Innovation is disruptive. The three Merriam-Webster definitions of “disrupt” are “to break apart,” “to throw into disorder” and “to interrupt the normal course or unity of something.” It’s number three that matters. Change is a measure of progress; the stronger the disruption the greater the possibility of improvement. When the Internet was introduced as a platform for commerce, people’s immediate reaction was, “I will never do my banking on the Internet! It’s not safe.” Do you bank online today? Whatever disrupts the established system is always called impossible and regarded with suspicion…until it’s not.

In 2002 my company introduced an alternative to barcodes using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). This allowed real-time access to large-scale and distributed data. We had rioters protesting their loss of privacy. When cloud computing came along about four years ago, CIOs and CEOs insisted that it was okay for trivial applications but NEVER for their core IT needs. When Salesforce.com took Customer Relationship Management outside of the corporate firewall (making it a pioneer of Software as a Service, or SaaS), naysayers contended that it was not for real enterprises.  Well. The Internet is now our major avenue of commerce, RFID is ubiquitous, SaaS is a major business model, and cloud computing has allowed unparalleled access to infrastructure and technology.

Human beings like low risk, high reward. If it weren’t for the crazy entrepreneurs among us, we would have a handful of a few companies in the tech market, instead of thousands of players raising the bar every day. When we get comfortable, we stop pushing the bar; entrepreneurs by nature are lean, hungry and curious. Their passion for disrupting the established way of doing things moves us all forward.

Disruption is not limited to technology innovation. It’s about challenging the status quo to improve an outcome.  I was dealing with Lamps Plus, a national lighting distributor. I called their 800 number to purchase a lamp. Thirty minutes later, the customer representative had not only managed to find amazing alternatives for me, but was chatting with me online about my choices, sending me photos and doing more for me than the store ever could. He was being innovative in working with the customer, and his out-of-the-box thinking resulted in a loyal customer and great ROI. There are many such examples around us.

People are in companies to use their judgment, intelligence and experience. Great companies encourage employees in any role to use their intelligence, ask what-if questions, challenge the “we’ve always done it this way” idea, and express disruptive ideas. Later, I found out that Lamps Plus allows its people a lot of flexibility in how they interact with customers. This not only leads to better employee morale but a more satisfied customer. So why do we still control rather than inspire and trust?