Life is by definition disruptive

Let’s face it, life by definition is disruptive! New arrivals put an entire family in turmoil for months, while departing from this world disrupts everyone left behind. Marriage, or any partnership, is a horror of disruption as two lives compact into one physical space and try to merge two distinct social structures.

But this is life and it equally applies to the world of business. Startups, like newborns, bring fears, uncertainties and doubts but also the promise of opportunities ahead. Corporate closures are harder than kicking the bucket when you are tactfully missing as everyone sees what a mess you might have made. Then if we consider corporate partnerships, empires have been built to manage all the legal and financial ramifications of bringing together or subsequently separating different business entities.

Along the way – professionally and personally – there are wonderful lessons to learn. On a personal level, how easily we share even our worst decisions and being willing to laugh at oneself is a fast track up the value chain for great conversation and entertainment.

In sharp contrast, how quickly this changes when it comes to business. Rarely is there any willingness to broadcast mistakes or admit to failure because we dare not "lose face" or risk being sidelied or professionally annihilated.

Instead we hear about business success all the time. There is nothing more appealing than sharing what went well and how a company and its leadership kept ahead of the game. Yet with an open mind, willingness to be critiqued and culture of analysing cause and effect, we learn so much more from challenges and disruption.

This is the vision for Bizruption. We will bring insights and learnings from those individuals and organisations who looked disruption in the eye and share how they adapted or pivoted to meet the inherent challenges they faced. So reluctantly we come to Covid-19 ; it has hogged the agenda and headlines for the best part of two years but try as we might, it’s too big to ignore. Already defined as the largest social experiment in the history of the world it also delivered the greatest opportunity to individuals and companies alike to reinvent, pivot and think differently.

It was an unknown world for everyone with no rule books, established behaviours or sacred cows and instead carte blanche to try something new, to explore. The subsequent lockdowns hit home a tough lesson for the slow-starters in the world of technology adoption and, let’s be honest, micro-managers lost out in a world on Zoom to colleagues better able to articulate vision.

Besides the virus, "business disruption" comes with many faces; technology disrupts by the very opportunities it brings while shifts in legislation and compliance may be literally forced on us. We have seen escalating demands for better racial and gender equality while the impact of the disruption we unleashed on the planet is back to bite us.

Where will the disruptions in your life - be it work or home - take you as we venture together into a new world and decidedly different normal?

Enjoy!