Detonate

CHAPTER 2Spark: Acceleration of the Vicious Cycle

Before we move forward to examine how to blow up your best practices and what new attitudes to adopt, it's worth taking a step back to consider why unknowingly pursuing conventional wisdom has become a path to almost assured failure.

At both the individual and corporate level, the enabling belief for conventional wisdom is anchored in the perception of permanence – the idea that nothing's going to change, or, if it does, that it will change slowly and predictably. And that has been – until recently – a perfectly reasonable belief system. For the vast majority of business history, companies have simply needed to “evolve” to compete effectively. The pace of change has been such that we have only needed gradual adaptation in order to survive; we haven't really needed to consider existential threat.

Put simply, most businesses have operated in a state of linear and evolutionary change. That will go away and be replaced by something that feels much more disruptive and revolutionary. And the average businessperson is devastatingly ill‐equipped to face this new world. If you're not feeling a sense of urgency, you should.

The evidence is undeniable that, even in the past five years, the rise of technology and all things digital has fundamentally altered business landscapes and notions of what we have long held to be true. The advancement of technology is making possible the breaking down of long‐standing barriers or allowing companies ...