Want to disrupt an industry or change the world? Here’s what I’ve learned over 20 years of doing it.
Lesson 1The four-minute mile was considered an unbreakable barrier. Experts claimed the human body simply wasn't capable of running any faster than that. Then, in 1954, a medical student named Roger Bannister did the unthinkable. He ran a mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds, redefining what was possible. And here's the part that fascinates me: once Bannister proved it could be done, runners all over the world started breaking the four-minute mile. It was as if he'd unlocked something in the collective human consciousness. Continue reading
Lesson 2I get that it’s a big deal to generate 10% more — whether it’s 10% more clients, 10% more revenue, or 10% more impact. But there’s a problem with 10%, namely that you can probably do it by just tweaking what you’re doing already. That 10% isn’t ambitious enough to force you to rethink your strategy or take a fresh look at your industry. In short, 10% isn’t enough of a stretch to get you to a breakthrough. Continue reading
Lesson 3You can’t reason your way to a breakthrough. You might think that you can systematically think your way there. Scan the market, identify gaps, and voilà! A big, disruptive idea. A to B to breakthrough. Except it almost never works that way. Consider the stories you know about breakthroughs. Archimedes in the bathtub. Newton under an apple tree. Alexander Fleming and his moldy bread. Or even the Pfizer scientists and Viagra. Brilliant people who changed the world accidentally. Sure, they thought a lot about the problems they were trying to solve, but it took serendipity to help them get there. Continue reading
Want to help your people make real change? Let’s start with the unwritten rules.
Bring me in for a dynamic, interactive workshop to uncover the unwritten rules that drive your organization and your industry. Together, we’ll explore how things really work, what leadership really wants, how to make collaboration effective, and what opportunities everybody else is missing.
Your people will learn —
What unwritten rules are and where they've been hiding
Why unwritten rules are so powerful (and why they crush your written policies)
How to use unwritten rules to power innovation and drive real change