Innovation and disruption expert Luke Williams calls this a disruptive hypothesis. An interpretation of the ‘what if’ question that initially seems strange, arbitrary and unfeasible. It’s not about tweaking one or a few features of an existing idea (a new feature or a different colour), a disruptive hypothesis goes much further than that. It helps you start thinking in a completely different direction. For instance, a traditional hypothesis is a logical prediction based on knowledge and facts, which you can then start testing. For example: your phone’s screen stays black. A logical hypothesis; the battery might be dead. By charging or replacing the battery, the screen will come back on. A disruptive hypothesis, on the other hand, is not a logical prediction. It is a non-logical provocation; ‘what if the phone didn’t need a battery at all?’
In his book Crafting a disruptive hypothesis: how to be wrong at the start, to be right in the end, Luke Williams explains the questions you need to ask yourself to get breakthrough ideas in your work.
- What do you want to disrupt?
Although Williams’ book focuses mainly on the disruption of an industry or sector, you can also take a smaller approach. For example, you can also innovate the way your organisation, department or yourself work. After all, the continuous change in organisations also requires you to continuously adapt the way you do your work; it can always be smarter, more fun, more efficient. Step one is choosing the situation, way of working, service etc. that you want to disrupt. Here, it is important to keep thinking big and resist the natural tendency to zoom in on too specific a problem. If you start by thinking too small, you will get stuck later in the process because you have limited your options.
- What are the assumptions?
The commonly shared beliefs we have ensure that we continue to act in the same way. For example, when we eat in a restaurant, we expect to be given a menu to choose from. When we buy socks, we expect them to be sold as a matching pair. We often don’t consciously think about these assumptions because they are things that seem so logical and have ‘always been that way’. The second step in the innovation process is to identify the assumptions around the thing you want to disrupt. You do this, for example, by studying similar competitors or (when you want to disrupt your way of working) colleagues with the same job,. What does everyone always do the same way and from what shared beliefs does this stem?
- What are your disruptive hypotheses?
Your next step is to challenge the status quo and come up with disruptive hypotheses. This means that you rethink the assumptions in as many ways as possible and look at them from all angles. Specifically, there are 3 methods for this:
- Invertion; turning assumptions around exactly. An example; the assumptions around soft drinks were ‘it’s cheap’ and ‘it tastes good’. Invert these to ‘it’s expensive’ and ‘it doesn’t taste good’. That sounds ridiculous, but is exactly what Red Bull did. In their marketing campaign, they shifted the focus to other things; namely, the energy kick you get from it. A gap in the market.
- Denial; omitting one or more of the assumptions. Omitting the assumption that a training course is delivered by a trainer made e-learning popular. Car rental companies were also upside down when the assumptions of ‘filling out paperwork at a counter’ and ‘rent by the day’ were omitted by companies such as Greenwheels and Connectcar.
- Scale; pulling things out of proportion. This is what Ferran Adria did with his world-famous restaurant El Bulli. Instead of the standard 3-course menu, here you got a 30-course menu that took 5 hours. You only got to see the menu afterwards (invertion).
Your work practice
Going through these steps is valuable to do in a brainstorm with others. But you can also easily do this yourself in your daily work, no matter what your activities are. Simply review which activities you routinely always do the same way. Ask yourself how you could do it differently and experiment with this. It is often in small things. For example, swap the slow copy machine for a quick scan photo app on your mobile. Many routines are useful and fine, but continuing to challenge the status quo, and thus ‘disrupting your comfort zone’ is essential to keep innovating and improving your work(mode). It keeps you flexible, gives you challenges and creates the opportunity to work in a smarter way and with more fun.
Good luck!
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