IIFT 2019

For the following questions answer them individually

Read the passage and answer the questions.

Successful companies, no matter what the source of their capabilities, are pretty good at responding to evolutionary changes in their markets-what in The Innovator’s Dilemma (Harvard Business School, 1997), Clayton Christensen referred to as sustaining innovation. Where they run into trouble is in handing or initiating revolutionary changes in their markets, or dealing with disruptive innovation (DI).

Sustaining technologies are innovations that make a product or service perform better in ways that customers in the mainstream market already value. Compaq’s early adoption of Intel’s 32-bit 386 microprocessor instead of the 16-bit 286 chip was a sustaining innovation. So was Merrill Lynch's introduction of its Cash Management Account, which allowed customers to write checks against their equity accounts. Those were breakthrough innovations that sustained the best customers of these companies by providing something better than had previously been available.

Disruptive innovations create an entirely new market through the introduction of a new kind of product or service, one that’s actually worse, initially, as judged by the performance metrics that mainstream customers value. Charles Schwab's initial entry as a bare-bones discount broker was a disruptive innovation relative to the offering of full-service brokers like Merrill Lynch. Merrill Lynch’s best customers wanted more than Schwab-like services. Early personal computers were a disruptive innovation relative to mainframes and minicomputers. PCs were not powerful enough to run the computing applications that existed at the time they were introduced. These innovations were disruptive in that they didn’t address the next-generation needs of leading customers in existing markets. They had other attributes, of course, that enabled new market applications to emerge-and the disruptive innovations improved so rapidly that they ultimately could address the needs of customers in the mainstream of the market as well.

Sustaining innovations are nearly always developed and introduced by established industry leaders. But those same companies never introduce-or cope well with-disruptive innovations. Why? Our resources-processes-values framework holds the answer. Industry leaders are organized to develop and introduce sustaining technologies. Month after month, year after year, they launch new and improved products to gain an edge over the competition. They do so by developing processes for evaluating the technological potential of sustaining innovations and for assessing their customers’ needs for alternatives. Investment in sustaining technology also fits in with the values of leading companies in that they promise higher margins from better products sold to leading-edge customers.

Disruptive innovations occur so intermittently that no company has a routine process for handling them. Furthermore, because disruptive products nearly always promise lower profit margins per unit sold and are not attractive to the company’s best customers, they’ re inconsistent with the established company’s values. Merrill Lynch had the resources-the people, money and technology-required to succeed at the sustaining innovations (Cash Management Account) and the disruptive innovations (bare-bones discount brokering) that it has confronted in recent history. But its processes and values supported only the sustaining innovation: they became disabilities when the company needed to understand and confront the discount and on-line brokerage businesses.

The reason, therefore, that large companies often surrender emerging growth markets is that smaller, disruptive companies are actually more capable of pursuing them. Start-ups lack resources, but that doesn’t matter. Their values can embrace small markets, and their cost structures can accommodate low margins. Their market research and resource allocation processes allow managers to proceed intuitively; every decision need not be backed by careful research and analysis. All these advantages add up to the ability to embrace and even initiate disruptive change.

Read the passage and answer the questions.

A few years ago I was on my boat with one of my employees, a great guy named Keenon; I was supposed to be giving him a pep talk and performance review.
“When I think of what we do, I describe it as uncovering the riptide”, I said.
“Uncovering the riptide,” Keenon said.
“Yes, the idea is that we - you and I and everyone here - have the skills to identify the psychological forces that are pulling us away from shore and use them to get somewhere more productive.”
“Somewhere more productive,” Keenon said.
“Exactly,” I said. “To a place where we can...”
We had talked for about forty-five minutes when my son Brandon, who runs operations for the Black Swan Group, broke out laughing.
“I can’t take it anymore! Don’t you see? Really, Dad, don’t you see ?” I blinked. Did I see what? I asked him.
“All Keenonis doing is mirroring you. And he’s been doing it for almost an hour.”
“Oh,” I said, my face going red as Keenon began to laugh.

He was totally right. Keenon had been playing with me the entire time, using the psychological tool that works most effectively with assertive guys like me: the mirror. Your personal negotiation style - and that of your counterpart - is formed through childhood, schooling, family, culture and a million other factors; by recognizing it you can identify your negotiating strengths and weaknesses (and those of your counterpart) and adjust your mindset and strategies accordingly. Negotiation style is a crucial variable in bargaining. If you don’t know what instinct will tell you or the other side to do in various circumstances, you'll have massive trouble gaming out effective strategies and tactics. You and your counterpart have habits of mind and behaviour, and once you identify them you can leverage them in a strategic manner. Just like Keenon did.

There’s an entire library unto itself of research into the archetypes and behavioural profiles of all the possible people you're bound to meet at the negotiating table. It’s flat-out overwhelming, so much so that it loses its utility. Over the last few years, in an effort primarily led by my son Brandon, we've consolidated and simplified all that research, cross-referencing it with our experiences in the field and the case studies of our business school students, and found that people fall into three broad categories. Some people are Accommodators; others—like me—are basically Assertive; and the rest are data-loving Analysts.

Accommodators think that as long as there is a free-flowing continuous exchange of information, time is being well spent. They will yield a concession to appease or acquiesce and hope the other side reciprocates. The Assertive type believes time is money. For them, getting the solution perfect isn’t as important as getting it done. Assertives are fiery people who love winning above all else, often at the expense of others. Analysts are methodical and diligent. They are not in a big rush. Instead, they believe that as long as they are working toward the best result in a thorough and systematic way, time is of little consequence. Their self-image is linked to minimizing mistakes. Their motto is as much time as it takes to get it right.

A study of American lawyer-negotiators found that 65 percent of attorneys from two major U.S. cities used a cooperative style while only 24 percent were truly assertive. And when these lawyers were graded for effectiveness, more than 75 percent of the effective group came from the cooperative type; only 12 percent were Assertive. So if you’re not Assertive, don’t despair. Blunt assertion is actually counterproductive most of the time.

Remember, your personal negotiating style is not a straitjacket. No one is exclusively one style. Most of us have the capacity to throttle up our non-dominant styles should the situation call for it. But there is one basic truth about a successful bargaining style: To be good, you have to learn to be yourself at the bargaining table. To be great you have to add to your strengths, not replace them.