Obama, the Disruptor

How President Barack Obama’s ‘disruptive’ thinking style will help drive innovation for America.

“Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions – who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose...”

These are the words of a “Disruptor,” a futurist who wants the real change that must veer away from conventional ways of thinking in order to open doors to faster, healthier, and longer lasting growth.  President Barack Obama is America’s Disruptor-in-Chief, a leader whose thinking style meshes well with what America needs today. Obama’s style of “disruptive” thinking will help inject real transformation into our country’s traditional way of problem solving.

The support for Obama and his disruptive thinking style not only represents a complete change in how we view politics and social culture, but it also ushers in a new way of thinking for foreign policy and economic landscapes. Last fall the general public amassed election-winning support for this type of thinking. Now it is time for corporate leaders and political figures to follow.

While there are six different thinking styles that work together to create significant, yet safe, change, the Disruptor’s role is most critical in the beginning. The Disruptor inspires critical change, originates ideas and concepts of the future, and is often the leader of transformative change. He processes information through involuntary use of genius thinking patterns that bring new ideas to light, but seldom has the patience to communicate the details necessary for tactical implementation.

This is where the Evolver comes in. Though the Evolver usually cannot originate break-through solutions, given the raw idea, he can understand it, embrace it and make it all happen. The Disruptor/Evolver team partners best in transformational change. Stabilizers, Optimizers and more creatively skewed thinking types who can visually articulate ideas are all important to the process. Game-changing innovation occurs when you engage the right measure of every thinking style in problem solving.

While all are important, Disruptors are most rare. EdgeDweller research estimates this group comprises 2-3 percent of upper to executive management. Most often found in executive and leadership positions, Disruptors excel in providing the much-needed charge to drive wholesale change. They put valid original and disruptive ideas on the table in numerous areas. This is where President Obama is clearly a Disruptor.  

Disruptors also have a keen ability to rationalize ideas of the future through logical path building. Many would say this is Obama’s “disruptor trait under fire.” This is not unusual. The toughest job of the Disruptor is minimizing the “fear factor” employed by non-disruptors while multiple paths are under exploration. You first must draw a picture of the future, then evaluate the pros and cons of multiple paths, and finally select the best path to get there.

Using an analogy, the Disruptor may be confident he is building a house that will have three floors and utilize sustainable practices, but he may not initially know or care about the appliances, the plumbing contractor or even the landscape design. But he knows the house will work and that the details can support the purpose of the house. The concept is then turned over to the Evolver, who will work with the team to make it all happen.

In order to innovate you must understand its varying degrees of innovation. Obama understands that 85-95 percent of all innovations are at the low end of the scale. He knows that it is not a tweak here and a tweak there, rather a radical recall required to get America back on its feet. His bold ideas will rest on a radical shift of American business to a culture of real innovation. In the end, that will play out in a cumulative growth that delivers the financial return and the sustainable competitive advantage that most companies and countries crave.

If today’s corporations and government want to inspire this type of innovation and gain a competitive advantage, they will need Disruptors to examine and recreate the big picture. Working hand-in-hand with Evolvers and the entire transformational team will be the only way to make the necessary changes needed to revamp today’s business climate. It will have to happen across the board. Banks. Newspapers. Auto manufacturers, and whatever other market segment may end up on the “bailout list.”

While Disruptors are critical to get things started, innovation genius comes with assembling well-appointed, diversified teams, including stakeholders, peers, influencers and outsiders that can help any company (or presidential administration) achieve the productive thought that drives real innovation. President Obama, as well as other corporate Disruptors, must get the right people around the table to tackle these problems... and then provide them with a systematic way to create and implement transformative innovation.

Most people think the genius thinking patterns driving transformative innovation are rare.  In actuality, the process can be learned, customized and repeated. Most companies and organizations don’t understand the process or know how to undertake it. Success measured by growth and GDP will return to America as the idea of “disruption” becomes less associated with risk and more appropriately associated with long-term success achieved through a series of short-term wins.

Highly scrutinized Disruptors like Obama will help pave the way as they continue to make headway on a grand scale. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am stubbornly optimistic.

About EdgeDweller
EdgeDweller helps companies achieve category-changing innovation – those new initiatives in the marketplace that deliver above industry average growth rates – and sequential, substantial and sustainable results.