It’s Time To Get
Personal About Disruption
Margot Andersen
‘Those who can successfully navigate, even harness the successive
cycles of learning and maxing out … will thrive in this era of
personal disruption.’
-Whitney Johnson ‘Throw Your Life A Curve’
More and more leaders are
talking openly about disruption.
Not only it’s impact on the
market place but on their
organisations and their people.
No longer is the term disruption
simply reserved for the world
of start-ups or the technology
landscape in that far, far away
land called Silicon Valley. It is
very much a part of the here
and now for all leaders and it is
personal! The simple truth is that
if we aren’t disrupting we are
reacting to it
This reality brings with it a host
of challenges, least of all how
to effectively navigate and lead
in environments where many
of the traditional mindsets and
behaviours no longer apply - and
where uncertainty prevails. How
do I motivate, encourage and
reward my team when there is no
footprint for what we are trying
to do? How do I manage my own
career in this landscape?
Our ability as leaders to make
good decisions and choices is
instrumental to our business
and personal success. Ironically
though for many organisations
the tendency to rely on what was
once a good decision and the
subsequent failure to recognize
that changing times require
new decisions is ultimately their
downfall. This failure to do so
sees them being swallowed up
by competitors whose innovation
and responsiveness sees them
grab both market share and
talent.
art of career and leadership
reinvention and continually
focus on adding new skills and
capabilities to our existing
repertoire. Personal reinvention
is hard. But so to is living with
the risk of becoming irrelevant.
Current statistics suggest that we
will change careers on average
seven times in our lifetime –
not change jobs but change
careers! We are educating our
children for careers that currently
do not exist; and if they do
will be delivered in ways that
are not yet currently seen. We
are witnessing the demand
for jobs that require repetitive
process and clerical and support
skill sets massively decline.
Replacing them is a demand for
ever-evolving digital skill sets,
creative thinking and many of the
previously considered ‘soft’ skills
of influencing, negotiation and
collaboration. For those of us
whose careers are underpinned
by university degrees, the recent
discussions suggesting that
the life span of this knowledge
and skillset is as short as three
years is both confronting and
challenging.
In their book, The Innovator’s
DNA, Jeffrey Dyer and Clayton
Christensen identify five
behaviours that characterise
innovative leaders: Associating
(the ability to make connections
across unrelated ideas or
problems), Questioning,
Observing, Networking and
Experimenting. These leadership
behaviours not only support the
generation of new ideas but the
timely planning and execution
of them into the market place
so as to ensure an organisation
achieves significant competitive
advantage.
To create a sustainable career,
we will need to face up to a
world of disruption, master the
In addition to developing these
behaviours for ourselves, we as
leaders need to ensure that we
are creating environments where
they are allowed to flourish for
the people we lead. Given that
these environments are rich
in ambiguity and uncertainty,
encouraging people to step
outside of their comfort zone
and embrace the unknown is a
challenge for all leaders today.