When I think about the current discussion around disruption, there are a few things that I see as red flags. The discussion of disruption tends to be about tech and is often accompanied by warnings about the importance of boarding the tech train into the future. I fully recognise the importance of technology as a key driver of innovation and disruption, but I believe that's only half the truth.
To be valuable to the customers
The same examples are almost always used when talking about disruption. Blockbuster disrupted by Netflix. Uber disrupting the taxi industry. Apple that disrupted the music industry. Airbnb as a disruptive hotel industry. Common to these examples is, of course, that they all are tech companies. But in my view, their tech based approach was just a very powerful and scalable (and cheap) tool, to address the user needs that they identified much better than their established competitors.
It brings a vision to my mind – a story I would like to tell; of the disrupted organisations and industries as polar bears, and the disruptors as rats.
The polar bear – the largest carnivore in the world
I see the picture of this majestic animal, spending his days wandering around the Arctic ice sheets for miles and miles, seeking his next favorite dish; seal or fish, in the ice-cold waters. He is perfectly fit for the arctic conditions. He is the king here.
But something is changing. During the last few summers, the distance between the floating ice sheets has expanded, making it necessary for our polar bear king to take even longer swims than usual. Even though he is comfortable swimming long distances (up to 200 miles to be exact) he would rather not, as it requires much of his precious energy.
I imagine our polar bear suddenly finding himself on a cracking sheet of ice, surrounded only by miles and miles of ocean… paralysed. He is tired and not prepared for yet another long swim. He stays put, hoping the thin ice holds until he can scout another ice sheet, or view a new land, dreading what will happen if not…
The rat – the adaptable opportunist
Meanwhile, far away, in a big, noisy city, a rat is busy chewing her way through practically anything she can find. Not necessarily because she’s hungry, but because her teeth just grow and grow (true story – rats’ teeth grow 11-14 cm per year). As an omnivorous animal, the rat will eat almost anything (though it prefers meat), so our rat is never really hungry – she is just curious. So she wanders around the city discovering new and exciting areas, finding herself in new places, eating new things, sleeping where ever she can. And she is never alone – she lives with close friends and family, and they take care of each other in the sewers of the city. They investigate new terrains and inspire each other to move – from the deep underground sewers, into pipes, and all the way up to 4th floor lavatories and into homes of humans.
To be or not be (a polar bear or a rat) … is that the question?
The circumstances in our story can easily be translated to conditions many organisations find themselves in, in these times of change.
There are the large, iconic organisations that we admire, just as we do the polar bear. But their capacity to adapt to a changing environment is as big a challenge as the bear’s capacity to adapt to climate change. Their reaction to the changing environment seems to be to keep doing what they have always done – looking for the same fish and seal, in an ocean where these have become more and more difficult to catch. But the polar bear organisations will – if they do not find a way to adapt to the changes in their environment – find themselves having to swim the 200 mile distances more often, eventually losing too much energy to survive.
And then there are the more agile and adaptable organisations, where change is a part of everyday life. These are, just like the rats, always on the run, finding their way through new terrains, and curiously discovering new places to eat. They are inspired by their neighbours, and are not afraid to share. The rat companies establish that all decision making is based on customer and market trends, therefore solving consumer needs and pain points. Not only does it rely heavily on interactional patterns between the business and consumers, it’s evolving to suit the changing world in which it exists.
An icon belonging to the past
The polar bear has over a hundred thousand years of fine-tuning in its ability to survive and thrive in the harsh arctic areas. Through natural selection, it has become the majestic and solitary creature that we now know in the top of the food chain – a symbol of greatness and beauty. Now the polar bear has become the symbol for climate change – an animal that cannot adapt to its changing environment.
The Polar bear companies’ inside-out approach to business relies heavily on legacy issues. They, at some point, obtained a competitive advantage, and over the years perfected that advantage through operational efficiency. They had an answer to a need, and in a competitive market survived as one of the fittest. But in their search for operational efficiency, they lost the ability to look up, and to see the big changes around them. It is almost like an inherent thing for big traditional organisations, which Clay Shirky, the American internet guru, frames as: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution”.
Chew away
Instead of scouting for short term solutions and jumping from one insecure ice sheet to another, we as people, organisations, communities and nations must spark our curiosity, and chew our way through obstacles – lead and be led by our surroundings, and not be afraid of, but actively use, the changes that we inevitably face sooner or later. We must strengthen our ability to survive and thrive.
That means that companies must become truly customer centric. It is a well-known saying that “if the consumer wins, we all win.” I truly believe this is true. But it means lots of changes. It means short-term performance metrics becoming secondary, while the company recalibrates consumers as its “new north.”
