5 Tenets of the Disruptor DNA

In a recent article, I covered the 3 foundational elements that disruptors think about when building their businesses: being built on technology, being purpose driven and being built around community. Check out the article for examples of how innovative disruptors are putting each in action to win in the marketplace.

While a great foundational strategy is important, it means nothing without great execution. The ability to execute really well (+ speed!) is what makes disruptors so successful. It’s how the best disruptors operate their businesses. There are 5 core traits that enable disruptors to move fast and compete in their industries. We call these the “5 Tenets of Disruption." This includes: unified goals, freedom of information, autonomy, connoisseur of failure and continuous learning.

It’s important to understand that these are not things they actively try to do. It’s inherent to who they are. It’s who they are because it’s in their DNA. They don’t just try to apply these tenets. They live them, and their actions arise from them. Let’s take a closer look at each piece of the disruptor DNA.

Unified goals, with extreme focus

The first trait is having unified goals and associated KPIs for all job functions. These companies have clear alignment on all fronts when it comes to business objectives. At these companies, there is no confusion about what they are working towards. Their goals are shared, and they are crystal clear. I always tell my teams that, “there’s nothing more impactful than empowering a team with an extreme focus” (on only 1–2 things). This alignment can be developed in many ways. For some disruptors, it’s a top-down directive. For others, it’s having clearly-trackable metrics that all campaigns and strategies center around. This also means identifying those things that you're willing to trade-off and call out as "important, but not our top goals." Calling out "non-goals" can be incredibly empowering to your teams.

In both scenarios, there is always one thing in common: a true hunger for success. This is a cultural undertone of disruptive companies. Employees are urged to do anything in their power to help their company succeed. Peloton, an exercise and media company, is an excellent example.

The business impact of marketing at Peloton: The main goal of Peloton is to sell bikes and subscriptions. Every team—from marketing to business development to analytics, and even their community team—focuses on this KPI. To accurately track this, they think about everything in terms of incrementality. That means that they measure the actual business results that their marketing delivered, which they wouldn’t have captured otherwise.

Their marketing team has a strong partnership with their analytics and business intelligence team to drive acquisition and figure out how their marketing channels contribute to growth. These insights not only inform what channels to invest in, but also what creative is resonating with their consumers. Every category-leading disruptor we work with always has a strong commitment to data science.

For Peloton, building this expertise in-house was key. It allows them to move fast and make quick iterations. However, an in-house team is not the only necessary factor for unified goals and KPIs to work. In fact, many disruptors embody this practice successfully with their agency partners, and in our case, also with Facebook Marketing Partners.

They do this by following a framework of frequency where they are meeting in-person at least once a week (most disruptors meet daily for a brief "stand-up"), responsibility where they hold each other accountable to hitting KPIs and transparency where they are openly sharing information with one another. For the agency, it’s about openly sharing performance metrics. For the company, it’s about keeping their partners up-to-date on the business. It forms two-way communication that enables the company and agency to stay on the same page, drive agility, and iterate fast. 

Freedom of information

The second trait of the disruptor DNA is freedom of information. Here, communication flows freely in a company—whether a person is a part of the C-suite or a new hire. For disruptors, this type of transparency is brought on by 2 main characteristics: flat hierarchy and collaboration. In the most extreme cases, an entry-level employee will have access to the same data and reports as the C-Suite.

Many disruptor companies only have 2–4 layers between the lowest level and the founding executive team, allowing easy access to leadership. This enables leadership to easily disseminate information throughout the organization, resulting in faster decision-making and a clear understanding of company goals. If your organization has more layers than this, it's likely slowing down your execution.

Collaboration is also key. Things like strategy and budget decisions are structured as discussions rather than executive-only/top-down decisions. This sort of collaboration empowers employees to make their own decisions, as long as they operate with the company’s goal in mind. Personal-Care disruptor LOLA is a great example of freedom-of-information in action.

LOLA is powered by collaboration and transparency: While LOLA’s marketing strategy is headed by their marketing lead, her relationships with her two colleagues are critical to the team’s success. When one person is executing and optimizing campaigns, the other is evaluating performance to understand what’s working and what’s not.

These learnings are then passed back to their marketing lead (and the broader team!) to discuss future strategies. It’s a continuous feedback loop. LOLA has found a way to make their organization work for them, and in return, has created a powerhouse marketing team that is able to help significantly grow the business.

As disruptors scale to become larger organizations, they need to facilitate communication, share best practices and foster collaboration across departments. Those that succeed have a mentality that helps them stay aligned and nimble. Take for example, Jeff Bezos’s “two-pizza teams,” where a meeting shouldn’t have more people in it than two pizzas can feed. It helps keep teams small, agile, accountable and productive. 

At the same time, disruptors that are growing strive to make sure that broader collaboration and transparency are still possible. They do this by leveraging communication tools like Workplace and Slack and by creating cross-functional workstreams. They also work to break down silos, which is a big issue at larger companies, as it’s really hard to grow as a business when everyone is pigeonholed into their very specific job function.  

Autonomy

A big difference between larger advertisers and disruptors is the ability for leadership to allow employees to function with autonomy. Contrary to larger advertisers, where many decisions require leadership sign-off, disruptors trust and empower their line-level employees (closest to the data & action) to make their own game-time decisions.

As a result, decision-making and turnaround time for disruptors often fall within a few hours. With clearly defined business goals and a cultural emphasis on success, disruptor leadership understands the importance of moving fast and trusts employees to make decisions that will lead the company in the right direction. 

Autonomy drives agility at Smile Direct Club: Smile Direct Club operates in a very open and autonomous environment. Leadership empowers employees to act as CEOs of their own business. When it comes down to it, everything is based not only on their yearly, quarterly or monthly goals, but more importantly, their day-to-day business goals.

To them, it is the daily shifts and goal setting that will drive their long-term business outcomes. Because of this, Smile Direct Club understands the importance of immediate changes. They understand that if they want to move fast and be an industry leader, leadership cannot take 1–2 weeks to make a sign-off decision. Instead, every employee operates in full autonomy, with the focus of hitting their daily and weekly goals.

Connoisseurs of failure

Risk-taking sets disruptors apart from larger advertisers. Disruptors are “always in beta”—they are willing to try almost anything as long as it works towards giving them a competitive advantage. This includes testing new ad formats, UX, creative and measurement strategies.

They don’t follow best practices. Instead, they create them. Oftentimes, disruptors are creating our global marketing best practices here at Facebook. Taking risks doesn’t end at marketing. It extends to new product lines and defining the brand. Failure isn’t a bad thing as long as you learn something from it, and share those learnings with the broader organization. Some of the biggest learnings come from analyzing what didn’t work versus what did. Disruptors understand that taking risks reaps the greatest rewards. Amazon is a great example of this.

A willingness to embrace failure at Amazon: The elephant in the room for many ecommerce businesses is Amazon. The company’s meteoric rise is heavily attributed to their willingness to embrace failure. Looking at Amazon's history, they have launched and shut down many products simply due to failed launches, such as Amazon Destinations and the Amazon Fire Phone.

Jeff Bezos once said that, “Outsized returns often come from betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right. Given a 10% chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time.” Disruptors understand that in order to become major players in their industry, taking risks is what will result in exponential gains versus incremental gains.

Continuous learning

For disruptors, continuous learning is key. They understand that the market is a living thing, and it’s important to gather as much insight as possible and change alongside it. Whether that’s focusing on how to drive more conversions, increasing ROI, experimenting with betas or participating in partnership programs, disruptors are eager to learn as much as possible and immediately act on these insights.

By constantly learning and using these insights, disruptors guarantee that they find the winning strategies before their competition. And with these learnings comes the ability to adapt and shift. Most of these companies have this innate ability to adapt and pivot their businesses internally and externally (within minutes), and the ability to change their strategy is what keeps them thriving.

This is the big difference between successful disruptors and companies that are being disrupted. Companies get passed up when they stop learning about consumers, pivoting strategy and innovating. Let’s look at HelloFresh’s success as a disruptor for example. They are constantly monitoring consumer trends and competitor moves. When they see an opportunity, they don’t hesitate to jump in and take action.

Monitoring trends, then moving fast at HelloFresh: Despite being a global brand, HelloFresh still acts very much like a start-up. They understand the importance of speed. HelloFresh launched in the US in an already saturated meal kit space. They were far behind the category leaders. When they noticed that competitors were pulling back on marketing, they doubled down on marketing, acquisition and building brand awareness. By keeping a close eye on the industry and their competitors, HelloFresh leapfrogged ahead to become the #1 meal kit provider in the US.

Put these suggestions below into action TODAY

As we’ve seen, the 5 core traits of the disruptor DNA are bringing success to disruptors that embrace them. To bolster these traits at your company, also look for ways to:  

Remove processes and bureaucracy: Where are you getting in your own way? Remove processes and bureaucracy until you find the breaking point (see #Netflix as a great example). Being lean drives extreme focus. Scarcity equals clarity!

Democratize your data: Don't allow invaluable learnings to live and die within one department. Whether you’re the CEO or an entry level new-hire, everyone should have access to the same performance metrics and KPIs.

Empower your line-level employees to make decisions: If you have a strong company culture that is working towards a common goal, it should be easy for them to make the right decisions towards the greater good. Empower those with the data to make the quickest decisions. 

Get comfortable being uncomfortable: Be bold. Be brave. Don't be afraid of failure. The Growth Mindset is about using failure as a pure learning opportunity to get better. You only fail if you don’t share what you’ve learned.

Get to the next gear: You can always go faster (believe it or not). Outside of your people, continuous learning and speed are your most important assets.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out our Disruptor Hub on Facebook Business. We have lots of great disruptor resources, success stories and insights for you to take back to your business.