#1 - Disruption Redefines Possible.
First in a series of notes on the new nature of disruption.
By Mike Geraci
Introduction:
The entire tech industry believes they’re in the disruption business.
The irony is most businesses are designed to protect against disruption and disruptors, staffed with people who excel at process, run by Jira, operate under traditional management hierarchies, and insulated by layers of bureaucracy.
Businesses want to be radically different–disruptors– but are trained and incentivized for incremental improvement of existing paradigms.
Yet in this era of increased innovate-or-die pressures, disruption is the only pure competitive advantage. But what does that look like, exactly?
#1 - Disruption Redefines Possible
Prior to the 1999 X Games, landing a 720 (two full rotations) was considered the pinnacle achievement in halfpipe skateboarding. Immediately following the 1999 X Games, the 720 was table stakes. What happened?
Tony Hawk.
At the 1999 X Games, in front of a global audience on the sport’s biggest stage, Tony Hawk landed the world’s first 900 in competition. In doing so, he redefined what was possible in skateboarding.
Millions of skateboarders around the world immediately had a new goal, and the number of skaters who could do or would now consider the 720 increased exponentially.
The sport and the industry–from the pros to the neighborhood skate rats–all entered a new era.
Why?
It’s the power of mental possibility. The gap between what we consider possible and impossible is to a large degree mental. Disruption explodes the mental barrier by proving that the impossible is now possible.
After being told for years and accepting that you can’t, that it’s just not possible, along comes someone that says I can, who sees a way to get there and relentlessly pursues it with the conviction that the impossible is entirely possible.
Disruption resets the paradigm and explodes conventional wisdom. It is a lightning strike seemingly out of nowhere that shifts reality, creates awe, and inspires people and industries to reconsider what else is possible.
In business, Space X landed a launch booster on a “floating drone ship” in the middle of the ocean. Salesforce moved complex database platforms from on-prem to the cloud, at scale. Slack moved communications from inboxes to channels. All of it akin to the same holy-shit moment Tony Hawk created way back in 1999.
Next: Disruption is Creative.