Ditching disruption

The big consultancies and the big tech companies having been serving up the same dish for over a decade. 

Disrupt! Break Things!! Fail Fast!!! Unleash The Potential Of Your Digital Transformation Journey!!!!  

The menu is stale. And was maybe never very appetising? 

Of course businesses need to make changes in order to progress. And yes, new technological advances do bring new opportunities. But to succeed in any endeavour you need to bring people with you - customers and colleagues. You need alignment and you need harmony, between value systems and between operating systems.

And why should everything that worked in the past be sacrificed on the altar of change? Deeply rooted principles need to be nurtured, not trampled upon. And brand equity is a treasured asset which takes many years to burnish. 

So maybe it’s time to avoid the siren calls of 'disruption'. To be more reflective, and more nuanced. To define and evidence what organisations stand for so that they can stand out with clarity and confidence: looking into the past as well as to the future. 

Yes brands need momentum. Yes they need to be relevant to the issues of today. But consistency, staying power, coherence and trustworthiness have never been more valued, or more scarce.

Written by Alec Rattray