The New Rules of Disruption

By: Charlene Li
  • Summary

  • To be competitive, it’s no longer enough to be innovative – you must have a strategy for disruptive growth, a plan to identify and seize an opportunity no one else has the audacity or confidence to reach for. Disruptors don’t just blow things up – they also create and build things that result in huge, positive change. Welcome to The New Rules of Disruption with Charlene Li. For the past two decades, Charlene Li has been helping people see the future and thrive with disruption. She couples the ability to look beyond the horizon with pragmatic advice on what actions work today. She helps executives and boards recognize that companies must be disruptive to compete, not just innovate.
    2021 Terra Firma Audio
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Episodes
  • Rule #10 - Embrace the Contradiction of Order and Change
    Dec 9 2021

    In this episode, we discuss:

    • As humans, we crave order. Order is predictable and comfortable, but it can also become static.
    • On the other side, we crave change. But change and be chaotic and exhausting.
    • Disruptive organizations and their leaders can thrive with change and never get tired from it. So how do they do it?
    • The answer is counterintuitive - the impose order and discipline around the whole process of making change happen.
    • Disruptive leaders embrace the contradiction of order and change by defining how the change will be done. As a result, they don't have to worry about HOW to make a change happen so that they can focus 100% of their time and energy on making the change happen.
    • Embracing the contradiction between ordering change is the new skill needed in leadership.
    • For example, Amazon has a process to create change using a one-page press release from the future and a six-page FAQ document. Change won't happen unless you have the order – the structure, process, and procedures – to create a container for it.
    • Another way to order chaos is to intentionally create liminal space, a place between where you're moving from one state to another. It provides transition time, rituals and ceremonies to mark the end and beginning of things.
    • Rituals become a powerful signal for change – welcoming new people, saying goodbye to departing employees, even graduations and wedding ceremonies signal and support change.
    • The more disruptive the change, the more you must impose order on the chaos. Order and chaos may appear to be canceling each other out but in fact, they strengthen each other.
    • Your ultimate job as a leader is to create this space where order and change can live together,

    Additional Resources

    • My website: charleneli.com
    • Article: 3 Ways to Create Order to Encourage Change (Yes, Really!)
      Article: Ready to organize for disruption? Start here (and now).

    Want More?

    • Subscribe to my weekly LinkedIn Newsletter Leading Disruption, which features a long-form article, usually related to my livestream early in the week.
    • Please tune in to my weekly Livestream, most Tuesdays at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
    • Subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter Disruption Dispatch, which features a short content piece, a quick update of my latest, and Three Good Things (Reads, Referrals, and Resources) to help you on your disruption journey.
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    17 mins
  • Rule #9 - Replace Perfection with Excellence
    Dec 9 2021

    In this episode, we discuss:

    • Many leaders today are frozen by the fear of failure. They believe that they need to be perfect or suffer the consequences.
    • The idea is to practice to make perfect, not practice to make perfect.
    • Leading disruption requires moving from perfect to focusing on being excellent.
    • The order allows leaders to make decisions faster with less data while still maintaining a high level of performance.
    • Experienced CEO Rebecca Macieria-Kaufman shares that excellence is the opposite of perfection because zero error means that you are not learning. She shares examples of pursuing excellence, especially when delivering for clients and customers.
    • When you set the example of how to be excellent, you show the rest of your organization how to move past perfectionism.
    • To practice excellence and gain the benefits from it requires practicing the discipline of excellence in three areas.
      • Make small, fast decisions. Instead of having to have all of the information/data to make the perfect decision, prioritize the "minimally viable data" needed to make the first excellent decision.
      • Have the confidence to reverse decisions. Instead of treating every decision as fixed, remember that most decisions are reversible. Almost every time, you can change your mind and go back. This is the foundational mindset underlying agile methodologies.
      • Set impossible deadlines to spur action. Develop the confidence to make decisions without all of the data in hand. More time doesn't necessarily help you make a better decision -- you just feel better about it.
    • If this seems complicated, try being excellent for the next five minutes. How can you show up as your best self, not your perfect self? What does that look like and mean to you, your team, and your organization to be excellent?

    Additional Resources

    • My website: charleneli.com
    • This episode features Rebecca Macieira Kaufman, the author of FitCEO: Be the Leader of Your Life and a former executive at Citibank, talking about how she scaled her leadership. You can listen to the full interview with Rebecca in Episode 9 of this podcast.

    Want More?

    • Subscribe to my weekly LinkedIn Newsletter Leading Disruption, which features a long-form article, usually related to my livestream early in the week.
    • Please tune in to my weekly Livestream, most Tuesdays at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
    • Subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter Disruption Dispatch, which features a short content piece, a quick update of my latest, and Three Good Things (Reads, Referrals, and Resources) to help you on your disruption journey.
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    21 mins
  • Rule #8 - Leverage Digital To Grow Relationships
    Dec 2 2021

    In this episode we discuss:

    • What it means to extend and scale your leadership into digital and virtual spaces.
    • This isn't about the technology -- it's about the relationships you can develop and deepen thanks to digital.
    • Success in digital leadership comes from listening, sharing, and engaging in new ways.
    • Erica Dhawan, the author of Digital Body Language, shares examples of these new ways of working, for example, that "reading carefully is the new listening, writing clearly is the new empathy."
    • Sharing isn't about constantly posting on social media. Rather, it's about sharing the stories that only you can tell that will align people around common goals and objectives.
    • Engage by asking questions that lead to deeper understanding.

    Additional Resources

    • My website: charleneli.com
    • This episode features Erica Dhawan, author of Digital Body Language. Learn more about Erica at ericadhawan.com and follower her on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
    • Video: Watch my livestream interview with Erica Dhawan.
    • Article: How effective is your digital body language? Let's find out...

    Want More?

    • Subscribe to my weekly LinkedIn Newsletter Leading Disruption, which features a long-form article, usually related to my livestream early in the week.
    • Tune in to my weekly Livestream, most Tuesdays at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
    • Subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter Disruption Dispatch, which features a short content piece, a quick update of my latest, and Three Good Things (Reads, Referrals, and Resources) to help you on your disruption journey.
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    19 mins

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