Thursday, June 18, 2009

Disruptive Innovation

Reading Wired magazine this month I came across an article concerning the automotive industry and its demise. Harvard Business School professor, Clayton Christensen believes that the only way the automakers are going to make it is if they apply disruptive innovation. Christensen defines disruptive innovation as a kind of change that alters the trajectory of an industry.

We all have family, friends, co-workers, whose lives seem to be going the way of the auto industry. We watch them consistently make poor choices, that lead them deeper and deeper into a life of self-destruction. I remember as a teenager in high school, being faced with choices and decisions every day and watching my friends respond poorly to these situations. There are so many people (especially young people) whose lives are already in a mess, and in bondage due to unwise decision making.

The only thing that can save these people, and begin to unravel the mess their life has become is a spiritual disruptive innovation.

Philippians 4:8-9 give us the necessary elements for disruptive innovation:


Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

Think how the trajectory of our lives (and the lives of young people) would be changed if we chose to live in peace, if we made every decision based on this passage of scripture. The promise is the the God of peace will be with us.

When I was 18 years old, moving out of the house, starting my own life, a wise person told me, "Remember, the course of your life is not determined by one wrong decision, but by a series of small ones."

Does your life need to go through disruptive innovation?

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