Whitney Johnson, author of Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company

Bill Ringle and Whitney Johnson discuss how to apply the S-curve to the growth of your career, your team, and your company for business leaders, managers, and rising stars.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com  for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

MQ4B Booster 22.1 — Using the S-Curve to Hire and Develop Top Talent

Interview Insights

Top 3 Takeaways

  • Ask yourself, and ask your people about where you are in your growth.
  • If employees feel like they can learn, grow, and develop, they will stay as long as possible. Making your people feel that they have purpose and are valued has a higher probability of retention than a salary increase or incentives.
  • When you grow yourself, you grow your business. Having personal development gives us control over emotion, allowing us to think clearer and therefore control our career better.

Read the Show Notes from this Episode

  • Whitney found the lead character Samantha from the hit TV series Bewitched to be a source of inspiration growing up. [01:51]
  • Just like the main character in the show, Whitney does not shy away from solving problems, no matter how challenging. [01:54]
  • Whitney shared her experience working on Wall Street and meeting one of the people she admired, author Clayton Christiansen.[03:33]
  • The book Innovator’s Dilemma, authored by Clayton Christiansen, sparked Whitney to think differently when she felt stuck on a career plateau. The ideas in the book clarified and solidified her decision to disrupt herself to advance her career. [06:50].
  • Some managers are so good and effective with their leadership that their employees follow them wherever they go. Sumeet Shetty is an example of such a leader, and Whitney shares some of his best traits and practices. [08:41]
  • The three stages of the tall S to maintain your people: The launch point, the sweet spot, and mastery. [11:24]
  • CASE: Patrick Pichette and Eric Schmidt at Google. How to keep a talented employee from getting bored or burned out. [13:25]
  • Egon Zehnder’s 2018 study about personal growth and how the pandemic drastically changed the result. [17:46]
  • Who is the peak performer? What defines a high-performing individual? What defines a high-performing team?[19:27]
  • Whitney shares tangible recommendations to keep your growth trajectory moving positively. [23:24]
  • My Quest for the Best lightning round begins. [27:30]

Subscribe With Your Favorite Podcast App

My Quest for the Best is the podcast where ambitious small business leaders discover strategies and tactics to unlock their growth potential.

Give us a 5-star rating and positive review to make it easier for other small business owners to find and benefit from our work!

Expert Bio

Whitney Johnson is the CEO of Disruption Advisors, a tech-enabled talent development company, and an expert on smart growth leadership: growing your people to grow your company.

Thinkers50 ranked her among the top ten management thinkers in the world in 2021, and in 2020 she was a Top Voice on LinkedIn, where she has 1.8 million followers.

Johnson is an award-winning author, world-class keynote speaker, frequent lecturer for Harvard Business Publishing’s Corporate Learning division, and an award-winning executive coach and adviser to CEOs.

She is the author of several bestselling books, including Disrupt Yourself and Build an A-Team, and hosts the weekly Disrupt Yourself podcast.

Contact Info and Social Media for Whitney Johnson

  • Travels from: Lexington, VA

Resources Mentioned During the Interview

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites, and other resources that we discussed, so you can explore further.

My Quest for the Best Interview: 387: You must ascend any mountain of challenges yourself, but you succeed when you bring others along with guest expert Whitney Johnson

Published by Whitney Johnson

Smart Growth by Whitney Johnson
Build an A-Team by Whitney Johnson

>