Let's start with a confession.

If you were to have asked me 2 years ago, if disruption is a good thing, then I would have said, absolutely not. As a barrister, I had seen too much interference from our political and regulatory masters since 2005, causing enough disruption which contributed to my leaving the Bar.

Having been involved in various commercial activities since 2013, I have learnt the cost of bad disruption from inside and outside a company.

Take 2024. This year holds the record for the highest number of eligible voters (over 2 billion) who will vote in general elections. There is war in Europe, the Middle East and the Red Sea, and growing tensions in the Pacific between China and Taiwan.

This uncertainty is affecting the markets, economies, prices and inflation.

Recent years have been littered with more personal examples of disruption, Liz Truss being an example. A self-proclaimed "human hand grenade", who took no greater pleasure in going into a room (unfortunately, it governmental), spouting whatever uncontrollable claptrap was in her mind, stunning her audience who had to spend as much time attempting to prevent her policies as they were demonstrating to her that they were implementing them, before leaving the shocked room like a tornado as she brought terror to another part of her department.

Unfortunately, as we all know, she tried this as Prime Minister, I won't torture you by examining her premiership. It was painful enough the first time.

Liz Truss is very much the extreme, but I am sure that we have all come across a Liz Truss at some point.

So, disruption is bad.

Or is it?

The previous 280 words contain some interesting words. "Bad disruption," "interference," "uncertainty," "uncontrollable," "stunned," "tornado," "Liz Truss."

Two years ago, these would have been my conceptions (along with a few others) of disruption. However, recent projects have actually shown me the benefits of positive disruption; how it can challenge preconceived or established business methods, improve profit margins, resolve personnel issues, solve succession planning, and lead to innovation.

Perhaps, even more alarmingly, I have realised that I, too have been a disrupter.

A good example of me disrupting without realising it, was when I was brought in by a company to help manage its corporate restructuring and mission. After the best part of 12 months, I implemented a restructure separating the company's products into 4 sub-companies which relieved the company of underperforming directors, promoted those who shared the company's ambitions and ensured that the focus moved away from a particular swamped product market into a more specialised, but more profitable, sector.

In my opinion, 1 of the most negative aspects of disruption is the word itself. We immediately connect anything disruptive as a bad thing.

But it doesn't need to be.

One of the most influential disruptors during my lifetime has been Clive Woodward.

Woodward was appointed the head coach of the England national rugby team in 1997, as the sport in the northern hemisphere was turning professional. Woodward's mission was to win the world cup which, as we all know, he achieved in 2003.

Woodward is a self-proclaimed disrupter, who prides himself on walking into a new situation with long-established operating procedures, challenging the perceived acceptable process and challenges everyone else to accepting a new way of thinking, process or action.

Look at how he achieved world cup success with the England rugby team.

It is difficult for us now, 27 years on, to remember how rugby teams around the world, nationally and domestically, were coached. The accepted management style was 1 head coach per team, and a couple of deputies underneath him who were responsible for implementing whatever training directive the head coach wanted for that day, week or month.

As I said, every rugby team around the world at the time was coached like this.

Woodward changed that.

Within weeks, Woodward travelled to America (then the world's leading country for sports science and coaching) and learnt how cutting-edge professional sport was coached.

Woodward spent time predominantly at the NFL, and whilst this is a sport which I have next to no knowledge (and even less interest in), even I know that it is a sport with multiple different positions roles and disciplines split over the different offensive and defensive plays.

It is, therefore, impossible for 1 individual to coach the entire team.

Squad size, divergence in player positions, understanding each player's personality, and then bringing this all together in 1 unified successful unit was (and is) too big a job for 1 individual.

Woodward learnt this lesson, and was canny enough to spot the similarities between NFL and rugby to realise that the perceived coaching practice of English rugby needed disrupting.

He returned to England, and implemented his changes.

Within weeks, specialist scrum, kicking, forwards and backs coaches were appointed, as well as an army of backroom staff to work on fitness, physio and (even most shockingly) a team psychiatrist.

The idea, even 6 months previously, that a rugby player (that must macho of sportsman) would need a psychiatrist in order to tend to his mental health needs, would have been a concept considered as laughable as it was contemptable.

Furthermore, coaching became a democracy, in which each coach had an opinion on which of their players should be picked. Trusting his coaches, and knowing that he had recruited the best personnel, Woodward was confident enough to trust their opinions.

The days of a Brian Clough-like dominance of a team and coaches was well and truly over.

The result? Apart from winning the world cup, this coaching setup (seen as a massive disruption at the time) has been adopted by every rugby team around the world, and even in other sports. Just look at cricket. Every professional cricket team now has a specialist batting, fielding and bowling coaches, as well as the team psychiatrist, physiotherapists and data analysts.

The Woodward model, which disrupted an outdated process, is now the perceived way of sport management.

We have 2 examples of disruption, 1 good (Clive Woodward) and 1 bad (Liz Truss), but what does it actually mean for you?

That is quite a daunting question and one which I think everyone will need some help in answering.

To help us, I want to break this down.

There is disruption to your career and disruption to your business.

The last blog discussed disruption, although disruption was never mentioned. We challenged you to dare a re-evaluation of your career, to consider your future considerations, to dare to change where you are heading.

That is good disruption, the seeking of competition or a new challenge to keep your career active. Remember the warning about quitting your job to pursue a pursue a career as a Hollywood actor? Undoubtedly, that would be bad disruption of Liz Truss proportions.

What I find more interesting, reflecting my own career, is what disruption can do for your business.

My first piece of advice is not to be scared. I am absolutely certain that every single 1 of you would have, at some point, have disrupted. You just would not have realised that you were doing it. Brought about an innovative operational change? Recruited a team to access a new market? Formulated a business plan to address how your team can now satisfy a previously unmet client need?

If that is you, then you are a disruptor.

You have helped formulate an innovation (or at least a new way of "doing things") to the betterment of your business.

Now, not everyone can be a permanent disruptor. In fact, everyone was, then every company in the UK would resemble the Truss government. Imagine that nightmare.

No, but what is required is a disruptor in each team, that 1 person who can challenge the status quo and ask, "can we improve how we as a team operate?"

If you are the team leader, the business owner, or the director in charge, the secret is to allow the disruptor to operate in the confidence that you are providing them with the freedom

Mistakes will be made. That is inevitable.

But why not look at changes? Perhaps you should change your billing practice, by moving away from billable hours to fixed fee arrangements. It will take experience of trial and error. On some early transactions, your team underestimate how long they will have to work on the project. But they would learn from that, and the next quotation would be more realistic.

Recent data shows that clients prefer this fee arrangement.

The initial pain, therefore, is worth it as client experience improves, and once the client experience improves, then so too will your firm's commerciality.

Disruptors push the limits, and this risk is something to be mindful of if you are the disruptor, or if you are (attempting to) manage them.

Look at Mark Zuckerberg, a man who has pushed the limits of innovation, sometimes almost to the elastic breaking point. He has got things wrong (privacy issues around Facebook and Cambridge Analytica spring to mind), but the dominance of social media in our lives owes its success to Zuckerberg pushing the boundaries of innovation and disrupting the market in way that nobody had done before.

The more I have written this blog, the more I have become aware of 2 potential questions which the more apprehensive (or at least the less experienced) readers may have.

Firstly, how do I control a disruptor?

The answer is simple. You don't.

If you start to control a disruptor, then you start to limit their impact. You want a disruptor to trust you, and whilst a responsible disruptor will appreciate that you may not be able to implement 100% of their recommendations, they need to have assurance that you are paying more than mere lip-service to their efforts.

The trick, and my advice to any managers considering using a disruptor is to provide an environment built around restrictions in which the disruptor can operate. Provided they operate within these restrictions, then you can provide them with a free rein.

Another trick, and one I have learnt perhaps the hard way, is that the disruptor should not be the leader.

Checks and balances are vital.

I know that I have mentioned Mark Zuckerberg, and I appreciate that he is the founder (moot point) and leader of Facebook. But for every Mark Zuckerberg, there are plenty more Liz Trusses out there (okay, I promise that this is the last reference to Truss).

The second question is, do I need a disruptor?

I would argue that any small, medium or large enterprise needs, at some stage, need a disruptor, that voice that may say "do different."

A disruptor comes in many different shapes and sizes. They can be accountants, a CFO, a NED, your lawyer, a project manager, or even a consultant. Some publicly market themselves as disruptors, others are more subtle, but always look into their CVs. See what they have worked, but most importantly, see what they have changed, or what they have innovated.

Undoubtedly, disruption can have such a beneficial effect upon your business and your commerciality.

But remember, one last thing. You are the 1 in charge, it is for you to have the confidence to implement the changes that the disruptor advises. Disruption is about confidence, the confidence to do better.

In the last blog I challenged you to dare to succeed.

Now I say, dare to disrupt.