James Patterson knows a lot about blowing things up. Before he became one of the world’s bestselling authors with more than 425 million books sold, he was the CEO of J. Walter Thompson, one of Madison Avenue’s biggest advertising firms. While there, he didn’t just run campaigns; he disrupted the advertising industry with blunt campaigns like Burger King’s battle of the burgers brawl with McDonalds.
Then, one day, at the very apex of his career, he was commuting into Manhattan and watching people head the other way. In his mind, he was going in the wrong direction. So, he decided to chuck it all and pursue what most would dismiss as a hobby: writing novels.
That gamble paid off spectacularly. But Patterson didn’t stop there. He went on to disrupt the publishing business itself through unprecedented collaborations with everyone from Bill Clinton to Dolly Parton to Michael Crichton—turning the traditional solitary craft of writing into something more akin to a creative partnership model.
Now, Patterson has pulled these hard-won lessons about reinvention into a framework for others to follow. His new book, Disrupt Everything and Win: Take Control of Your Future, co-authored with Dr. Patrick Leddin, a leadership expert and former professor at Vanderbilt University, shows how disruption, reinvention and clarity of purpose can shape not just a story, but also a company’s future. In a conversation at Chief Executive Group’s annual Boardroom Summit last fall, Patterson and Leddin laid out a practical roadmap for anyone trying to unstick themselves—or their organizations—from a rut.
Leddin and Patterson spent three years studying 350 people they deemed “positive disruptors”—household names and unsung heroes alike—and surveyed thousands more. One of the book’s most practical contributions is helping leaders identify which of five roles— Trailblazer, Firefighter, Torchbearer, Fire Chief, Tinder Gatherer—they should play when disruption strikes. Understanding this isn’t about personality typing; it’s about tactical decision-making in the moment. As Leddin explains, positive disruptors pause and discern before acting, asking themselves what role the situation demands. The framework also includes what they call the Positive Disruptor Loop: a four-step repeating cycle of discern (choosing your role), behave (leaning into specific disruptor behaviors), achieve (starting with self-disruption and expanding outward) and refine (reviewing results and recommitting).
THE COMFORT TRAP
The research revealed something else that’s crucial: The opposite of being a positive disruptor isn’t being a negative disruptor; it’s the relentless pursuit of comfort. As Patterson and Leddin found across their 350 case studies, staying still means missing opportunities. The key habits they identified include doing the “scary yes” to accept intimidating challenges, saying the “brave no” to walk away from misaligned opportunities and accepting that the world will never return to how things used to be.
“Every team member in those organizations are dealing with disruption every day,” says Leddin. “Every person around your dinner table is dealing with disruption. So, we really wanted to dig into how people approach disruption from a positive perspective and look for opportunities within a disruption to put themselves on a path to a better life, a better team.”
7 TIPS FOR DISRUPTION
Cross off half your to-do list in the first two minutes of every day. “Every day, you’re going to go to your office and there are going to be 20 things you’re supposed to do that day,” Patterson told the audience, recounting what he’d advised a friend who had recently been named a CEO. “First thing you do is cross off 10 of them in the first two minutes… because they’re not important. They seemed important yesterday, but they’re really not.”
Your time here is short—so what can you do most beautifully? This question has been motivating Patterson for years and appears throughout the book as a North Star for decision-making: “What can I do most beautifully?” he asks. Success—for a person, for a company—isn’t just about what can you do, but what can you do best. Step back and ask: “Where are my talents? Where are my skills? What can you do most beautifully? How can you fit in? How can you do better?”
Be discerning—don’t disrupt for the sake of disruption. Leddin studied Dillard’s department store, an 85-year-old business with 200 stores that watched everyone else go online. They went online too but drew a line and chose not to turn the department store into a warehouse where people just come in and pick up things and leave. The result: “If you invested in Dillard’s department store from 2020 to 2024, it went up 1,200 percent,” he said. With the most effective teams, “every time something might disrupt them, instead of just reacting to it, they step back and they say, ‘What is my purpose of my team? What’s the purpose of my organization?’”
Communication must be clear and motivating, not business jargon. When you’re trying to motivate others and lead change, your ability to rally others will only be as good as your clarity in communicating with them. Patterson, as a writer and former advertising exec, begs CEOs to abandon the jargon, the cliches and the bromides in favor of clear, thoughtful language. “A lot of the communication that business has put out, it’s not clear, it’s not motivating, it’s not compelling,” he says.
Listen more than you talk, especially in collaborations and negotiations. Patterson attributes his success working with collaborators ranging from presidents to pop stars to one simple discipline: “Listening is the hugest thing,” he says. His negotiation philosophy follows the same principle: “Here are the five things that are important to me. What are the five or six things that are important to you?”
Winners win—look for the pattern of wins, not just credentials. When evaluating talent, Patterson cuts through the résumé theater: “Winners win,” he says. So, rather than asking potential hires what they did, ask them to specifically point out the projects on their résumé where they did more than just assist. “You worked at a lot of good companies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What are the wins?”
Focus on problems you can actually solve right now. Along the same lines, Patterson said he learned that both he and former president Bill Clinton have a shared discipline: Whether it’s AI anxiety or industry upheaval, the questions are always: what’s in my control, what isn’t, and how do I focus accordingly? “We try not to worry about stuff we can’t do something about right now.”
