A recent New York Times article mentioned how the media still hasn't found a compelling way to describe today's economic climate. Everyone agrees that something important is going on, but no one has found a simple, memorable phrase that captures that importance.
A Thursday Times blog calling for nominations has generated more than 150 comments. My suggestion: the Great Disruption.
Why the Great Disruption? In the Great Depression, demand, output and wages declined across the board. Today's times are different. It isn't just that demand is sagging. It's that change is ripping through markets at unprecedented pace. Competitive advantage that took decades to build disappears seemingly overnight.
The Great Disruption didn't start in 2008. Over the past decade, technological improvements have made starting and scaling businesses easier than ever. The rise of China, India, Brazil, and Russia mean market leaders have to deal with more sharp-elbowed competitors than ever before. And industries are frantically converging and colliding.
Certainly the pace of change has accelerated over the past few months, but leaders in media, retail, defense, health care, automotive, and high-tech can attest that they have been grappling with the Great Disruption for some time.
The Great Disruption creates real challenges for managers who have made a career out of focused execution.
Read the rest on Scott's Harvard Management blog, Innovation Insights.
