A Manual for Self-Disruption
Did ride-sharing apps kill the taxi business? Or did the taxi
industry disrupt itself by consistently offering users a lousy experience at a
high price and refusing to innovate?
These aren’t merely
academic or semantic questions. Today, many companies find themselves competing
with businesses whose primary purpose is not simply to take a small amount of
market share, but to completely upend their industry and obliterate
incumbents’ raisons d’être. And when confronted with such an
existential threat, leaders spend too much time and budget trying to keep up
with, or stay ahead of, their traditional competitors. A tip: If you need your
competitors to alert you that taking your customers for granted will crush your
margins, it might be too late. Often, other companies’ faster adoption of
emerging technology is a symptom of complacency within your organization.
The leading indicators of complacency might be intangible, but
they are usually significant. Is your star talent leaving for competition, or,
even more telling, for entirely new industries? Are your costs of recruitment
rising and internal recommendations dropping? Do people joke internally about
how long it takes to get things done?
The best way to fight complacency and defend against disruption is
to go on offense. Instead of playing catch-up, companies should seek to change
the rules of the game. They must identify and invest in the people who are
always pushing for progress over perfection, and channel their passion and
ambition in the service of disrupting their own business models. While doing
so, leaders must create a high level of urgency, gain clarity, and express a
strong vision.
Invest in Iconoclasts
It takes a special kind of person to speak up and ask if the
business is stagnating. Think of your workplace like a chessboard: Everybody
has a role to play, and you can’t win a game with only knights. It’s healthy to
have a mix of personality types. And one of those types is a team member who
raises her hand, asks tough questions, and sparks productive debate.
Some people are naturally
good at creating friction — they’re agitators, instigators, disruptors, and
downright bothersome. Although they may not always be welcomed in many
organizational cultures, they play a vital role when competitive landscapes
shift. They’re the people who ask tomorrow’s questions, which tend
to not to have answers.
Iconoclasts tend to make
great experience and product officers. Because such leaders must work at the intersection of
business, experience, and technology (BXT), it
is imperative for them to look past the nuts and bolts of the current business,
see the bigger picture and articulate a vision. Given the reins of authority,
iconoclasts can work across silos to connect the best ideas
and opportunities from all parts of the organization.
Disrupt Yourself
Listening to your internal agitators might reveal the need for a
big change in direction. The brutal truth is, disruption is holistic, endless,
and inevitable. Beyond their business models, companies are going to have to
alter their very DNA to stay relevant. That might mean changing behaviors so
that people expect to operate in a state of flux. Doing so can be
uncomfortable. But painting a vivid picture of the company’s tomorrow so that
everybody in the organization knows what what’s on the horizon can provide
much-needed clarity.
Embarking upon a transformation means making a long-term
commitment to help your business — by hurting it. Some of the most
innovative companies in the world operate with little to no margin to win
customers. Others unapologetically delay product releases because they will not
compromise on quality. Still others roll out new experiences so rapidly their
competitors can’t keep up. Risky business? In one sense. But with a clear
vision and a plan to play the long game, companies can make an unconventional
approach their standard operating procedure.
Self-disrupting businesses expect public scrutiny, and they power
through bad quarters to come out leaner and meaner on the other side. That’s a
modus operandi that is not easy to sell to shareholders, or internally. I was
in a meeting recently in which someone complained: “Why is our business always
changing?”
Building Urgency
The business is always changing because it has to — for success,
and for survival. For self-disruption to gain any traction, the executive team
and the board need to agree that the task at hand is urgent, and to instill
that sense of urgency in the organization. When I work with business leaders
and bring them all in the same room, we all become the architects of the
future, embrace the leading indicators of change, and examine what is possible.
It is only when we all come to the same conclusions and own the same solution
that we can move forward with the speed and alignment needed to make tomorrow.
Urgency is key. Businesses don’t embark upon needed transformation
when they think the threat level they are facing is DEFCON2. They have to act
as if they are at DEFCON 1, the highest level of alert, long before they are
actually facing an existential threat. But ringing sirens in an attempt to spur
people into action only gets you so far. Harnessing the power of iconoclasts
and evangelists within the organization in pursuit of a new vision is a
necessary first step. And since the work can’t be done solely by your own team,
leaders must take pains to bring along vendors, associates, and customers at
the inception of a transformation process.
Gaining Clarity
A clear vision will ensure that transformations maintain their
momentum. And, here, too, focusing on the prospects of an internal
transformation — and not simply looking ahead, to the side, or behind at
competitors — functions as a powerful lens. It may help to play a form of Mad
Libs and fill in the blanks:
(My
company name) didn’t kill the (my industry) business.
We
disrupted ourselves by (constructing an entirely differentiated
experience).
Anybody can follow a path into the future by walking in the ruts
that others have made. Today’s intrepid pioneers are those who carve out their
own roads in unforgiving terrain.
David
Clarke
https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/A-Manual-for-Self-Disruption?gko=a6146&utm_source=itw&utm_medium=20171019&utm_campaign=resp
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