Whitney Johnson, CEO of Disruption Advisors and a top business thinker, shares her expertise on smart growth leadership. She explains that growth often starts slowly, likening it to learning to ride a bike. Whitney highlights the importance of self-reflection and storytelling, as well as using imagery to foster personal development. She also emphasizes the need for genuine feedback from others to identify areas for improvement. Ultimately, Whitney inspires leaders to help their teams connect past experiences with today’s goals for transformative growth.
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Bike Riding Analogy
Whitney Johnson tells a story about a child learning to ride a bike.
The child struggles for three weeks before suddenly succeeding, highlighting the slow start of growth.
insights INSIGHT
Forgotten Slow Growth
We honor the slow growth process when young but often forget it as adults.
Maturity and life experience can insulate us from new things, making the "slow growth muscle" flaccid.
insights INSIGHT
S-Curve of Learning
The S-curve model, originally used to track innovation adoption, applies to personal growth.
Initial growth is slow (the base of the S), then accelerates (the knee), and finally plateaus (the top).
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Atomic Habits by James Clear provides a practical and scientifically-backed guide to forming good habits and breaking bad ones. The book introduces the Four Laws of Behavior Change: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. It also emphasizes the importance of small, incremental changes (atomic habits) that compound over time to produce significant results. Clear discusses techniques such as habit stacking, optimizing the environment to support desired habits, and focusing on continuous improvement rather than goal fixation. The book is filled with actionable strategies, real-life examples, and stories from various fields, making it a valuable resource for anyone seeking to improve their habits and achieve personal growth[2][4][5].
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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Related Episodes
How to Become the Person You Want to Be, with James Clear (episode 376)
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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