How to spark new growth.
Sometimes you need to burn the forest down to spark new growth.
It’s hard to imagine anything more terrifying than a raging forest fire destroying everything in its path.
Lives. Plants. Property.
Gone.
It’s the ultimate act of destruction.
But with terrific compassion for my friends in California and Colorado, not all fires are devastating.
“Prescribed or Controlled Fires”- as they are called – are a centuries old practice that involves deliberately setting and carefully managing fires under the supervision of professional firefighters
And they have many benefits.
They remove low-growing underbrush, clean the forest floor of debris, break down nutrients and transform ash into fertilizer that nourishes the soil to spark new growth.
And so, they refresh, renew and breathe new life into forests.
They rebalance certain eco-systems to benefit the environment.
After the fire, the additional sunlight and open space help regenerate and ensure long-term survival of healthy, young plants and trees.
And by ridding a forest of debris, a prescribed burn can actually help prevent more dangerous and unpredictable wildfires.
As such, fire is both a destroyer and a creative force.
The same action can be applied to us humans.
When you’re stuck in a rut…
When the very habits that led to your success are stifling your creativity and hindering future success…
When you hold hard to the way you do the things you do…
When paradigms of the past leave no room for revolutionary thinking.
It’s time to strike a match.
And embrace the power of “Creative Destruction”.
The term “Creative Destruction” - first coined by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter - states that obsolete products and practices must be destroyed to free up resources and energy vital for innovation.
Out with the old. In with the new.
It’s how Netflix replaced Blockbuster.
How Uber took the taxi industry for a ride.
How Amazon forced brick and mortar to adapt.
How digital cameras and smartphones snapped off Kodak film.
Creative Destruction enables you to be proactive rather than reactive.
Creative Destruction is in fact, the first phase of the Insurgent branding process we call Detonate.
We begin by blowing things up. We take your brand apart piece by piece to reveal the One Word Promise that breathes new life into your brand.
As I was preparing this piece, I stumbled across a great exercise and book masterminded by Lisa Bodell, CEO of Future Think and author of the book by the same name.
It’s called “Kill The Company”.
Talk about Creative Destruction.
Here’s the twist.
Rather than focusing on your strengths in a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) or trying to decimate your competition, you pretend you are your company’s #1 rival, examine your greatest weaknesses then devise ways to destroy your own organization.
Essentially, put your business out of business.
Talk about “an out-of-company experience” as Bodell calls it.
Killing The Company may sound extreme but like a Prescribed Fire actually opens us up.
Once you’ve killed your company, wiped out the status quo and removed all of the obstacles, you can ignite new thinking and transform it into a killer company.
Killing your own company prevents anyone else from writing your obituary.
Kill the Company thinking also has advantages for individuals. It can be used to identify and eradicate your own personal weaknesses and crippling mindsets to create the You of Tomorrow.
But first, you must kill off your own outdated rules and behaviors.
Stuff like what’s on your to-do list - stupid emails, meetings, busyness and passé processes.
What we think as our “groove” is actually a rut.
Bodell calls these the “Little Bigs”. Knowing and eliminating vulnerabilities enables you to avoid personal disasters.
And puts the kibosh on your own status quo.
As we approach the New Year, imagine what behavior you can burn to the ground that will in fact ignite your creative fire.
As Pablo Picasso said: “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”