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Disruption Readiness: Live! How to Remain Agile Within Our Ecosystem

May 23, 2017

 

Photo credit: Shannon Kalahar

On May 18, RIDG hosted Disruption Readiness: LIVE featuring Larry Quick and Michelle Royal in the brand new USF St. Petersburg Kate Tiedemann College of Business. Larry Quick is an Australian business strategist, co-founder of Resilient Futures and author of Disrupted and The Disruption Readiness Test. Michelle Royal is CEO and founder of RIDG (Royal Innovation Design Group), maintains over twenty years in the innovation space and is the author of the upcoming book, One Billion Innovators.

Besides being popular buzzwords, “innovation” and “disruption” are extremely complex concepts that intertwine with one another. When mentioning these topics, it is important that we think of the following questions: How did we get here? What is disruption readiness? How do you integrate disruption readiness?

Michelle explained that it is vital to identify the gaps within your business and what you need to focus on in order to overcome these hurdles. Due to these topics being extremely abstract, visualization assists in processing the information. Therefore, we must understand innovation and disruption at its core description. According to Royal, “innovation is the realized value of an idea,” whereas disruption is defined as the consequences (intended and unintended) of change brought about by technology. Disruption can also be brought on by non-technological shifts in social, economic, political and environmental conditions.

Royal also explained that innovation is “something new, such as an implicit idea; not just stored in the brain, but something made and brought to market.” It could serve just one individual/business or even millions. The key to overcoming many obstacles businesses face is to allow for the idea to evolve into something new. Because value can be both tangible and abstract, it poses the question, how do we capitalize on intangibles? The way in which to successfully exploit the intangibles is through incremental, radical, and disruptive innovation.

When discussing disruption, it is important to understand it and learn to fight with it in order to sustain value. An “innovator” displaces something within a sector, which in turn forces businesses to re-align themselves. The truth of the matter is that displacement happens faster than replacement; therefore, some businesses get discarded because many are unable to keep up. Individuals and businesses cannot rely on old thinking to create new ideas and solutions – it has to be innovative thinking. One person’s innovation is another person’s disruption; it is a cycle no matter how micro these changes may be.

Quick explained that there are four drivers for disruption: scope (range, depth and variety of impacts), scale (local to global), systemic (interconnectivity and interdependence), and speed (time to activate, impact and experience). The types of disruptors that occur in the present day include technology, commerce, people, and governance. This can vary from driverless cars and the Internet of Things (IOT), to health, politics and policy. By addressing and leveraging disruption, you are able to remain in the game. You have the opportunity to make the changes within your business – but if you wait too long, you’ll be discarded before you can change.

Quick also explained the “Five Thresholds of Disruption” and how they affect your business as well as how to ready yourself in order to overcome them. This included the commitment at all levels of your organization to leverage disruption. Secondly, it is an alighted view of disruption and its current, imminent, and potential impacts on your organization. Third, a strategy focused on actively leveraging disruption. Fourth, possessing the capability and resources to leverage disruption. The last is developing the network strength of disruption readiness of suppliers and customers.

What do you have to do in an organization to leverage disruption? If you are not going to keep up, then what kind of game are you going to play? Decoding disruption is a state of mind and management, which is why Disruption Readiness Test is a vital resource to businesses. It is important to identify Disruption Readiness in a robust and measured manner.

Quick closed the event by naming the top three skills needed to seek change and to leverage disruption. These skills were agility, foresight, and the ability to learn as fast as possible. Similar to flexibility, agility is used in the same sense yet requiring more strategy; being flexible but also developing purpose. He explained that foresight is the understanding of emergent conditions on a local, national, and international scale. This allows for preparation of disruption. Lastly, the ability to learn as quickly as possible is critical, as we are the masters of our own breakthrough.

Disruption Readiness: Live was an amazing and enlightening experience in affording businesses the opportunity to leverage disruption through innovation. If you missed Disruption Readiness: Live with Michelle Royal and Larry Quick, you can sign-up for the free Disruption Readiness Webinar.

Learn more about RIDG and its team as well as the Disruption Readiness Test!

Also, be sure to read more about speakers Michelle Royal and Larry Quick.

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This post was written by Elevate, Inc.

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