Creative Destruction

I came across this term recently in the Wired Geekipedia. I remember first hearing about creative destruction from Thomas Leonard, the founder of the modern coaching profession. It’s credited to Joseph Schumpeter, an economist, in 1942 and applies to radical innovation.

Here’s the big idea as Thomas described it:
You create a product or service that is profitable and viable and then you deliberately destroy and replace it. That way you don’t get bogged down with complacency, red tape syndrome, or (worst of all?) beat out by the competition. What you do get is an intentionally designed environment that supports and inspires what’s next. That way, you drive the marketplace instead of it driving you!

The term itself sounds like a jump start to what I see in modern marketing techniques: Pairing words or ideas together which cause you to automatically think of the two separate things differently just because you see them together. Pretty cool, huh?

I’ve used this technique in coaching and it helps leaders, entrepreneurs and other varieties of movers and shakers to enter into new territories, change their perspective, and thrive in change. Where can you apply it?