Disruption: a force for good?

How I came to know the model from the inside

My company at the time was called Disruption. We were taking the disruption methodology beyond campaigns and market positioning and applying it to the internal culture of a brand. The argument was that a brand’s promise needed to be supported by the way the organisation worked.

My company was subsequently acquired by TBWA/Omnicom. My encounter with Jean-Marie Dru’s framework came through that work, rather than simply through reading his books. Over lunch with Jean-Marie, we discussed how culture fitted within the framework he had built.

The question was how the same thinking could apply to an organisation’s internal conventions: the assumptions people take for granted, the expectations that shape decisions and the working practices behind the customer’s experience. That remains a useful question for a leadership team today.

What does the Disruption framework ask?

TBWA describes its Disruption® methodology through convention, vision and disruption. Convention concerns the accepted ideas and assumptions shaping a market or organisation. Vision describes a desired future. Disruption concerns a creative departure that can help bring that future about.

These ideas give a group a way to examine assumptions that may otherwise go unspoken. Which practices are essential to the work? Which made sense in an earlier situation? What would we like customers and colleagues to experience, and what would need to happen inside the organisation to support it?

Why begin with culture?

A customer encounters an organisation through what its people and systems actually do. A promise about responsiveness, care or simplicity creates expectations that need to be met in decisions, handovers and everyday conversations.

Consider a business that wants customers to receive a prompt answer. What can the person handling the request decide? Who can help when the request crosses a boundary between teams? What happens if the procedure does not cover the situation? These questions connect the brand’s intention to the conditions in which people work.

The discussion also needs to include what already helps. An established practice may protect quality, fairness or trust. Understanding its purpose makes it possible to consider a different arrangement without dismissing the people who developed it.

How could a leadership team use the approach?

Choose an issue that matters to the organisation and describe the experience you want to create. Ask the people closest to the work which assumptions and arrangements influence that experience. Invite examples from customers, colleagues and the work itself.

Then consider alternatives. What could be tried on a manageable scale? Who needs to be involved? Which responsibilities, resources or permissions would make the trial possible? Agree what you will observe and when to review it.

A cultureMAP can contribute questions about work preferences across participating groups. Combine that perspective with evidence of working practices and customer experience. The map informs the discussion; the organisation decides what change to attempt.

What makes the disruption worthwhile?

The purpose matters more than the novelty of the idea. A change needs a reason the people involved can understand, with attention to its consequences for customers and colleagues.

For me, the useful connection is between an organisation’s intention and the work that makes it credible. That was the question behind my earlier Disruption work, and it continues to inform how I approach leadership, teams and culture. We can examine a convention with curiosity, understand what it has served and decide whether another arrangement would now serve the work.