Whitney Johnson: Smart Growth

Whitney Johnson is CEO of the tech-enabled talent development company Disruption Advisors, an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private company in America. As one of the top ten business thinkers in the world as named by Thinkers50, Whitney is an expert at smart growth leadership. She has worked at FORTUNE 100 companies, and as an award-winning equity analyst on Wall Street.

Whitney co-founded the Disruptive Innovation Fund with the late Clayton Christensen. She has coached alongside Marshall Goldsmith, selected by him in 2017 as a Top 15 Coach out of a pool of more than 17,000 candidates. She is the author of Disrupt Yourself and the host of the podcast of the same name. She is also the author of Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company*.

In this conversation, Whitney and I explore a big reality of growth; it’s often slow at the start. We discuss three practical steps that leaders can take for both themselves and others to stay engaged during the early stages of growth.

Key Points

Auditing some of your roles, secrets, beliefs, values, and boundaries will help you move forward along the growth path.

Listen to the stories that others tell and help them link past experiences with what’s important today.

Images are a critical entry point to growth. Utilize them in addition to the new behavior itself to begin to frame your thinking and identity.

Circle back after receiving feedback and show others what you’ve learned from it and how it’s changed your behavior. That motivates them to stay invested.

Use “I am” statements that have a noun rather than a verb. Instead of “I run,” consider saying, “I am a runner.”

Resources Mentioned

Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company* by Whitney Johnson

Interview Notes

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How to Motivate Leaders, with John Maxwell (episode 452)

How to Win the Long Game When the Short-Term Seems Bleak, with Dorie Clark (episode 550)

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