The Adaptive Cycle of Innovation: 4 ways to avoid the rigidity trap

Picture a Meadow: nothing but grass and wildflowers as far as the eye can see. Then some seeds are carried in by the wind or animals and, with a bit of sun and rain, they grow into a stand of trees. Over time, that meadow evolves into a forest.

But inevitably, disruption strikes!

A single spark from a lightning bolt during dry season, for example, is enough to lay waste to years of growth, reducing a rich forest back to a seemingly barren field. But with a few simple building blocks and enough time, new seedlings emerge from the charred earth, and a new forest begins to take hold.

Left to its own natural cycle, field and forest are in a perpetual cycle of regeneration—from seedling to forest to disruption, back to seedling.

This is the adaptive cycle.

Now consider some familiar business cycles and you’ll notice similar underlying patterns.

As outlined in the S curve of innovation adoption, businesses have an idea that, if successful, they nurture it into a viable product or service. In the process, startups grow into larger organizations – the meadow becomes the forest. But inevitably, disruption happens. It could be a competitor with a game-changing innovation, a fickle consumer mindset, global event or changing economy.

Every business in every industry eventually gets disrupted by something.

That's the nature of things.

When you look at the traditional cycle of innovation adoption, it shows disruption as a series of S curves that make it seem like you can start creating your new product or service as you’re retiring your last one. But to stay ahead of the curve (and your competition), the adaptive cycle shows that it actually has to happen much earlier.

Some businesses – like Intel and Apple – regroup and regrow quickly. Others – like Polaroid, Blockbuster, and Borders – do not. You likely know how these stories played out. But perhaps it’s easier to appreciate why when you use the adaptive cycle as a backdrop.

Adaptive Cycle of Innovation

Starting at the top left of the curve, a company has a viable innovation and is busy incubating it. Following the curve from incubate through prove then transfer, the innovation is brought to market and begins to grow. The innovation matures. It and the company become more complex and less flexible. Disruption eventually hits. Clients and employees begin to leave, while revenue and market share drop.

Some companies regroup and incubate again. Many do not - they find themselves cast off the curve via the rigidity trap. Meanwhile, the savviest companies were already launching the next innovation and incubating the innovation after that while everyone else was regrouping.

There’s no escaping the adaptive cycle. Here’s how to navigate it.

If you’re a seedling

You’re just getting started. Even in these early days it’s important to recognize that disruption is inevitable. The cycle is continuous, so your innovation process should be too.

If you’re a tree

Your product made it around the lower left side of the curve and is maturing. It’s tempting to put all your resources into sustaining it and only it, especially if resources are limited. But if you have only a mature or maturing product and nothing new behind it, when disruption comes, you’ll be going into the regroup loop with everybody else. If you’re savvy, you’ve been incubating the next something and it’s now ready to grow.

If you're regrouping after your first innovation dies

You weren’t savvy – you planted a tree instead of a forest, lightning struck and it burnt down. But you’re either big enough or otherwise lucky enough to still be on the curve. And now you’re wiser. You don’t think disruption will happen; you know it will. So this time around the curve you identify your second seedling AND your third. Maybe even your fourth. And you keep looking for the next thing - while one is maturing, another is growing, and another is incubating.

If you’re stuck in the rigidity trap

When you're rigid, you can't respond, you're not resilient. You're so structured that when the business environment changes, you can't flex with it. Even small companies can become rigid—it happens when they become too attached to their first product, service, or business model, refuse to let go of bad ideas, or get caught in the sunk-cost fallacy. The best (only?) way out of the rigidity trap is to never get into it.

Get ahead of the curve

Once an innovation leaves the lab and enters the real world, we can’t control where it is within the adaptive cycle. All we can control is how prepared we are for what comes next. We can choose to be proactive and get ahead of the curve or be reactive and wait for it to collapse around us.