Are You Ready to Disrupt Yourself?

Where is your comfort zone? How can you stretch beyond it? What types of risks are you willing to take?

For example, say you want to learn to speak Italian. How are you going about it?

• I’ll buy a book like Italian for Dummies.
• I’ll take a course from the local university or Rosetta Stone®.
• I’ll hire a tutor.
• I’ll travel to Italy for a few weeks to practice.
• I’m moving to Italy for two years.

All of these are viable options. And just two questions arise: What can you manage (financially, emotionally, logistically)? What kind of return on investment are you looking for, by when?

What if you want to accelerate the performance of your team? How are you going to go about it? 

• We’ll upgrade our facilitators’ skills or teach key colleagues how to be effective instructors, facilitators, and coaches.
• We’ll bring in an outside facilitator who can help us reframe our cultural or business challenges with objectivity, neutrality, and authority. 
• We’ll rethink training, which is a tactical effort, and look at it through the lens of strategic learning, development, and growth. 
• We’ll invest in just-in-time, social, or mobile learning experiences. 
• We’ll toss our off-the-shelf eLearning and design something that doesn’t pander to adult learners, but actually offers relevant learning experiences customized to align with our culture and unique business challenges.

All of these are viable options, too. Those two questions remain: What can you manage (financially, emotionally, logistically)?What kind of return on investment are you looking for, by when?

Remember, while disruption may feel risky, the biggest risk is actually in never changing at all.