Can You Disrupt Yourself?

Disruption is a big theme for many companies and something I have written about in the past. More and more you see companies talking about disrupting themselves from within like Providence Health & Services. But is it really possible to create true disruption from within or should companies rather focus on developing and from time to time transform their business model? 

Start with yourself 

To simplify the discussion let’s assume that there are three kinds of changes a company and people can do. 

• Development
• Transformation
• Disruption

So let’s start by asking the question how you would develop, transform and even disrupt yourself (if possible)?  We’ll take a look at a few “basic” examples and hopefully you can complement and/or challenge me on these arguments. 

Example 1: Losing weight 

Consider someone severely overweight or obese even. The person wants to change this and starts out by trying classic diets and slowly but surely the person is losing weight. It’s all happening at a manageable pace and will take a lot of energy and perseverance from the person to keep this going until (s)he reaches a weight within the normal range. This is what you would call a development. It’s possible to achieve extreme results, but they will typically take a long time to reach. Now let’s say this person instead of a slow and steady diet had an operation to get rid of the overweight. It would happen very rapidly and people would experience it as a true transformation of this person. The result is the same as with the development, but due to the accelerated pace this is happening at, it could qualify as a transformational process. In order for this weight loss to qualify as disruption something even more extreme than the transformation would have to happen. Essentially the personality of the person would have to change in addition to the weight loss. While that, of course, is theoretically possible it’s not a very likely change. The person might be happier, show more self-confidence etc. following the weight loss, but it’s still the same person. So in short I don’t see disruption as a possibility. 

Example 2: Your career 

Now consider a professional and let’s say it’s a finance professional. This person has just started a career as an accountant. This is a person who wants career development and sees a natural career track from accountant to senior accountant to finance manager, finance director and eventually CFO. Not saying all finance professionals will go this route as it could also be going from accountant to financial analyst to senior financial analyst etc. This is a natural career development. So what if this finance professional would like to transform the career into being a sales professional. One might need to go back to school for this or at least go through extensive training and while some of the finance skills may be applicable to a sales role certainly a new skillset is needed. This is not necessarily an extreme transformational process but could still be considered a transformation. It’s not a disruption by any means as the professional still stays in the corporate world and rely on business school training etc. What if instead of being a finance professional this person now wants to become an opera singer? Let’s be honest there are absolutely no commonalities between finance professionals and opera singers. For the person, it’s also a completely new "business model" where instead of delivering on some objectives you need to entertain people and perform in front of a crowd, stand on a stage etc. This could be considered a career disruption where a person is reinventing themselves. One could easily argue though that a true disruption requires introducing something completely new i.e. a whole new job function. If that’s the case career disruption will be much more unique and rarely happen. 

What makes people change? 

Without trying to answer too big of a question here let’s just say that people develop for various reasons as it’s considered a natural part of life which practically all people go through. For many people though they will never experience a transformation of themselves. They go through life not needing any drastic changes because they are happy and satisfied with the path they have put themselves on. It’s when you become unhappy with your life you start to consider a transformation. A little unhappiness probably won’t do it as transformations are quite drastic and will have an impact not only on you but also your surroundings. So when people become really unhappy with themselves for whatever reason some will start a transformation. Again with disruption it has to be even more extreme. Maybe you’re in a situation where you lose everything and are forced to start a new life. This doesn’t automatically lead to disruption or even transformation but at least offer a chance of disrupting yourself. More likely than not though most people will not experience a transformation and even fewer will experience disruption. It also requires an extreme state of mind which you will most likely need to help to move on from. 

So what about companies? 

Right, so after this spacey explanation what is then different for companies? Actually not much is different. Most companies go through a natural development and different life cycles through which they rise and fall. To avoid the fall part some companies will transform themselves which could be everything from product, organizational or systems changes. A company can do this on its own but will typically do it by seeking inspiration from other companies operating in different ways, input from business school professors etc. Most companies would be unable to do it completely on their own with the same people. Why? Because these people are working in a company with set structures which they created themselves and will find it very difficult to give up on. That’s also why company transformation typically leads to cutting or changing job scopes so that people will be made redundant and other people with different skills or mind-sets are hired. Following a transformation, the company will look materially different, like in the two people examples above, but the business model would still be the same to some extent. Before discussing if companies can disrupt themselves let’s just look at a quick example of an airline. 

Development and transformation of an airline 

The business model of an airline is quite simple. Transport people from A to B. Over time the airline might develop different services and add-on’s such as different travel classes, in-flight sales, fees for various services etc. A transformation would be if an airline wanted to transform from a full-service carrier to a low-cost carrier. This requires something different where services (at least the “free” ones) are cut to a minimum, space per passenger is limited, slot costs are minimized etc. The business model, however, is still the same i.e. transporting people from A to B. The airline has no other means of offering this service at least not until we can transport people in teleports or magnetic trains below the oceans etc. I know this is putting disruption to the extreme but to illustrate the point airlines would find it almost impossible to disrupt themselves from within. Develop? Yes. Transform? Yes. Disrupt? No. 

So if we consider recent examples in business that has been considered disruption we would quickly mention companies like Air BnB which makes any home into a hotel or Uber that makes any car and driver into a professional chauffeur etc. These companies have done something to an established industry which the industry would have never been able to do to itself. If you own hotels you would have to give up your assets and just sell accommodation anywhere it was available. If you own a taxi company you would change into a dispatch for any available car on the roads. This was always unlikely to happen. 

So in short, I have a hard time seeing companies disrupting themselves from within. If you’re used to doing something you cannot disrupt it yourself. Someone can do it for you, but on your own you would have an extremely difficult time breaking the mental boundaries that you build up over time working for a certain company or industry. So I certainly believe when companies say they want to transform, but when they talk about disrupting themselves from within I start to worry on the company’s behalf. Then I start to think they really haven’t understood what disruption is all about. It doesn’t mean that you are defenseless against disruption and you can read more about what to do to still remain relevant as a company in some of the posts below. 

Now, I’m really curious to hear what you think? Is this complete rubbish or do you think there is a point to companies not being able to disrupt themselves? As always like, share and/or comment to get this discussion going.

There Is Too Much Capital In Shipping

Transform Or Be Disrupted And Die

Oh Oh Here Comes Transferwise

Why You Should Love Pop-Up Disruption

Introducing An Industry Disruption Index

Disruption And The 5 Types Of CFOs

Have You Ever Met A Disruptor?

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Regional Finance Business Partner for Maersk Line North Europe and is working with the transformation of Finance and business on a daily basis. Anders has participated in several transformation processes amongst others helping Maersk Drilling to go Beyond Budgeting and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. He would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption. If you are looking for more advice on how to get the most of LinkedIn Anders also has a few tips to share as well as if you want help in your job search. Don’t be shy! Let’s get in touch and start helping each other.