*4.2.1. Getting past the engineer's fallacy*

**4.1. Prescriptions**

12 Marketing

time to think.

and execution.

on the following principles:

litmus test of disruption.

of disciplined "test and learn" experiments.

Theory of Management).

**4.2. Additional challenges**

Christensen and Raynor [1] advocate the building of a "Disruptive Growth Engine" founded

• Start before you need to: invest in disruption when the company is still growing and create

• Put a senior manager in charge: to monitor the resource allocation process and to keep

• Assemble an expert team of movers and shakers: responsible for shaping ideas to fit the

• Train the troops: team members who are close to the market and are trained to look in the

Govindarajan and Trimble [4] also argue for the purposeful separation of innovation initiatives from ongoing operations. They also argue that there is a gap between "committing to an innovative idea" and "making innovation happen," with a need to reassess the approach to organizing and planning in the same way that one would ordinarily do between strategy

Their recommendation is, for each innovation initiative, to build a team with a custom organizational model and a plan that is revised only through a rigorous learning process. The custom team works in parallel with ongoing operations, and the plan evolves through a series

Outram [5] advocates three things behind organizing for a successful delivery of strategy (for

• Choose the right people and organize them effectively—and do not be afraid to lose people

• Clarity from the top, often best achieved by a CEO surrounded by a loyal coterie of "true believers" who act in line with the strategy and can explain it to doubters (the Conspiracy

• Communication to each and every person in the company—a "ripple" method which

We would argue that these are sensible suggestions that are necessary but not sufficient. It is not enough to reach a point where a small team of smart people has done most of the thinking and then expect to be able to roll out/train the troops, with the assumption common in man-

reaches each level in the business in a way which is relevant to them.

agement thinking that it is simply a question of deterministic "execution."

We believe there are additional challenges to be overcome:

communication flowing across the disruptive-sustaining boundary.

right places and to send the right ideas into the process.

which we read "organizational innovation" in this context):

who cannot or will not align with the strategy.

The language used to describe the challenges we are discussing often betrays the mindset of the engineer. We are introduced to "engines," "systems," "transformations," "cycles," and "capabilities." These are mechanistic things that can be designed, controlled, taken apart, repaired, and reconfigured.

Yet, organizations are not machines; they are human organisms. Our understanding might be better served by insights from bioscience, psychology, and behavioral science rather than business, economics, and engineering.

It is something of a cliché to say that organizations stand or fall because of the people who work in them. Organizations are driven by human motivation, energy, ingenuity, perseverance, and collective endeavor.

They cannot be "transformed" from one state to another at the flick of switch; they cannot be restructured or reconfigured like some MBA version of Frankenstein's monster. Rather, sustainable organizations tend to evolve through thousands of small, individual changes, one day at a time.
