The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth

IN GRATITUDE

I have spent much of the past decade puzzling over two questions. The first: It is easy to explain why poorly run companies fail; but many of history’s most successful and best-run firms have lost their positions of leadership, too. Why is it so hard to sustain success? The Innovator’s Dilemma summarized what I learned about this puzzle. It’s not just management mistakes that cause failure. Certain practices that are essential to a company’s success—like catering to the needs of your best customers and focusing investments where profitability is most attractive—can cause failure too.

The second centered on the opportunity in the dilemma: If I wanted to start a company that could become significant and successful and ultimately topple ...