Disruption Can Be a Great Motivator, Leading to Success

Have you ever noticed that the road to innovation is not straight or flat? It’s disruptive, curvy, and sometimes riddled with potholes. Typically, those potholes create disruption that can cause burnouts and minor or even monumental, catastrophic failures.

The key is that these should be expected and proactively confronted. Any time you introduce change and new ways of thinking, lack of adoption or failure is not just possible but inevitable. Many leaders live in fear of these and remain stagnant and frozen. They lose sight of the exploitation/exploration ratio.

Too often, exploitation creeps up to 80% or higher, and exploration drops below 20%, which is dangerous. This is where the big, slow-moving, status-quo companies tend to get booted to the sidelines of the industry.

Some people simply need help to embrace innovation. For example, politicians, policymakers, academics, and old-school accountants are not prone to change. Large business leaders often get caught up in their size and bureaucracy, which leads to analysis paralysis and stagnation.

Where the stagnant, stalled, and less innovative reside, you’ll find an opportunity. Look for out-of-whack exploitation/exploration ratios. Typically, this ratio should be no more than 60% exploitation and no less than 40% exploration in a healthy organization.

The risk-reward equation rests heavily on the side of innovation. But innovation is always challenging. The best advice I’ve heard offered is simple: Don’t look down or focus on the obstacles. Look in the direction you want to go and proactively move forward, and that’s where you’ll end up. Focus, vision, and a clear view of your endgame are ingredients for success and disruption and your guiding light in the face of disruption.

What is Disruption?

We throw this term around very freely. It is often found in very shallow conversations when it belongs at the core of deep and fruitful discussions.

Disruption is a seismic event; no question about it. It’s a significant change that can be either destructive or constructive. It intersects “How it’s Always Been Done” and “A Blinding New Approach.” In the business context, disruption often refers to introducing new technologies or business models that significantly alter how an industry operates. It’s a force that can be harnessed to drive positive change and innovation.

• It’s the thing that causes thought leadership and revolution.

• It brought us the internet, email, smartphones, and Amazon.

• It brought us out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance.

• It should bring us into the next business/management revolution if we allow it to work.

• It’s a freshness of thinking that creates change.

• It is supposed to be the very foundation of this country.

Now, Here Lies the Rub! It’s up to you to drive that change within your organization. You and your people must be part of something essential and soulful. It doesn’t matter if you own a doughnut shop, a dry cleaner, a tech startup, a franchise, a manufacturing plant, or a medical firm. You can innovate; the larger you get, the more impact you can have.

Your ability to visualize new things and communicate innovation fearlessly in your approach to business is the key to success. These skills are vital to lasting economic impact and creating sustainable opportunities.

Innovation’s accelerated, frenetic pace is undeniable and a part of our culture. However, a lot of it is wishful thinking and shallow attention to detail. This frenzy can divert your attention if you follow the leader rather than be the leader. Don’t get caught up in the confusion and destruction.

Remember: your business will be and must directly reflect your culture, no matter where it’s headed.

Ideas for leveraging disruption! I challenge you, as a leader, to research, read, discover, and review 10–25 companies doing brilliant things, reinventing ideas, and re-imagining markets. Don’t restrict your thinking; let your imagination roam to adapt ideas that will work in your environment.

• Look internally and externally at your primary industry for these nuggets. Don’t get tripped up by thinking small and narrow, even if the application you have in mind may require a niche adaptation.

• Write down nuggets of truth, trust, and innovation you discover without doing any editing. What works for the company you are studying? Why do you think it works? What would it take to adapt this or at least parts of it within your company?

• I refer to this as the magic fairy dust of innovation, entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, and culture-bending expansion. It is people doing things that no one ever thought possible. It’s people doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason.

• It is often a subjective list with few specific or scientific attachments. It’s not based on revenue or cash burns. It’s simply a list of cool, exciting, new ways of seeing things.

• During the rest of the year, monitor the changes your company has been able to make and make work with your staff and clientele. Adjust as necessary, temporarily retreat if required, but stay focused on your future goals.

• There will be missteps and failures, but these allow you to identify what doesn’t work so you can focus more on what does.

Key Point: Don’t copy; adapt and modify to fit your culture. Copying will lead to failure, but adapting will lead to success and growth.

Takeaway: If you adapt ideas from your COOL list, you are now the drivers of change. Risking failure is part of what you do as a leader. Your mantra should be this: Don’t look down but proactively move forward, have a clear view of your direction, be persistent, and keep everything focused. You are limited only by your imagination and how much you empower your people to think with passion.

Leadership Question: How do you empower people to embrace change? What would cause your people to run from change?

Keys: |Application: Leaders and Employees |Status: Stratactical |Duration: Long Term |Impact: High