DISRUPT WITH IMPACT

A guide to business and entrepreneurship designed for a world of accelerated change.

“The future does not exist today,” writes author, educator, and consultant Spitz, “so we have the opportunity to imagine it, shape it and navigate towards it.” In business, that navigation can be disrupted by any number of factors, from the infusion of new money to the cross-pollination of previously unrelated fields to new regulations to unpredictable outside shocks to the system (like the Covid-19 pandemic). Surveying all of these vectors of uncertainty, the author paraphrases inventor Charles Kettering by pointing out that everyone should be concerned about the future since we’re all going to be spending the rest of our lives there. Spitz analyzes several of these sorts of disruptions and proposes a plan for dealing with them: his “Disruptive Thinking Canvas,” which he describes as “a living process,” noting that “interpreting disruptions, scanning horizons and creating positive value doesn’t stop after you do it once.” The author outlines the Canvas in six steps: “Reframing disruptions,” “Scanning and mapping” (for anticipating possible disruptions), “Ideating” (“embrace new mindsets to harness uncertainty”), “Dissent and alignment,” “Decision-making and driving change,” and “Iterating” (“Apply changes, assess impacts, incorporate new information and utilize feedback”). Spitz, drawing on his own extensive experience as a business professional and on a wide array of outside sources (all carefully documented in the book’s notes), delves into all aspects of capitalizing on “the inherent flexibility of reversible decisions” in the face of uncertainty.

The text weaves all of this into a visually stimulating and interactive presentation, full of graphs, charts, insets, and bullet points. The author echoes many of the common odd narrative ticks of other business-motivation books, from ritualistic mentions of Warren Buffett and Elon Musk, who’s likened to Aristotle: “Thinking from first principles, he proved you can develop and manufacture commercially viable, cost-efficient rockets.” Putting these routine genuflections aside, Spitz has many thought-provoking concepts to share with aspiring entrepreneurs who might be worried about the next major disruption lurking where they least suspect it. The strongest theme running through the book is can-do optimism—the author’s confidence that uncertainty is something to be embraced and leveraged instead of dreaded is convincing. Being anticipatory does not require formal tools. Often, common sense, mindfulness and critical thinking will beat any tools (“Being in the world is being anticipatory”). Spitz is particularly compelling on the concept of the “metaruption,” which he describes as “a multidimensional family of systemic disruptions, including shifts in the notion of disruption itself.” These “metaruptions” defy all the rules, and here, as elsewhere, the author itemizes the opportunities that can accompany the “unparalleled messiness” of change. He brings a refreshing clarity to the discussion of all facets of disruption, from the deep causes to the long-term consequences, and though he sometimes burdens his prose with cliches (“While history may not repeat, it can rhyme”), the sheer energy of his presentation will give readers resistant to change plenty of stimulating new perspectives on its inevitability.

A well-illustrated and wide-ranging new approach to large- and small-scale disruptions in the business world.