The Opportunity of Disruption
By Rick Thomas
I do not claim to be an expert on dealing with disruption
but I do lay claim to having a lot of experience with it. After
all, The Chariot Group has made its home in the technology
sector, an industry that is defined by continuous disruption
and, as a result, is subject to ceaseless change.
The Chariot Group was founded in 1999 and, as I think
about the world events since we opened its doors, I am
amazed at the disruption they have caused. The .com crash,
Enron, Global Crossing, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq and the
biggest financial crisis since the great depression have all been
major disrupters to this industry. Add to this, that The Chariot
Group was founded and remains headquartered in Alaska, a
long way from the hubs of technology, and it is easy to believe
failure or disaster was inevitable. And yet, as you can tell by
the “Education Insights” story in this publication, The Chariot
Group is not only still in business, but was recently recognized
as one of the leaders in our industry.
The fact is that disruption does not dictate an outcome.
Rather, it is one’s response to disruption that dictates the
result.
From disruption, I have learned:
When everything is uncertain, anything is possible.
Said another way, with uncertainty comes opportunity. It
has been my experience that disruption and the uncertainty
that results from it is one of the greatest catalyst for imaginative thinking. We are forced by circumstance to look at our
business in a different way. We have to, figuratively speaking,
pour all of the pieces and parts out on the floor and reimagine
their purpose and fit. In this way disruption serves the purpose of forcing us to make decisions we are unwilling to make
or ignore during less demanding times.
If nothing around us is moving, the odds are we aren’t either.
This is true for both employees and industries. Have you
ever changed jobs simply because there was no opportunity for promotion? Nothing around you was moving so you
had to. The same is true for business and the econom