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Should you take trodden path or defy convention?

Thursday October 18 2018
baloon girl

Sotheby's employees pose with the newly completed work by artist Banksy entitled "Love is in the Bin", a work that was created when the painting "Girl with Balloon" was passed through a shredder in a surprise intervention by the artist, at Sotheby's auction house in London on October 12, 2018, following the work's sale. PHOTO | BEN STANSALL | AFP

By WALE AKINYEMI

There can be no disruption with conventional thinking. The problem a lot of people have is that deep down in their hearts they want to be disruptors but their thinking constrains them.

Spend five minutes with them you will discover that they are being driven by other voices but certainly not the voice of disruption.

There are certain voices that speak to each one of us and the voice that is loudest is the one that most people obey.

There is the voice of experience: This is where everything that you do is based on your past experience. It is when you are working in a company and you begin to look at all your decisions based on your experience in your previous company. It is where you are driven by precedent.

People who are in this space are less likely to become disruptors because they are so controlled by what used to be that they cannot see what can be.

Memory is good but it must never be allowed to outweigh imagination. If your memory is more active than your imagination then you are an endangered species.

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The greatest benefit of memory is to serve as a warning. With memory you have 20/20 vision and you are able to identify landmines.

However, if you do not have the right mix of memory of the past, knowledge of the present and a vision for the future, you may not realise that what was a landmine just five years ago is now an opportunity.

This is the pitfall for those who are so steeped in memory.

They live their present from their past. Invariably they will discover that they have lost the future.

The voice of emotions: This voice acts based on emotional connections to certain things.

George W Bush was once asked why he went to war in Iraq when it was not Iraq that carried out the 9/11 terror attacks. His response was that Saddam Hussein tried to kill his father.

We later on saw that all the so-called intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, turned out to be false.

At the end of the day, it does appear that indeed the driving force for the invasion was an emotional connection to the fact that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a good emotional balm as a son avenged an enemy of his father.

The voice of emotion in business is where you want to keep modifying an old product because of how successful it was or because of your emotional attachment to it.

Disruption space

Emotions blind people from the reality that it is time to take the product out of the market. It is time to cannibalise it.

What is the expiry date of your current model? If the expiry date is determined by the behaviour of the customer then you are setting up yourself to become a victim.

If, however, the expiry date is set by you no matter what the behaviour of the customer is, then you are more likely to enter into the disruption space.

Friday, October 5, this year, is a date that will not be forgotten in a hurry in the art world in particular. It was the day when the ultimate act of disruption in art took place.

A framed copy of a popular painting called Girl with Baloon was auctioned at Sotheby’s auction house, the world renowned brokers of art, jewellery, real estate, and collectibles.

It is the epicentre of epic auctions and October 5 was just like any other day... but it really was not any other day.

Thinking differently

Moments after Bansky’s work was auctioned for $1.4 million suddenly everyone’s attention was drawn to the fact that the painting that had just been auctioned was being shredded in the presence of all.

Mr Banksy later said that he had installed a shredder in the painting and was going to activate it the day it was auctioned.

Now why on earth would a person destroy his own work of art that was snapped up for that amount of money?

Well, if you thought like that then that is conventional thinking right there. The ultimate disruptor was thinking differently.

By shredding it in the presence of all and caught on camera and viewed around the world, Banksy transformed the print into performance art, which then made it the most expensive piece of performance art ever sold at auction.

The Sotheby’s website gives perspective with the headline — latest Banksy Artwork Love is in the Bin Created Live at Auction.

Furthermore, because the shredding was intentional act by the artist, the value of the painting has shot up. Sotheby’s website describes it as follows:

Stunned audience

As the final hammer fell in the Contemporary Art Evening Auction at Sotheby’s last week, history was made: It marked the first time a piece of live performance art had been sold at auction.

As the packed saleroom looked on, the final lot of the sale — Banksy’s Girl with Balloon — was in the midst of an intense bidding battle from buyers in the room and on the phones, but what was to follow has dominated headlines the world over, taking the art world by storm and prompting speculation and debate.

Seconds after the hammer fell, part of the canvas passed through a hidden shredder, and in the process of “destroying” the artwork, a new one was created.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about this Banksy story is the fact that no one knows that he is! Yes.

This disruptor that has changed the world of art forever is a living anonymous genius who does not reveal his identity.

So, if you consider yourself a disruptor, and you want to keep the company of disruptors, never forget the simple fact that convention and disruption are indeed mutually exclusive positions.

Wale Akinyemi is the chief transformation officer at PowerTalks.

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