The most common interpretation of this phrase is in the domain of economics through innovation and progress. For example, pruning a company's assets to remain nimble and agile in an ever-competitive marketplace.
I will attempt to put a different spin to this phrase. It is another form of the "Survival of the Fittest" mantra. A herd of antelopes survive in the wild by naturally pruning the weak and the infirm. By doing this, they ensure the continued existence of the species while sacrificing a few for the "greater good" of the herd. So also in business (I suppose in life as well), the "greater good" must trump the immediate but short-lived positives one expects as a result of any premeditated action.
While most businesses today lock in 70% of their resources in ensuring reliability, they find themselves easy target for competition. Business solutions need not be predictive and staid all the time just to avoid risk. At the same time, you should not have a totally innovative and dynamic solution that is not grounded in any reality. One way of ensuring an innovative and dynamic enterprise is for the organization to look at creative ways of keping the organization nimble at a manageable level of risk. Embedded therein is the concept of "creative destruction".
In explaining creative destruction, Gartner analyst Tina Nunno speaks about not thinking in a binary world but more in an analog terms. Think about it. It does make sense. When was the last time that a decision of any significance that you made was a pure black or white decision? Most likely, you agonized over several alternatives each with its own shade of grey. Examples of constrained binary thinking typically found in business are:
IT vs Business
Control vs Chaos
Leader vs Follower
Supply vs Demand
Build vs Buy
Following along similar lines, she goes on to say that creative destruction can be achieved by using a "Pace layered application strategy" wherein systems are categorized into:
Systems of innovation: Systems driving innovation
Systems of differentiation: Systems that help the organization differentiate in the marketplace
Systems of Record: Record-keeping systems
Separating the organization's systems into these areas enables simplistic systems through creative destruction. In the end, it essentially boils down to the organization's "Appetite for Risk".
About Me
- Sree Sundaram
- Sree Sundaram is currently a Sr. Director of Enterprise Architecture at a major global technology firm. He is currently engaged at two major international biotechnology firms in optimization and migration of infrastructure from their current platform to a newer technological platform that is in line with their current and future business needs. Sree has solid experience in understanding the needs of both middle and top level management and has the ability to communicate at both levels. He is fundamentally aware that the transactional and short-term needs of middle level management are different from the long-term vision of top-level management. He has successfully dealt with such issues by providing an IT framework that meets both the short term and long term needs. In general, Sree helps to prioritize competing initiatives using a combination of his acumen, communication skills, strategic and operation plans.