You’re never too small to disrupt
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The ability to bring about positive disruption within a business has nothing to do with your place on the org chart. Try telling that to most employees. One comment that comes up every time I speak is that the audience participants feel powerless in their large corporations. Generally I am speaking with MBA students or the technical staff of large companies in technology, energy, telecommunications, finance and others. These are highly educated individuals who were hired for their talent, education and innovative thinking. Now these same people are disappointed that they are not allowed to create or innovate. They feel like drones. Yet without their creative talent their company is eventually doomed.
Disruption is not about creating chaos. Rather it is about harnessing the amazing collective capacity that people have to innovate. Companies require order to operate, but too often this manifests as command and control, ponderous titles and self-serving bureaucracy. Yet somehow, within this structure, disruption must occur.
If I am talking to engineers at Intel, the next chip design is not a free for all. But disruptive, innovative thinking drives everything. Is there a new way to design or fabricate the chip? Boeing did not design the groundbreaking 787 Dreamliner using a chaotic, open source methodology. But within the boundaries of the company’s structure, the leaders encouraged disruptive thinking that led to questioning everything about how a plane was built. That led to the first-ever carbon fiber commercial jet.
Traditional airlines used to tell me that change was impossible. Along came Virgin and changed the game. If you believe that innovation is impossible, then everything will stand still. In the Culture of Disruption, the first requirement is to look at your company, your job and your abilities and create a role for your intelligence and talent. You might have different, creative ideas that you have hidden away for the sake of getting along and meeting incremental goals. But is that making you happy? Instead, question how things are done. As long as you respect others and pose solutions rather than complaining, you can begin the wheels of disruption turning.
Related articles
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- Anyone Can Disrupt (lindabernardi.com)
Hi Linda:
Great blog. Agree with your thinking. This disruption that we want to see in large organisations however, is not easy. It comes at a cost. Large organisations are like cultures of hierarchy, processes etc to keep the troops in line. If one soldier goes off the radar, then the processes collapse and then how to keep the troops churning. Truly disruptive organisations if they really want to nurture talent have to really keep communicating very openly with their troops and provide avenues for the soldiers to create disruption…So its not just the individuals responsibility, its also about organisation creating the space to communicate.
Sorry for my rant.
savita.
you are not ranting Savita, Rather you are expressing a strong point of view. Yes lines of communication have to be clear AND we need to replace the FEAR of going off the line to how to innovate towards success!
As easy as it is to get off track and mgmt trying to ‘control’ people is the real possibility of making the impossible happen by nurturing an environment which rewards ingenuity, creativity and passion… imagine the potential!
keep the thoughts coming my friend…. never too much!
Linda, One common hurdle for the employees to focus on disruption is how the reward/recognition mechanisms are setup in organizations. Your pay raise and bonus depends on how well you contributed to overall organization’s (department’s) goals, not how well you changed the organization. (unless if its in your performance goals). So an employee typically needs to take risk in evangelizing the disruption for significant amout of time before his/her voice is recognized. And with the companies changing their org structure so rapidly, your story never ends and you always look like rebel in the company who is never getting his/her work done. How do you propose we manage such situations? How do you propose we reduce our risk here?
I feel that how you approach innovation in an org depends on the org itself. In a conservative company, you may have to tip-toe as there are likely larger factors present when dealing with internal hierarchy and political matters. In company’s that foster innovation, you may have the ability to take a more liberal approach and gain onboard support quickly vs smaller steps in the previously described setting. I see Josh’s point above, and think the opportunities vary greatly based upon the company and the personalities within that org. Patience and self discipline are needed here as companies too need to learn to crawl before they can walk, especially when first learning how to develop this culture.
I can understand the point of view stemming from being a small cog in a large machine. A good way to look at this to look at innovation starting from a smaller sphere of influence. How can you innovate within your own work, your team and then your department? Everyone’s innovation will not shake the market and change the face of the industry, and that’s fine. It’s ok to start small and build from there.
Shorbo, I like the way you think. The problem is in the belief system that you are a small cog in a large machine. Is it easier being a big cog? Changing the machine is still daunting to be a big cog. Maybe you can start by innovating with your own team or department. But, what if your gift is not for your group. The ‘N’ in the AQOEN philosophy means that you have networking on your side. If you have an innovative idea, find someone to network with to get it heard and make it happen. You may not get 100% of the credit, but you will be remembered (by the right people). It may get around that you don’t operate confined to your particular silo. How many of you have had an idea for a different group and shared it? What was the response?
As it so well expressed in “The Innovator’s DNA”, “The key point is that innovative companies select a mix of people who possess not only complementary discovery and delivery skills, but also different expertise and diversity of backgrounds to look at problems through multiple lenses.”
If there is no clear way of measuring your innovation ideas, and if there is no clear incentive to do something different against status quo, how can you support your arguments? I remember some guys in my org labelled as disturbances in meetings. I remember people gang up prior to meetings on how to address and shut-down this individual(s) who wants to do different way or who questions the thought process of everybody else. What can you do? Its sometime become viral too. Once people saw such negative behaviours towards disruptive people, they would shut down themselves automatically. At the end, it has to be supported from the top down. At least in the beginning and once the employees feel comfortable and trustful, then this initiation becomes into a circular than just a top down. But until then, I think the organizations and top executives must create such environment. What do you think?