3.7 Literature Review: Disruptive innovation as a discipline
In the wake of the unprecedented change and growth of disruptive innovations which have been a staple of the contemporary world, industry experts have predictably focused a major share of their attention on these dynamics. Brian Quinn, principle at “Doblin, Deloitte’s Innovation and Design” has advanced the idea of promoting “Innovation” as a discipline with the relevant strategies, techniques and means of measuring results. (In his article he used the term innovation in reference to disruptive startups such as Uber and Airbnb, but refrained from applying it to all innovations).
On the one hand, it proves that disruptive innovation is not considered as an unpredictable process, and that developing “culture” of innovation might open new vision and practices and encourage regulation in this area.
On the other, turning disruptive innovation into a discipline tends to undermine the importance of personal skills such as the passion for challenging the status quo, leadership qualities such as accepting responsibility for one’s actions, taking risks and experimenting, being counterintuitive and convinced of the potential of the idea and making people love this idea. The ecosystem for developing disruptive innovative ideas, i.e. startup incubators, accelerators, big choice of digital social channels and open-source tools for testing idea, already exists. Turning innovation into the equivalent of a convey-belt runs the risk of losing sight of the more naturally passionate side of the process. In order to be innovative there should be rules, instruction of how to become creative, but to create a culture, a movement, and an environment where people can be open-minded and innovate would be more efficient and in reality stand a better chance of success.
