In this episode, we are joined by Whitney Johnson to discuss her upcoming book, Build an A-Team. Whitney is the author of the bestselling book Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Innovation to Work, and is the founder of the accompanying Disrupt Yourself podcast. Whitney is also a noted speaker, and executive and innovation coach, and is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review.
What was covered
- The S-curve, and how it can be used to gauge not only product growth and investment, but individual learning and innovation
- The stages of learning in the S-curve, and how to predict challenges and boredom in the individual learning process in order to drive growth and prevent a lack of innovation
- Why Whitney believes organizations should hire “disruptively”, taking on market rather than competitive risk for this core business process
Key Takeaways and Learnings
- ‘Onrampers’ and ‘boomerangers’, and how organizations can benefit from hiring these ex-employees who return with fresh skills and competitor and client knowledge
- ‘Taking the pulse of the workplace’ and how to optimize your people for innovation and predict disruption by analyzing the different stages of learning within your team
- ‘Learn, leap, repeat’; Whitney’s theory for leaders on how to use the S-curve model to lead teams towards innovation by implementing fresh learning cycles
Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode
- Get in touch with Whitney Johnson via email, LinkedIn or Twitter
- Whithey Johnson's website
- Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve, a book by Whitney Johnson
- Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work, a book by Whitney Johnson
- Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream, a book by Whitney Johnson
- Whitney Johnson's podcast
- The Innovation Ecosystem Podcast Episode 013 – The Disruptive Individual, Riding the S-Curve and Liberating Constraints with Whitney Johnson
- The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business, a book by Clayton M. Christensen
- The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued, a book by
Ann Crittenden - Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, a book by Liz Wiseman