Darwin and the Demon – Innovating within established enterprises by Geoffrey Moore

From Wikipedia:

A Darwinian Demon[1] is a hypothetical organism that can maximize all aspects of fitness simultaneously and would exist if the evolution of species was entirely unconstrained. Such organisms would reproduce directly after being born, produce infinitely many offspring, and live indefinitely. Even though no such organisms exist, biologists use Darwinian Demons in thought experiments to understand different life history strategies among different organisms.

Geoffrey Moore’s article discusses the taxonomy of innovation. The kinds of the innovations discussed include Disruptive, Application, Product, Process, Experiential, Marketing, Business Model and Structural innovations. It also offers guidance on which form of innovation would be most appropriate at different points along the “Market Development Life Cycle”.

The market evolves through many stages ranging from early markets, the chasm (which hopefully everyone crosses), the bowling alley, the tornado, early main street, mature main street, declining main street, fault line (need to navigate) to finally the end of life phase.

Disruptive, application and product innovation are very relevant in the pre-main street phase. Process, experiential, marketing & business model innovations tend to become important in the main street phase. Structural innovation is relevant in the late main street and end of life phases of the product.

Though these guidelines are useful, the key point made in the paper is that all these kinds of innovation will encounter practices that “belong to” existing power structures and unless these existing practices are dismantled, new innovation will not find the room to grow. Here is where the article becomes a bit vague as to how one would effectively do this.

It offers the prescription of going through several stages to eventually outsource support for legacy processes. However, in my experience, the devil here lies in the organizational dynamics and legacy process details. Sometimes these roots are very hard to pull out and create a lot of organizational dysfunction which then impacts productivity adversely. Accelerating the process by fiat often leaves the affected individuals feeling powerless and can reduce productivity in unanticipated ways. HBR articles will not help you here. Only a deep understanding of the organization, credibility with the people directly affected by this transition and their active engagement will result in reducing levels of organizational trauma that innovations typically cause.

In that sense, innovations are like surgical operations that are essential but need to be carried out carefully. Else, in the extreme case, the patient/organization will die either during the procedure or shortly thereafter due to post-op complications.