
What are your disruptive skills? - awlo
http://blogs.hbr.org/johnson/2010/09/to-get-paid-what-youre-worth-k.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+(HBR.org)
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edw519
Don't forget that your disruptive skill may not be one skill, but an unusual
intersection of ordinary skills.

It's tough to claim to be one of the world's best php programmers, unix gurus,
or apparel e-commerce experts.

But there may not be many excellent php programmers who are also unix gurus
and apparel e-commerce domain experts. For the right customer, that
_combination_ is your disruptive skill.

~~~
benatkin
I agree. In addition to skills, this can be expressed in terms of interests,
as Larry Wall did in this interview:

<http://www.techgnosis.com/wall1.html>

WALL: I not only want Perl to be a good 'glue' language, I want Perl people to
be good 'glue' people.

FEED: What makes a good 'glue' person?

WALL: Let me distinguish two different kinds of joiners. You have people who
will join a movement and be totally gung-ho about it. That's great. We need
the cheerleaders.

But that's merely a form of tribalism. What we also try to encourage are the
kind of joiners who join many things. These people are like the intersection
in a Venn diagram, who like to be at the intersection of two different tribes.
In an actual tribal situation, these are the merchants, who go back and forth
between tribes and actually produce an economy. In theological terms we call
them peacemakers.

In terms of Perl language, these are the people who will not just sit there
and write everything in Perl, but the people who will say: Perl is good for
this part of the problem, and this other tool is good for that part of the
problem, so let's hook 'em together. They see Perl both from the inside and
from the outside, just like a missionary. That takes a kind of humility, not
only on the part of the person, but on the language. Perl does not want to
make more of itself than it is. It's willing to be the servant of other
things.

~~~
WhitneyLJohnson
Ben -

I wasn't familiar with Larry Wall; thank you for introduing me to him.

And yes - I agree that another way to think about skills is that they are
interests. I often define interests as "what do I think about when I can think
about anything I want." It tends to be a pretty good clue as to what we do
best.

Thanks again, Whitney

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benologist
Every time someone says 'disrupt' my skill is at suppressing the desire to
vomit a little.

~~~
billybob
Yes. A "disruptive skill?" How exactly is that different from "a skill that
could be really useful?" Is this a skill that somehow lets you singlehandedly
overturn a market, or are we just tossing around buzzwords?

Maybe we should discuss our disruptive value-adds for high-impact verticals.

~~~
derefr
I believe, in this case, it was "a skill that disrupts others' previously-
established judgement of your worth to them."

~~~
WhitneyLJohnson
I would like to have referred to you by name -- if you'd like me to -- please
just ping me!

Anyway, thank you for your insight.

<http://s.hbr.org/atpOMU>

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10ren
She keeps using the word "disruptive", but actually only discusses uniqueness
of skills. Probably just a bit of PR.

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RyanMcGreal
I got a big "Help us improve our site" overlay that greyed out the content I
was trying to read. Here's a suggestion to improve any website that includes
these sorts of ads: stop "disrupting" the people who want to read your
content.

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Joe-L-F
Interesting question. I also read through the HBR blog by W.J. Your disruptive
skill is not easy to identify unless you also have the ability to expand your
Johari window. Unless you minimize your unknown-unknown window, you don’t have
the opportunity to realize the disruptive skills. What you do daily isn’t your
disruptive skill. It is those unique skills that help you redefine yourself
and also makes others see you differently. Disruption can happen only when you
have realized it and for that, you need to be aware of the skill.

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nadadenada
I can think about taxonomy and categorization, finding relations and
differences. Building a mental landscape that cover the domain and try to be
flexible and simple. But a good design requires times and some rules to
follow, that rules may appear unnecessary but they are the one that allow you
to go far.

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rywang
It baffles me that someone can accurately assess that "you are strong in
searchlight intelligence." It seems so difficult to measure. I can't imagine
claiming that at an interview and supporting it with a few anecdotes.

~~~
froggsplash
I don't think she was trying to try measure her searchlight intelligence she
merely suggested it was her innate talent--sure it's difficulty to measure but
it is definitely identifiable. As for saying it in an interview examples would
be difficult because it is often an innate talent and not something you can
necessary correlate with a specific event in your life.

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froggsplash
agree with you ryanmcgreal but i liked the core message of the article--
thought it had value--most hbr articles read similar

