And the industry most in need of radical disruption is...

You Don't Mean 'Disruption'

'Disruption' is possibly the most misunderstood and overused word in the business. We wave it around like a weapon to make us appear daring or dangerous in meetings.

But often we don’t mean ‘disruption’. We mean ‘improvement’. Or  ‘progression’. 

Or maybe just 'innovation'. 

Not every innovation needs to disrupt or be powered by ‘creative destruction’.  Not every improvement needs to ‘reinvent’. 

But there is an industry or vertical that is in need of radical disruption. A root-to-branch refresh.  

A tear-it-up-and-start-again-from-scratch approach.

It’s housing. Or more specifically 'home buying'.

My 2022 was mostly taken up with moving house. And, my goodness, is it stressful. 

Not necessarily because home should be a place of psychological safety, and you’re effectively upending that, but also because the machinery of selling, buying and exchanging houses is utterly broken. Perhaps beyond repair.

The Wheel That Needs Reinventing

Whilst I am aware I’m extremely fortunate to be moving at a time of an imminent financial downturn, it doesn’t mean that, from spoke to hub, housing really is a wheel that needs reinventing. At least in the UK. 

So what’s wrong exactly?

Could it be the precarious chains of multiple buyers and sellers all waiting to exchange on the same day, and where collapse always seems permanently imminent, that creates the tension?

Or could it be the patchwork of contradictory laws, leases and local ‘searches’ that seem hopelessly outdated?  In my case, it transpired that nearly a century ago the original author of my lease had recorded my address in a quirky format that my bank in 2022 refused to recognise via its online portal. Furthermore, another crucial piece of paperwork was a PDF of a photocopy of a document written on a typewriter (!), but then amended with biro and then re-photocopied. Difficult to do a CTRL F on that.

Or could it be the opposing solicitor who attempted to communicate with my [fortunately excellent] solicitor via fax.  Fax. In 2022  

Though these examples are specific to my move, there are broader lessons for students of innovation here:

In each of these cases we see the old, ossified and outdated practices of a two hundred year old industry failing to mesh with modern, digital technologies, and the resultant unholy alliance causing yet more chaos.

True, we have seen innovations in the housing sector with sites like Zoopla and RightMove aggregating vast swathes of properties for sale or rent, all sortable by a host of granular criteria. We’ve also seen the introduction of Matterport-style 360 virtual tours of homes so we can get a sense of the dimensionality of the room. 

But whilst these innovations can assist renters and buyers in making more informed choices, it just seems to be fusing yet more digital layers onto a system fundamentally outdated at its deepest strata. 

The moral of the story is this: the act of merely digitising an analog process is not enough to modernise and reinvent that process if the flaws are baked in at source. 

Hence the need for disruption in the truest, purest sense. 

We talk to our clients about the many gradations of innovation: from incremental improvements and floor raising exercises to game changing disruptions.  We aim to impress upon them that all gradations are valid, and not to overlook the ‘compound interest’ of small, regular progressions. Like a river cutting through rock. 

But sometimes a system is so dysfunctional and broken that only disruption will do. 

When it comes to housing - and not even taking into account the rental industry which is also in need of a massive overhaul - my experience suggests that no incremental improvements, no gradual accretions or progressions will solve this. Only wholesale reinvention. 

I doubt it will happen, but here’s to the power of genuine disruption anyway.  

To eliminate. To originate. To renew. To replace.