Goliath's Revenge: How Established Companies Turn the Tables on Digital Disruptors

Given the recent history, and the apparent ineptitude of CEOs who failed to heed the warning signs, only a fool would underestimate the potential of a digital disruption to turn their industry upside down. I read this book, Goliath’s Revenge, wondering how the authors would approach the topic of digital disruption. In summary, it describes how established businesses (and professionals with established careers) can stop focusing on the perceived threat and start recognizing the unique advantages of their established market position. Their basic assertion is that by following ‘six rules of innovation’ savvy business leaders can reset their company’s strategy -- plus their own career path -- to become a digital disruptor and thereby create a meaningful and substantive leadership position in the marketplace. The notion that the guidance within the pages of this book can teach any open-minded business leader how to apply digital disruption to their advantage is very compelling. Todd Hewlin and Scott Snyder build the business case for bottom-up and top-down organization transformation to achieve the stated goals and reinvent a legacy commercial enterprise. Within the eleven chapters of the book, the authors present a thoughtfully researched methodology for understanding and planning to execute their ‘six rules’ that will guide business leaders along the path of this exciting journey -- with the ultimate destination being the development of a ‘Disruptor’s Playbook’. I found Chapter 11, “Career View: Disrupt Yourself,” to be the most insightful description of the true depth and breadth of the transformation challenge within many very large organizations. On the surface, it seems logical that every employee in a leadership position would want to prioritize the roles that they should pursue, the essential skills they should develop and the personal plan they should execute to maximize their professional impact. However, this presumptive perspective doesn’t appreciate the reality of the huge challenge within many legacy enterprise organizations. There will be many folks who find the prospect of changing the status quo to be unthinkable. There are those who will resist change as an individual. There are clusters of employees who will collectively resist change. Moreover, they will most likely be the passive-aggressive types that are subversive in their deceptive actions. Few CEOs would define their own corporate culture as one that perpetuates institutionalized mediocrity, but that’s the root of their inability to act like a start-up organization. My point: the Silicon Valley start-up model is founded on the careful selection of human talent that willingly embraces a vision to create a product that’s truly remarkable. No subversives are on that team. Throughout my own career, I’ve underestimated the degree to which some people will go to avoid changing their own behavior and evolving their skills for the future that awaits them. Instead of aspiring to really improve themselves, they’ll choose to fabricate the facade of an individual that’s always ‘on-board’ with whatever the executive leadership team mandates. But they have no intention of changing. They’ll go to all the required ‘innovation training’ classes, yet make no effort to apply what they’ve learned. Why? Maybe they’re overcome by fear of the unknown. That said, how do you expose and effectively deal with these subversive detractors? Perhaps that’s the missing Chapter 12 in this book that would have made it complete for me. Regardless, I fully support the belief that you’re better off having the ‘how to’ guidance and practical templates that this book offers its readers. Kudos to messrs Hewlin and Snyder.