Disruptive thinking: digital transformation starts in the mind

Imagine you were learning your profession all over again today. Your department and your team in the company would be newly established. Or your company would be newly founded. Imagine you needed three to five years to set up and could use all the digital technologies that are currently available: the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, blockchain, the new 5G mobile communications standard and others. What would you do?

• Would you learn exactly what you have learned in the past? 
• Would you set up your team or department in the same way as you do today? 
• Would the company you work for make the same offers and be structured in the same way? 

Over the past few years, I have analyzed numerous teams, departments and companies that are far ahead in the digital transformation. Digital winners. They all had one thing in common: they thought disruptively about the future. They thought about how they could attack themselves and their existing business. The first step in disruptive thinking is to completely question the status quo.

#1 Slaughtering sacred cows

Compared to traditional companies, start-ups have it relatively easy. They attack existing markets. Without compromise. They also have nothing to lose. In contrast to traditional companies, start-ups often don't earn any money for years - sometimes never. In traditional companies, you have a harder time. On the one hand, you have to serve the existing customer base and optimize the existing business as much as possible. On the other hand, you have to uncompromisingly push ahead with the new. 

A task that often fails because certain "sacred cows" are not questioned: The existing sales structure, a software tool established years ago or corporate structures that were created in the analog age. The first stage of disruptive thinking is to question these "sacred cows" again and again. If you were to start again today, would you set up the sales structures in exactly the same way? Would you still introduce the software in the same way today? And would you still structure the company in the same way today? Whenever the answer is "no", the existing situation should be changed.

#2 Search for transferable use cases of digital technologies

Most people and companies are industry-oriented in their thinking. They compare themselves with other companies in their sector and with companies in related sectors. Disruptive thinking follows different principles: Comparing with companies from other industries. What use cases does Amazon have that can be transferred to a mechanical engineering company? Where does a highly innovative start-up with artificial intelligence solve problems better than others? Look specifically for use cases from other industries and sectors that you can transfer to yourself. Not one-to-one, but adapt.

#3 Launch an attack on yourself

Put yourself in the role of an aggressive attacker. What would you do to attack your existing business model without compromise? What innovative services and digital business models would you develop if you didn't have to take your existing business into consideration? This type of disruptive thinking deliberately disregards what already exists. Put yourself in the shoes of the Amazon boss, the founder of Zalando or an AI start-up. What would you do differently if you were suddenly no longer in a position of defense, but instead playing offense?

#4 Transfer your new ideas to the existing business

Now, at the latest, the "normal" way of thinking is coming through again in many companies. 

• "That's not possible at the moment."
• "That's not compatible with our day-to-day business."
• "This will not yield any profits in the short term."

Think about how you can transfer the results of disruptive thinking to your company. And decide whether you can implement innovation projects within existing structures or whether you need to create new structures. For example, an innovation lab or even a spin-off. 

Disruptive thinking helps you, your team and your company to shed the blinkered view that is normal in everyday life. Disruptive thinking is what makes digital winners successful.