What do Florence Nightingale, disposable diapers, and the Apple iPhone have in common? For Scott D. Anthony, a clinical professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, they were all epic disruptions.
In his recent book, Epic Disruptions, Anthony writes about 11 innovators and innovations that reshaped their market, their field, or society as a whole. To learn more about the skills, behaviors, and mindsets that can help people become more innovative, creative, and disruptive, we spoke with Anthony. Here are excerpts from our conversation, edited for length and clarity:
You identify a few factors that are associated with these successful disruptions. What are those?
You can look at the patterns in two categories. One is more of a strategic lens. So the first thing you look for is whether the innovation trades off pure performance to bring these new benefits. Second, they tend not to start in the middle of mainstream markets. They tend to start at the fringes, at the edges in new market contexts. Finally, has the disruptive innovator figured out a business model to create, deliver, and capture value in unique ways? That’s the special sauce that allows disruption to grow. You see those three things—purposeful trade-offs, a protected starting point, a powerful business model—you say, ‘ding, ding, ding, this fits the pattern.’
On the behavioral side, the Julia Child story illustrates this better than anything else. Disruptive innovators do five things:
- They’re curious. They’re questioning the status quo, looking for different ways to do things. Julia Child devoured knowledge to try and figure out new ways to impart it. They’re customer obsessed.
- They try to figure out the itch the customers can’t scratch, which Julia Child was phenomenal at. She was always putting herself in the shoes of the would-be chef.
- They’re collaborative. They recognize that magic happens at intersections and they plant themselves there. Julia Child did not work on her own. She collaborated with other chefs, authors, her husband, Paul, and many others.
- They’re adept in ambiguity. They know success is not a straight shot. A lot of experimentation and failure comes along the way. Julia Child is one of the best that I’ve researched in that area, just relentless in trying things.
- And finally, they’re persistent. They recognize that there are going to be setbacks, struggles and failures on the path to success. Julia Child’s first book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking involved three different publishers and two near-death experiences, including one after eight years of work.
When you think of those behavioral factors, how can they help not just lone innovators, but also middle managers and other workers on a larger team?
Those behaviors that can be used to drive disruption are skills that all levels of an organization can have. And also the research shows it’s a skill that anyone can develop. The closest proxy you get to innovation is creativity, and the research shows only about one third of your ability to be creative is in your DNA. Two thirds is learned and developed. That means if you’re going to be Steve Jobs or Jensen Huang, yes you need to have that one third that takes you to the next level. But anyone can get up to at least a 67%, which is at least passable skills. And in today’s world, it is critically important. The world is changing so fast today that if your organization is not pushing the frontier, you’re very likely to be moving backwards.
How can leaders help their teams develop these skills?
There are simple things you can do to help your organization develop the behaviors that drive innovation. If you want people to be more curious, help them ask better questions. A great innovator questions the status quo. So ask questions like, ‘Why are we doing it this way? How might we do it differently?’ Taking the time to ask questions can spur curiosity.
You want to get better at experimentation? Run some experiments. They don’t have to be hard. They can be things like, ‘What if we change the way that we do a weekly meeting? Or what if we change the way we do a report? Why don’t we consciously try something different and see what happens?’
You want people to be more persistent? Make it easier for them to recognize that failure is not fatal. You have things like the Spotify Fail Wall, where people go and write up the things that didn’t work and what they learned from them. You inevitably learn that what feels in the moment like failure is almost always a springboard to future success.
So little things like this actually go a long way to get people to begin to follow these behaviors. And once you do it and you realize that good things happen, you do it again. You do it again, you do it again.
Epic Disruptions is out now. Order it on Amazon or Bookshop.