Are you a victim or a winner in HIDDEN DSIRUPTION?

Having worked with hundreds of companies throughout the world, I realized that they are threatened by HIDDEN DISRUPTION. HIDDEN DISRUPTION describes the dynamic of behavioral change, which I have seen more often and impacting many more companies than traditional “Disruption”. HIDDEN DISRUPTION is a result of behavioral changes among people in their everyday lives. It happens without anybody noticing it as small seemingly inferior changes and signals.

I would like to point managers’ and practitioners’ attention to the challenges and opportunities of HIDDEN DISRUPTION and offer an approach to understand these behavioral changes, in order to become a winner and not a victim of HIDDEN DISRUPTION.

HIDDEN DISRUPTION sneaks up on you and hits hard if you do not see it in time. It is a result of behavioral changes among people, which happens quietly and softly without anybody noticing or realizing the impact it may have. It happens as weak signals and signs which nobody pays attention to since it is small seemingly inferior changes in peoples’ everyday lives. Weak signals are things people start doing, stop doing, do differently or change what they did before. It appears to be nothing special, it often seems to be unrelated to your business, and it is perceived as unimportant even irrelevant.

HIDDEN DISRUPTION is hidden because it sneaks in imperceptibly, but once it hits a business, a market, an industry, or a company, it is fierce and potentially fatal.

Hidden disruption is a great opportunity

HIDDEN DISRUPTION not identified in time poses a serious threat to companies in terms of loss of volume, market scale, and customers. I have often uncovered potential loses and gains of up to 30% of market value due to HIDDEN DISRUPTION. HIDDEN DISRUPTION offers great opportunities if detected and understood in time.

In my 25 years of work with understanding patterns of behavioral changes among people, I more frequently experience HIDDEN DISRUPTION. The more I experience this, the more convinced I am that HIDDEN DISRUPTION is more poisonous as it sneaks up on you over time while, at the same time, being difficult to see before it has massive consequences.

The weak signals of behavioral changes start as a single behavioral change among some people in some situations of life – but slowly, more behavioral changes appear from other parts of peoples’ lives, and imperceptibly, they form patterns of behavioral changes with enough power to create HIDDEN DISRUPTION.

One thing is certain, no matter what business or industry you are in: Things will never be the same again. Waiting for things to get “back to normal” is at best a waste of time, at worse fatal for your business.

See HIDDEN DISRUPTION in time

The key to seeing HIDDEN DISRUPTION in time is to look into behavioral changes (signs and weak signals) in peoples’ everyday lives. Managers must start to look the other way. Instead of looking at their direct competitors, they must look at what is going on in people’s everyday lives, which may turn out to change or impact their markets.

In a time where managers seek facts and figures and increasingly rely on big data, seeing and dealing with HIDDEN DISRUPTION poses a challenge. HIDDEN DISRUPTION comes from people’s lives and behavior, meaning that managers have to be interested in ordinary peoples’ ordinary lives and even in parts of their lives not directly related to their businesses.

The weak signals of behavioral changes are not systematic or linear numbers on a spread- sheet. On the contrary: They are in their essence from all over people’s lives as small micro data in terms of micro-behavioral change. Actually, the weaker the signal is, the more meaning and power it tends to have. Once you see enough of them, you will realize that they form patterns of behavioral change with massive power of impact.

The behavioral changes are in themselves factual as they are actual behavioral changes, but you basically do not know what they lead to. In order to see and understand them, you must allow yourself to be curious and to wonder. You must allow doubt and wondering to see things you did not expect, predict or wish for. You have to stay open to see and understand the unknown.

Curiousity, wondering & doubt

Managers have to realize that traditional forecasting will not do the job, since one of the core dynamics of behavioral change among people is counter- reactions to what is or just was. This is the reason why traditional forecasting fails, since it assumes, that things keep on developing in the same way as they have done historically.

So, in essence, companies must start spending time and energy on understanding the world, the people, and the presence we are all part of. They need to do so because it is essential to their success and survival.

Patterns of behavioral change

I have spent more than 25 years developing and implementing globally a methodology and philosophy, which enables companies see, understand, and act upon behavioral changes in time called it Pattern- Based Foresight. I have had the honor and privilege of working with some of the world’s largest and strongest companies as well as assisting local companies throughout the world. My experience is that the larger the company is, the further away the company is from the world people live in – gradually losing the touch with the people they call their customers.

What we basically do is something everybody can do. It is free of charge and easy to do – and yet so many fail to do it. We chase wondering: Behavior that makes you wonder. These are the signs you want to look for. We look at and listen systematically to the people in their lives related to the case, market, or industry. We walk the streets, we talk to people, we look at people, we listen to people, we observe people in their lives, we search the social media, the internet, we listen to music played and see the food eaten, we search for numbers in statistics revealing people doing something different, people doing more or less of something or replacing their behavior with something else.

We favor actual behavior over presumptions. We favor actual behavior over psychologists’ interpretations. We favor action over opinion. And we insist that what people do have face value.

When monitoring the signs and weak signals of behavioral change and detecting patterns of behavioral change, companies are able to see and understand HIDDEN DISRUPTION, take advantage of their head start and become a winner of change.