Companies Don’t Disrupt, People Do

“Disruption isn’t just about products and services and companies. It actually starts with the individual.” —Whitney Johnson

Whitney Johnson was recognized as one of the world’s most influential management thinkers in 2015 by Thinkers50. She is best known for her work on driving corporate innovation through personal disruption.

Johnson is formerly the co-founder of Rose Park Advisors alongside Clayton Christensen. Having served as president from 2007-2012, Johnson was involved in fund formation, capital raising, and the development of the fund’s strategy. During her tenure, the CAGR of the Fund was 11.98% v. 1.22% for the S&P 500. Previously, Johnson was an Institutional Investor-ranked equity research analyst for eight consecutive years, and was rated by Starmine as a superior stock-picker.

Johnson is also a frequent contributor to and writer for the Harvard Business Review and Forbes. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work (2015) and Dare, Dream Do (2012). She is a prolific speaker on innovation initiatives, and has delivered keynote speeches to audiences of 30,000+ people on her ideas and vision. She has received widespread recognition for her thinking and was named one of Fortune’s 55 Most Influential Women on Twitter in 2014. She co-founded the popular Forty Women Over Forty to Watch and is a fellow at the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards.

Johnson’s disrupt yourself podcasts are an amazing source of inspiration and practical advice on how to embrace meaningful change towards positive disruption.

One of my most popular articles featured Johnson’s book Disrupt Yourself, and the 7 steps to achieve mastery and success. To learn more about disruption and her new upcoming book, Ray Wang and I invited Johnson to our weekly show DisrupTV. Johnson helped Wang and I launch our show as our first guest in 2016 - we have since interviewed 130 business, innovation and leadership world renowned experts.

According to Johnson, more people have realized that disruption is inevitable, so they are less scared than before and more excited about having a framework as defined by Johnson. People are also realizing that they do not leave to leave their job to be disruptive, they simply need to embrace and do things differently.

“When you make the decision to start something new, first figure out the jobs you want to do. Then position yourself to play where no one else is playing.” - Whitney Johnson

Johnson described disruption in the context of disruptive innovation as defined by Clay Christensen. The theory of disruptive innovation was first coined by Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen and later popularized by his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, published in 1997. Personal disruption is about applying the same framework to an individual.

“When you disrupt yourself, you are looking for growth, so if you want to muscle up a curve, you have to push and pull against objects and barriers that would constrain and constrict you. That is how you get stronger.” — Whitney Johnson

Johnson’s thesis is that companies that want to drive innovation, engagement, or return on investments inside of a system/organization, then you must allow and even require people to disrupt themselves.

Can anyone disrupt themselves? Johnson believes that anyone can, and most people do have the ability to disrupt themselves. Once you get to the top of a learning curve, you do get to plateau at some level. So the question is do you stay there and then circumstances conspire to force disruption, or are people willing to disrupt systematically?

What is the pivotal moment of reinvention? Johnson notes that almost always when someone makes a decision to disrupt themselves, there is either an internal or external catalyst. That moment of when a person makes a decision, or is forced to make a decision, is important. We can re-frame the narrative based on both scenarios, especially when a forced change turns out to be a gift from the cosmos. Understanding the inflection point can be a incredible useful learning for an individual.

What is the difference between a mentor and a sponsor? Mentors are people that we can learn something from, where we go to to them to solve a specific problem or get guidance. Mentors will guide you by asking questions and work with you to point you to the right direction. A sponsor is different and in many ways more important. You can be mentored by a book, you don’t need a person. A sponsor is a person who puts their own political capital on the line in order to make something happen for you. You can have mentors and not achieve success and forward progress. A sponsor has a seat at the table, who is willing to risk their influence to help advance your cause.

What do you look for in a person in order to accept being their sponsor? According to Johnson, mentoring is something you can do without knowing someone very well. Sponsoring someone means that you know them and you understand their core values, you like them and you are aware of their competency. Johnson looks for riveting, hard working and likable people before she considers being a sponsor for them.

“The frustration of genius is in believing if it is easy for you, it must be easy for someone else.” - Alana Gates. We asked Johnson to elaborate on this quote in her book. Understanding when to teach and when to lead is a test of your leadership. It is important to recognize an opportunity to do it yourself or to step back and take the opportunity to teach others.

What do you suggest to people who are afraid to change but are looking to disrupt themselves? Johnson tells us that the path to personal disruption is scary and lonely. 90% of people are scared, so you are not alone. Be aware that the status quo feels pretty good, so sometimes people use fear to motivate themselves. Johnson gave an example of how she was motivated by failure to prepare and drive disruption.

Johnson is working on a new book that is scheduled to be available in May, where she is applying her disruption framework inside of systems. To learn more please watch our video conversation with the brilliant Whitney Johnson.

After speaking with Johnson, Ray and I invited Dr. David Bray and Brian Fanzo to discuss leadership and disruption. Both Bray and Fanzo are change agents, consistently disrupting the status quo. Bray and Fanzo were speakers at South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, discussing leadership in exponential times and business disruption.

Dr. David A. Bray currently serves as the Chief Information Officer for the Federal Communications Commission, leading FCC's IT Transformation since 2013. Through the efforts of a team of positive "change agents", he led the transformation of the FCC's legacy IT with more than 207 different systems to award-winning tech. In 2015, the FCC IT Team received AFFIRM's 2015 Cloud Computing Leadership Award. He also was selected to be one of the "Fedscoop 50" for Leadership in 2014, 2015, and 2016; one of FCW's "Fed 100" winners in 2015; and the recipient of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronic Association's Outstanding Achievement Award for Civilian Government in 2015.

In 2016, Bray was named one of the top "24 Americans Who Are Changing the World" under 40 by Business Insider. He was also named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum for 2016-2021. Bray is also the Co-Chair for an IEEE Committee focused on Artificial Intelligence, automated systems, and innovative policies globally for 2016-2017. Bray has been named the "Most Social CIO" globally in 2015 by both Forbes Magazine and the Huffington-Post, tweeting as @fcc_cio.

Brian Fanzo is a change evangelist helping enterprise companies and businesses use emerging technologies to improve execution velocity and community building. Fanzo is also a popular podcast host and social video strategist (#1 Periscope influencer of 2016). In 2016, Fanzo keynoted in 11 countries at more than 40 digital technology and business oriented events, highlighting his passion for change, collaboration and community - dubbed the 3 C’s, these elements are the foundation of his upcoming book ‘A Millennial Mindset’ due out in 2017.

Why is leadership in exponential times more important than ever? Bray spoke about the importance of leadership at SXSW. Bray’s talk on leadership in exponential times is also a must watch.

In a hyper connected, knowledge sharing economy, the need for strong leadership is more important than ever. Bray shares stunning statistics about the number of mobile connected devices and volumes of data growing at exponential rates. These growth levels will require businesses to shift from the legacy top-down leadership models to a model that empowers the edge. How do you give autonomy to the edge and empower and celebrate change agents is key to adaptability and future growth.

What leadership characteristics are important during exponential change? Leaders must by okay with diversity of thought, according to Bray. No one person knows enough and often the smartest person in the room, is the room. Research shows that a combination of experts and naive participants can produce better organizational outcomes. Bray also notes that diversity of thought only works when organizations establish shared goals up front.

Bray believes that we can minimize a lot of the challenges that we face in business and organizations is the inability to establish shared goals upfront. Bray also notes that the Internet has created an echo chamber where it is perhaps harder for communities and individuals to establish intelligent discourse and define shared goals.

Fanzo notes that companies and brands at SXSW are more open to learning and using emerging technologies to improve the customer and employee experience. “We want to filter the noise, and not silo our thoughts,” said Fanzo. He works closely with companies to better understand the use of technology to improve service delivery and the overall user experience. Designing the right experience often requires a change agent.

What is a change agent? Change agent is anyone that can step out of the status quo, according to Bray. What really makes a change agent is when you have a plan to manage the friction when you do step outside the status quo. It’s not about creating heat and smoke, but rather meaningful influence and change. It is about solving real problems, finding meaning and joy from the work, and driving long lasting change. Change agents have to exercise a fair amount of intellectual honesty to achieve success. Fanzo notes that being a change agent is a difficult journey. Fanzo encourages companies to celebrate change agents and to inspire and motivate others to better understand the value of being a change agents.

Social change agents drive faster results. Both Bray and Fanzo are social change agents - they actively share their points of view across many channels, finding opportunities to teach and be taught. Being social can help accelerate community building and driving change. Social helps get the message out and it helps identify blind spots. The goal of social collaboration is to educate, inspire and motivate positive change, according to Fanzo.

Please watch Bray and Fanzo talk about new emerging and exciting technologies like artificial intelligence, chatbots, augment, virtual and mixed reality, Twitter and movements and initiatives like the ‘people centered Internet’ at SXSW. Bray reminds us that more than half of the world’s population does not have Internet access. He also encourages us to have more conversations about how we can leverage technology to improve the quality of life in a more secure and meaningful manner.

As Johnson reminds us, “companies do not disrupt. People do.” Johnson, Bray and Fanzo exemplify people who continue to inspire us to disrupt ourselves and the communities that we serve for betterment of all.