Skip to main content

Learn How To Achieve The Upside of Disruption

Today’s leaders navigate an increasingly complex and volatile world that changes by the minute, facing uncharted forces from AI-driven disruption to talent scarcity and geopolitical risk. Yet we often overestimate the risks of bold decisions and underestimate the downside of standing still. 

More specifically, according to Hack Future Lab:

 

93% of leaders expect significant AI-driven disruption over the next five years, but only 27% have the right mindsets and capabilities to respond.

 

81% of leaders agree that they feel overwhelmed by the speed and scale of business disruption.

 

77% of leaders believe that their organizations suffer from talent-crushing bureaucracy.

 

64% of leaders agree that their future readiness muscle is an obstacle to boldly seizing the future.

 

59% of leaders agree their organizations prioritize control and efficiency instead of agility and intelligence.

 

51% of leaders agree they don’t have enough time in their day to achieve their must-do priorities.

 

Fortunately, Terence Mauri wrote his new book, The Upside of Disruption: The Path to Leading and Thriving in the Unknown. That’s because in the book, Mauri distills how business leaders with the right mindsets and choices can unlock the huge upside of disruption, turning barriers into breakthroughs. The book is published in collaboration with Thinkers50, a global authority on today’s top business thinkers.

 

“In our age of Meta Anxiety and relentless pressure to perform, it's surprisingly simple to miss the upside – particularly with our human bias that craves certainty,” explains Mauri.

 

By challenging the outdated belief that risk and volatility are to be avoided at all costs, Mauri instead shows you how to embrace change with a future-forward mindset, urging leaders to explore disruption’s distinct advantages and how to transform it into a tailwind for laser-like focus and strategic courage.

 

As you read the book, you’ll learn:

  • How to unlock cultures of courage over conformity.
  • Why good leaders learn, but great leaders unlearn.
  • How to strengthen the future readiness muscle.
  • How to use actionable strategies that help harness the upside of disruption.

Terence Mauri

Today, Mauri shares these additional insights with us:

 

Question: What do you find is the hardest part of embracing disruption?

 

Mauri: One of the hardest parts of embracing personal or organizational disruption is to reframe our mindset that disruption is harmful and to avoid it at all costs. Disruption is a source code for courage over conformity and humility over hubris.

 

Disruption and its closest cousin, Courage, offer two choices: 

  1. Learning and growth when disruption is intentionally embraced as a tailwind for renewal, or 
  2. Statis and decline when disruption is avoided, or worse, is ignored in the hope it will disappear (it rarely does). 

Question: How should leaders approach disruption and future thinking for the best results?

 

Mauri: Leaders should approach disruption and future thinking with courage skills (proactive, pro-learning, pro-growth, and pro-resilient) to achieve the best results.

 

Here are some strategies to consider:

  • building a future-ready workforce through talent marketplaces and becoming a skills-based organization.
  • strategic foresight on what’s new and next.
  • humility-led leadership to identify blind spots that leaders are blind to. 
  • asking the questions that aren’t being asked.
  • testing what if scenarios against foreseen and unforeseen hypotheticals.  

Question: What actionable steps can leaders take today to sharpen their organization’s future readiness?

 

Mauri: Future readiness is a muscle strengthened or weakened daily through our mindsets, choices, and voices.

 

To unlock disruption's huge and hidden upside, we must sharpen at least three readiness themes:

  • Lead at the speed of AI, which means choosing dare to explore over wait and see.
  • Unlearn the traditional, always-done ways - the ultimate form of agility amid today’s overload and complexity.
  • Not taking a risk is a risk because we always overestimate the risk of doing something new and underestimate the risk of standing still. 

Question: Why do you believe many people overestimate the risks of bold decisions and underestimate their potential upside?

 

Mauri: In life and business, we always overestimate the risk of doing something new because of fear of the unknown, failure, inertia, or even hubris, and we always overestimate the risk of standing still. Even for everything to stay the same, we must embrace a mindset of perpetual learning for today while reimagining for tomorrow or risk obsolescence.

 

Question: What is the downside of avoiding risks, and how can standing still be the greatest risk of all?

 

Mauri: The downside of avoiding risks is missing the hidden upside of learning, growth, and action. Not taking a risk is a risk in a world of accelerating and multiplying change, and standing still is a losing strategy when the only certainty is uncertainty.

 

Question: How can leaders shape cultures of courage within their organizations?

 

Mauri: Cultures of courage embrace ideas that challenge the status quo and are a source code for daring humility and future readiness. The bad news is that two-thirds of organizations today don’t have cultures of courage. They have cultures of conformity that reject ideas that challenge the status quo.

 

The best way to get started is to model and reward the curiosity to learn (the gap between what we know and want to know) and the courage to unlearn (eliminate outdated ways of working).

 

Question: What new mindset shifts do leaders need to prepare their organizations for the future?

 

Mauri: The future isn’t just about tech or trends. It’s about mindsets and choices, too. I call it Return on Intelligence (ROI)—a new human metric for a post-AI world. To shape the future deliberately and sustainably, leaders must evolve from mindsets of ‘wait and see’ to dare to explore, from preservers of the status quo to challengers, and from infrequent evaluators to continuous coaches.

 

Question: How do you think leadership styles will change in the face of AI?

 

Mauri: Leadership styles are likely to evolve significantly in the face of AI, with several fundamental changes emerging, such as AI as a co-leader and a greater focus on human-AI collaboration. Trust, belonging, and connection will take center stage as a global epidemic of loneliness, automation anxiety, and burnout or even bore-out (cognitive underload) reach record levels.

 

Question: Why are leaders increasingly resistant to change when facing emerging technologies like AI?

 

Mauri: Change used to happen as a breeze. Now, it feels like a category-five typhoon. Leaders resist change for several reasons, including automation anxiety (Will AI displace me?), change fatigue (Not another change!), and fear of the unknown (What happens in a post-AI world?). Some leaders are also cynical about another shiny new thing syndrome. Remember the Metaverse?

 

Question: How do you see AI evolving in the next five years, and what implications will this have for businesses?

 

Mauri: Over the next five years, AI will evolve in several ways, and the changes will be particularly profound in energy, manufacturing, and medicine. For example, the drug discovery and trial pipelines will be supercharged as simulations incorporate the immensely richer data that AI makes possible.

 

Throughout history until 2022, science has determined the shapes of around 190,000 proteins. That year, DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2 discovered over 200m, which have been released free of charge to researchers to help develop new treatments. By the time children are born today in kindergarten, artificial intelligence (AI) will probably have surpassed humans at all cognitive tasks, from science to creativity.

 

Question: What distinguishes good leaders from great leaders?

 

Mauri: Great leaders show the curiosity to learn and the courage to unlearn the always-done ways that have gone off, like yogurt in the fridge. They also show the clarity to focus when attention is the new oil, the conviction to decide, and the trust and community to co-create the future when the only constant is change. Leaders must help prepare everyone to embrace a Forever Beta world of learning for today while reimagining for tomorrow. 

___

 

Mauri is a world-leading expert on the future of leadership, AI, and disruption. As the founder of the future trends think tank Hack Future Lab and a highly acclaimed author, Mauri is the mind behind the movement for leaders to find the upside of disruption and rethink leadership for a post-AI world.

 

Mauri’s actionable insights and myth-busting thinking have been featured in The Economist, Forbes, Inc. BBC, Reuters, Business Insider, and The Drucker Forum.

 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability .  They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences
Post a Comment
Read more

How To Lead A Family Business

Julie Charlestein  is the author of the book,  How To Lead Your Family Business: Excelling Through Unexpected Crises, Choices, and Challenges . Charlestein is also the fourth-generation leader of an incredibly successful family-owned enterprise, and she’s seen it all firsthand, including family drama in the workplace and the office politics that come with any corporation. Her book features her  unique set of strategies for navigating the distinctive challenges and choices facing family businesses. In her highly personal storytelling style, Charlestein shares her experience as an emerging leader and ultimately CEO, who has worked to earn her colleagues’ respect. She details her leadership adventure, offering actionable strategies for those leading and working within their own family businesses. The book is ideal for anyone leading a family business or starting a family business.  It’s also good for anyone taking over an existing (or new) business. More about Charleste...
Post a Comment
Read more

How To Build Lasting Customer Relationships Using The Triple Fit Strategy

“It’s time for companies to rethink their growth logic and strategy,” according to Christoph Senn and Mehak Gandhi , authors of the new book, Triple Fit Strategy: How To Build Lasting Customer Relationships And Boost Growth .   The authors affirm that there would be much more value if companies no longer operated in a transactional buyer-seller relationship, but instead as a singular team. A team where buyer and seller can collaborate on decisions around planning, execution, and resources like they were one company.   “Today’s business customers don’t just buy products and services; they buy expectations,” explain Senn and Gandhi. “What the customers want is the commitment of and access to the supplier’s total operation. They want problem-solving and creative thinking to keep their business ahead of competition. They want partners.”   In the book, Senn and Gandhi forge an entirely new path for business that embraces a 360-degree customer-centric approach, and they ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Resolve To Find A Mentor In 2025

Having a mentor is one of the best things you can do to advance your career as a leader. So, decide soon to secure a mentor who will work with you during 2025. Make that one of your New Year’s resolutions. A mentor can benefit leaders new to their leadership role and they can benefit experienced and seasoned leaders, as well. A strong mentoring relationship allows the mentor and the mentee to develop new skills and talents, to build confidence, and to build self-awareness. Proper mentoring takes a commitment from both parties and it takes time to develop and to reap the rewards of the relationship. Plan to work with your mentor for no less than three months, and ideally for six months or longer. When seeking out a mentor, think about these questions : 1.  Will the relationship have good personal chemistry? 2.  Can this person guide me, particularly in the areas where I am weakest? 3.  Will this person take a genuine interest in me? 4.  Does this person have the trait...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Achieving Balance Makes You A More Successful Leader

In his highly authentic, sincere and personal book,  Balancing Act , author  Dr. Andrew Temte, CFA , shares candid insights and timely lessons about the balance needed to succeed as a leader. “I wrote this book in the hope that others will learn from my triumphs and failures. Those who can recover more rapidly from periods of imbalance will have an advantage over those cannot,” says Temte. He firmly believes that  leaders who strive toward balance can more readily identify and curtail organizational entropy, facilitate a culture of trust, and foster diverse organizations and cultures that inspire everyone to bring their “whole sell” to work . “Success without balance is often more disastrous than failure with balance,” explains Temte. “When the unbalanced achieve victory, it often serves to further destructive habits. When the balanced suffer defeat, resilience and perseverance grow.” Tempte further explains that  leaders today often struggle for balance between : St...
Post a Comment
Read more

Top Five Factors That Drive Employee Loyalty

A 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management shows that job security is what matters most to employees. And, having that job security helps to keep employees loyal.  Okay, that's really not too surprising during these times of high unemployment. Next on the list is benefits . The unstable economy, coupled with rising health care costs, make employer offered benefits more important than ever. Third on the top five list is an employee's opportunity to use his/her skills . When employees feel good about their jobs and their abilities, and clearly know they are contributing to their organization they remain engaged and loyal.  In fourth place is an organization's financial stability . Compensation came in fifth on the top five list. Employee pay often is not the most important driver for employee retention.  Despite study after study that shows pay is not the top reason employees stay with a company, research results like these often surpris...
1 comment
Read more

Ask Your Customers To Help You Write Your Strategic Plan

Mike Brown, the founder of the Kansas City company called, The Brainzooming Group, encourages business leaders to solicit feedback from their customers when creating a strategic plan. Brown recently wrote in Smart Companies Thinking Bigger magazine, that you should “ask a group of current, former and potential customers the following questions:" If you’re a current or former customer, why did you start using us? What have we done in the past to make your biggest challenges more difficult? If you still use us, why do you continue to do so? If you don’t use us currently, what are some of the reasons why you don’t? “These questions are designed to allow your customers to share their perspectives and opinions openly, not rate performance on a numerical scale,” explained Brown. He explained that the answers to the questions will provide you valuable insight into : Your current strengths and weaknesses Opportunities to more successfully help your customers Potential challen...
1 comment
Read more

Do You Really Need To Read Leadership Books?

The answer is yes.  And, fortunately, there are lots out there to select from.  However, if you don't have time to read books about how to be an effective and good leader, you can select a few words from the list below and then practice what those words mean, as you lead your team every day. Leaders on the LinkedIn Executive Suite group came up with these nearly 50 words in answer to a discussion topic I posted in the group forum:  " A Good Leader Is [insert one word]."  A big thank you to that group for this valuable list. Accountable Adaptable Approachable Authentic Aware Bold Brave Candid Caring Clear Challenging Charismatic Compassionate Courageous Credible Decisive Dedicated Ethical Empowering Engaged Fearless Forward-Thinking Gracious Honest Humble Inclusive Influential Inspiring Intuitive Loyal Mindful Moral Motivating Objective Open Passionate Pro-active Receptive Responsible Respectful Skilled S...
3 comments
Read more

3 Coaching And Mentoring Tips

Here are three great tips from the book, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book : Coaches do not motivate their employees; they inspire them to motivate themselves.  This is best accomplished by allowing employees to see clearly where they stand in the organization versus where they want to be in their careers.  That is, what are their self-interests versus what the company can offer them. A mentor always exercises the power of suggestion. That is, wise mentors offer up plenty of suggestions to their mentees. They pose alternatives.  But they refrain, as much as possible, from telling their mentees what to do. Mentoring is all about sharing experiences.  It is about mentors imparting the multiple lessons that they've learned to their mentees and helping them better navigate through their own careers.  By absorbing these lessons--of mentors' mistakes and successes--mentees are better prepared to move forward with knowledge and confidence.
Post a Comment
Read more

How To Improve Your Internal Communication Skills

Here is this week's book recommendation.  It's a quick read, yet power-packed with useful tips for communicating effectively -- tips you can start to use tomorrow.  And, the eBook is free! As author David Grossman says, "good internal communication gets the message out, but great internal communication helps employees connect the dots between overarching business strategy and their role. When it’s good, it informs; when it’s great, it engages employees and moves them to action. Quite simply, it helps people and organizations be even better." I really found this book useful.
Post a Comment
Read more