Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business [Hardcover]

Luke Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 18, 2010 | ISBN-10: 0137025149 | ISBN-13: 978-0137025145 | Edition: 1

In a business world of nonstop change, there's only one way to win the game: Transform it entirely. This requires a revolution in thinking--a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions. In Disrupt, Luke Williams shows exactly how to generate those strategies and deliver those solutions.
 
This book reflects Williams' immense experience creating breakthrough solutions at frog design, one of the world's leading innovation firms. Williams shows how to combine fluid creativity with analytical rigor in a simple, complete, five-stage process for successfully disrupting any market.
 
You'll learn why the most unexpected ideas draw the least competitors--and offer the greatest potential. Then, using many examples and a case study, you'll walk through every step of transforming disruptive ideas from conception to breakthrough business strategy.
 
Craft your disruptive hypothesis
Be wrong at the start, to be right at the end
 
Discover your best disruptive opportunities
Explore the most unexpected corners of your environment
 
Efficiently shape your disruptive solution
Avoid the resource-killer that is "novelty for novelty's sake"
 
Make your winning disruptive pitch
Under prepare the obvious, over prepare the unusual

REVIEWS

"Remember the old Apple tagline, urging us all to 'Think Different?' In this book, Luke Williams shows us how to do precisely that. Disrupt helps you look at business--and the world around you--through a fresh lens, one that turns assumptions and convention upside down. Best of all, this is a practical book for the real world--Williams reveals not just how to come up with disruptive ideas, but how to nurture them, test them, pitch them, and ultimately make them real and profitable."
- Warren Berger, author of Glimmer

"By artfully smashing ideas together--from Schumpeter to Tarantino, business to design--Luke Williams upends the ordinary, providing the reader with a motivational and pragmatic blueprint for innovative thinking."
- Jamyn Edis, Vice-President of Emerging Technology R&D at HBO

"At some time, someone somewhere is going to disrupt your entire industry. Shouldn't it be you? In this easy-to-follow step-by-step guide, Luke Williams reveals a way of thinking that has the power to transform your business. Read this book before your competitors do."
- Cordell Ratzlaff, Director of User-Centered Design, Cisco

"For those companies second guessing their future paths, ponder no longer. Disrupt provides that path, and it may be your real only strategy in today's climate." 
- Andy Stefanovich, Chief Curator and Provocateur, Prophet

"I've observed Luke's process of disruptive thinking generate remarkably innovative solutions. I hope that many more companies will disrupt their existing innovation processes to benefit as well. They'll be glad they did!" 
- Peter N. Golder, Professor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth 

"Luke Williams is the master at unleashing big thoughts. His book, Disrupt, shows us how to do what sometimes seems impossible--conceiving and executing bold ideas with massive potential. At the Nike Foundation, we've put Luke's principles to work and had tremendous results." 
- Stuart Hogue, Director, Systems at Scale, Nike Foundation

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Don't let the title fool you. This book is stuffed with practical, useful ideas that will change the way you create and sell useful, practical ideas." 

- Seth Godin, author of Linchpin

"Luke Williams has a powerful message for companies today: Don't wait for a couple guys in a garage to come up with an idea that will up-end your business." 

- Linda Tischler, Senior Editor, Fast Company

"Disrupt is a simple yet incredibly powerful thought process that can help turn your business upside-down in seconds. Are you prepared to DISRUPT your business?" 

- Martin Lindstrom, best-selling author of Buyology

"If you need to drive disruptive innovation in your own organization - and you do - Luke Williams is the guide you've been looking for." 

- David L. Rogers, author of The Network Is Your Customer

"With its examples of game-changing disruptions, Disrupt is an essential read." 
- Stewart Emery, best-selling co-author of Do you Matter?

From the Author

Disrupt is about a way of thinking that surprises the market again and again with exciting, unexpected solutions. A way of thinking that produces an unconventional strategy that leaves competitors scrambling to catch up. A way of thinking that turns consumer expectations upside down and takes an industry into its next generation. It's what I call disruptive thinking. In this process--the one you'll be following in this book--disruptive thinking is not so much about how to spot and react to disruptive changes in technology and the marketplace; it's about how to be the disruptive change.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: FT Press; 1 edition (December 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0137025149
• ISBN-13: 978-0137025145
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

At some time, someone somewhere is going to disrupt your entire industry. Shouldn't it be you? Luke Williams, international bestselling author and globally recognized authority on disruptive innovation, reveals a way of thinking that has the power to transform your business and stay ahead of the game.

To compete today, business leaders need a revolution in thinking: a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions. The bestselling author of Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business, and one of the world's most respected voices on innovation leadership, Luke Williams shows organizations exactly how to generate those strategies and deliver those solutions. Williams is Professor of Innovation at NYU Stern School of Business, and Executive Director of the Berkley Entrepreneurship Center at New York University, as well as a Fellow at Frog Design--one of the world's most influential innovation companies.

He works internationally with organizations on challenges ranging from creating new products and services, to transforming organizational processes and behaviors. Williams is a sought-after commentator on disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship, and cultural change and his views have been featured in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Fast Company, The Atlantic, NPR, and MSNBC.

Follow him on twitter @LukeGWilliams

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Actionable advice on disruption which is disruptive in itself: Highly Recommended March 12, 2011

By Mark P. McDonald TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

There are many books that say you need to `disrupt' your business to remain competitive. There are almost no books that describe how you create disruption in a clear, concise and step-by-step manner. Luke Williams's book Disrupt - think the unthinkable to spark transformation is exactly this type of book.

It's rare that a book discusses a complex issue, one with such potential for consulting jargon and confusion, and produces a clear, concise and actionable set of advice. Rather than try to cloud the issue, Williams tackles it head on by giving you the tools and discussion how you think differently and turn that thought into action. In a way this approach is disruptive in itself and that is a good thing.

Highly recommended as a useful and valuable book that takes the idea of disruption and gives you a way to think through it and put it into practice. In less than 200 tightly written pages, Williams provides clear and compelling tools that you can use to help identify, classify, and find the opportunities for disruption in your products, services and organization.

Recommended for:

Business managers should read this book to understand how to ask new questions and seek the new answers to drive growth.

Product and Marketing managers should read this book in order to simplify the tools and techniques they use which have become cumbersome and reflective in order to support the burden of market information.

Innovators or those seeking to be more innovative should read this book to pick up a clear set of questions, tools and ideas. Many may seem similar to what they know, but consider them in this context.

Technology professionals should read this book and apply its advice to their own solutions as well as to IT itself which is undergoing massive disruption. These tools will help you chart a future course based on future opportunities rather than reinforcing past practice.

Strengths

The book provides a clear and concise focus on the tools and techniques for recognizing disruptive opportunities. This is a manual that I will carry around and refer to often as actionable things we can do.

The book has solid examples ranging from consumer products through to services and innovative solutions. Williams describes how leading companies found disruption including P&G, Apple, Disney and others. The examples are clean, clear and support the storyline in the book.
It's short and small. The book itself is more like a large pamphlet than and book. Which is a plus as it easily fits inside your briefcase, can be taken and read on the plane and can be carried around for us in other meetings. This form factor increases the books accessibility via increased portability.

Challenges

The book is written from a marketing and design perspective, which may make it a bit foreign to the traditional business reader. That is good, because the traditional business manager or reader needs to disrupt his or her own thinking and ideas.

This book is a perfect compliment to "Change by Design" Tim Brown's discussion of design theory and innovation as the CEO at IDEO. It is not a consequence and Williams and Brown work in the same industry, and these two books define much of what business leaders should know about design and disruption.

Overall, this book is one of the best I have read in 2011. It is one that I plan to recommend to executives as a quick and focused way to think differently about their products, services, operations and opportunities. Rather than being a dry treatise on the need for disruption, or a consultant ease discussion, Williams has created a gem - something that is clear, focused and tight around a topic that is the subject of much debate and discussion.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Step By Step Innovation -- How People Normally Don't Think... March 30, 2011

By Joseph Ratliff VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Books on innovation typically explore the concept, but lack in step-by-step "how to" build innovation into a business...

This book fills that missing gap quite well.

While I wouldn't consider Disrupt to be the "end-all" text on the subject (book was a little short at less than 200 pages, hence 4 out of 5 stars), it serves very well as a step-by-step tutorial on how NOT to think like other business owners, how to look where others aren't looking for opportunities in innovation...and finally the concepts that allow someone to create a "winner" or become a thought leader in their marketplace.

My favorite parts were Chapter 3 -- Generating a Disruptive Idea and the end of the book, where a "quick overview" of the entire process covered in the book is provided. You can skip to this end section and "get" what the book is all about, but I suggest reading this book cover to cover...I think you'll enjoy it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Complete Package March 25, 2011

By Jeffrey Phillips VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I was interested to read Luke Williams' book Disrupt because while many of us innovation consultants and practitioners encourage our clients to think disruptively, we often can't describe what that looks like or the methods to do so effectively. What's great about Williams' book, and why I titled this review "the complete package" is that he doesn't simply advocate disruptive thinking, or simply point out some instances of it, or simply provide a methodology for disruptive thinking, he does all three, in a crisp, concise manner that is easy to follow.

My complaint with many innovation books, including my own, is that practitioners often offer advice or suggestions about how to innovate, but don't break it down into small enough steps or tasks to help the innovator. We practitioners are often too close to the forest to see the trees. Luke's book is exceptionally practical in that regard, examining each step in the process and providing some methods and tools to help the reader succeed. I like the fact that he even provides advice on how to present or sell your idea to others.

What I worry about is that a potential innovator will look at the steps and actions and think, yes, I can do some of these things, but not all of these things, and decide not to try. The consistent failure of disruptive innovation isn't the methods or tools, but the stamina and determination of the innovator. The one thing this book and most others miss is the advice to the disruptive innovator that describes how to "stick to it" when every other signal tells you to quit, and when everyone in your company tells you you are nuts. That, in a nutshell, is also the magic of Steve Jobs.

But that's a minor quibble with a book that's understated, well designed and the complete offering to help potential innovators identify, develop and sell disruptive ideas.