How Can We Find the Upside to Disruption?

Once upon a time, disruption became synonymous with radical change. Corporations struggling to cope with Asian competition rushed to reinvent how they thought, planned and operated. Disruption was king.

Until it wasn’t.

Companies that embraced it realized that disruption was not something to be cherished with the new and out with the old sent shudders throughout the organization. 

Terence Mauri understands that mantra, and in his new book, The Upside of Disruption: The Path to Leading in the Unknown, he recasts what must change and what must remain the same.

Explore the future.

As a futurist and relentless experimenter with AI, Mauri knows what organizations must do to make the future work for them, not against them. As he discussed in a recent interview, “Will AI be a disruptor or a democratizer? Will AI be an enabler or some type of dystopian Gollum mining us of our humanity?”

Mauri argues that it is important to use AI to unleash our brainpower. “Using AI intelligently, we create what’s called ROI, which is not just return on investment but a new human metric for a post-AI world return on intelligence.”

What does it mean to unlearn as it relates to disruption? While we all feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the volumes of data, Mauri says, “The upside could be a better way of doing things—a healthier way, a more sustainable way, a chance to reimagine, a chance to rethink.” 

“Imagine that you are in an organization and you’re spending less than 30% of your time on bureaucratic work and 70% of time on intelligent work. Right now, the ratio is the opposite. Research shows that most people are spending 70% of their week on bureaucratic outcomes at the expense of intelligent work, work that actually creates meaning and work that’s creative and innovative.”

When considering which form of technology to pursue, Mauri posits the “billion dollar beliefs.” With such a target, “you can prioritize a strategy, you can prioritize your leadership, your resource allocation around that.”

Find the right course.

“How do we harness AI in an ethical responsible and sustainable way? Asks Mauri. “My research at Hack Future Lab shows that data centers today [globally] consume over 5% of global electricity projections to 2030 could be 25%, and that’s just not tenable. That’s just one example of a potential risk we must mitigate now.”

Mauri says, “The worst thing we can do right now is just become more automated or use AI just to cut costs. I think we need to use it as a torture, be generative, and to achieve return on intelligence and return on imagination.”

Ensuring such an outcome takes work. It will take the collective efforts of individuals and organizations using AI to experiment and establish guidelines that improve productivity without degrading our humanity “to avoid artificial idiocy.” 

Finding possible solutions comes down to being inquisitive. “What questions do we need to be remembered for? What questions are not being asked that should be asked in terms of AI, what’s not being said that should be said?”

Mauri suggests we ask ourselves the following questions. “How do we harness AI in a way that aligns with humanity, aligns with our employees on the inside, our teams, on the inside, and our stakeholders on the outside. How do we align AI to be true to our values?.. We want are three things, truth, transparency, and trust.” 

Note: Readers can view my full LinkedIn Live interview with Terence Mauri here.

First posted on Forbes.com 9.17.2024

Three Ways to Keep Your Team Fresh and Focuses

Cast of Homicide: Life on the Streets

Sometimes, you have to mix it up to keep things fresh. One of the best ways to do that is by bringing in new people.

Tom Fontana, executive producer of Homicide: Life on the Streets, recalled this lesson in an interview on Fresh Air. As much as this police procedural, running from 1993 to 1999, was a different kind of show, the actors found themselves falling into routines.

“You get into a rhythm, and you get comfortable, and you – and the formula kind of settles in, and you know the show too well, and you know the characters too well,” says Fontana. “And what I’ve found over the course of time is that if you bring in somebody who has talent, even though it may not be – you know, an actor who may not have ever directed before, if you bring them in, they’re going to shake things up.”

As Fontana explains, the newcomers “are going to make you, and the other – the actors, the writers, and everybody, the crew – they’re going to make you not let the dust settle on what you’ve been doing for 15 episodes or 20 episodes.”

An example is when Fontana hired actress Katy Bates to direct an episode. She brought in actress Kathy Bates as a director for one of the episodes. “It was great because the actors on the show, all who had kind of, by that point in the year, settled into a kind of a rhythm.” By calling these things out, Bates challenged the actors by asking the actors, “why are you doing that? As a director, Bates the newcomer helped the actors stay energized.

Keeping It Fresh

Keeping things moving with fresh energy is a challenge for anyone in leadership, and so Tom Fontana shows that new people can bring new ideas. As a corollary, sometimes it’s good to take a flyer on talent that may as yet be unproven. Fontana himself is an example: Bruce Paltrow hired him to write for St. Elsewhere. Until then, Fontana had been a New York playwright, not a writer for television.

Here are some suggestions for keeping things fresh

Be open. Ideas abound, and the challenge is to harness them to good use. When a team member makes suggestions for doing things differently, listen. It’s easy to fall into the excuse that we don’t do things like that here. Fight that impulse.

Be willing. As you are open to new ideas, consider adding people different from yourself. Think about how their differences in background and experience can enhance your team. Only some individuals will be precisely the right fit, but every person can teach you something that may benefit you in the long run.

Be forgiving. Openness and willingness only work when people feel they can try new things. Such a feeling complements what it means to be psychologically safe. Creating such an environment falls to leadership. Let people know they belong by showing them so. If they make a mistake, use it as a teachable moment. Challenge them to make corrections and move forward.

Maintaining success

Seth Godin, prolific author, once said, “Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” A successful organization – whether a television show or a business enterprise – works because it has the right people in the right places. Such an approach does not occur magically. It requires individuals to commit to working together and sometimes integrating new people and new ideas into the mix so that the organization can continue to succeed.

First posted on Forbes.com 00.00.2024