Motorola's Lesson in Disruption

In this age of specialization, Clayton Christensen's strategy consulting firm, Innosight, uniquely positions itself two ways: 1) as focused on the disruptive opportunities of rapid innovation; and 2) by a close association with Harvard Business School where Dr. Christensen teaches and on whose sites content from Innosight's Strategy & Innovation Newsletter is frequently republished. He and his team are prolific writers and tech managers should take a look at both the Innosight website and articles republished in HBS's own Working Knowledge newsletter. The recent article, Motorola's Bet on the Razr's Edge, is a good example.

(Creative disruption, by the way, is very much at the center of Tom Friedman's book, The World Is Flat, but clothed in different language that makes these themes more accessible to a wider generalist audience. Marketing communicators take note: there are lessons here on retargeting strategic messages. In fact, similar messaging can be found far earlier, for example, in Tom Peters' 1987 book, Thriving on Chaos, which says things like: "Constant change by everyone requires a dramatic increase in the capacity to accept disruption." (page 277))

What Clayton Christensen does that is exciting is give readers the play-by-play in various arenas as this disruption battle actually plays out in real time.



The Motorola case shows how companies can deal with disruptive change, by creating some of their own. In Motorola's case, this was done by essentially disrupting (by going outside) Motorola's own product development system. The Razr team made it seem like the project was no big deal -- just an experiment -- not a potential industry disrupting event, which is exactly what the team had in mind from the start. Interestingly, in an article in this week's Working Knowledge, Motorola CEO, Ed Zander, doesn't say whether he was part of the conspiracy -- nor acknowledge that a little dishonesty was at the pivot point of the company's recent turnaround. The article does say that one of Zander's first acts as CEO was to "fast track" the Razr project -- perhaps by helping it fly below the radar.

The real drama will be watching Motorola try to internalize this recipe for success so it becomes manageable and repeatable -- in other words, disruptive without being disruptive. Stay tuned.