Oct 12, 2022
Whitney Johnson is the
Co-Founder and CEO of Disruption Advisors, a talent development
company. Whitney is a globally-recognized thought leader. author,
keynote speaker, executive coach, consultant, and a popular
LinkedIn Learning instructor. In this conversation, Whitney
discusses how musicality has lessons for the business world, and
the wide applications of the S-Curve.
https://bit.ly/TLP-328
Key Takeaways
[2:35] At her daughter’s
prompting during the pandemic, Whitney and her family started
watching Korean dramas. The family became obsessed with them.
Whitney now studies Korean for two minutes a day on Duolingo.
Whitney describes the characteristics of Korean dramas.
[5:22] Whitney majored in music,
studying classical piano and jazz. Because of her musical
background, when she structures a keynote, a book, or a podcast,
she looks for musicality and a musical structure to it. Musical
structure and musicality inform the work she does. Also, as an
experienced accompanist, she knows how to be second, allowing her
to be a good interviewer, and as a coach, to listen
well.
[7:04] Brett Mitchell, the
former conductor of the Colorado Symphony, said that music is what
happens between the notes. Whitney discusses pauses relating to
leadership and cites Clayton Christiansen, saying that partway
through his career, Clayton Christiansen started a practice of
praying before teaching a class. Once he started that practice, he
started to have a significant impact on his students.
[8:42] Whitney suggests that
before you speak, have a meeting, or a coaching session, you pause
and think about the person you’re about to speak to, and how to
convey to the person that they matter to you, that is an element of
leadership.
[10:33] Wayne Muller, author
of Sabbath,
pointed out the pauses in Martin
Luther King’s exclamation, “Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at
last!”
[11:41] Gino Wickman, in
The EOS Life,
recommends entrepreneurs take
sabbaticals. One of Jim’s clients just took a sabbatical and
reported that stepping back and taking a break allowed them to
reflect and then grow.
[12:20] Whitney has a LinkedIn
Learning class, Grow
Yourself, Grow Your Leaders, and a book, Smart Growth. Whitney’s view is that we are wired to grow.
Virtuous growth is growing in such a way that everyone around you
grows as well. She believes that human growth is
unbounded.
[13:23] Sociologist Everett
Rogers applied the S-Curve to the study of how quickly innovation
is adopted. Working with Clayton Christiansen, Whitney realized she
could apply the S-Curve to individual change and growth. Growth
comes in three stages: slow (launch), fast (sweet spot), and slow
(master place). Every time you start a new role or a new job, you
go through the curve. This is covered in Smart Growth.
[14:45] Whitney’s LinkedIn
course focuses on how to create the conditions where people around
you can grow, with the resources they need, and how they can feel
connected to what they’re doing and the people they’re working
with. Whitney also talks about building resilience and nurturing
people. If you can do all those things, you’re creating conditions
wherein the people around you can grow.
[16:59] Whitney makes the
underlying assumption that if you will grow yourself then, by the
contagion effect, the people around you will grow. Then, by
default, your business will grow.
[17:49] You can manage your
organization as a portfolio of curves. The people at the curve’s
launch point will need the most support. They will also have a
fresh perspective, opening the door to innovation. You want about
20% of the people in your organization to be new, 60% to be in the
sweet spot, and 20% in master, ready for a new challenge. This is a
good distribution for innovation.
[20:10] De-prioritize the things
you do really well that somebody else could do. Whitney gives an
example from a client. If you stop doing the things you should
delegate to others, you will have time to do the things only you
can do, and you get out of the way for them to work on the steep
part of the S-Curve.
[23:06] Every organization needs
to have, as part of their vision, growing human beings and helping
them reach their potential. The vision starts with the founders,
and as people join the organization, they begin to co-create the
vision with the founders. Everyone helps each other grow. In the
most fluid, powerful organizations, everyone contributes to the
creation of the vision.
[26:56] Whitney addresses growth
pre-pandemic, in-pandemic, and post-pandemic. A lot of adaptation
and resilience have been required. When people are under stress,
they go to default stress behaviors. You need to make sure people
work together and not against each other. People want to grow but
are not always sure how to do it. This goes back to Whitney’s
course, Grow Yourself,
Grow Your Leaders.
[28:39] Whitney asks Jan and Jim
for their thoughts on getting people to work together under stress.
Jim states that when people are stressed they need time and space
to solve their problems. People are pausing to figure out how to
work together. People need time and space to get up to game speed.
Executives are not paid to be busy. Pausing is a good way to grow
by asking yourself tough questions.
[31:35] Whitney has an
assessment that she administers to clients. It includes seven
accelerants of growth. The one that ranks the lowest is frequently
“Step back to grow.” People are not taking time to pause and
reflect. Whitney quotes Tiffany Shlain who asks, “What if we
thought of ‘rest’ as technology because the promise of technology
is to make you more productive?”
[34:17] Egon Zehnder surveyed
1,000 executives whether they strongly agreed that to transform
your organization you need to transform yourself. Before the
pandemic, 18% of executives agreed. After the pandemic, 805 of the
executives agreed. The only way you have the moral authority to ask
people to change is if you, yourself, are changing. The fundamental
unit of change is the individual at every level.
[37:52] Whitney lists some
people that inspire her, and why: Rashika Tolshan, who wrote about
the Queen of England passing away, Brené Brown, Musician Jacob
Collier, author Richie Norton, and NFL QB Steve Young. Each of them
inspired Whitney with their visions of growth.
[41:35] When Whitney was making
her list of influential people, her default was to go to all men.
She had to make sure she included some women. She had to be very
mindful and deliberate to determine who is actually influencing her
and she wanted a diversity of perspectives. Jim highlights the
leadership lesson of intentionality.
[42:49] Whitney’s audience
homework: On the topic of pausing and resting, listen to these two
episodes of Whitney’s Step Back to Grow podcast: Episode 139 with filmmaker Tiffany
Schlain and Episode 180. Don’t avoid taking a pause to
rest.
[43:57] Closing quote: Remember,
“It’s all to do with the
training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.”
— Queen Elizabeth II
Quotable Quotes
- “Because of being a musician, I think of things
in a musical sort of way. When I’m structuring a keynote; … a book;
… a podcast, there’s always a sense of, ‘Is there a musicality to
it; is there a musical structure to it?’” — Whitney
- “I wrote a piece about the importance of taking
a break, that you needed to rest because the ability to rest was
going to allow you to recharge so that you could then move
forward.” — Whitney
- “For me, growth is our default setting. We’re
wired to grow.” — Whitney
- “Every time we start something new, we’re on a
new S-Curve. There are three stages. There’s the launch point that
feels slow, there’s the sweet spot, … where growth is fast, … and …
the master place, where growth is … slow.” — Whitney
- “People who are successful are intentional. It
doesn’t just fall in your lap. … Successful people are intentional
people and [a high] level intentionality is something to be admired
and something for people listening to this podcast to take away.” —
Jim
Resources Mentioned