Do You Have What It Takes to Disrupt Your Work Life?

Let’s say that you’re a doctor who’s tired of practicing medicine. It happens. One female physician
wrote to Philippa Kennealy, a career coach for medical professionals, to say, “I don’t want to practice
clinical medicine anymore and am currently at home with my children. I am at a loss as to what I can
do with my knowledgeand skills.” Kennealy suggested that her attention todetail and commitment
tohigh performance might make her valuable in the field of electronic medical records (EMR)—
creating computerized medical records for such healthcare deliverers as hospitals or physicians’
offices. Kennealy also cites the example of a Stanford-trained general surgeon who switched to
entrepreneurship to cofound four medical-device startups.

Granted, when it comes to making such career- (and life-) changing decisions, the average physician is
at a certain advantage over most of the rest of us. At the very least, your doctor is probably good at
listening, “connect-the-dot” problem solving, and remembering extremely complex details. HR experts
call these disruptive skills—what Whitney Johnson, a founding partner of the investment firm Rose
Park Advisors, identifies as “our distinctive innate talents rather than ‘me-too’ skills.... These are the
skills,” says Johnson, “that can help you carve out a disruptive niche—consequently upping your value
in the marketplace.” She adds that your disruptive skill might actually be “a confluence of skills.”
Take, for example, our career-disaffected physician. Many job candidates can claim to be good
listeners; many others may claim above-average problem-solving ability and still others a remarkable
capacity for remembering things. A physician, however, can honestly put all three skills on her
résumé, and “for the right customer,” observes Johnson, “that combination is your disruptive skill.”

At this point, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Never mind spoiled doctors. I’m just looking for a
job to help pay for a college education in which I haven’t even decided on a major.” True enough, but
most us have things that we’re pretty good at—abilities that may in fact be potential disruptive skills.
One big problem is the fact that a lot of us don’t even know what they are, much less what workplace
value they might have. According to Johnson, “we often overlook our best skills—our innate talents—
simply because we perform them without even thinking.” You could even have a certain “genius” at
some activity, but as Alana Cates, president of the consultancy and training firm Accelerated Profit
Solutions, puts it, “the frustration in genius is in believing that if it is easy for you, it must be easy for
everyone else.”

Johnson suggests that you begin thinking about your disruptive skills by asking yourself three
questions:

1. What do you do reflexively well?

These are usually the things that you do well—and often with pleasure— without thinking about them.
Business consultant and motivational speaker Marcus Buckingham suggests that you think about what
you’re doing whenever you feel “invigorated, inquisitive, successful.”

2. What do others identify as being your best skills?

“Too many people,” quipped the late publisher Malcolm Forbes, “overvalue what they are not and
undervalue what they are.” If you want to be an actor but everyone else keeps saying that you’d make
a great set designer, you’d probably do well to heed the feedback. Otherwise, warns Johnson, “over the
course of your career, it will leave you trading at a discount to what you are worth.”

Ask three of your workmates to answer this question for you.

3. Do you have a confluence of skills?

In other words, is your disruptive skill actually a skill set—what Johnson characterizes as “an unusual
intersection of ordinary proficiencies”?

Justify your answer to this question.

References: Philippa Kennealy, “Physicians Considering a Career Change Need to Figure Out Their ‘Disruptive’ Skills,” The
Entrepreneurial MD for Women, September 29, 2010, www. mommd.com on April 6, 2012; Philippa Kennealy, “The General Surgeon
Who Sculpted a New Physician Career,” The Entre- preneurial MD, February 27, 2012, www.entrepreneurialmd.com on April 6, 2012;
Whitney Johnson, “How to Identify Your Dis- ruptive Skills,” HBR Blog Network, October 4, 2010, http://blogs. hbr.org on April 6,
2012; Whitney Johnson, “To Get Paid What You’re Worth, Know Your Disruptive Skills,” HBR Blog Network, September 14, 2010,
http://blogs.hbr.org on April 6, 2012.