Disrupt Yourself Podcast with Whitney Johnson

As we find ourselves in the midst of a great experiment around how and where work is done, I wanted to talk to someone who has been thinking about and leading companies through this process for years. Our guest today is Cali Yost, CEO and Founder of Flex+Strategy Group - a company that helps leaders reimagine how, when and where their people work today and tomorrow. Join us as we discuss 5 things you can do right now in your organization to help you weather our current coronavirus crisis and how you can take the things you learn into improving your culture in the future. Transcript and Links: https://whitneyjohnson.com/cali-yost

Our guest today is Scott Miller.  Scott is the Executive Vice President of the Thought Leadership practice at FranklinCovey. Scott is a twenty-three veteran of FranklinCovey, which is part of the reason that I wanted you to hear from him. His 20+ year tenure would suggest that FranklinCovey recognizes that for an organization to get where it wants to go, its people need to grow --- to practice personal disruption. Scott faced more than his fair share of struggles on his 20+ year path to leadership success. He has distilled those lessons into his new book, Management Mess to Leadership Success: 30 Challenges to Become the Leader You Would Follow, about becoming the leader you would want to follow. Join us as we talk about Scott’s journey through his various roles, the biggest challenges he faced in going from individual contributor and aggressive Type-A sales personality to seasoned leader, and get Scott’s hidden gems that can help make you the leader you yourself would want to follow. Show notes and transcript available at https://whitneyjohnson.com/podcast

Right now, we find ourselves in uncharted waters. A pandemic, political wrangling, a volatile stock market. Most of it we’ve experienced before. But it feels a bit like we’ve sailed into the Bermuda triangle of uncertainty, even chaos. These macro events coupled with the micro anxieties that accompany our everyday human lives might make us fear we are sinking. There’s no question that the past few weeks have been disconcerting. Most of us are finding it discombobulating; pretty normal to be feeling that right now. Our way of life is without a doubt being disrupted. On this episode, we will review the framework of personal disruption within the context of our current crisis. It is a seven-point framework, and typically I refer to the seven steps as accelerants. And they are. But right now, when it often feels like we are on a ship that could sink any minute - they are guardrails. 7 Guardrails for the present; 7 accelerants for the future.

Today our guest is Stew Friedman, an organizational psychologist at Wharton. He's one of the most influential management thinkers in the world, as named by Thinkers 50, one of HR Magazine’s most influential thought leaders, and one of America's most influential men who have made life better for working parents according to Working Mother Magazine. And this is the subject of his latest book, Parents Who Lead, which he co-authored with Alyssa Westring, a management professor at DePaul University. Because for anyone who has become a parent, you will know that parenting is a very big disruption, but if you will let it, it will help you slingshot into who you want to, and can be.

Our guest today is Michael Bungay Stanier, and if that name sounds familiar, you may remember him from our previous conversation on the podcast in early 2018. Michael is our first repeat guest on the Disrupt Yourself podcast, and it would be hard to find a worthier candidate for the distinction. Michael is the number one thought leader in coaching as named by Thinkers 50 MG 100, and is the bestselling author of The Coaching Habit, which has sold a staggering 700,000 copies. His new book, The Advice Trap, is an excellent companion piece, filled with focused guidance on how to change behavior so you can, as Michael likes to say, “stay curious a little longer.” Join us as we discuss the three personas of “The Advice Monster,” the seven questions you can use to identify real problems, and the six “fogger fires” that distract us. Show Notes & Transcript: https://whitneyjohnson.com/podcast

My guest on the podcast today is Marco Trecroce, Senior Vice President and the first ever Chief Information Officer of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. I had a chance to meet Marco in Toronto a few months ago, and on hearing about his completion of a 10-year technology transformation which obviously requires all sorts of internal and personal disruption, combined with the fact that the Four Seasons is known as the global industry leader of luxury hotels and resorts, not technology, I was intrigued and wanted to hear more. Join us as we discuss what it takes to roll out and complete a project of this scale for a global brand and how sometimes innovation and disruption take time. Links and Show Notes: https://whitneyjohnson.com/marco-trecroce

Today's guest is Gabrielle Blair, a woman whose life has been full of disruption, of playing where no one else is playing and discovery driven learning and growth. Beginning with her lifestyle blog Design Mom - which she started in 2004 - a blog focused on the intersection of motherhood and design, she then founded Alt Summit, the premier summit for creative entrepreneurs and social media content creators. Gabrielle is a New York Times bestselling author of the book Design Mom: How to Live with Kids, and is the wife of one and mother of six with children ranging in ages from nine to 22.

My guest on the podcast today is Jeremy Andrus, the CEO of Traeger Grills and the former CEO of Skullcandy. During his tenure, Skullcandy grew from $1 million in sales to $300 million, and over the past few years, Jeremy has taken Traeger from $70 million in revenue to almost half a billion with a goal to reach $1 billion in the near future. Join us as we discuss Jeremy’s journey, from childhood dreams of being a CEO to realizing he needed to be a good CEO; his short-lived but thrilling career as a day-trader; and the importance of creating experiences for other people. Links and complete show notes: https://whitneyjohnson.com/jeremy-andrus

Our guest today is Tom Rath, the New York times bestselling author of How Full is Your Bucket and Amazon's top selling non-fiction book of all time StrengthsFinder 2.0. For the past five years Tom has served as Gallup senior scientist and he recently co-founded the publishing company Silicon Guild with Peter Sims (a previous guest on this podcast). Tom has sold over 10 million books, including his latest works Life's Great Question: Discover How You Contribute to the World, and the autobiographical It's Not About You. While many thought leaders focus on individuals “finding their passion,” Tom believes that we must shift focus outward to find work worth doing. Join us as we discuss the “buckets” of contribution, how to have conversations at cocktail parties, and the importance of challenging experiences. Transcript and show notes available at: https://whitneyjohnson.com/tom-rath

Our guest today is Angela Blanchard, a globally recognized expert practitioner in community development, disaster recovery, and effective long-term integration for immigrants and refugees. It may be sad to think about, but we have culturally become accustomed to seeing the immediate aftermath of natural disasters. Dramatic visuals of fleeing citizens, devastated buildings, and heroic rescues fill social media feeds for the days immediately following the unthinkable. Join us as we discuss the measure of a great city, the concept of “No one’s coming,” and how when everything is lost we can be the ones to stand in the gap and stabilize those who have been disrupted in unthinkable ways. Full Show Notes and Transcript - https://whitneyjohnson.com/angela-blanchard