It is important at such times to listen to the people who bring you bad news, and to know that those people are often in the lower ranks of the organization. First, you must experiment and let chaos reign. That's important because you are not likely to immediately restructure your organization at the first sign of trouble. Most important, you use this period of experimentation to picture the shape of the new industry and how it will look at the end of these changes. As this chaotic period resolves, you enter the second phase of change, which I describe as the Valley of Death.
Every organization needs to balance new effort against current commitments.
It is also wise to refrain from talking too much about these climatic shifts in the early stages. Talking prematurely about changes that disrupt peoples' lives and are not truly believed in can undermine your efforts before they have a chance to work. But once they are in place, it is essential for leadership to speak clearly about what the changes are about and what the organization is going to do. At this point, hopefully, the other side of the Valley of Death is clear, and you can describe the future that lies ahead. Christensen provides vivid evidence of this process in the growth of the minimills at the expense of the large, integrated steel mills.