There is no single right answer or path forward, but there is one right way to frame the problem.
Disruption is continuously afoot in every industry, but especially in autos. It is how Toyota, Nissan and Honda bloodied Detroit: They did not start their attack with Lexus, Infiniti and Acura, but with low-end subcompact models branded Corona, Datsun and CVCC.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Disruption in industries often starts with simple innovations before reaching higher levels of success.
This quote highlights the inevitability of disruption in various industries, particularly in the automotive sector. It illustrates how companies like Toyota, Nissan, and Honda effectively challenged established giants like Detroit automakers by initially introducing affordable, low-end models, rather than jumping straight to luxury offerings. This strategic approach to market entry emphasizes the importance of understanding consumer needs at all levels to successfully disrupt an industry.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a keynote speech about the future of the automotive industry, a speaker could reference this quote to illustrate the need for innovative thinking.
More from Clayton M. Christensen
All quotes →Understanding motivation is one of the most important things we can do in our lives, because it has such a bearing on why we do the things we do and whether we enjoy them or not.
Companies, in fact, are specifically organized to under-invest in disruptive innovations! This is one reason why we often suggest that companies set up separate teams or groups to commercialize disruptive innovations. When disruptive innovations have to fight with other innovations for resources, they tend to lose out.
There is no evidence that success in business will make us happy people or allow us to have happy families.
By definition, big data cannot yield complicated descriptions of causality. Especially in healthcare. Almost all of our diseases occur in the intersections of systems in the body.
The breakthrough innovations come when the tension is greatest and the resources are most limited. That's when people are actually a lot more open to rethinking the fundamental way they do business.
Similar quotes
We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.
Every great movement in the world starts with a tiny group of people who simply refuse to accept a situation.
The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion.
We look in our own backyard and say, 'How do we help at-risk families, at risk youth? How do we think through some of the problems affecting the Pacific Northwest and make some change there?'
When I wrote the song, The Way It Is, I wanted to move people to take a stand on civil rights in this country.
A lot of people think the Breakfast for Children program is charity. But what does it do? It takes the people from a stage to another stage. Any program that's revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change.