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by James Patterson and Patrick Ledden, PhD
I’ve spent a lot of years around the word disruption, and frankly, I’ve grown way beyond skeptical of it. So I was intrigued to see if this book had an interesting take on the concept.
One company that was my client with paid an eye-watering amount to an outside “branding agency” for a rebrand that centered primarily on them becoming a “disruptor.” The problem was scale and intent. They were positioning themselves as if they were going to disrupt Hollywood. Not a niche. Not a broken process. Hollywood. A massive, deeply entrenched, wildly well-funded industry. That would have been beyond a David and Goliath story and require a considerable amount of resources.
That kind of framing is how entrepreneurs burn out quickly, and burn through resources even faster.
What immediately stood out to me in Disrupt Everything and Win is that this isn’t that kind of disruption. The book focuses on disruption within your own control. That alone makes it far more useful for most entrepreneurs and leaders. You don’t need to take down an entire industry to create meaningful change. In fact, trying to do that is often a distraction from the real work that actually moves things forward.
I’ll admit, the pairing of the authors initially surprised me. I’ve always known James Patterson as an extraordinarily prolific fiction author, not someone I immediately associate with leadership or organizational strategy. But that storytelling background shows up here in a good way. The concepts are approachable, concrete, and grounded in real examples rather than just abstract theory.
Patrick Ledden, on the other hand, brings the structure. His background in leadership, organizational behavior, and applied research balances the narrative side with frameworks that actually hold up. The combination works better than I expected. The book reads smoothly while still giving you something solid to think with.
Another distinction I appreciate is how the book talks about integrity. Not integrity in the moralizing sense, right vs wrong, but integrity as alignment. The integrity of being connected to what you actually care about. The integrity of operating from your real passion instead of chasing whatever sounds bold or disruptive in a boardroom or on a slide deck.
That same theme shows up in how the book frames positive disruption.
The company I mentioned earlier was encouraged to pursue a very aggressive, almost hostile version of disruption. Kick the door down. Bend everyone to your will. The irony was that their actual service was uber positive and uplifting, a stark contrast to that new expensive branding. The “disruptor” identity they were sold went directly against their mission and vision. A fact that I immediately brought to their attention, and they were shocked that they had let the excitement of a rebrand, and commitment to the five-figures they had paid for the rebranding service, to carry them too far away from that integrity of being aligned with their passion.
This book takes a different approach. It treats disruption as something that can be constructive, human, and aligned, not combative for the sake of ego. That difference matters more than most branding conversations acknowledge.
The leadership framework stood out as well. The roles of trailblazer, torchbearer, tinder gatherer, firefighter, and fire chief offer a clear way to understand how change actually moves through an organization. Imagine how strong a business could be if a CEO could clearly identify who naturally fills each of those roles and then intentionally support and develop them.
For entrepreneurs, it’s a little different. You often have to cycle through several of those roles yourself. I know I have. Those roles aren’t static, and the book doesn’t pretend they are. Different seasons demand different leadership postures, and recognizing that flexibility is part of staying effective long-term.
The story they included about the JetBlue CEO and what he calls “solving for fair” also stuck with me. That phrase captures something many leaders miss. Fair isn’t about rigid equality or policy-first thinking. It’s about thoughtful decisions that account for real human impact, even when they’re inconvenient. Things are most effective when everyone wins.
This was disruption because it’s not how everyone else was doing things. Yet positive disruption, and disruption directly within the CEO’s control.
One line that landed especially hard for me was the idea that no involvement = no commitment.
I have seen this for years when running companies and marketing departments at corporations. I still see this constantly in my own work. Our work works best when we have clients who trust me enough to let me run with what they actually need without micromanaging every step, and/or clients who are willing to do the work required on their end so I can do the work required on mine. Alignment doesn’t happen by outsourcing responsibility. It happens through participation.
That ties directly into another core idea in the book: disruption without purpose is just noise.
The Patagonia example reinforces that disruption works best when it’s paired with realignment. Not disruption for attention, headlines, or positioning theater, but disruption that pulls you closer to what you actually stand for.
I also appreciate how practical the book is in its structure. The built-in worksheets, along with downloadable PDFs, turn this into something you actively work through rather than passively read, which mirrors how I designed my own book. I pulled the PDF worksheets into Notability and wrote directly into them. The questions force you to stop, reflect, and make decisions instead of just consuming ideas and moving on unchanged.
That design choice tells you a lot about the authors’ intent.
This book is best suited for entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders who are tired of performative disruption and want to make thoughtful, sustainable changes inside their own organizations. It’s especially useful for people who already know that blowing things up isn’t the same as building something better, and who want language and frameworks to lead change without losing alignment in the process.
Disrupt Everything and Win isn’t about burning things down. It’s about disrupting what no longer serves you, while staying grounded in purpose, integrity, and human impact. For leaders who want change that actually sticks, that distinction makes all the difference.
I recommend it.
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