147. Disrupt Yourself: How to Innovate Who You Are and Become Who You Can Be

[00:00:00] Matt Abrahams: Before we can innovate and disrupt our organizations, our divisions, and our departments, we first have to innovate and disrupt ourselves. My name is Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. 

[00:00:21] Today, I am super excited to speak with Whitney Johnson. Whitney is a keynote speaker and executive coach. She is also the author of Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work and Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company. Finally, Whitney hosts the Disrupt Yourself podcast. I was fortunate to be a guest on her show and we had a great conversation.

[00:00:45] Before we get started, my conversation with Whitney continues a conversation that my friend and podcast mentor, Lindsay McMahon, started on her English language learning podcast, All Ears English. Please be sure to take a listen to Lindsay's chat with Whitney, where they do a deep dive into disrupting yourself, especially from the angle of coming to a new culture and learning new language and communication skills.

[00:01:10] Welcome Whitney. I loved your conversation with Lindsay on All Ears English. And I had a blast when I was on your show. I'm really excited for our conversation today. 

[00:01:20] Whitney Johnson: Matt, so am I. I loved when we spoke and so very excited for us to dig in today. 

[00:01:25] Matt Abrahams: Excellent. As am I. So let's get started. You have studied and written about the value of disruption in organizations and our personal lives. Can you define for us what you mean by disruption and summarize some of the benefits of being disruptive? 

[00:01:41] Whitney Johnson: So disruption, it's a term that I learned from Clayton Christensen. He was a professor at the Harvard Business School and wrote a book called The Innovator's Dilemma. And he talked about it in the context of products and services and companies and countries. And as I was working with him and investing alongside him, I had this, aha, that disruption wasn't just about those products and services. It was also about people. And in fact, organizations, companies don't disrupt unless your people do. So what is disruption or what is personal disruption? Well, it's a process of deliberate self-innovation.

[00:02:18] It's a decision that you make that you are going to rewire your brain. You're going to build these new neural pathways. And it's a decision that you make to step back from who you are to slingshot into who you can be. And the benefits are, is that we as human beings, we're wired to grow. Growth is our default setting. And yet we can't grow unless we're willing to disrupt ourselves, unless we're willing to do that deliberate self-innovation. 

[00:02:48] Matt Abrahams: I love this idea that it is internal innovation. Your work often discusses the concept of playing to your distinctive strengths. How can we identify our strengths and then articulate them well?

[00:03:02] Whitney Johnson: Sometimes we talk about our strengths and we think, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what they are. That's easier said than done. So there's some great tools out there like the Enneagram, like StrengthsFinders. 

[00:03:14] But part of the reason why it's difficult to know what your strengths are is because they're invisible to you. There are things that you do so reflexively well, that you're not even aware of it. And so two go to questions for me of identifying your strengths. Our first is to observe what exasperates you. So Alana Cates said that the frustration of genius is believing if it's easy for you. It must be easy for everyone else.

[00:03:45] And so if you find yourself saying, well, this is just common sense, everybody knows how to do this. You've likely hit on what one of your strengths are. So that's one thing. The second thing is to look at and listen to the compliments you receive. People are holding up mirrors to us. All the time. Hey, you're really good at X.

[00:04:05] And oftentimes before it's even out of their mouth, we deflect it and we can't remember it. And so one of the things you can do is write it down when they say it to you. And sometimes maybe just get out your phone and say, can you say that again for me? So on my bad days, I can listen to it. So that's the second thing is that we're sometimes blind to the strengths that we have.

[00:04:23] But the third thing that I think is even bigger, Matt, is that because they come easily for us, we don't actually value them. And so we don't want to use them. And I don't know if you've had this experience where you've taken a personality test and people are like, you're really good at X, Y, and Z. And you're like, no, no, no, no, I don't want to be good at that. I want to be good at that thing over there. And then because we do that, we don't want to own what we do very, very well. And that limits our ability to lean into and articulate and to contribute in an idiosyncratic way because we've actually rejected what we do well. So I think that's the next piece.

[00:05:05] And I think the fourth piece to your question of distinctive strengths is let me give you an example for a person who is a non-native speaker of English, for example. Well, what's a strength that a person who's a non-native speaker has? They know how to translate. They know how to translate from their native tongue to English.

[00:05:26] They've done a lot of work to do that. They know how to do that. They have figured out how to communicate very clearly their ideas in English. Well, that's a strength that they have, but they might dismiss it because their English isn't as fluent as they would like it to be. And yet, if you're in a room of people who only speak one language and you speak two languages, if you're a product manager, if there's some type of diplomacy involved, which there is every single day of our lives at work and at home, you now have a skill that's a distinctive strength. And so be aware of it, own it, lean into it. And when you do those four things, you will be in a position to be able to articulate what you do well. 

[00:06:11] Matt Abrahams: I love that answer because it's very directive and very specific. The first thing we have to do is find our distinctive strengths and starting by looking at what exasperates us and what people compliment us on is a great way to do that.

[00:06:27] And then this notion of really embracing those strengths rather than shying away from them is really, really important. And seeing the value that those strengths bring can also reinforce that. Thank you, I challenge all of us to think about what our strengths are. I think it's so much easier for us to focus on what we want to improve, but knowing those strengths can be really helpful, thank you. 

[00:06:51] For those who are new to your work and haven't yet listened to your conversation on All Ears English with Lindsay, can you remind our listeners about what the S curve is and how understanding it can help us through a disruptive journey. 

[00:07:07] Whitney Johnson: You're talking about my favorite topic, Matt. So the S curve, some of you are going to be familiar with it. It was popularized by Everett Rogers back in the 1960s. And he used it to understand how groups change over time. It's sometimes referred to as the adoption curve. So we used it at the Disruptive Innovation Fund to understand how quickly an innovation would be adopted.

[00:07:30] But then I had this big aha, this insight. So just like disruption isn't just about products, it's about people. The S curve could help us understand what growth looks like and what it feels like. And that's the important part of what does it feel like when you're doing something new. So there are three major parts to it.

[00:07:48] There's the launch point, the sweet spot, and mastery. Whenever you're doing something new, your brain's running this predictive model. It has this hypothesis of what is it going to take to go from the launch point to mastery. At the launch point, most of your predictions are inaccurate. And so dopamine, the chemical messenger of delight, it's going to drop, it's going to de delight.

[00:08:11] And so you're going to have those feelings. You may be thrilled to be here, but you're also terrified. You can get frustrated. You can get impatient. You can feel like an imposter. It felt like a good idea to decide to give the speech, but now I am not so sure. But once you understand that, that growth is going to feel slow, it's going to feel like a slog.

[00:08:32] It's going to normalize the experience that you're having, which makes it a lot easier to build those new neural pathways to do something new because this is normal. Maybe you're going to be bad at it, but right now you don't have enough information to know. You just know that you're at the launch point.

[00:08:47] What happens after the launch point is you put in that effort, you continue to run this predictive model and your predictions are going to become increasingly accurate. And so now dopamine is going to start to spike. You're going to have these emotional upside surprises. Whereas at the launch point, it took a lot of time for a little to happen, now in a little time, a lot happens. And so you feel exhilarated. You feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. And you, growth's not only fast here, but it feels really fast. So that's the sweet spot. And then in mastery, what happens is your predictive model, it now works. It's done. It's debugged. No more bugs. You're no longer learning.

[00:09:25] And so dopamine, there's a little bit but not a lot. And growth is in fact slow. And this is that place where you experience a dilemma. You like being the master of all you survey. But on the other hand, because our brains need more dopamine, because as we said, we are wired to grow, if you stay here too long, your plateau becomes a precipice.

[00:09:45] But more importantly, because you feel like there's more for you to do on this planet, you decide that you're going to disrupt yourself and do something new. Now, I want to just make a quick point. When we talk about mastery, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are the world's foremost expert in whatever.

[00:10:04] It just may mean that you wanted to learn five songs on the ukulele, or you wanted to go to college and now it's time to graduate from college, or you've done everything you could do in this particular role to develop the people on your team. And so you can feel that it's time for you to move on. So that's what I mean when I say mastery. You can feel, again feel, that you've done what you came to do and now it's time to move on. So you've got launch point, sweet spot, mastery. Those are the three phases of the curve. And when you understand what growth looks and feels like, you increase your capacity to grow because you can iterate more quickly through the various cycles of the curve.

[00:10:41] Matt Abrahams: Absolutely. And I appreciate you articulating the S curve and the pattern and predictability that can come with it. Just knowing that growing has this pattern can help people. And I really appreciate you sharing it, if for no other reason that people understand that there's a pattern in a prescribed way that this stuff happens and that, like you said, can accelerate it. So thanks for sharing. 

[00:11:04] Whitney Johnson: Yeah, and the thing is, Matt, that's so amazing is that when you understand that it allows you to give yourself permission to be where you are, especially at the launch point. One of the things that comes up over and over again is for us as adult learners, we can insulate ourselves from ever doing anything new.

[00:11:21] Like, we really can orchestrate our lives so that we don't do new things. And so this allows us a mechanism for saying, I'm going to be at the launch point, and this is normal. And more importantly, to recognize that there is tremendous, tremendous value of being at the launch point within an organization. Because you are going to have a fresh perspective and you are going to see things that no one else can see because you're new. And I'm not saying just a person out of college, like a new CEO, you are going to have that fresh perspective. And so there's benefits of being at every single point along the curve.

[00:11:56] Matt Abrahams: Absolutely, and each point along the curve incents and motivates the next point, which is also really important. I am curious to learn from you how our tenacity and tolerance for ambiguity and failure impact our attempts at disrupting ourselves. What advice do you have to help us in terms of leaning into our tenacity to really make change happen.

[00:12:20] Whitney Johnson: So tenacity, I love that word. If you go back to this metaphor of when you're, this deliberate process of self-innovation. When you're doing something new, you're building a new neural pathway. So it's not like a super highway of habit. It's not a road. It's not a trail. It is a path like with a machete in a jungle.

[00:12:41] If you can understand that you're doing something new, you're like this explorer, that's going to help you have the tenacity. You have this mental framework or model in your head that gives you the tenacity as well to be able to say, okay, It's true. Again, I may not be good at this over time, I don't yet know. I don't have the data. All I know right now is that I'm doing something new. It feels hard. It feels like a slog, and this is normal. So I'm going to go a little bit longer and get a little bit more data to see if it makes sense for me to be here to do this. Do I want to do this? And then I'll either tip into the sweet spot of the curve or decide this isn't the right curve for me?

[00:13:22] And no S curve is ever wasted because you learn something by being at the launch point. But the tenacity comes by understanding and having a framework, a map really, to navigate the emotional terrain of doing something new. 

[00:13:35] Matt Abrahams: The visual metaphor of getting off the highway of habit and bushwhacking our way through the dirt road to disruption, I think is really powerful. And you said something there beyond how we can look at tenacity and find tenacity, that not every S curve is the right curve for us right now. And I think that's also important for people to think about that as you disrupt, you might find in that process that there are variations to what you thought was the right thing or were motivated to find.

[00:14:06] And I really appreciate that, that not every S curve is right for you right now. I'd like to switch to focusing on leaders for a moment. Many of our listeners are in a leadership position or desiring a leadership position. In fostering a culture that encourages disruptive ideas, how can leaders encourage constructive dialogue around these disruptive ideas while also allowing room to express them and addressing concerns or reservations that people might have about the disruption?

[00:14:38] Whitney Johnson: This is really where the rubber meets the road, isn't it? 

[00:14:41] Matt Abrahams: Absolutely. 

[00:14:42] Whitney Johnson: So just this week, I was with a team, a CEO on their leadership team, and I think he did this brilliantly. So let me just talk you through what this looked like. So new initiative, new team, lots of new neural pathways being built. And what happened is at the very beginning of the offsite, this leader said, I just want to check in with everybody.

[00:15:07] How are you feeling? And there was this amalgam, right? Launch point. I'm thrilled. I'm enthusiastic. I'm terrified. I'm concerned. But by doing that, including the leader sharing his experience, what did he do? Well, from a neuroscience perspective, we know that when we start to share how we're feeling, we're willing to be a little bit vulnerable.

[00:15:32] Our brains start wiring with the other people, so they're no longer foes. They become friends. So now people felt safe. Again, they could go to this place of very constructive dialogue around ideas that were different, that were disruptive. But as they were having those conversations, they were emotionally sitting on the same side of the table.

[00:15:57] So when they were addressing the ideas, does this work? Does it not work? It's not about the person. It's about the idea. But it all starts with people talking about, here's how I feel. Here's the experience I'm having. Yes, we're all on the same team, really emotionally. Now we can have those debates around the ideas that can move the organization forward.

[00:16:20] Matt Abrahams: So it's all about emotional connection. And taking the time to make those connections so that people feel comfortable then sharing what's important to them. We were fortunate enough to learn from Amy Edmondson in a prior episode, talking about some of those components that build psychological safety. And clearly that ability to be emotionally connected and open is critical to that. Well, Whitney, this has been fantastic. Before we end, I like to ask all of my guests, three questions. One, I make up just for you and then two that I ask everybody. Are you up for that? 

[00:16:56] Whitney Johnson: Yes, absolutely. 

[00:16:57] Matt Abrahams: So I'd like to get meta for a moment. You write, you coach, you speak, you have a podcast. How do you tailor your messages for the varying audiences that you communicate with? 

[00:17:10] Whitney Johnson: I love this question. And the reason I love this question is that the meta idea of asking me to evaluate my process. So what do I do? The first thing that I do to tailor is I have a conversation with the representatives of the audience and understand what job are they hiring me to do? What's the functional job? What's the emotional job? So that I really understand the context of what is it that people need and want, and I'm able to meet them where they are. Then once I'm there, I make sure that the introduction to my speech, you know, when the person's introducing me, is very clear, and the reason that that's important is because it credentials the speaker so that people feel like you're going to have something to say that will be useful to them, which is really important.

[00:17:58] Like, yes, pay attention everybody. This is gonna be helpful. I then almost always tell a story because a story allows our brains to fire together and wire together so that we can be connected in a way that they can now hear what I'm about to say, which are now the frameworks or the content, whether it's around disruption or around the S curve.

[00:18:19] And then I always end with trying to find a moment where people can feel some sense of inspiration because they're about to go onto the launch point of a new curve when they walk out, they're going to do something differently and it's going to feel a little bit scary and uncomfortable. And I want people to feel that they can do it.

[00:18:40] Matt Abrahams: I love that you architect your communication in this way. And it starts by really understanding the needs of that particular situation. And then it's all about expectations is what I heard you say. It's really about understanding their expectations and setting expectations. So I love the idea of having someone in the way they set you up, they introduce you, that they help people begin to focus on what's coming. I like that a lot. I love that you use story and that you use story purposely from a neuroscience point of view to get that cognitive entrainment. We were fortunate enough to have Charles Duhigg on who talked about how when we hear stories, our brain waves and brain patterns sync up.

[00:19:25] And the fact that there's action and inspiration that comes at the end, again, targeted to the audience is really critical. All of us can learn how to better communicate, be it on a keynote stage with hundreds of people listening or in a one-to-one interaction. I think the same ideas around expectation, setting, storytelling, action, inspiration, play out.

[00:19:45] I'd like to ask you question number two, who is a communicator that you admire? Why? 

[00:19:52] Whitney Johnson: The first thing that came into my mind was Jacob Collier. Do you know who he is? 

[00:19:58] Matt Abrahams: I have heard of Jacob. I do not know his work. 

[00:20:00] Whitney Johnson: Alright, so he is a musician. He is a prodigy. He's in his twenties. He has perfect pitch. He plays dozens of musical instruments. Why am I saying he's one of my favorite communicators and why I admire him? 

[00:20:14] Well, he collaborates with a lot of different musicians and every single time there's something very fresh that comes out of that because he brings his style, but their style, and there's a mashup and something that occurs that's magical.

[00:20:26] But then he's been doing something very interesting, which is when he performs live, he turns the audience into a choir. And so it goes from people sitting in an audience, listening to a musician perform, to every single person in that audience becomes part of a choir. And so they become one. Their heartbeats start to sync up, when people sing together that happens. And so his ability to create a container for people to communicate in a very elevating, uplifting way, that to me is brilliant. Beautiful, astonishing, magnificent communication. 

[00:21:08] Matt Abrahams: I love that you picked a musician and I love that you talk about how that communication, it brings people together, unites them and creates a shared experience. And I think all good communicators create a shared experience that is unique and participative. My third and final question, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe? 

[00:21:33] Whitney Johnson: The first thing I would say is that when you show up, you're focused on the person that you're talking to. You see them, you smile at them, you listen to them. There is a sense for that person that you are present to them. So that's the first thing. 

[00:21:50] The second thing is that once you're actually there, if it's a high stakes conversation, you're going to prepare for sure, right? You prepared for this conversation. I prepared for this conversation. But once we get into this conversation, it's not classical. It's jazz. We're talking. We're conversing and we're responding to each other in the moment. We're not thinking about what we're going to eat for lunch. We're not thinking about what happened an hour ago. We are here fully present.

[00:22:17] And so that's another piece is, how do I create the space for that person that I'm talking to, like you to be present, but how do I make sure I'm present? The third one is you validate and you repeat back, which is what you've been doing with me the entire time. 

[00:22:30] Matt Abrahams: Those three ingredients all hinge on the notion of focus. Focus on the other person, focus on being present yourself, and focus on listening and validating so that you can have that transformative, disruptive experience that you talk about. Whitney, thank you so much for this conversation. It was a delight. to chat with you, to learn about how we can disrupt ourselves and make a difference, not just in our own lives, but in the lives of others.

[00:22:56] And I really appreciate you inspiring all of us to find that next new launch pad. And as a reminder, if you enjoyed this conversation Whitney and I had, you definitely need to listen to her conversation with Lindsay McMahon on All Ears English and do yourself a favor, also listen to Whitney's podcast, Disrupt Yourself.

[00:23:16] Whitney, thank you so much. 

[00:23:17] Whitney Johnson: Thank you for having me, Matt. 

[00:23:20] Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. To learn more about disruption and personal growth, please listen to episode 118 with Dorie Clark and episode 138 with Graham Weaver. This episode was produced by Jenny Luna, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams, with help from Podium Podcasting Company.

[00:23:42] Our music is from Floyd Wonder. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram. And check out fastersmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content, and our newsletter.