First, a slight diatribe. Why is it that company leaders think their people can do successful innovation when they don’t share a common language? In this article’s title I’ve used the word “disruptive,” and by this I mean innovation in the “third horizon”—incremental, breakthrough, and disruptive. I’m defining disruptive innovation as new products, services, or business models that disrupt existing products or markets. 

For example, Apple and iTunes disrupted Tower Records. Netflix and its rental model disrupted Blockbuster’s retail store model. But I’ve been in plenty of places and talked with plenty of customers who don’t have a consistent language. They toss around “breakthrough,” “transformative,” “disruptive,” and other terms without defining the language, and then are dismayed when, at best, they get incremental innovation.

But this is just a language problem, you’ll say. And I’ll say you are correct. But if we depend on language to communicate and to direct assets, people, and risk tolerances, and if our language isn’t right, then nothing will be right.

OK, diatribe over. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

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