Disruption scholars have focused on how established companies, complacent in their industry position, fail to anticipate their collapse. The companies wither not because they are surpassed in their core capabilities but because they don’t recognize that the competencies that once made them distinctive no longer define success. These stories have a whiff of tragedy — companies that used to be frontrunners are overtaken by a changing world and stick with the status quo rather than investing in capabilities that will bring the next win.
When volatility puts a leading company at risk, it also threatens the leaders, managers, and others who work for it — and that exacerbates the problem, because their insight is precisely what’s needed to curb the company’s tendency not to adopt new capabilities in the face of volatility.