Creative Destruction is:
- Modern Warfare
- A mad scientist overengineering a mouse trap with high-energy lasers
- Employing a technology (plastics) with a five-minute usage life and a decomposing life of thousands of years.
- Bulldozing historic neighborhoods to build lifeless high-rises or freeways
- Creating high-tech, affordable convenience foods that are poisoning the people that consume it
It’s a lousy phrase that sets an aggressive and destructive tone to technology development. The phrase is typically used in a context similar to an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs so that mammals can replace them or Godzilla teaming with humans to destroy a common enemy to save humanity despite the collateral damage to an entire city.
A better evolutionary description of technology replacement would be human evolution, where human species replaced other human species over time, sometimes even cohabitating and interbreeding. Think of the five stages of technology adoption: innovation, early-adoption, early-majority, late-majority, and laggards. It takes time for a technology to be transformed, and some never die. We still have libraries despite Google and ChatGPT. The new technology has to compete against the old. Aren’t you glad you didn’t trade in your car for a Segway when we were told it would completely disrupt the transportation business?
Like the biodiversity and biomass of a natural ecosystem, the emphasis should be on economic diversity, health, and inclusiveness. So, the term is due for a makeover. Here are some suggestions:
Innovative Renewal: Focuses on the transformation enabled by innovation rather than by an act of destruction.
Purposeful Renewal: Suggests intentionality and responsibility in replacing the old with the new.
Generative Progress: Captures the idea of creating new systems or structures without unnecessary harm.
Constructive Transformation: Focuses on change that builds value rather than simply dismantling.
Sustainable Innovation: Emphasizes progress that respects long-term impacts.
Dynamic Adaptation: Emphasizes the system’s ability to adapt and evolve dynamically.
Value-Driven Adaptation: Centers on replacing outdated systems in ways that maintain or enhance value for society.
Innovative Stewardship: Combines the idea of leadership in innovation with a duty of care for what is replaced.
Framing matters, and there is plenty to choose from. Let’s find a better phrase than creative destruction.