Disruptions can throw any business, nonprofit, or other organizations into a state of chaos. Disruptions can impact your ability to stay focused on meeting any goals or objectives. However, the world has experienced a string of disruptions within an extended period that many did not think would occur or last. These series of events may have caused us to enter an “Age of Disruption” that is reshaping our lives, professionally and personally. For businesses, nonprofits, and governments, the “Age of Disruption” has exposed weaknesses in operations, financial, and management.
At least six events are part of this “Age of Disruption” that is impacting everything and everyone throughout the world.
- Technology
- Geopolitical
- Pandemic (has passed, but the lingering effects exist)
- Extreme weather patterns
- Inflation
- Recession
Why It Matters
This “Age of Disruption” has caused a disruption in how you conduct business or run your organization. These disruptions like the ones mentioned have created uncertainties for many and opportunities for others in how they operate their organization. During this period, many legacy organizations have permanently shut down, had to downsize, or restructure to survive. The “Age of Disruption” has brought new ideas and organizations that believe they can operate better than their legacy counterparts. Unfortunately, this period has exposed many organizations to poor operations, financial, and management that hamper meeting their goals and objectives. In many cases, these areas could be tied to an organization’s decline in meeting compliance requirements and performance measures. It is during this time of disruption, when you really separate the good organizations from the bad ones.
What to do
The key thing is to paid attention to what is going on not inside your organization, but pay attention to the external forces that can impact you and your organization. You should consider doing assessments or audits of your organization to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You should consider taking a hard look at how your organization is doing in the areas of compliance and performance. These two areas are going to be key to how your organization navigates in the “Age of Disruption.” Weaknesses in compliance and performance can impact your organization’s ability to weather the “Age of Disruption” and meet your goals and objectives.
The Intrigue
With more events playing into the “Age of Disruption,” pay attention to how organizations respond. Another intrigue is the potential newcomers who become the disruptors in industries that seemed untouchable, but fair game for disruption.
Takeaway
The “Age of Disruption” is not going away and in fact moving faster than ever in today’s environment. This period will separate the pretenders from the contenders. There will be winners who paid attention to the disruption and adapted accordingly. However, there will be losers who will continue to ignore the disruption and fade away to be replaced by newcomers to the market. You will need to identify, understand, and adapt to the disruptions if you want to be on the right side of disruption.
In this “Age of Disruption,” everyone and everything is fair game to be disrupted. The question is how will you handle the disruption? Will you be disruptor or one who will be disrupted.