Tag Archives: Jill Lepore

Why do we fall prey to theories of success?

Why do we fall prey to theories of success?

Theories of success intrigue us because they provide a shortcut. But in following the herd, we deprive ourselves from developing and expressing our originality.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how people and businesses aren’t really obsessed with disruption per se, rather they are in love with theories of success. Silver bullet ideas that you can use to shortcut your way to “success”, theories that become hardened after “supposedly” observing them in the environment.

Recently, another success theory has been shot down: Malcolm Gladwell’s famous 10,000 hour rule.

Are we overly obsessed with disruptive ideas?

Are we overly obsessed with disruptive ideas?

If you disrupt and can’t sustain, you don’t win. – Gary Pisano

Disruptive innovations that throw industries into chaos hog the spotlight. We are all transfixed by Google’s Moonshot attempts at either changing transportation, how we interact with objects and people that we believe those are the only innovations that matter.

Academics and consultants like coming up with fancy ways of describing certain types of behaviors and outcomes, and when it comes to innovation incremental and radical are such they use to describe and compare between small plain-vanilla innovation and radical or disruptive innovation.