Editor's letter

Citation

Randall, R.M. (2005), "Editor's letter", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 33 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2005.26133daa.001

Editor's letter

In an intriguing interview in this issue by contributing editor Dan Knight, innovation guru Clayton Christensen warns that:

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  The traditional practice of market segmentation that is based on customer characteristics or product type … can mislead managers because it can cause them to innovate on dimensions of product performance that are irrelevant to the reasons why customers use the product. For example, customers don’t really want to buy drills. They buy drills because they really want the holes drills make.

Christensen’s insight articulates an often forgotten truth – companies seeking sustainable competitive advantage based on differentiation need to deliver products that serve customers’ evolving needs and uses. Indeed, this is the true challenge of innovation, because customers often do not know what their future needs will be.

So this issue looks at how innovation can meet these evolving needs from the perspective of practical theoreticians such as Christensen, managers at leading companies such as Paul McCambridge of Xilinx, the best practices of “complexity masters” – the companies that have a plan for investing in the infrastructure that sustains innovation initiatives, the lessons learned by companies operating innovation networks, and CEOs who want to promote a culture of innovation.

To accomplish all this, the issue breaks a few Strategy & Leadership “house” rules. First, we offer two articles by one author (usually a no-no because we want to get as many authors as possible up on our podium), and second, we present two interviews (one per issue is usually plenty). Here is the back story behind the editorial decision to waive our traditional practices: while contributing editor Brian Leavy was researching his article on how CEOs can foster an innovation culture in their organization, he met Paul McCambridge, an articulate manager at Xilinx, which is both a high-tech leader and one of the top ten companies on Fortune’s list of best places to work. The Leavy/McCambridge interview showcases the tough decisions front line managers must make to promote the trust and collaboration necessary to produce high risk, breakthrough innovation. I thought readers would enjoy contrasting the specific choices facing McCambridge with Christensen’s view from the top of the mountain and Leavy’s own collection of insights from many innovators.

Finally, our thanks to Darrell Rigby of Bain for producing another one of his strategic management tool use surveys, now a bi-annual event. Back when Strategy & Leadership went by the name Planning Review we published the first of his surveys and we have continued to publish them ever since. Taken as a collection, his surveys have contributed significantly to the history of strategic management in a tumultuous decade.

Robert M. RandallEditor