A Kick in the Career: Disrupt This!

The theories of business innovation expert Clayton Christensen seem to be in my inbox a lot lately. Sometimes that happens: when an idea is destined to find you, it keeps turning up. I don’t know what that says about the emails for knock-off Cartier watches or bizarre herbal testosterone boosters that also keep turning up in my inbox, but perhaps that’s the subject of another blog.

One of Christensen’s best known theories is Disruptive Innovation. This proposes that as big companies get bigger, they tend to chase profits by going after their most sophisticated customers and charging them more. But by so doing, they leave the bottom of their market vulnerable to disruption: upstart companies can target the needs of consumers the big company has neglected.

For example, maybe someone out there could go head to head with Victoria’s Secret by offering basic lingerie that doesn’t make a woman (or her partner) feel she has to compare herself to Heidi Klum trying to walk half naked in stiletto heels on a runway.

How about on the level of job seeking? It seems like Disruptive Innovation could easily apply to making a candidate more appealing to an employer. Isn’t it just another way of saying, “What have you got that can shake up the company you want to work for?”  With a little research, you can easily discover the history of the outfit you will be meeting with.  And with a little finesse you can mention things in your interview that tap directly into what the boss may have been secretly thinking about all along. 

Interviewing with an insurance company? Identify their most sought after demographic and bring a strategy to win it.

Meeting with a marketing firm? Look into their campaign history and mention strategies they haven’t tried.

Working for a movie studio? Why not suggest they stop making junk movies for a change?

Okay, that last one was facetious, but you get the idea.  What works for an upstart company can work for an upstart new employee.  You’re supposed to let every interviewer know what personal qualities and experience you have had that make you stand apart, blah blah blah. But no one is expecting to hear how a company’s profits or market share can be increased by laser-beaming in on something they didn’t know they needed.  When the unexpected happens, light bulbs go on. When light bulbs go on, futures are made.

Practice Disruptive Innovation when you market yourself to employers. But I hasten to add that does not include making stiletto heels and revealing lingerie part of what you bring to the table.

Clayton Christensen’s website:
http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/.