Disrupt

Luke Williams’ first book “Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business” disrupts its readers. He starts with a criticism. “The old mantra, ‘differentiate, or die,’ is no longer relevant.” He means a lot of companies try to differentiate; however what they do is only superficial novelty.
As a consultant and professor of innovation, Williams has broad experience in the field of creativity and innovation. In his book, he provides a roadmap for creative innovation that really disrupts. The concept of “disruption and disruptive technologies” was first introduced by Clayton Christensen in his book “Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that will Change the Way You Do Business.” He talked about disruptive technologies that make radical change. Williams says not only in the field of technology but in every field organizations have to do something radical. There are five stages of disruptive thinking. The first stage is crafting a disruptive hypothesis. He simply says: “Be wrong at the start to be right at the end.” In my seminars, I used to tell that creativity is doing something irrational and then making it rational. Williams suggests using a hypothesis. In simple terms a hypothesis is the fill in the blanks part of a question, “I wonder what would happen if we ……………………. .” For example, “What would happen if we sold socks in sets of three where none of them match?” This question is answered by Little Miss Match. In the video rental business, the question changes: “What would happen if we didn’t charge late fees?” The answer is given by American video rental company: Netflix. A disruptive hypothesis is an intentionally unreasonable statement that gets your thinking flowing in a different direction. The people should find out the clichés of one field and disrupt them. In video game industry, the introduction “kinect” a special device that senses your motions, you play the game, no joysticks, no cables, nothing is between you and the game. The second stage is discovering a disruptive opportunity. It is about exploring the least obvious. In corporate world, the consumer research is usual, but when it is about discovering a hidden opportunity it is not very functional. People do not give realistic answers about non-existing products. If you ask people, do you buy three single socks none of which match, they answer “Are you crazy?” Apple company, instead of doing customer research use its stores as a laboratory. In traditional computer stores, everything is in a box and you can’t touch anything. But in Apple Store’s hundreds of iPads or Macbooks are on table and you can experience the product freely. Apple marketing staff can easily watch the customers in stores what they do, what they use, and how they use. Some of the customers are like me, who become addicted to Apple products and have lots of things to say about nonexisting features or products. The third stage is generating a disruptive idea. Opportunity is not the idea; it is an empty space you can use; but you have to find out what you are going to put into this space; and that is the idea. The cars are traditionally for transportation. The disruptive opportunity about the cars is for entertainment of families. The idea is integrated DVD players especially in back seats for children. The fourth stage is shaping a disruptive solution. This stage needs a practical and feasible solution. There are millions of good ideas; but a few solutions. Because solutions are always feasible, practical and applicable. The prototypes are good for this stage. The prototypes are like dresses of ideas. You can see if one idea works or not. You can easily understand if it is ergonomic, functional, desirable, elegant or not. The fifth stage is making a disruptive pitch. Disruptive solutions are big problems to sell. Because they are disruptive. Before the customers the people in one company will be against a disruptive solution. Because as the disruptive solution means it is against tradition and clichés in one business. The author suggests preparing a nine minute pitch that take audience to a thought phase “Hey, this is a great idea! How do we implement it?” Williams’ book is one with which you can embrace different disruptive ideas.