Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
As humans, we want both change and order in our lives. Disruptive leaders must understand how to impose order on the process of change so that the chaos of change doesn't fatigue the organization. This podcast looks at how leaders can understand and embrace the dichotomy between order and change, and how it can be a powerful tool in driving disruptive change.
To be competitive, it’s no longer enough to be innovative – you must have a strategy for disruptive growth, a plan to identify and seize an opportunity no one else has the audacity or confidence to reach for. Disruptors don’t just blow things up – they also create and build things that result in huge, positive change. Welcome to The New Rules of Disruption with Charlene Li. For the past two decades, Charlene Li has been helping people see the future and thrive with disruption. She couples the ability to look beyond the horizon with pragmatic advice on what actions work today. She helps executives and boards recognize that companies must be disruptive to compete, not just innovate.
Episode 10
Wed, 12/8 5:04 PM • 17:15
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
disruption, order, organization, create, change, ritual, embrace, liminal space, faq, leaders, world, space, disruptive, future, organized chaos, page, press release, contradiction, people, chaos
00:00
Hey, it's Charlene. I'd like to thank Adobe for supporting this podcast. Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences, find out more@adobe.com.
00:18
Leaders have never been challenged in their career as much as they are today, with technology empowering the voices of customers, many leaders are realizing that we're now in a perpetual state of always-on transformation. It's time for disruption, a transformation of leadership, and a transformation of ourselves. But what roles do we play by when you want to create this change? This podcast is about how we as leaders, must transform ourselves to make it all work. My name is Charlene Li, and these are the New Rules of Disruption.
01:05
I'm frequently asked how do we understand the dichotomy between order and change. And this is extremely important because when we're talking about transformation and disruption, the world is dominated by change, by this turmoil, by this chaos. And well, part of us as humans want to embrace that side. It's exciting, it's interesting, it's adventurous, we're curious about that world. We also as humans crave order, you see it in the way that we shelter and, and move around our homes and nurture ourselves in these comfort zones. And when it comes to being a transformational leader, it's absolutely an imperative to embrace this contradiction, that while you're pursuing change, you also have to pursue order. Because change requires order. And order needs change.
02:06
Let me explain this when we are in a place of order, and we love the fact that things are predictable, we know where things are, it can also lead to atrophy, where we become static, we become stale, and is no longer a comfort is not a place we want to be. It feels stuffy, it feels constraining. So for order to be that place of comfort, we actually need to change, to change with us, because we are constantly changing. At the same time, we look at change, and it is so chaotic, we can't thrive in that, we get fatigued from it. And so we need to put order to that change so that we can continue to constantly change.
02:51
I came across this contradiction in my study of disruptive organizations because I was curious about why is it that some organizations are able to constantly change, constantly disrupt themselves, and they never seem to get tired. They are the Energizer Bunny of disruption. They just keep going and going and going. What was it that they were doing? And what I discovered was very counterintuitive. They had a tremendous amount of order, a lot of organization, huge amount of processes, lots of discipline, many different processes and procedures to understand how to do change well. What they had done, was really embrace this contradiction. And by laying a foundation of how work was going to be done, how change was going to be done, they were able to create change all the time, because they didn't have to worry about how to make the change how they were going to structure themselves or processes. All that was figured out and then they could just focus 100% of their time and energy and effort on making that change happen.
04:04
I have to make a confession. I hate filing. I really hate filing papers, filing my emails, it is not a part of the way that I work in the world. So I tend to have these really huge stacks of paper on my desk. And one day somebody came into my office and said, What is this huge stack of paper? Like how do you know where anything is in it? Like I know where everything is in that stack of paper. And he said, point to where the last quarterly report was for our organization and I pointed about two-thirds the way out and pulled out a file and handed it to him. This is the way that my mind works. It is totally organized chaos. And in many ways, this is what I think destructive organizations do so well. They have organized the chaos. They understand that things are chaotic. Things are constantly changing, things are uncertain, but they put order on top of that. So even though my filing system wasn't understandable to anybody else, it was perfectly organized in my mind. And while on the outside, it may look like these disruptive organizations are crazy the way they do things in their minds, everything is highly organized in the way that they need it to be.
05:19
Now you may be hearing the story and the idea of organized chaos is so antithetical to the way you think you may be. Unlike me, you'd love filing every day. This is where I think embracing the contradiction between order and change is essential. Some of us may crave the change, others of us may crave the order. But it's embracing the opposite side of that that is so important. The last thing I want to do is close off options. And that is what I have to always point myself towards. In the same way, if you lean towards order, embracing the other side of change, and understanding how change can help you to freshen up that order is essential. Embracing the contradiction between order. And change is a new skill that's needed in leadership. Because when you're moving through transformations, there will be times when there are huge disruptions and change happening. But in the midst of all of that, you also need to create pauses, you need to create recovery periods where order is now again established.
05:38
The difference between fast-moving and slow-moving organizations isn't the big leaps that they take. But that these disruptive organizations are taking smaller leaps, much, much faster than their slower counterparts. They're able to push forward, and then gather everybody together and say, Okay, is everyone still here? Let's establish order again. Now, let's go change again, let's leap forward to the future. We get there. And we recover.
06:55
Any athlete knows that when you're training for greater strength, greater speed, greater accuracy, you need times of pushing forward and then times of recovery. And you need to plan your times of recovery as much as you do the times when you push forward. Without that recovery, you burn out. So order and change live with each other, the two sides of the same coin, and we need to make sure that we're embracing both of them.
07:27
Charlene here, if you're listening to this and thinking I'm ready for more, then I want to let you know about all the resources available on my website, CharleneLi.com. There you will find my latest books, articles, videos, courses, and more. All built to help leaders in organizations see the future and thrive with disruption. I've worked with top companies ranging from Adobe to Southwest Airlines. I've also spoken at conferences like the World Economic Forum, World Business Forum in South by Southwest, and on my website, you will find many of the things I have shared with them. So go now to ch, ar, le, ne, li.com, to transform your leadership today.
08:18
Here's an example of an organization that creates order in their change process, and that's Amazon. I'm amazed by how many new things Amazon is constantly coming up with, whether it be space rockets, or new web services, or new ways to deliver my package to my door within minutes. They're on it. And the way they look at all of these innovations is through the exact same process. They call it the one-page press release from the future. And they have a six-page FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions that go along with it. So if you want to propose a new idea, a new innovation, a new product or process at Amazon, you write a press release from the future. And it highlights in the future when you release it, it talks about all the things that this thing will do, how the world is different because of it, and what the impact it has had on the world, and the amazing things that this thing has done. So it's really talking about in the future, what is the result of us having launched this product? And along with that are six pages, but only up to six pages of frequently asked questions like well, how will we launch this? Who will the buyers be? How will it integrate into things? And it answers all those questions, the nuts and bolts questions of how the same will actually work.
09:37
At Amazon, the way they use this is that when you come into a meeting, they spend the first 15 minutes just reading those documents, just reading those seven pages, and then they have a discussion. And typically, they completely tear it apart. They go, what about this question? What about that? What about this feature? What about this impact you want to have and the authors of the idea would take it back, revise it and come back again and present yet another version of that one page, press release on the the six-page FAQ, and guarantee, it would be ripped apart again. This goes on iteration after iteration until everybody is satisfied that this press release and this FAQ has answered every question into the future. But what have they done with this process, they put order against a process that could have been completely open-ended, it forced people to talk about what that future was going to look like, what the impact on customers was going to be, and to show evidence that they had thought about everything possible in order to make that happen. And everybody else across the organization has had the ability to have input into that press release and that FAQ. It seems so simple, write a one-page press release, and a six-page FAQ. But what you see underneath it is an entire process, in order to make this change happen. That's the discipline. That's the order to the change that is so needed for us to be transformational leaders.
11:10
If we want change to happen, it's not going to happen on its own. It needs that order that structure, that process, the procedures. And the bigger the change, the more structure and order you need, because you need it to contain that chaos and that uncertainty, to be able to make sure that everyone is aligned on what you want to achieve.
11:33
One of the ways to make these transitions between order and change, easier to manage is to create liminal space. A liminal space is this gray zone, when you're moving from one state to the next, we see them in times of change. For example, the ritual of graduation is of taking a student from one phase of their education and life to the next phase. And it provides them this transition time, the ceremony to welcome them into this new space that they're going to be going through. We should be creating this liminal spaces as well in our transformations, knowing and recognizing that people are going through this change, and welcoming them into this uncertain space. Creating the space and container both in terms of the physical space, and time-space, but also the emotional space to be able to process that change. This is the power of rituals. And if you don't have strong virtues in your organization, I encourage you to develop them.
12:39
For example, you may have a ritual about welcoming new people into the organization. When these new people are coming in, you're saying welcome, there's a ritual of being introduced, maybe high fiving the CEO, or whatever that ritual is, it's a way to welcome them in, but also to mark the assimilation of them into this new group, knowing that we are also going to be changed because they are being added. In the same way, we have rituals for saying goodbye, we have the good going away party to be able to bid farewell and reflect on the time of service that they've had with our organization. And that closes that gap around us because we'll be missing this person from our ranks. So creating liminal spaces through rituals is one of the most therapeutic things you can do for your organization as a leader. To create that time and space, to create those opportunities for transitions between order and change.
13:34
When you think about disruption, the other word that usually comes to mind is chaos. The two go hand in hand. So if you're being disruptive, it's also leading to a tremendous amount of chaos and uncertainty. But that's not the way it works. The more disruptive you want to be, the more you need to have order. Because if you want that disruption to be focused on a particular outcome, on a transformational impact that you want to create, you want to have more order in order to contain it. So there is a contradiction in this, about order and change and disruption. They seem to cancel each other out, and in fact, they strengthen each other. And when you can embrace the two of them together in the same space, you're able to harness the power of change and disruption, while accelerating it with the order that you give it.
14:32
If you've been listening to this podcast series, we've gone on this long journey together, looking at the future of uncertainty, about the power of openness, and we're ending up here in order and change. And the reason I wanted to end on this topic, is because the ultimate job as a leader is to create this space where order and change can live together. That we can embrace and understand these two concepts and hold them in the same space in our mind and in our hearts. That way allows us to include the people who are advocating, and agitating for change, while also bringing along the people who crave the status quo and order. We need both of these types of leaders in the transformational organization in order to succeed. By bringing out the best of what they bring to the table, we can craft a union that is stronger together, an alloy that is so much stronger than the individual metals themselves. But to do this, you need to be clear on how to be a leader in this transformational stage. All the other things that we talked about in this podcast series are building up to this final crescendo, of how do you create that space and hold that space for your organization as a leader.
15:56
Rule number 10, embrace the contradiction of order and change.
16:10
Hey there, thanks for listening to the New Rules of Disruption. We created this podcast with the hope that you would be inspired to become a disrupter. Disruptors don't just blow things up, they also create and build things that result in huge positive change. This is a change that the world needs now more than ever, and we want to hear what what change you are creating in this world. You can send us your disruptive story by visiting CharleneLi.com/podcasts. That's ch, ar, le, ne, li.com/podcast. If you are enjoying this podcast, I have one major ask. Please share it with a co-worker, manager, or a friend. Let's build communities of disruption together