70 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW SPRING 2020 SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU
DISRUPTION 2020: PICKING UP SIGNALS
not allow for alternative versions of the future, and
internally, there was an aversion to contradicting
cherished beliefs. Managers who did connect those
weak signals to the BlackBerry didn’t have credibility
outside their departments. As a result, all of the dis-
ruptive external forces Apple was actively tracking
never broke through to the senior leadership team of
RIM. RIM continued innovating narrowly, selling a
smaller BlackBerry Pearl with a tiny, pearl-shaped
mouse embedded in the keyboard and releasing
BlackBerries in new colors. It was, in hindsight, the
defensive strategy that Clayton Christensen explained
in his Theory of Disruptive Innovation. Threatened
by a disruption, incumbents retreat to the strategy of
what Christensen called sustaining innovations —
new bells and whistles that allow the incumbent to
keep its customer base and, more important, its profit
margin. But such innovations virtually ignore the
disruptions breaking into the incumbent’s market.
Once the iPhone launched, Apple kept listening
for signals while RIM never recalibrated its strategy.
Rather than quickly adapting its beloved product for a
new generation of mobile users, RIM continued
tweaking and incrementally improving its existing
BlackBerries and its operating system. That first
iPhone was in many ways a red herring. As is so often
true with successful disrupters, the first product to
break through is often low quality and barely “good
enough” for consumers. That’s what enables incum-
bents to justify ignoring them. But the ascent to
quality is rapid. Apple swiftly made improvements to
the phone and the operating system. Soon it became
clear that the iPhone was never intended to compete
against the BlackBerry. Apple had an entirely different
vision for the future of smartphones — it saw
the trend in single devices for all of life, not just busi-
ness — and it would leapfrog RIM as a result.
The ways in which RIM and Apple planned their
futures are what sealed their fates, and what hap-
pened to RIM is a warning that applies to every
organization. Senior leaders can choose to lean into
uncertainty and methodically track disruptive forces
early, or they can choose to innovate narrowly and
reinforce established practices and beliefs.
Many companies around the world use the future
forces theory to help them make sense of deep un-
certainty and break free from the tyranny of narrow
innovation. Some use it at the start of a strategicproject, while others use it as a guiding principle
throughout their work streams, processes, and plan-
ning. The key is to make a connection between each
source of change and the company and also to ask
questions like Who is funding new developments
and experimentation in this source of change?
Which populations will be directly or indirectly af-
fected by shifts in this area? Could any changes in
this source lead to future regulatory actions? How
might a shift in this area lead to shifts in other sec-
tors? Who would benefit if an advancement in this
source of change winds up causing harm?
I have seen the most success in teams who use
the macro change tool not just for a specific deliv-
erable but to encourage ongoing signal scanning.
One multinational company took the idea to a
wonderful extreme: It built cross-functional co-
horts made up of senior leaders and managers from
every part of the organization all around the world.
Each cohort has 10 people, and each person is as-
signed one of the sources of macro change, along
with a few more specific technology topics and top-
ics related to their individual jobs. Cohort members
are responsible for keeping up on their assigned
coverage areas. A few times a month, each cohort
has a 60-minute strategic conversation to share
knowledge and talk about the implications of the
weak signals they’re uncovering. Not only is this a
great way to develop and build internal muscles for
signal tracking, it has fostered better communica-
tion throughout the entire organization.
It might go against the established culture of your
organization, but embracing uncertainty is the best
way to confront external forces outside your control.
Seeking out weak signals by intentionally looking
through the lenses of macro change is the best possi-
ble way to make sure your organization stays ahead of
the next wave of disruption. Better yet, it’s how your
team could find itself on the edge of that wave, leading
your entire industry into the future.Amy Webb (@amywebb) is the founder of the Future
Today Institute and professor of strategic foresight at
the New York University Stern School of Business.
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