Guide to Self-Disruption - Success through Creative Destruction

When I look around in my filter bubble today, it's swarming with success tips. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry offers strategies for sale that promise a breakthrough with seemingly little effort. To manage the jungle of success advice from mostly unsuccessful success tip givers, the seeker of success would need their own success tip-finding app. Because there are suitable formulas for every personality type. There are formulas for people who want to become millionaires by working 4 hours a week. There are formulas that lead to a breakthrough as a speaker at lightning speed. There are formulas that turn timid back-row dwellers into shining crystals of evening entertainment. There are even more formulas for seeking entrepreneurs who are constantly being told that they must transform, or else the universe will show them the red card. Or those who should be interested right now in the ultimate method that will attract new customers to them almost on autopilot. Inflation of Concepts These formulas are offered to seekers today at a variety of seminars, webinars, online congresses, success days, books, box sets, and so on. Obviously, the need for guiding impulses is still huge. But why is that? Do many of us lack control over the will to do what we want? Do we lack the instinct to do the right thing? What prevents most of us from gradually improving our personal and/or entrepreneurial situation step by step? Is the will strong, but the mind weak? Or is the excessive amount of self-help and coaching offerings already part of the problem? Are we wasting our time getting trained, only to stumble from one problem to the next – hence needing the next coaching on the next topic before we can finally start transforming ourselves or our company? "We must transform ourselves," echoes from everywhere. In the past, one simply said "restructure," but unfortunately, the term is now too old-fashioned. One must use a few modern terms to at least briefly catch the attention of people under 35 today, before the second screen reminds them to return to what's distracting. What did people actually do in the past when things weren't going right or they sensed that something bad was looming? Right. They changed what was necessary. Or even more. Depending on the situation. Today, this cannot happen without a generalist change process, where, of course, the evil, evil leadership gets the iron over their heads. Where they have to look at the miserable face of their years of mismanagement in the mirror of the company coaches. A Neologism Conquers Conferences The need to transform almost all business models and organizations is preceded by a diffuse threat to the beloved status quo coming from all directions. Enter my favorite neologism of recent times. Matthias Horx, a prominent futurologist, says: "A specter is haunting Europe – in the economy, politics, in the whole world, but especially at business conferences. Its name: DISRUPTION." Horx makes an impressive observation: the term Disruption alone triggers a wave of fear of exceptional proportions at business conferences. No stone is left unturned, no business model is safe. Those who do not transform are doomed. We are all sacrificed on the altar of robotics and algorithms. This is, of course, hyped up mainly by consultants, coaches, speakers, and other experts who promise lucrative consulting contracts for anti-disruption measures. This is how Matthias Horx wrote it on his website in 2016. The examples are always the same and sufficiently prominent: - Apple disrupted the mobile phone industry - E-books are completely reshaping the world of books - Amazon will completely eliminate traditional retail - Google, Apple, and Tesla will destroy the entire automotive industry - Uber is killing all taxi companies - Thanks to online courses, there is no longer a need for personal attendance in traditional education - Airbnb is disrupting the hotel industry and last but not least - Robots are turning the care industry upside down "A disruptive technology is an innovation that completely displaces an existing technology, product, or service," according to Wikipedia. But of course, it's not just about technology. It's also about procedures, ways of thinking, processes, systems, and entire cultures. So much for the lexicon. But is the issue of disruption actually so new that it justifies making such a loud noise about it? Wasn't this there before? There is nothing new about this. In marketing textbooks (which most of those who shout loudly have not read), it is called "Substitution," the process in which one product is replaced by another. But as mentioned earlier: new terms are needed, otherwise no one listens. However, I am willing to make a far-reaching concession: the urgency of discussing substitution processes has increased. Digitalization, as a pure megatrend, has been annoying comfort fanatics historically since the end of the century before last. However, since the advent of the World Wide Web for the masses, the process has accelerated so significantly that being too hesitant is likely to be more harmful. But beware, before you drop everything: assessing how urgent it is and what needs to be done is a very individual question. Here, one's own company, the market, the competition, and the unchangeable environmental factors are in a very individual relationship with each other. Here, it is wise to analyze and evaluate carefully where exactly in established companies there is a need for action. New startups traditionally find it easier. Here, it's not about changing, it's about (only) creating. Here, you can elegantly bypass established structures. What's so hot about startups? Getting involved in a startup, whether personnel or monetarily, is a great thing for those seeking stimulation. There are hardly any hierarchies, young people, no old-timers with their wisdom from yesterday. Plus, there's foreign money in abundance and not much of a drive to work economically. Here, the idea is in the foreground, reinventing, questioning, improving. And that's the great thing about startups! This entrepreneurial fever, this naive belief in being among those who can retire early with an IPO. We all know that rarely more than one out of ten startups survives long term. But that doesn't matter if the motivation is right. And the knowledge gained from the failure of one idea may be the starting point for something new, which is why after a few years of fruitless startup work, many founders end up in the arms of established companies. Disruption as Fuel for Startups If you take the trouble to consult marketing literature, alongside Substitution, you'll find another fine term: the Source of Business. This refers to the origin of the initial revenue with a customer. Startups can and want to draw revenues away from established companies while offering a better solution to the customer's problem. This ideally leads to the complete demise of the established company or companies. Many startups are founded precisely to be later lucratively bought by those established companies before causing them significant damage. Strategically, this is entirely correct. But expensive. And unnecessary. What are the risks of not responding to disruptive processes? Any reasonably awake entrepreneur knows this thought: "If only the cursed day-to-day business didn't get in the way, I could finally focus on our innovation projects." I find that completely legitimate. A company with extensive day-to-day business is certainly a good sign of life. What's worse is the thought: "We're doing well, and no one will catch up with us that quickly." This thought is also acceptable. Reality and recent economic history show that vigilance and humility are better guides here. Let's agree on the following: not everything is threatened by disruption, and concept-free activism, as demanded at conferences, can cause much more harm than disruptive processes themselves. Thinking about what could threaten us is nevertheless part of wise corporate management at all times. Without exception. Even the initial thought about it is the startup within the established company. Every small step towards questioning one's own actions is wise, forward-looking, and can – if properly structured – become the nucleus for the further evolution of one's own company. The beauty of this approach is its universality. It doesn't matter whether you lead a global tech conglomerate or a friendly kebab shop. What's crucial is if you neglect thinking and acting on all these questions. As a leader, you are responsible for shaping the future, but of course also for the potential failure. One thing is certain: no one can predict which industry or which company will be the next victim of disruptive processes, and certainly not when. It's also not certain if it will ever happen. What is certain, however, is that somewhere, someone, at some point, will start thinking about how it could happen. And I think it's best if that someone is you. What is "Self-Disruption"? Here begins what I call Self-Disruption. And I promise you, it is probably the hardest and most painful thing you will ever have to endure. But it is less harsh and painful than being destroyed by a bunch of inexperienced students on their trendy banana crates and with their lumberjack shirts. Self-Disruption is the ability to approach the question analytically, self-critically, openly to results, long-term, strategically, and decisively: "How can we improve our market performance so that we are more resilient to external disruptive attacks?" - Analytically means: considering all known and unknown factors that influence us, our market, and our competitors. - Self-critically means: allowing oneself to be criticized for the past. - Open to results means: approaching the work impartially and thinking with the eyes of a child. - Long-term means: not seeing this process as a one-time action, but considering it as a strategic leadership tool. - Decisively means: not just producing colorful papers, but also bringing