The Upside to Disruption: The Path to Leading and Thriving in the Unknown
Terence Mauri
Wiley (September 2024)
How to juggle hand grenades while crossing a minefield, blindfolded, during an electrical storm
In 1942, Joseph Schumpeter published his classic work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, in which he asserted — as Karl Marx had predicted in 1859 — that creative-destructive forces unleashed by capitalism would eventually lead to its demise as an economic system. Obviously, that has not as yet happened but the concept has nonetheless proven useful in other contexts, notably organizational transformation in response to disruptive technologies.
In 1992, Jean-Marie Dru launched the Disruption concept as a marketing tool by simultaneously publishing a full-page ad headlined “Disruption” in several publications. To the best of my knowledge, he was the first to employ the word with business nomenclature. As importantly, it was also the first time that the word was given a positive significance.
More often than not, disruption in the business world resembles spontaneous combustion. If all the right conditions and ingredients are in combination, it is only a matter of time before BOOM! It can simultaneously destroy what needs to be eliminated and create space for something better. Schumpeter calls it “creative destruction”; for Dru, it is in fact creative creation.
According to Terence Mauri, “The upside of disruption is waiting to be discovered. All we have to do is stop and listen. Yet many leaders suffer the equivalent of ‘cognitive shock’ grappling with the twin demands of leading for today while managing for tomorrow and suspended between the comforts of the past and the possibilities of the future.” James O’Toole would say that they have become hostage to what he so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.”
Mauri goes on to suggest, “As disruption accelerates and business models decay faster, leaders are tested in terms of future readiness and organizational resilience: they must stop, flip the switch, turn on the lights, and see and ask what’s up ahead without fear and ask – ‘How do I lead the future with clarity and fortitude?'”
These are among the passages in The Upside of Disruption of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to suggest the nature and scope of Mauri’s coverage:
o Future-ready Mindsets (Pages 7-14)
o Data: Lead with AI (31-34)
o A Brief History of AI (42-47)
o The Anything Workforce (55-60)
o Mind the Agility Gap (71-74)
o A Story of Unlearning a Toxic Future F(87-91)
o Risk: The Language Advantages (101-107)
o Courage Calling (108-115)
o Willful Contrarianism (115-120)
o Th Trust Mindset 9142-145)
o The Future of Trust (157-164)
o Beyond Is Where We Begin: One, Two, Three (171-177)
o Beware of the Rubber Band Effect (177-179)
o Frontier Leadership (180-185)
o The Dare Leadership Test (189-190)
I also commend Mauri on his selection and strategic insertion of relevant quotations throughout his lively narrative. For example:
“You can’t use an old map to explore a new world.” Albert Einstein
“Software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software.” Jensen Huang
“Half of wisdom is knowing what to unlearn.” Larry Niven
“The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.” Arthur C. Clarke
Terence Mauri’s mind reminds me of a Swiss Army knife. Those who share my high regard for The Upside of Disruption are urged to check out two others: Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2013) and Marty Neumeier’s Metaskills: Five Talents for the Robotic Age.