Think what no one else is thinking, do what no one else is doing

How does a successful company — or even a country —attempt to innovate and improve, and move way beyond cosmetic or incremental changes?

Go into disruption mode. Adopt a leadership style bold enough to break the rules, redefine the playing field, effectively disturb the status quo, build strong teamwork and drive business results that go beyond what others are satisfied with — from the ordinary to the extraordinary. 

“Change is coming” is the mantra of the new Philippine government leadership, and from what we have seen so far, they are on a disruption path. Disruption is preventing a system, process or event from continuing as usual, like corruption, lavish lifestyles, the illegal drug menace, and rising crime statistics, among many others. It is starting to disturb the traditional ways of governance and dealing with stakeholders in hopefully a new and effective manner.

In business, a company is most vulnerable to disruption when it is at its peak, since that is the time when complacency and inertia set in.  Leadership consultant Sandi Coryell states, “Complacency is the dirtiest word in business today. Allow it to seep into the DNA of your organization and your business will go down faster than Jack rolling down the proverbial hill. It can manifest in tired product launches, unmotivated customer service, or disengaged employees. Complacency is a core malady affecting every company you’ve ever watched flail and drown.”

Indeed, it’s the C word that is capable of silently infiltrating every level of your organization before you even know what hit you. Faced with a competitor that comes up with something disruptive, the successful company will have a difficult time moving to excavate the gutters and retaliate. 

In his international bestseller Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business, author Luke Williams proposes a number of ways a company can get in gear and disrupt itself.

Key to the disruption process is to stop what is currently being done and compel strategic introspection. As Williams says, “You can’t stick your hand into a running engine to change the fan belt!”  You have to think disruptively, and you can start by discovering what he calls “clichés” about a product or industry.  In the soda industry, for example, clichés would include “soda is inexpensive,” “soda tastes good,” “soda is aspirational” since it is often sold using celebrity endorsers — individuals whom most aspire to be like.  To think disruptively about the soda industry, do what Williams calls “inverting and twisting” the clichés.  If you thought disruptively, you could say that “soda could be expensive,” “soda wouldn’t have to taste good,” “soda doesn’t have to be aspirational.”

Now, who would buy expensive, bad-tasting soda?  “Well, if you’ve ever had Red Bull, you’ve done just that.  People who thought disruptively and challenged the status quo of the soda industry invented Red Bull,” Williams says.  Red Bull and other energy drinks don’t compete with sodas on the basis of price (they are at least twice as expensive as sodas) and they don’t taste good (where soda is sweet), and Red Bull is not advertised through celebrity endorsements that are aspirational.  Red Bull simply gives you energy when you want it.  And you pay handsomely for it.

So, what is disruptive thinking?

It’s not just claiming to be different while offering something very similar to competition. You don’t spend a lot of money trying to achieve incremental change that doesn’t really differentiate you or your product, but you make bold moves now before you are backed into a corner.

It’s a way of thinking that turns consumer expectations upside down and takes an industry to its next level.  It leaves the competition scrambling to catch up.  It is figuring out a way to be the only one who does what you do. It is a provocative goal, but it’s absolutely unobtainable unless you make some significant changes to the way you think about competition and the business you’re in.

Disruptive thinking surprises the market again and again with exciting and unexpected solutions. It is not so much about how to spot and react to disruptive changes in technology and the marketplace; it’s about how to be the disruptive change, the sort of thing that new start-ups and small-scale enterprises are best at. It can also be learned and applied just as effectively by big organizations and industry incumbents; in fact, by anyone who’s willing to challenge the status quo wherever they are. How can you be a disruptor?  Williams outlines his five steps to the process:

Be wrong at the start to be right at the end. Craft a disruptive hypothesis. It all starts with a wild question. In simple terms, a hypothesis is the fill-in-the-blank part of the question, “I wonder what would happen if we…” No room for superficial tweaks.  If you process any new information and ideas using what you already know as a filter, the result will be exactly the kind of thinking that maintains the status quo.  Your goal at this stage is to kick off the process with a disruptive hypothesis, a true game-changer.

Discover a disruptive opportunity. Take the hypothesis you crafted and hone it to something usable. Start by looking at the real-world context your hypothesis will exist in. Who lives there now? What do they need? What motivates them? Defining a disruptive opportunity is designed to be quick and informal, intuitive and qualitative, and above all, accessible. It shouldn’t take you more than two to three days, and, in many cases, you’ll be able to do it in as little as two or three hours. Anyone can — and should —feel empowered to go out and start creating new business ventures, products, and services without drowning in the sea of complexity that makes up typical market research projects.

Generate a disruptive idea. Unexpected ideas have fewer competitors. Opportunities by themselves don’t lead to profits or lasting change. Thus, the big question is: How do you transform an opportunity into an idea? Well, the first thing to realize is that any old ideas won’t do. Look for disruptive ideas — ideas that have the power to influence and shape behavior, ideas that stir the imagination and inspire a sense of possibility. You have to move past the stumbling blocks and generate the kind of disruptive ideas that transform a compelling opportunity into a commercial offering.

Shape a disruptive solution. Novelty for novelty’s sake is a resource killer. Disruptive ideas are great, but they’re only half the story. Unless you can make those ideas feasible, they can’t deliver value. You won’t know whether an idea is workable unless you actually see how it plays with your target market. Without testing your ideas with prospective end users and consumers, you’re in danger of coming up with really terrific ideas that will completely flop when they hit store shelves. Change your focus from conceiving ideas to transforming them into practical solutions. Remember: There’s a simple but critical difference between an idea and a solution: a solution is always feasible. If it’s not, it’s not really a solution.

Make a disruptive pitch. Under “prepare the obvious,” over-prepare the unusual. You’ve got a bit of a sales job here. You’ll need to sell your disruptive solution to your internal stakeholders who will release your budget. So, be prepared: Most people don’t embrace a disruptive solution because it’s disruptive; they embrace it because they believe it will deliver value. And you’re going to need a lot more than a basic presentation to earn that confidence.

In the coming years, the winning organizations will be those that produce and implement ideas that are not easily conceived of or replicated by a competitor. Companies will create new categories and redefine old ones. Globalization, accessibility to an overwhelming array of products and information, and technological innovation are already rapidly changing the marketplace in significant ways. As a result, the way people buy is changing, and businesses need to change the way they compete. Companies need to rethink the habits that have made them successful in the past, and challenge the conventional wisdom and industry models that have defined their world.

In the words of marketing expert Seth Godin, “Industries are being built every day — and old ones are fading. The revolution is in full swing, and an entire generation is eager to change everything because of it.”

To thrive in this new milieu, organizations and institutions, executives and entrepreneurs need to learn to think and act disruptively. To put it a little differently: Think what no one else is thinking, and do what no one else is doing.

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