What Develops After Disruption?
As if in unison, family, friends, and clients exhaled and said, “Alright, enough with this disruption in my Story. Let’s move on.” If you missed the announcement, I officially declared 2016: The Year of Disruption a year ago. (Don’t ask me how I know; it just comes to me. In a minute, I’ll reveal 2017’s keyword.)
How do you see disruption? What disruptive event(s) happened last year in your Story?
Quite often it’s viewed as a negative. You know, something interrupts what you want to do, your event, your activity. Perhaps someone challenges the norm, your expectations, or your plans. It’s disruptive. When the market or your products change, it’s what Clayton Christensen called “disruptive innovation.” Yes, it’s easy to see this “stuff of life” as a negative at first sighting. This past year I had to remind people, “You know, this is The Year of Disruption.”
“Ugh.”
Change
Leadership and leadership development is about change. Next Level Leadership Development happen when you engage a process of change expanding personal influence. To expand your influence, you must change unproductive behavior, which requires disruption of what is now “normal.” To stop the insanity, stop doing what you’re doing, the thinking and behavior, that got you here. (For a refresher read my blog posted last January: “Why Not Disrupt the Story?“)
Practically speaking disruption means “the intentional interruption of doing to think.”
When do you do the unthinkable? That’s right when you don’t stop and think. Right? How often has your child, teammate, employee or have you said, “Well, I didn’t think THAT would happen?” It happened. What if you had created space to think?
The unthinkable
Creating Space is the disciplined use of time, place, and resources to reflect on truth in the Story. When you are so busy doing it’s easy to do the unthinkable, and unproductive behavior shows up.
Think about a day when your office has a revolving door. There’s no margin in your schedule; no personal focus time; no time for lunch. Sara walks in, “I hate to tell you, but the project won’t be ready today.” What do you do with that bit of news? What happens next?
Create Space for reflection
If you want to experiment with the intentional interruption of doing to think, here are three questions designed to help you think about truth in your Story.
- What happened?
- What did I want to happen?
- How would I have to show up for that to happen?
Use these “simple” questions help you think about the Story you are writing and will write. (The questions are useful for you and your team’s consideration.)
- What got me (us) here?
- What does there (better) look like?
- How will I (we) get there?
Take your journal and create space to think. Let me know how it goes.
2017: The Year of…?
As you develop, the habit of creating space and intentionally interrupt doing to think, something will happen. You’ll gain clarity.
Please join me and lift your glass to welcome 2017: The Year of Clarity. Which means
The careful alignment of purpose and structure to achieve victory.
To achieve victory, to win in the weeks and months ahead you must deliberately align your purpose and structure. To gain clarity, Create Space to think, first for yourself, then for others.
Creating space for reflection
Saying “Goodbye” to 2016 will not end disruptive events. However, as you Create Space to think, you will gain clarity. This discipline will support moving forward and achievement of victory.
Here’s to clarity in your Story,
Steve
Photo credit: 
Ken Teegardin via Compfight