EVGENIA ELISEEVA SPRING 2020 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1FROM THE EDITOR
The Original Disrupter
W
hen Clayton Christensen
and I first appeared at an
event together to discuss
a book that he and I had
coauthored, I wasn’t sur-
prised to see a crowd gathering to talk to him after
we spoke. The opportunity to share an observation
or ask a question of Clay, one of the world’s truly
original thinkers, was special. But I had to laugh at
how often that moment turned into a request for a
selfie with him. Clay had clearly become a rock star
of management thinking. He was patient with
every photo request, grateful that a new generation
was interested in his ideas, and eager to learn how
those ideas were being used and advanced.
I was honored to be asked by the editors of MIT
Sloan Management Review to guest-edit the spring
2020 issue on the future of innovation. Having
spent the past decade working closely with Clay, I’d
had the chance to explore a wide range of relevant
topics with him, including how the coming of AI,the rapid speed of innovation, and easy access to
capital will affect how companies compete in the
years ahead — all topics we explore in this issue.
I started working with the team at MIT SMR well
before Clay’s death in January 2020, so I was able to
sit down with him for what would be his last inter-
view. Clay had continually refined his own theories
over the years, but he was still wrestling with many
questions, as you’ll see in our Q&A on page 21.
He was pleased to learn how the academics and
practitioners featured in this special issue were
thinking about some of the biggest innovation
challenges looming for companies.
Clay was more interested in getting to the right
answer than in being right. And for him, getting
to the right answer started with asking the right
questions. For instance: What does the ascendance
of a new generation of straight-to-consumer dis-
rupters tell us about how innovation is evolving?
What are the sources of disruption that every com-
pany must monitor? Is disruption always the right
strategy — or not? And why have companies not
gotten better at solving the innovator’s dilemma
two decades after Clay first helped us understand
how disruption occurs?
We tackle these questions — and many more —
in this issue, dedicated to the memory of the
original disrupter, Clayton Christensen.Karen Dillon //@kardillon
Guest Editor
MIT Sloan Management Review