How To Innovate And Grow Via Nondisruptive Creation

The book, Beyond Disruption, shows companies how to build a path beyond disruption, where economic growth and social good are not trade-offs that work against each other and divide us.

“It’s what we call nondisruptive creation that allows us to innovate and grow without disruption and social pain,” share the authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

Nondisruptive creation has three distinctive characteristics:

First: It can be generated by a scientific invention or a technology-driven innovation. But it can also be generated without science or technology-drive innovation. This is good news for many entrepreneurs, executives, and companies that lack the wherewithal or the appetite to invest in scientific or technological innovations.

Second: Nondisruptive creation is not limited to any specific region or socioeconomic standing. It’s applicable to any geographic area of the world.

Third: Nondisruptive creation is not the same as new-to-the-world innovation. For example, an offering that already exists in one area can be brand new when it is offered in other areas.

“In contrast to ‘creative disruption,’ (i.e., Netflix/Blockbuster, Uber/Taxis, etc.) – nondisruptive creation helps people and businesses succeed while doing social good in a way that doesn’t destroy thousands of jobs and entire companies that so often happens when companies set out to ‘disrupt,’” explain the authors.

Some recent nondisruptive examples include:

23andMe: DTC genetic testing helps understand ancestry and disease without displacing geneticists or hospitals. $1B+ current valuation.

Kickstarter: Public idea financing without displacing investors or banks. Created ~300K+ jobs, 8,000+ companies and $5.3B+ of direct economic impact.

E-sports: Reimagined gaming as an active, physical, in-person event and is now even an OLYMPIC sport. Industry worth $1B+ with an estimated 175M+ fans around the world.

As you read the book, you’ll learn how to apply the authors’ recommended pattern to pursue non-disruptive opportunities in a three basic steps systematic way.

Step 1: How to identify and spot non-disruptive opportunities that may be on the horizon or right in front of you. How to assess the size of the market potential and how to scope the opportunity so it becomes practically and emotionally feasible to act on.

Step 2: How to find a way to unlock the opportunity by using an assumption implication analysis, which allows you to get clear on all the unspoken assumptions that have blocked the opportunity and how to reframe them to find a way to unlock it.

Step 3: How to secure the needed enablers and realize the opportunity in a high-value, low-cost way.

W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne are professors of strategy at INSEAD and co-directors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute in Fontainebleau, France. They are the authors of the over 4 million copy global bestseller, Blue Ocean Strategy.

To date, Blue Ocean Strategy and Blue Ocean Shift teaching materials have been adopted by over 2,800 universities across the globe.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

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