Disruption!

There are two kinds of disruption. There is the disruption that stops you doing things, and there is the disruption that enables you to get somewhere new. The first is the kind of disruption that throws your day, your routine, your schedule, out of the window. This is the kind of disruption that causes you stress and anxiety, loss of earnings, and wastes your time. This is the kind of disruption we all experienced yesterday in London when the Underground staff went on strike. Anyone who was caught up in it will tell you that nobody could find a 'for hire' taxi cab for love nor money, the buses were stacked full to overflowing (some would say dangerously so) and people were actually seen scuffling (what fisticuffs?) for the few available Boris bikes that remained in the racks. Many resorted to walking to work, and the streets became a milling, grumbling, but somehow resolute throng of Londoners and visitors, who somehow, against all the odds, battled it through the gridlocked traffic and crowded pavements and eventually made it to their destination.

The same scene was replayed in reverse that evening, where we were all caught up in the same frustrating gridlock of traffic and pedestrians, all trying to make our way home. Many businesses and individuals (including me) lost a lot of earnings and time, and some probably suffered adverse health effects.  It was incredibly stressful. I am just very, very thankful that I don't have to experience this kind of disruption on a daily basis. I'll take the idyllic rural life of the Westcountry any time - even with its violent winter storms, flooding, crumbling sea walls, and cancelled rail services.

There is another kind of disruption. It is a good kind of disruption, an enabling kind, although those who find themselves caught up in it might not agree with that sentiment. Disruptive innovation - the introduction of new ideas or technologies - that change forever the way we do something, can and often is, a good thing. It is good because it takes stagnating businesses and organisations out of their slough of despond, and propels them into a new and more vibrant world where things are done differently. This is a real challenge for many businesses, but in order to survive, disruption of this kind is not only desirable, it is often essential. Take the case of Kodak, a once indomitable giant of the photographic industry, now a sad, washed up husk of its former self. Kodak failed to move with the times, failed to innovate, and did not adapt to the new digital trends. Its managers thought Kodak could survive on its old, tried and tested business model, but this was a false hope. The same can be said for many other former household names, now either no longer trading, or on the verge of expiring. In the UK we have seen the sudden, sad demise of many familiar highstreet names such as Woolworth, Blockbuster, Clinton Cards, Jessops. These and similar organisations have either fail to diversify, adapt to adverse climates or globalise their operations. They didn't see the killer application that was lurking in the wings, waiting to decapitate them.

Innovation is unfeeling. It waits for no individual, and respects no organisation. It relentlessly flows ahead, washing those away who oppose it, dragging the remainder into its strong undertow. Those who manage to surface and reach the crest of its wave find themselves as industry leaders. They are the ones, who in a Darwinian feat of self engineering and reinvention, have harnessed the power of the disruption, adapted to new and challenging environments, and have survived, as the fittest of their corporate species.

Harvard Professor of business Clayton Christensen has a great deal to say about disruptive innovation and how to survive and even thrive as a business through hard times. He warns that sometimes companies innovate too quickly, and end up trying to ship products that nobody is interested in. The Sinclair C5 electric car was a classic example of over specification. It failed to sell because we simply weren't ready for it. (The fact that it was also launched to the press during a particularly awful spell of cold weather also did little to endear it to our hack brigade). Businesses continues to peddle such overspecified sustaining innovations, usually because managers believe this is why they have succeeded in the past. This is a high stakes game. Retailing high cost products to meet the demands of the most affluent customers may not be enough to sustain a business. Businesses that do this inadvertently make way for disruptive innovation at the lower end of the market, says Christensen. An innovation that is disruptive allows a entirely new population of consumers at the bottom of a market to afford a product that previously only the richer population could afford. This is why Amazon has succeeded where many other large retailers have failed. Amazon has tapped into the zeitgeist of the digital age, making all its products available online, delivered directly to your door, whatever the weather. Other companies are also thriving, and in doing so, are putting the traditional companies, who have failed to change, in the shade.

But what of the world of learning? Disruptive innovations are already appearing in education. Arguably, concepts such as the flipped classroom, mobile learning and Massive Open Online Courses, have a disruptive capability that is beginning to challenge the traditional universities and colleges. Perhaps it is the age old irresistible force meeting the immovable object. Time will tell, but already we are witnessing the demise of many of the smaller more vulnerable universities, who are falling by the wayside, because they have failed to innovate correctly. So as the waves of disruption crash with increasing force upon the shores of our experience, will we see our sea defences crumbling? Or will we adapt quickly, and go with the flow?

Tube Strike photo by CP Grey


Disruption! by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.