For example, none of the minicomputer companies such as Digital, Data General, and Wang succeeded in developing a competitive position in the personal computer business. Only one of the hundreds of department ...