From the course: Disrupting Yourself

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Stepping back (or sideways) to move forward

Stepping back (or sideways) to move forward

From the course: Disrupting Yourself

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Stepping back (or sideways) to move forward

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The next step is actually somewhat counter-intuitive. It's step back or sideways in order to grow. When a company gets too big, it often stops embracing smaller opportunities. Revenue just isn't big enough. Just as Borders was slow to embrace e-commerce, people can stall at the top of their learning curve. The way to avoid this? Jump to a new curve. This doesn't necessarily mean you need to leave your current company. Dave Blakely, for example, started his career as an engineer at IDEO, an innovation consultancy. He could've worked his way up to manage technical staff, but early on he volunteered to become a project manager, which many of his peers dismissed as an escape route from the rigor and detail of engineering. But this backward move allowed Blakely to broaden his skill set, and to begin to climb a new ladder, and today he is the head of technology strategy at IDEO. Sometimes sideways or backward turns into a slingshot. As we're just disrupting yourself, I want you to think…

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