Successful innovators excel at stirring things up. They are not afraid to destabilize a smoothly running machineand to do so periodicallybecause no one can know in advance exactly when the system will need this jolt. Witness, for example, what Jack Welch has done at General Electric over the past twenty years. In the early 1980s, he took GE through a massive and painful restructuring program, a challenge that earned him the nickname Neutron Jack. The restructuring was a success, transforming GE into one of the most admired corporations in the country during the 1990s. Then, in late 1997, just when GE was posting record operating margins of 14.5 percent and a stellar 25 percent-plus annual return on equity, Welch announced a new massive restructuring program.
How can a company create "shocks" to the system? One powerful way, as the GE example shows, is to develop positive crises. A positive crisis is nothing more than a stretching and challenging new goal that has been sold throughout the organization.