Are You Harvesting Your Own Digital Disrupters?

Two events in the last month gave rise to the focus of this month's article. The first involves a Millennial generation fellow I have known for a considerable period of time who is currently practicing law with a firm that represents large clients in the financial services industry. The second involves an Generation X female executive who, by any definition, qualifies to be called a digitally native CEO and has recently assumed a new position with a major brokerage firm.

What both of these individuals and situations have in common is that (1) they are both engaged in industries that are being heavily impacted by digital disruption (law and real estate); (2) they are both, by culture and training, driven to make things better wherever they are and whatever they are doing; and (3) they are both making significant career course changes based upon the failure of their civic or Boomer generation employers to acknowledge their desire to be collaborative within their respective organizations.

Despite the formidable amount of business (including real estate) literature that has been given over to the subject during the last two years, digital disruption remains a relatively obscure concept for most industry executives, managers and workers. While such a lack of knowledge might not normally have major consequences, in this day and age unawareness will be cataclysmic.

Neither of the above mentioned corporations could rationally claim that they have not received notice of the existence, nature or impact of digital disruption in their specific industries. Having assisted both of the individuals mentioned above to learn about digital disruption, there could be no question regarding either their knowledge or their commitment to assisting their employing entities to meet the challenges of digital disruption.