Disrupt or Tweak?

Katherine Hypolite
December 12, 2011

 Neither a CEO of a Fortune 500 or the “MBA type” I worried I’d have trouble sinking my teeth into the first few chapters of The New Capitalist Manifesto. As I read I realized; although the book is tailored to the topic of capitalism, the lessons are relevant in other aspects of life. Haque starts us off painting the picture of a lackluster corporate world in desperate need of a paradigm shift.  Like most “socially built” “human-run” system, we learn capitalism has plenty of room for improvement. Haque says:

The industrial age's biggest dilemma is like a Gordian Knot-- a problem that's simply unsolvable, vexingly intractable if we're still confined to thinking in yesterday's terms. The knot cannot be untied, but only cut". (Page 25)

This language screams for disruption and urgency; a push to blow up the system and start from scratch. My questions: Is disrupting a system the only way to create change? Should you try to tweak the current system and reform from within? Where in real life have you seen people or organizations disrupt themselves?

 Bonus question: Haque defines several as “incumbents” or “insurgents (i.e Sony = Incumbent, Apple = Insurgent. Yahoo! = Incumbent, Google = insurgent). What other great examples have you seen in the corporate world? 

*This post was orginally published in the BIF Book Group, if you'd like to engage in the conversation visit our page or post your response below!