Luke Williams

To compete today in a fast-changing world, businesses need a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions to stay ahead of the game—solutions that revive stagnant markets or completely reinvent the competitive dynamics of an industry. Disruptive Thinking is about fostering a culture of innovation leadership that provides the framework and motivation to generate those strategies and execute those solutions. It is an essential skill for any business leader, from a small start-up to a global corporation, with the desire to transform organizational processes and behaviors, and ask, “Why hadn’t we ever thought about our business and culture this way before?”

Successful companies operating in mature industries that embrace incremental change find themselves on a path that gets narrower and narrower. Eventually, they reach the end of the path, and by then, their customers have forsaken them for a new offering that nobody saw coming. In cases where companies do take disruptive risks, it’s often because they’re backed into a corner and there’s no other choice.

But companies that try to differentiate themselves by focusing on incremental innovation instead of game-changing, disruptive innovation will differentiate themselves right out of business. They simply cannot afford to wait until they get backed into a corner. Companies need to be consistently making bold moves, even at the very peak of their success. It is an essential skill for anyone in business, from a small start-up to a global corporation, with the desire to transform organizational processes and behaviors, and ask, “Why hadn’t we ever thought about our business and industry this way before?”

What does it take to be a disruptive leader? Do you need to be a brilliant agitator like Steve Jobs? A driven workaholic with a passion to change the world like Tesla’s Elon Musk? Sure, CEOs like that get a lot of press, but there’s more to success than being loud and charismatic. Truly disruptive leaders are like Master Chefs on a cooking show, always looking for ways to take existing ingredients—the same ones everyone else has access to—and combine them in unique ways.
Those new recipes are a type of investment capital: the more you have, the better. Of course, not all of them will succeed. But disruptive thinking and leadership is less about the success of any one idea and more about putting your business in a position where you have more new ideas to spend than your competition does. Most importantly, being a disruptive leader is about creating a culture where everyone values new recipes. Because if you want to build a disruptive organization, you first have to build more disruptive leaders.