The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 228: Renee Mauborgne - How To Make Competition Irrelevant (Blue Ocean Strategy)

Episode Date: October 22, 2017

Episode 228: Renee Mauborgne - How To Make Competition Irrelevant (Blue Ocean Strategy) Renee Mauborgne is the co-author of the global bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy and the just released, indispensable follow-up, BLUE OCEAN SHIFT: Beyond Competing – Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth. BLUE OCEAN SHIFT is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestseller, and an International Bestseller. Her book Blue Ocean Strategy has sold over 3.6 million copies and is recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written. It is being published in a record-breaking 44 languages and is a bestseller across five continents.  She served on President Barack Obama's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for the President's two terms. She is also a Fellow of the World Economic Forum. Renee is ranked in the top 3 management gurus in the world in the Thinkers50 listing of the World's Top Management Gurus. She is the highest placed woman ever on Thinkers50.    "If you're going to look at other people, you're going to look like other people." Show Notes: Common Themes of Leaders who Sustain Excellence: Not focused on competing with others They create their own space, independent point of view Always interested in learning. Focused on pieces of information Insatiable curiosity, high level learner, a note taker Enormous propensity for hard work Smart people don't look for short cuts Willing to reinvent self if needed How to not compare yourself to others? "Focus on  delivering a leap in value -- they will come to you." "I don't look at social media. I look at how creative people are." "We are all far more creative than we think we are" "If you're going to look at other people, you're going to look like other people" Blue Ocean Strategy - What is it? Most companies focus on existing conditions, red oceans, bloody, with sharks Blue ocean companies/people "don't focus on competing, they focus on creating" How can this help someone with a side hustle? Or someone who wants to create a side hustle? Don't go into red oceans - don't do what everyone else does - Create your own distinctive space "It's not about market competing, it's about market creating" When people talk about startups, they think "disrupt" -- Renee prefers "non disruptive creation" Tony Robbins didn't disrupt anything. He created a new market (life coaching). He helped create a $2B market The idea of David killing Goliath is romantic but it doesn't typically work that way New industry recently created -- Viagra, Sesame Street, Coaching to get into MBA school, YouTube stylist, Bumble Growth model Solve a new problem (ie. Cyber Security) Redefine the problem the industry focuses on -- Cirque du Soleil -- "Circus and theatre" AirBnB Expand the opportunity scope "Are there patterns that allow them to be linked" "Creation is not a black box" Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos look to deliver overwhelming value, they do not compete "It's not about market competing. It's about market creating." Social Media: Read: Blue Ocean Strategy Read: Blue Ocean Shift Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12

We are all far more creative and capable than we give ourselves credit for. And for me, that's what social media and the Internet has shown. And take that perspective, internalize it, and then stop getting distracted and thrown off your game by looking to everyone else. It's a discipline. You know, it's a real discipline. But that's what I do. You think Steve Jobs was sitting there watching what everyone's saying. If he got his cues from what everyone else was doing, he would have never created the products and service he did. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leader Show.

I am Ryan Hawk. Thanks so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. Go to LearningLeader.com. Enter your email address. Join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world to discuss the latest trends and topics in the world of leading and serving others. Would love to have you, LearningLeader.com. Now on tonight's featured leader with the great Renee Maborn, together with her co-author, Chan Kim.

They wrote the international bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy, which is recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written. Over 3.5 million copies sold. It's incredible. Now, the newest piece of work, which we discussed on this talk, and you'll love, I highly encourage you to buy it. It's called Blue Ocean Shift. beyond competing, proven steps to inspire confidence and seize growth. Now, a few of the topics that Renee and I discussed.

How can implementing a Blue Ocean strategy help you as an individual? And then why you should not be focused on competing and what you should be focusing on, followed up by and why you do not need to disrupt a market to be successful. I promise you'll love this one with Renee Maborn. All right, Renee, another one of those cool moments for me.

Your book, Blue Ocean Strategy, initially, it was given to me by a mentor and had an immense impact on my life as a new manager when I was working. And so it's really, it's kind of cool and surreal for me to be having this conversation now with the author of that book. So welcome to the Learning Leader Show. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here, Ryan. I'm curious. So you've done a lot of research.

You've studied markets. You have a great co-author. Chan, Kim, who's worked with you for, I believe, 30 plus years. Is that right? Nearly 30 years. Nearly 30 years. So you've been around another great and you guys work together. From your perspective and maybe share some of Chan's idealism here too. What are some of the common themes you found amongst leaders or people who sustain excellence? That's a great question. You know, I think there's a number of things that we see. One is, I would say, and it's sort of echoed in our book, is they're not focused on competing with other people.

They're really focused on creating their own space in life. So their focus is more on, let me make the most smart strategic move and let the competition worry about me as opposed to me worry about the competition. So they have the ability and the desire to have, I would say, an independent point of view about what they're going to do. So they don't necessarily take their cues from everyone else. I think that's really strong. I think a lot of people tend to always look at the competition.

They worry about what everyone else is doing. And reality is their life is very reactive to what everyone does. And theirs is not. I would say that's one thing. I would say another key thing we see is that they're always interested in learning. So if they're going to spend time with you, they're not going to focus on what you say that they don't agree with. they're going to focus on if I'm giving you my time, what is the one piece of information I can walk away with

that I'm going to be better because I've invested my time in this. So I think they really have an insatiable level of learning to the point that a lot of the top people will actually get a notepad out and start taking notes. But a person that has done fairly well in life, they may feel like, no, I'm not going to acknowledge that. I'm not going to like, or I'm going to show my intelligence by showing you how I can disprove you.

So I think they're really looking for what they can learn. And that is very refreshing. They kind of lean into the conversation physically. You can see them lean forward. Whereas I think someone that is not as successful as we're talking about, you will notice them lean back. It's like, okay, prove it to me. And whereas they're leaning in, what can I learn? That would be a, you know, I think a second really big thing.

And I think a third is they have an enormous performance. for hard work. They don't believe a greatness comes easily. You know, they want to be really smart at what they do. They don't want to take the long road if there's a shorter road, but they're not necessarily looking for shortcuts. They know, you know, greatness comes at a price and you're going to have to work hard when everyone else does. So I think those are three really powerful things you walk away with. They're not looking for the overnight success. they're always looking to learn and reinvent and take themselves to a new place to make them a lot less defensive. And they're really not focusing on what everyone else is doing because they don't necessarily believe the other guys knows what they're doing either.

And so they really reach into themselves and they're focused on creating, not competing. I would say those characteristics we see. And they're persistent as mad. They're really persistent. I love it. So not focused on competing with others, which is I guess I wasn't initially thinking of talking about this. but now that you said that, it makes sense. The world now with social media,

and Renee, you and I talked about before we started recording about the difference of social media and how it impacts people's lives, but it's so easy for people to compare themselves to others based on social media, people sharing their 5% best parts of their lives on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,

what have you, that I think, of all those, so you said not committing with others, always interested in learning, dedicated learners, like Adam Grant was saying, in a propensity for hard work. But you think about that competition because that goes right in line with some of the strategy that you guys have written about. How do you, I guess, whether personally or from others you found, how do you handle or manage the not competing with others? And I know you talk about kind of in a business sense and products. And I get that red, red ocean versus blue ocean. But personally now, with people who look online and they see the 5% of the best parts of everyone else's lives and they compare themselves to that and it gets them down.

And there's a lot of science behind Facebook and Instagram causing depression because of that. How do you manage that? Or how have you found others who do a good job of managing that? Yeah. You know, personally, I can tell you, we're not looking at that, right? So I think the people, if I go back, the key thing is they're not focusing on beating the competition. They're focused on delivering overwhelming value, a leap in value.

And they believe if I can offer a leap in value, whether in my personal relationship with somebody or my professional relationship or my product and service offering, people are going to come to me. They're going to want to do business. They're going to want to be my friend. They're going to want to be my partner in life, right? And so they're not taking their cues from there. You know, I always tell people I had a discussion the other day.

with someone about social media and they're saying, oh, when I look at social media, all I see is negativity. And they said, what do you do? I said, first, we actually don't really look at social media, right? That's number one, I will say, whether it's right or wrong, we don't. But the second thing I would say is what I look at and what I take away. And I think it gets back to the core of our books is how creative people are, right? So you see a young person puts out a little video that makes the world go hysterical about what they're doing. You see somebody that you thought was working at a gas station. They put out a video of them seeing. You say, oh my God, they're so talented. I didn't know it. So I would try to look for not comparing, but what that teaches you about yourself

and what it teaches every human being and what we have found in our research is that we are all far more creative and capable than we give ourselves credit for. And for me, that's what social media and the internet has shown, and take that perspective, internalize it, and then stop getting distracted and thrown off your game by looking to everyone else. It's a discipline, you know, it's a real discipline. But that's what I do. You think Steve Jobs was sitting there watching what everyone's saying? If he got his cues from what everyone else was doing, he would have never created the products and service he did.

Square, would Square have created what they did with their, little cord, if they were staring at what Visa and MasterCard did, they would never. And so what you have to realize is if you're going to look at other people, you're going to look like other people. But that's just going to sink you in that red ocean, right? A Me Too competition, which is tough today. So realize you have that reservoir within yourself. Get inspired that the game has gotten really tough in life, right?

Competition has exploded. So you've got to up your game. You've got to work at it. But try not to get your cues from what the competition is doing. look at it. And you have to realize that everyone is putting their best, you know, five percent out there. I mean, it's not on strategy, but I make one point is that, you know, there was an article a little while ago. I don't remember where I read it about a young girl at Harvard who committed suicide. I believe she was at Harvard. And if you look at all her social media,

she had the most perfect life. So people put up one facade doesn't mean that's the reality. So stop looking. That's what we would say. Wow. That's really helpful. And I wasn't sure what to expect by even bringing that up. So I appreciate that. Renee. And so we talked about Red Ocean and Blue Ocean and some of your work. But I don't want to ever assume that everybody that's listening has read your book, even though I believe it's 3.6, upwards of 4 million people have purchased Blue Ocean Strategy, which is insane. Those numbers just don't happen when it comes to books. So first,

that's a whole other topic to talk about how many books you've sold. But I love for you just foundationally to, I guess, build this for us when somebody hears Blue Ocean strategy, their first question is, what is that? So how would you answer that question, Renee? Yeah.

You know, if I back up for a minute, Ryan, so what we saw in our research, and this goes all the way back to the mid-1980s, right? is that most companies today, they focus on the existing industries, which we call Red Oceans, the existing industry markets, because today there's fierce competition, margins are tight. It's bloody, right?

It's filled with sharks. That's what everyone's life is. So if you think about most of the people that are listening right now, if they're in an existing industry, whether it's a construction industry, it's the media industry, it's a hairdresser on Main Street, that's the reality. And we took for granted that the existing industry is all there was in the field of strategy, right? That's why we focus on competing because we think we have to divide up that existing pie. So that's the only pie there is.

And what Blue Ocean Strategy recognizes is that while everyone is there, these companies that aren't focused on competing but are looking to create, we're opening up all new markets where there ones wasn't any, right? So I named Square. I name, of course, classic example as Apple. and the book highlighted, you know, we're in the red, but there is this whole other universe that people don't consider and it's the blue. And that's what Blue Ocean Strategy was about. And a key tenant was, of course, the best way to beat the competition is to stop looking to the competition because that's going to sink you right in the Red Ocean and make you a Me Too. So that's where that red and blue ocean metaphor came from.

Red Ocean Strategies, how do I compete with existing players? Blue Ocean Strategy is how do I bring? break apart and create new market space. And that's the central thesis of that first book. So let's say somebody listening works at a pretty large company that's doing well. And they have five, six, seven, eight legitimate great competitors. And they're thinking, wow, that sounds great. I love it.

Yeah, I want to do that. I want to compete in the blue ocean. I don't want to be with the sharks and the blood. Sure. That sounds great. What can I do about that? How can I do that? What should I do if we're in the, I don't know, an industry, the information provider for law firms.

We provide legal research. I've worked in that industry before. And there's five or six players, and they all are pretty good. No one's, everyone thinks they're the best, but they're all basically doing the same thing. I mean, how would it, and they employ thousands upon thousands of people. all over the world and they make billions of dollars, but they're certainly competing. How would somebody that works in a company like that, when they read your book, what takeaways could they use to implement and execute the better of their life?

Well, you know, Ryan, that's an important question. And that is what, you know, after Blue Ocean Strategy came out, that's the exact question we got from around the world, which was the reason for the second book, is that, hey, you know, Renee and Chan, we love this notion. We identify ourselves. We're in the red ocean. We all want to get to the blue. But my question is, how do I take my organization from the red to the blue or from A to Z? What do I do? And so, you know, we spent the last 10 years working with organizations around the world and studying them. Some working with them directly. Some just observing them that took some of the ideas, the tools that we did. and to understand what is the process of starting that red ocean journey, picking your team,

scoping your project, and transitioning to create a blue ocean. And that is what blue ocean shift does, right? It provides what are the proven steps to begin that transformation? Because in the end, it is a transformation to get you from the red to the blue. So I'm happy to go into, you know, what some of the five steps are. But I guess if I was that large established company, the first thing I want to do is I want to determine the right scope. You would never rip up the whole company and say we're going red to blue. That's too dramatic, too drastic.

And you have too much financial and credibility risk. And just not smart, right? You want to earn the right to implement new ideas. And so, you know, one of the first things is, you know, to get started is scoping your project. and I would look at their portfolio businesses. And we have a tool for that in the book, Blue Ocean Shift, which is about I'm going to look at all of my business and I want to see which one, if any, has its back against the wall.

So I need to do something. So now I'm going to likely have some motivation, not overwhelmed by existing initiatives going on, like a major re-engineering project or a merger or something, because then forget it. That's just throwing something that an organization can't digest. and that has a business unit manager that is willing to run with that initiative. They believe something needs to be done.

So I think the first step is really scoping down where you want to get started in that project and doing it in a smart way. That's what I would say is a first step. So how about the person that is a side hustler? And there's a lot of these because I get emails from them every single day. They work at a company. And usually these people are the highest performers because they're able, they have a lot of capacity a lot of horsepower from a brain perspective and a willingness to work.

And so they are crushing it at work and they're also creating something on the side. And maybe it's even more helpful for these types. And so whatever, whether it's a blog or a bakery or whatever it may be, how could somebody use the strategies from Blue Ocean Strategy and Blue Ocean Shift that you and Chan have written and spoken about and studied and worked? you've been in the trenches with companies for many years. How could the side hustlers benefit from your strategy? Feel free to go as long as you need to help with these types because I think this is a significant

portion of people listening. Okay. So it's the same process. So if you look at our new book, Lewish and Shift, where these are examples, case studies, anywhere from an orchestra to a hundred-year-old company to a startup, all of them have implemented the ideas we're talking about. That's number one. Number two, I think really important is for me to back up for one minute and say, for any side hustler,

I want you to think about one thing. You know, when we think about, first, they don't want to go into the red ocean. That's one thing. Any side hustler, because if you're a hustler and you got all that energy and that brainpower, that drive and ambition, what you don't want to do is go straight into that red ocean because you're going to have such tough prospects. And there's so many big players out there. Give an example of the way a side hustler jumps into the red ocean.

Well, they just go into, so they say, I'm going to. do a sidehouse, I'm going to start a beauty parlor on my street. You know, I'm going to open the beauty parlor business. Or I'm going to do a blog and there's already 20 blogs that are out there in that same space that I am. Well, I'm throwing myself right in the red ocean. So you don't want to do what everyone else is doing to begin with, right? Because then you're putting yourself right out there against everyone else. So that's not what I would recommend. So don't try to be the new Ryan Hawk. I'm going to be the second Ryan Hawk. No, because Ryan Hawk is already there. So what I want to do is I don't want to be Ryan Hawk.

I want to create my own distinctive space there, right, in what I'm doing. That's the first thing. But I think, you know, I want to back up for a second because if you look at our first book, what our first book, Lewish and Strategy did was something. And I said, look, when we think about strategy, and this goes for whether you're a side hustler and established company or anyone, we tend to look at what is, which is the existing market, and try to out-compete players in it. And the entire field of strategy that you learn in your MBA

or you read about a magazine is about that. And what Blue Ocean Strategy is said, hey, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up, everybody. That's only half the universe of the opportunities for profit and growth. The other half that we're all ignoring are not about market competing, it's market creating. So it doubled the size of the opportunity horizon that organizations can go for. And that's what got people excited.

Oh, you mean we don't have to be in the red? There is an alternative? Yes, there is. Now, what does Blue Ocean Shift do? Blue Ocean Shift says, okay, in that blue, guess what? Currently, everyone is only talking about half the opportunities. And what do I mean? When people talk about creating, especially in the startup community, especially side hustlers, I would say,

because it's more they're aligned with the startups. They're talking about disruption. Disrupt this, disrupt that, right? but interestingly, what our research reveals is that disruption is only half the picture of how new markets and new growth are created. And we would argue the less important half. The more important half and the other half is what we call non-disruptive creation, right? And that's when you create a new market where there once wasn't any. So that means you're solving a problem no one else ever did or you're creating an opportunity no one else ever did.

So if you look at, for example, take Tony Robbins, right, he really created the life coaching industry, right? 20 years ago, that industry does not exist. Today, it's $2 billion. It's second fastest growing employment history in an employer in America in terms of profession behind IT. And, you know, he stepped back and he said, I want to create an opportunity for people that they can't get anywhere else. And that is to improve their quality of their personal and professional life. And so that new market space was created. Now, what did it disrupt?

It disrupted nothing. So I guess the important part I want to frame for hustlers is, you know, and we lay this out in the book, is don't think that disruption is your only alternative when you're thinking about not competing but creating because there's a lot of opportunities and we go into them in the book. And real life cases of all this is what we call non-disruptive creation. And the beauty of that is, you know, it's one thing. There's a very romantic idea of David kills Goliath. And so it pulls at our heartstrings and it sounds very macho. But when you really look at success and failure rate, there are very few Davids that beat Goliath. And when they did, it was about 10 years ago because now all the Goliaths are so scared of Davis that when they see something happening due to what is happening in the amount of change in the marketplace, they actually quickly buy.

buy and kill businesses or they just try to stamp them out immediately. So by thinking about non-disruptive creation as your side hustler, so you're thinking not competing but creating, but within creating, you can disrupt. That's one viable way, but you have 50% more opportunities by thinking as well about non-disruptive creation. You don't even have to go up against anybody. And in the book, we show what are the paths that lead to non-disruption versus disruption. So conceptually, I want people to understand that for some, side hustlers, please don't only think you need to disrupt. That's really important because the minute I say disrupt to any MBA that I have, young person that is a perfect, classic

example of a side hustler, the first thing they do is analyze the biggest players and they set out to take them down. And like, wow, that's really ambitious on your side. That's great. But guess what? You can avoid them all together and create huge opportunities too. So that, you know, that's just one thing I want to say there. But then the second thing. And Ryan, stop me now if you want to take a pause or make a point on that. Just one question here. The Tony Robbins, I like examples and stories that that reinforce the points. And I think they make, they make what you're saying and what I say memorable.

The Tony Robbins part is memorable because we're getting a little meta here, but that's okay. But it's memorable because like, oh, okay. I kind of see this now. And so, and he essentially created a new market. Now that market is worth billions. And he's got a sizable chunk. He's one of the creators. And he's created a livelihood for many people.

Do you have other examples or strategies of somebody or something or a company that created their own market la Tony Robbins? Yeah, sure. There's lots of them. So if I just go to, this may be too big for your audience, but just take the whole microfinance industry, right? What do we have? Six billion people below the poverty line. Finance industry, banking industry, refused to give access to those people for capital.

And then microfinancing and microlending was born. And for the first time in these people's lives, they have access to capital. Small amounts allows them to buy a sewing machine or start making baskets because they can buy some kind of wire, cloth, or clothing. And they start to be able to change their industry. Did the whole multi-billion dollar microfinancing industry, which a company called Grameen Bank started in Bangladesh, actually, of all places, did that disrupt any industry? It didn't. But if you look at Viagra, right, men have had this issue for some time, right? No one looked at it.

Pfizer steps in. It solves that whole problem for men. It doesn't disrupt anyone. Sesame Street, right? By providing early education for children that were home. At the time, there was none of that new industry. I'm one of my ex-MBA students right now. She's creating a whole new industry right now.

And what that is is providing coaching for ambitious young people who want to get into the best MBA schools in the world. So how do you interview? How do you write your resume? What kind of job experience do you want to put and do in the next three years before you get in there to how do you do that? When I went, you know, and studied 20 years ago, that industry didn't exist, right? So that's another industry. I'm doing something else with someone. I look at how many people today on YouTube, right,

are producing their own TV shows, right? They're small TV shows, big TV shows. Do you know what they all have? They have stylists, stylists that go in and tell them what to wear and stuff, because they're focusing on the content of the show, most of them. Where did that stylist industry come from? Did it disrupt anyone? No, it didn't.

So when you take a look and we discuss in our, you know, we lay out in the book, there are so many examples that we don't even appreciate that are right under our nose. A ringtone industry. Oh my goodness. What did that disrupt? Didn't disrupt anyway. Just disrupted boredom. Online dating.

Oh my goodness. We disrupted loneliness. Didn't disrupt any single other industry. Online dating is interesting too because there was like match and Tinder. And then I hate that I forget her name. But she was working at Tinder and said, you know what? I don't like this. The girl should have all the power.

I'm going to create my own company and call it. And now Bumble, and now Bumble's crushing it. And she almost created, instead of competing with them, she said, no, I'm going to create my own way to do this. And I think that's a bit of blue ocean that she was able to get out of the red of all the ones competing. And the main reason she's top of mind is that I'm looking for, I want to record a podcast whether I'm fascinated by her and her name's escaped me at the moment.

But that's another example in that space. Absolutely. It's interesting the way people can think about it. Yep. And, you know, in fairness, too, Ryan, there's a third way. So we create, now I'm going to be academic for a minute, but we have what we call a growth model. So we put together really what does the universe of market creating strategies? So on the one hand, there's disruption.

And what does that mean? It means displacement. And that's when you offer a breakthrough solution to the existing industry problem. So people are doing it. You think they're doing it substandard. And I go in and I solve that problem with a breakthrough. If it's not a breakthrough, I might get, if I'm just incrementally better than the established order, I'll squeak out a time. little niche, but I'm not going to make a big dent because the players are too big.

So if I want to take a dent in existing industry, I've got to be able to offer a breakthrough. That's one way. That's disruption. Non-disruptive creation, the other end of the pendulum of the opportunities is I solve a brand new problem that I identify and solve a new problem that no one else did. It could have been around for a long time, right? Like the issue that Viagra addressed, right? Or it could be a new problem that's existing. Like today, cybersecurity, it's a new problem.

coming up on the landscape, right? We didn't have that before. So that's something else. Then the other thing is, or a sees a brand new opportunity. I create an opportunity for people like life coaching did. Didn't really solve a problem. It really created a season, new opportunity that no one else provided. So I have those.

That's what we call because you're creating a market where there wasn't any. That's pure non-disruptive creation. But in the middle is something where it's a blend of disruption and non-disruptive creation. And where do you do there? You're actually redefining the problem the industry focuses on. So a classic example here, there's many of them. And if you look at our first book, you could say Cirque de Soleil, right?

You redefine the problem, the circus industry focused on. And it said, yeah, I'll have some elements of circus, but I have some elements of theater, opera ballet. I will steal a little bit from circuses. I will, not much. It didn't steal much from circuses. is to sort of made themselves obsolete by not changing with the times. I'll take a little bit from theater, but I'm going to pull in a whole new group of people that didn't even exist. So there's

some disruption, yes, some displacement, but also a blend of non-disruptive creation. Another great example there is Airbnb, right? So Airbnb enters hospitality, you might say it's an industry, but does it really compete with hotels? Well, on the margin it does. But of course, it opened up new supply to the industry by making homes now places that people can stay. But what it really did also is create non-disruptive creation. Because when you look at who Airbnb serves and they do an analysis, it's a people who said they would have never traveled before if I couldn't stay in a home. Or it's people that say, I would have stayed in my friends and families place. But now there's Airbnb, I can stay down the street and have a little breathing room for my friends and families.

And I stay. And it's people who said, you know, I might have stayed two days in a hotel, but I'll stay longer. So is there some disruption? Yeah, there's some. But if we call it all disruptive, that's actually not accurate, right? It's non-disruptive and has a lot of non-disruptive creation and some disruption. Now, why that's so critical if I'm a side hustler, a startup, or established companies, is because if there are three possibilities to growth in new markets and creating blue oceans,

why do I want to limit myself to one half the equation when there's all this whole other half, right? I want to expand my opportunity scope and my possibilities, not limit it. So that is what I think, you know, we try to set out in the book is get everyone clear. When we're talking market creating, don't put yourself down too narrow a chimney because it's actually a lot broader landscape. that you have and you don't have to go up against the big guys to do it. And so, you know, we're really, we're really excited about what that provides and what that opens up to organizations and to side hustlers, right? Yeah. Do you, um, are part of maybe an odd question, but part of, uh, the request or the work that you guys do, you and Chan, um, together or separately, I'm just

envisioning this picture of a group of, uh, serial entrepreneurs. I think of some of my my friends are part of Jason Gainard's Mastermind Talks. I've had him on and some people that are part of that group and I've been to his events as well. I picture a small group of them who are, they're looking for their next idea and they say, you know what, maybe it would be a good idea to have Renee or Chan or both of them join us in this small room to help us brainstorm. Is that something you guys do? Do you help people brainstorm new ideas to get out of the red ocean into the loop?

This is the very beginning before an idea is even. Do you help with that? You have to have, yeah, so we get called from, you know, every type of organization, from national governments all the way down. So yeah, people do. Would we sit there, though, and brainstorm just like out of the blue, we're opportunities? I think people have to come with a perspective, actually. So we tend to work more with someone that says, I want to, in the food industry, I want to do something,

because that's my passion, food. You know, I'm really IT, and I think cybersecurity is something might be there. What can we do in cybersecurity? So I think if they just sit there and say to us, what are some opportunities? We're happy to say, here's all these areas. We're non-disruptive creation. We see opportunity possibilities emerging in the future, right? That we can lay out.

And then you can start digging in there. But, you know, the point about Blue Ocean Shift is we found, and a lot of organizations they think it's all random and they're brainstorming, but we found in our research, there are really six ways. Most, as we know, entrepreneurs and startups, they fail, right? They have 90% failure rates. For us, that's not interesting. Most industries could never tolerate that.

So what we really looked at was the companies that open up commercially compelling new markets, are there patterns in the way they look at the market universe? that allows them to see opportunities that are going to be linked to buyer value, overwhelming value, and where they can lower their cost structure at the same time. So the notion of the whole process that we have is sort of trying to take us away from this idea that creation is this black box of random brainstorming where we see the risks are too high. And to say, how can we get a lot smarter about it? and that's what we try to lay out in the book.

So in the book, on one of the steps where we talk about developing blue ocean opportunity, first you want to get clear on what the industry is doing, right? What are we really doing? What are the pain points out there that you can overturn? But then we talk about, you know, there are six ways that companies tend to create the insight. We call it developing your blue ocean options to see opportunities where no one else does, but they're not just opportunities. there are going to be opportunities linked to money, not just being different for differentiation's sake.

So, Ryan, that's a long answer to say, I think what we try to move away from is random brainstorming. You know, we see that is pulling a rabbit out of a hat that really that rabbit isn't in the hat. And entrepreneurs, I think, can get a lot more insightful. If they just do a little bit more, they want to be instinctive and act right away, act before think. but I think they could structure the thinking better and take their game and that we've seen it with everyone we work with to the next level actually. Really interesting. Curious, what do you think of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos? I think they're interesting.

It goes to my first point. They're never thinking competing. They're thinking creating when you said what defines the leaders of the future? All of them. Elon Musk is not looking at General Motors, right? Jeff, Amazon from the very beginning was not looking there. What they're looking for is delivering overwhelming value that can resolve new pain points and new opportunities for people, right?

So that just goes to my first one. Both tenacious, tenacious hard workers, my point, you know, we talked about earlier, and voracious learners, very steadier. So, you know, you'll see this as well in the companies. they get right down into the dirt, right? So Jeff Bezos sits, you know, still on the complaint line. You know, he listens to customer complaints, right? Companies pay all this money, and our book goes into it, to survey customers, what's wrong, what's right? And they never go down and talk to the people who are often the lowest level in the organization that are at the complaint department, getting that information every day, right?

So they don't want to talk to them and make them feel elevated in the process and learn or, God forbid, get on the phone and listen, take those complaints yourself. Feel the heat in the kitchen. You should. So these people are doing that, right? They're right down on the ground, but they're always thinking, creating. So they go down between the nuts and bolts and then they lift up with a really clear strategic perspective, those people. And it's really fascinating to watch them.

So if you look at it, they're exactly in line with. shifting every industry from red to blue by delivering overwhelming value to organizations, not getting their tips from the competition. If they did, neither one of them would be where they are today. It's impossible. Yeah. Absolutely. Thinking at the thought of let's go live on Mars or let's create the greatest cars ever.

And by the way, they're not going to use gasoline. So it's incredible. You know, Ryan, one thing to that, though, is say, you know, one thing that in all fairness there, though, is like Ellen Musk on Mars, this is great. He's in a position that he has earned through the success of his life. And so has Jeff Bezos right now, right? To be able to really kind of have a lot of fun and not necessarily need every single thing they do. A lot of these are now become experiments for them, like Mars.

They're really pushing fields of science and ideas, not necessarily things. thinking, I need a direct commercial payback. And I think the difference with the side hustler is, and I would never recommend that, is, you know, the paths that I talk about in this framework that we present in the book, it's about creating opportunities that you can start to see revenues and profits from, you know, in six months, not in maybe five or six years. And so they're playing at a scale that they've earned. And when anyone sits on that kind of money with that credibility and with their mind structure, they're in that point. But I wouldn't recommend that unless you're in that point to be thinking about Mars,

obviously, right? I mean, that's a bit, that's a bit of a leap. Yeah. Yeah. So I was saying I encourage people to sign up for your email list too. I've done that. And one of the recent emails I received is titled Five Things You'll Learn with Blue Ocean Shift, so your new book.

And one of them, I'll pull out one and just have you probably end. on this one as we as we wrap up but I found it interesting so of the five things I'll pull out number four and number four is why people's confidence is essential to create and execute your growth strategy and how to build it now I know that's there's there's there's a book's worth of an answer there but I love for you to to distill that down when I saw number four and I see the word why people's confidence is essential I mean that that makes sense but I love for you to dive a little bit deeper there. So, Ryan, I want to thank you so much

because really the two pillars to growth, right? You ask anyone, would you rather compete or create, hands down? Almost every person will say create. And you ask, do you need to? And they'll say hands down, yes, I do. But they actually end up competing. And there's two reasons.

One is they don't have a roadmap. They don't know how to create. We have a lot of tools to compete and not tools to create that are systematic. right and that's what blue ocean shift tries to provide but the second one is even if i have that roadmap will i act on it and the truth is people won't voice it but that creates fear and anxiety because you're going to have two sets of questions right first question you're going to ask am i capable or is my organization capable and in our industry are there even possibilities

so in order to take people on that journey with you you have to build the confidence in them, that they can succeed on that journey with you. And a critical way we talk about in the book to do that, we have three tools there, but really is first we call it humanness. It's just recognizing that people will not voice these fears and anxieties because we all want to be judged by our strengths, not our weaknesses, and we feel by voicing that, we show our weakness. But the first thing is acknowledging it.

What I'm asking is should make you feel nervous. You'll wonder. You'll feel intense. But that's okay. We all do. So I normalize it. I acknowledge it. And then the second thing is build that confidence.

Without confidence, you can't move an organization. Ask them to shift from what is to a new possibility and let go. So the whole book goes into how do you build that systematically? Not with a rah-rah call. but for example by breaking the shift down into the feeling of a small step, right? So you break it into small steps that take people, and that's what those five steps are, you first get them clear on what the current state of play is. Let them discover.

They need to create a blue. Then let them see the pain points of the industry. So confidence is critical. and we really try to go into and lay out, how do you build it in the organization? Love it, Renee. Thanks so much for being here. And thank you for the work that you and Chan have collectively put out to influence and impact so many people all over the world. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online?

Yeah. So thank you so much for asking www. Bluish and Shift.com. I would encourage people on blue ocean shift.com, there will be templates for each of the steps that they can download and you can start getting active and playing with them and working with your team on them right away if you want to make that shift from the red ocean to the blue. Awesome. Well, Renee, thanks again for being here. Really appreciate it. And I absolutely want to continue our dialogue as we both progress.

Okay. Thank you, Ryan. Love being with you. Thanks. Okay. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12.

Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.