25 Discussion Questions for The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen (With Analysis) | Chapterly Blog
Quick Answer: A strong Innovator's Dilemma discussion treats Christensen's central paradox as a claim to be tested, not a law to be admired: that the very practices making companies successful — listening to their best customers, chasing the highest margins, investing in sustaining improvements — are exactly what blind them to disruptive entrants who start "worse but cheaper" at the low end. Push the group to separate genuine disruption from ordinary competition, to interrogate the disk-drive case study as possibly atypical, and to weigh Jill Lepore's charge that the examples were cherry-picked. The sharpest sessions ask whether the theory predicts disruption or only narrates it after the fact. Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma is one of the most influential business books of the past thirty years, and its central concept — disruptive innovation — has become so widely used that it risks losing its precise meaning. The Innovator's Dilemma discussion questions push you to examine Christensen's original theory carefully, understand where it applies and where it does not, and evaluate how well it explains the technological disruptions of the past two decades. Whether you are in an MBA strategy class, a technology book club, or a corporate innovation team, these...