Encourage disobedience in your business

A NEW Year. You may call it the Year of Disruption, for that is what it is certain to be. So I welcome you to the series of articles under a new column, entitled Leading through Disruption. What a contrast to how we have been taught to lead before. What a risk to take with a stable business plodding happily along, not anticipating any need to change. What a nightmare if our wires get crossed and we short-circuit our work in the effort to disrupt. Why this theme? Surely we have enough of it without precipitating more?

Never has risk been so close to our daily activities. Where we used to conduct a risk analysis based largely on the experience of our elders, we must now see what data analytics can do for us. Taking the guesswork out of risk is a goal we all share. Those who approach it fastest will win the next decade. In the past, risk deterred us. We are mostly risk-averse. Avoiding the banana skin and saving your bones made sense - but not anymore. Risk is your right arm in the 2020s.

Disobedience can be frightening