It happens to the best of them. Innovators mesmerize the world with their disruptive thinking. They change their industries.
But, before they know it, these game-changing services, products and experiences slowly become the status quo. What once spread like viruses have become so widely accepted that they have become common. The market becomes immune to the idea. They are a virus with no potency. Even their competitors embrace their ideas so that the market can no longer distinguish between the innovator and the iterator.
Markets change so companies need to change. But, what if the real problem is not solely about thinking different, but that it’s also about speaking different. What if they moved from speaking the language of the past to speaking in the language of their future?
Think different. Work different. See different. Speak Different.
The Language of Your Future
Last year, I watched the film, Woman in Gold and it completely rocked me. It tells the biographical story of Maria Altmann, an elderly Jewish refugee. Altmann was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Austria during the World War I.
The setting of the film takes place almost sixty years after World War II while in her eighties. She decides to embark on a legal battle with the Austrian government to retrieve a priceless painting of her aunt by a famous artist, Gustav Klimt. During the war, the piece had been seized by the Nazi’s then later claimed by the Austrian government as a cultural artifact of the state.
In a very poignant scene set during World War II, a window of opportunity opens for Maria to flee to America for asylum. She is torn between obtaining freedom and showing loyalty as her parents are too ill to make the trip. To claim her freedom would be to ensure that she would never again see her parents. Her parents admonished her to see America as the homeland of her future “…and from now on, we speak in the language of your future.” They literally changed from speaking in German to English. It symbolized the changing of her future.
Language as a Weapon of Mass Disruption
For leaders of organizations, understanding the power of language as a tool of disruption to the status quo is critical. Many leaders are disruptive visionaries, but only in the vacuums of their heads. They settle for familiar language and fall into a comfortable culture. Yet, powerful visions which do not adapt to changing environments and lack clarity will fall on deaf ears and dormant hearts. It is a matter of adapting or dying.
Thinking different is not enough. Thinking differently should lead to speaking different which should ultimately lead to acting differently. Language is a weapon of mass disruption.
Here are three ways that language leads to true transformation;
This journey is called a “venture scape” and includes five stages; Dream, Leap, Fight, Climb, and Arrive. Of course, when you arrive you can’t rest on your laurels, but you must recognize that it is time to (re)Dream. Successful torchbearers understand the value of disruptive, yet clear, language to answer the call and then re-answer the call at each stage of action.
After all, language is not disruptive if it fails to both ignite and sustain action. Take the first step; change your language: change your future.