Sublime

There are times at which it is right not to listen to customers, right to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins, and right to aggressively pursue small, rather than substantial, markets.

a single successful new product.6

What all sustaining technologies have In common is that they improve the performance of established products, along the dimensions of performance that mainstream customers in major markets have historically valued.

17. Class Struggles.

The highest-performing companies, in fact, are those that are the best at this, that is, they have well-developed systems for killing ideas that their customers don’t want. As a result, these companies find it very difficult to invest adequate resources in disruptive technologies—lower-margin opportunities that their customers don’t want—until thei

to us—which is our central problem.

But the company is able to crank out high-quality work year after year because its core capabilities are rooted in its processes and values rather than in its resources. I sense, however, that these capabilities of McKinsey also constitute its disabilities. The rigorously analytical, data-driven processes that help it create value for its clients i

discovery-driven planning,