How to Become an Industry Leader by Developing a Disruptive Mindset?
Everyone in every industry wants to best their competitors. Being ahead of the curve, embracing technology, outsmarting the competition, and providing innovative products and services — every business that wants to be at the top of the food chain will consider these strategies to reach their goals. A great way to become a leader in your industry is by developing a disruptive mindset.
First things first: what’s a disruptive mindset? It is a collection of characteristics that can be developed and trained by individuals and organizations. It is a way of doing things that can make them more adaptive, flexible, resilient, effective, and innovative in a way that will get them closer to their goals in the best way possible.
6 steps to develop a disruptive mindset:
– Embrace change: The world is continuously transforming. You need to be aware of the changes and keep track of where the trend is heading. You have to constantly analyze the shifts and understand their potential impact on the business. While most organizations recognize this fact, many of them, especially established ones, have a hard time reacting to technological transformations and market changes because of their size.
– Think long-term: A disruptive mindset focuses beyond incremental extensions and adjustments and factors in long-term scenarios that are scalable and sustainable. It incorporates a bigger perspective than what the current norms in the market present, stretching ahead of ordinary thinking and analysis.
– Welcome diversity: As a leader, you must understand that you may not possess all the capabilities, knowledge, perspective, and experience to make things happen. This is why you need to employ individuals who possess different expertise and pool them together under the same roof to create a well-rounded organization.
Hiring people from diverse backgrounds creates a balanced organizational culture. Diverse groups give more fresh ideas compared to homogeneous teams that are likely to produce the same thing over and over again. Being surrounded by people that churn out novel ideas and innovative perspectives promotes a disruptive mindset that the organization can benefit from.
– Be ready to take risks: Having a disruptive mindset means nothing if you cannot execute the ideas you have come up with. Innovators are known not only for their out-of-this-world concepts but also for their courage to go against the flow. Disruptors challenge known norms, established ‘truths’, popular beliefs, and proven strategies, believing that what they offer is revolutionary and can change the world for the better.
Embracing change is a risk that can leave your organization vulnerable — a chance that you may not be willing to take probably because the stakes are too high. It is easier to play safe than venture into unknown territory and risk failure.
But if you want to become a leader in your industry, you need the courage to push boundaries and risk being the odd one out. You need to be ready to face adversities and criticisms, along with the possibility of failure.
– Stay creative and agile: Having a disruptive mindset is rooted in being creative in finding solutions to the most common problems. You do not always have to go by the book and do things traditionally and scientifically. Thinking out of the box is often associated with disruption and innovation since it solves things from a different perspective.
Instead of looking for solutions from the point of existing processes and structures, train your disruptive mindset by looking at unconventional means in facing challenges. Sometimes, the answer you have come up with maybe outrageous, but it can be the very thing you need for a breakthrough.
– Rinse, repeat, evolve: Adopting a disruptive mindset does not need to be abrupt and unpleasant. You may think of change as something costly and uncontrollable, and this can make you averse to innovations or incorporating new things into existing knowledge, processes, and practices.
Using an iterative approach is the best way to help you and your team get used to the new approach to doing things. You should continually encourage employees to raise and evaluate ideas they think will help in the company’s progress. If deemed viable, consider adopting the idea and testing it to see if it will help the organization become better and more efficient in its operations.
You do not need to start from scratch and reinvent the wheel to instill a leadership mindset in everyone. You can pick up parts of the process, operation, or project that are working well, and gradually integrate new things on a trial basis until you get which are working and which are not for your situation.
Fostering Disruptive Teams
You cannot do things alone, so it’s best to have a disruptive team with the same mindset and vision as you do. Non-disruptive minds in the team will struggle and search for safety, stability, and conformity. However, having too many disruptive minds in the team can lead to disturbance since the majority tends to break conventions whenever possible.
Having both disruptive and non-disruptive minds in the team is the healthier, more effective, and more sustainable way of doing things. The mixture of personalities can create harmonious relationships necessary to build the best team for challenging tasks.
For existing teams that can be difficult or impossible to modify, facilitating disruption workshops may help. This will help the members share their ideas, personalities, and outlook, and make it easier for everyone to be on the same page. Shared conversations like this can help the organization stay constantly disruptive without sacrificing the collaborative space.
Best Regards,
Adebanjo Adedayo .B.
Founder & CEO at Cayene Hands – Your Brand Growth Partner…
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