Brands must live in two worlds. They must manage in the marketplace they live in today while also preparing for the future. You can’t pick one – you need both.
Disruption is the act of breaking things apart, and disruptive market forces are challenging every business. Whether you sell products or services, the world around you is changing and how your organization structures itself for this change matters.
Quarterly Disruption
How do you organize your management team around the disruption so that the mindset is forward thinking? How can you keep the focus and awareness on market challenges and practical actions focus on how things get done in your business?
- Quarterly Disruption: Put together a small cross-functional team charged with presenting several ideas how a competitor could steal business from your brand. Empower them to find weaknesses in how you do business and to identify ways that your team is falling behind. If you don’t have the internal resources, go outside and hire a consultant to help you find these weaknesses today when you can still do something about it. By building disruptive challenges in the business each quarter, you infuse your culture with the idea that it is better to challenge yourself aggressively before your competitor steals share from you.
- Quarterly Invention: Have your HR leader bring a new way to do business to the culture each and every quarter. It can be experimental and temporary, but it invites the company to see fresh approaches as embraced by the firm. The ideas can be small but will take on a powerful energy when the company expects that things aren’t going to stay the same. You instill a change mentality into the mindset of everyone and encourage this behavior.
- Quarterly Celebration: Companies that are disruptive don’t ignore the importance of celebrating an accomplishment. It reinforces what you want to encourage. And the celebration can be a failure, not just a success. Let the entire organization see what you value at your quarterly celebration party. You are celebrating behavior, attitudes, and actions not just reaching sales objectives. Celebrate the behavior you want regularly.
If you want an organization that is adaptable, flexible and not complacent, you need to shine a bright light on embracing disruption. Your competitors are fighting for you customer’s business, and if you aren’t rethinking your approach to the market, you can only get by for so long doing the “same old, same old.”
Disruption is coming from changes that aren’t typical competitors. Uber and Lyft have influenced industries as diverse as airport parking garage occupancy as well as rental cars. Sometimes the disruption comes from your flank – not head on. Who is charged with watching out for these challenges to your existence?
The Department of Disruption
Consider a department of disruption charged with reshaping, rethinking and restructuring how things get done. If you have always had silos in your departments, maybe it is time for a different way to be organized. If your market research is failing to help you gain insights into your vertical market, you need to take a fresh and different approach to how to get things done.
Closing your eyes to the shifting sands isn’t going to help you move forward. You’ll only sink further behind.
Embrace the disruption as you constantly find ways to reinvent yourself. If not, you’ll end up fighting yesterday’s battles.
Need a disruptor to challenge your brand or company? Email me at jeffreylynnslater@gmail.com and let’s discuss how your brand or business needs to rethink your growth strategy.
Photo Credit: Scott Beale https://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/with/5751764434/
