Whitney Johnson: Creating Safety Around Disruption

[00:00:02] This podcast is a Royfield Brown production. Find others on iTunes.

[00:00:09] Instead of helping companies shrink, I wanted to help them grow.

[00:00:12] In twin weeks, I never leave serendipity to chance.

[00:00:15] Mobilizing people is only useful if you can channel it to influence institutions.

[00:00:19] If I want to change that person's mind, it's much more useful for me to find a way to have a one-on-one conversation with them.

[00:00:25] And then that becomes this positive loop. I wasn't even the smartest kid in my neighborhood.

[00:00:29] One death is a tragedy. 10,000 is a statistic.

[00:00:33] But I was hungry. I was really hungry.

[00:00:36] I'm Greg Satell, author of Mapping, Innovation, and Cascades. And I'm with Roifield Brown, Bajisa.

[00:00:46] Hi, Roifield.

[00:00:47] Hello, Greg. How are you?

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[00:01:22] Roifield, I'm really excited about our guest today. She is rated year after year as one of the top 50

[00:01:33] business thinkers in the world. A woman named Whitney Johnson had a long-time partnership

[00:01:40] with Harvard Business School professor and author of The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen.

[00:01:47] And she's just led a really inspiring and fascinating career.

[00:01:53] Yeah, I'm really interested to hear from her because we've had business thinkers,

[00:02:00] innovators on the show before, but we've never actually had a woman. So I want to see exactly

[00:02:05] how her experiences working in the patriarchy, Greg, has maybe informed her success.

[00:02:11] Another interesting thing about Whitney is that she is extremely devout. And it's something that

[00:02:24] she's very upfront with, which is very unusual in the business world, but even more unusual,

[00:02:31] the type of innovation conferences that we both often speak at. And she manages

[00:02:37] to weave it in so seamlessly. It's really inspirational. So let's invite Whitney in.

[00:02:48] So hi, Whitney. So glad to have you on. You know, I'm such a huge fan of yours. We first met on

[00:02:56] Twitter maybe 15 years ago, but we met in person, I think maybe 12 years ago.

[00:03:03] Yeah, at least. And that's funny that you say Twitter, because I think I started on Twitter in

[00:03:07] 2007. Is that about when you started as well?

[00:03:09] I started around 2009, but there was a whole crew of us that sort of got to know each other.

[00:03:15] Saul was there, Deb Schofield, Alex Osterwalder, and everybody's diverged. But I think the first time

[00:03:22] we had met in person, you had just published your first book.

[00:03:28] And now you're on, I believe your third or fourth book.

[00:03:32] I've published now four books, and now I'm thinking about my next book.

[00:03:37] Paul Glutton for Punishment, right? You were just really starting out as a speaker

[00:03:42] and a coach, if I remember. And now you're thinkers 50, you're on everybody's list. You even,

[00:03:49] you have a million followers or 2 million now on LinkedIn.

[00:03:53] A million seven.

[00:03:55] A million seven. But who's counting? You're one of those people that I look at and I say,

[00:04:04] that's somebody who really has it together. You're one of the most sought after coaches.

[00:04:09] You help other people make an impact. But just from knowing you and the discussions we've had

[00:04:16] over the years, things started off much differently. When you started off in New York,

[00:04:22] you certainly didn't start at the top.

[00:04:25] LESLIE KENDRICK I did not. So I actually graduated from college in music,

[00:04:32] and I knew I didn't want to do anything in music. It was almost like that liberal arts degree that

[00:04:37] girls go get degrees in music and English. I mean, I really had no sense whatsoever of what I was doing.

[00:04:45] What am I going to do when I grow up? No idea. I'm going to get married and have children. So this

[00:04:49] is a vague notion. But I graduate, my husband's getting his PhD at Columbia. So we moved to New

[00:04:57] York City. I am terrified to be there. I remember the first week I wouldn't go anywhere by myself,

[00:05:04] but we did need to eat. And so I eventually left our 19th floor apartment and I went out and I got a

[00:05:09] job. Because I majored in music, of course, I went to Wall Street. But because I had never set foot in

[00:05:16] a business course, I started as a secretary. Also because it was the late 80s, early 90s. Music

[00:05:22] major, female, no business courses. Of course, I'm a secretary. But then something really powerful

[00:05:30] happened for me is that I was sitting in this desk across from this bullpen. And I heard people

[00:05:39] trying to open up accounts of stockbrokers. And they would say things like, it doesn't take a rocket

[00:05:44] scientist to know this is a great investment. And then I would hear them say, throw down your pom-poms

[00:05:49] and get in the game. And at first I'm offended because I was a cheerleader in high school.

[00:05:53] But then I'm hearing this every single day. And something kicked in inside of me. And I just had

[00:06:01] this feeling of, I need to throw down my pom-poms. I started taking business courses at night,

[00:06:09] accounting, finance, economics. And then something really crucial happened. I had a boss who believed

[00:06:16] in me. His name is Cesar Bias. And he moved me from being a secretary to an investment banker.

[00:06:22] And that put me on the professional track. If financial services, that doesn't happen very often.

[00:06:28] And I was having this whole experience of having this opportunity. But there was also something

[00:06:33] going on inside of me of why would I make X if I can make 10X? And I wouldn't have known that,

[00:06:39] I wouldn't have known this then. But that was the beginning of me disrupting myself,

[00:06:43] disrupting my mindset, disrupting what I thought was possible. And so I went from being a secretary

[00:06:49] to an investment banker, eventually became an equity research analyst. But that was a very important,

[00:06:55] crucial time of my life. And part of the reason why I love New York so much is I feel like this is the

[00:07:00] place where I came alive as a human being. And I started to have this sense of what possibility

[00:07:06] could look like for me.

[00:07:07] Well, if I can, so if I can make a few distinctions.

[00:07:11] Yes, please.

[00:07:12] You became one of the top telecom analysts in the business. I believe you built quite a

[00:07:20] relationship with Carlos Slim, if I remember correctly.

[00:07:23] That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So do you want a little bit more detail?

[00:07:29] Yes, that. And also, if you could tell us a little bit about New York, because that,

[00:07:37] I assume, must have been a Mormon girl from Brigham Young, also quite a cultural shock.

[00:07:44] Yeah, I will say I had been on a mission to Uruguay. So I had been out of the country, but

[00:07:51] it was a culture shock for me. And it was actually really unusual for, I'm deeply devout member of the

[00:07:58] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And most girls would just get married and have

[00:08:03] children. So it was very unusual. So I was not only in a very different city, a large city,

[00:08:08] I had grown up in California. I'm doing something that culturally you wouldn't have expected me to

[00:08:13] do. I oftentimes think that part of the reason I was able to do all this is because of who I married.

[00:08:19] And so that was a really key piece for me in terms of my ability to become a changemaker,

[00:08:25] if you will. But yeah, there are lots of cultural shifts of things that were happening for me,

[00:08:33] but always something really deep inside of me of wanting deeply, desperately even to be able to make

[00:08:40] progress as a human being. That's always been a driving force for me. So to your question about

[00:08:44] Carlos Slim, yeah, I became an investment banker. But then I was disrupted in that my boss was fired.

[00:08:50] I'd had my first child, they would have fired my, actually, my boss is fired. They would have fired

[00:08:58] me. But because I was pregnant, which was a good insurance policy, and I had good performance

[00:09:03] reviews, they couldn't fire me. They just disrupted me and moved me into equity research. But that turned

[00:09:09] out to be a career maker for me. I was a really good stock picker. I was okay at building financial

[00:09:14] models, but a great stock picker, I could spot momentum. And that's when I had that opportunity of

[00:09:20] becoming not ranked in one category, but two categories as a the number one media analyst

[00:09:27] for all of Latin America, and the number two telecom analyst for all Latin America. And that's

[00:09:32] when I got to meet Carlos Slim. And one of my favorite memories was when I took a group of investors,

[00:09:38] and he took us in his private library and shared with us his favorite books. It was a really,

[00:09:43] like, special moment for me.

[00:09:47] I have a question. Because first off, an observation, not many people that we have on this podcast

[00:09:53] actually give props to their partner as part of their success. So first, that's quite significant.

[00:10:03] But then the other thing is, you self-confessed Mormon girl, devout, I can see you in the big city,

[00:10:11] and you didn't quite connect at first. What was it that your boss saw in you?

[00:10:16] Yeah, two things actually, Roy Field. First of all, on my husband, partner, people have sometimes

[00:10:23] asked me when the shift became possible. And I absolutely 100%. It was because of his

[00:10:33] anchoring influence for me that made it possible for me to do this. So I cannot give him enough

[00:10:38] credit. So thank you, Roger. That's his name. My boss, what did he see in me? I think there were

[00:10:43] two things. And I think this sometimes happens. He had a need, right? He had something that needed

[00:10:48] to be done. And sometimes we just get lucky. But I was hungry. I was really hungry, very determined,

[00:10:57] very willing to work hard. And so I think the combination of those two things is what caused

[00:11:03] him to give me a shot. But you must have been working phenomenally hard because I thought Wall

[00:11:09] Street, traders, bankers all did 90-hour weeks anyway. So in terms of working hard, you must have pushed

[00:11:16] things to another level. Yeah, it's funny because I have had times and even now still, I probably work

[00:11:24] depending on the week, 70 to 80 hours a week. But yeah, I was willing to work 80 or 90 hours a week.

[00:11:29] Like I wanted it. I think sometimes it's hard as a female, especially at that time to admit how

[00:11:34] ambitious I was. But I really was ambitious. And again, reading up about you, your faith is really

[00:11:42] important. And again, you've said that. How difficult was that to step into this world and to be as

[00:11:50] ambitious as you were when many women that share your faith? Yeah. It's somewhat of an anathema to do

[00:11:57] what you've done in the industry which you've done. Yeah. It's a great question, Roy Feld. What I would say

[00:12:05] is that there was a lot of soul searching that I needed to do at that time, which was, okay, I've got

[00:12:12] this cultural context. But then you separate out the cultural context and you say, okay, but what's

[00:12:19] my relationship with God? What does God feel about me? What does he want me to do? And I will confess

[00:12:25] that there were a number of times when I saw women around me who were making the choice to get married

[00:12:32] and have children right away. I was a little bit judgmental in truth because I wasn't secure with

[00:12:37] my own decision. But there was a process that I needed to go through over the course of a number

[00:12:43] of years because I didn't have children immediately. We waited for 10 years with my husband and just in my

[00:12:51] conversation with the man upstairs with God is getting to the point of feeling like, no, this is

[00:12:57] what I need to be doing. This is, he's good. I'm good with God. I feel like I am moving down the path

[00:13:04] that makes sense for me and I feel confident in the decisions that I'm making. But it required a number

[00:13:11] of years for me to get to that point where I could say, no, this is my path. This is your path. I will not

[00:13:17] judge you and I will ask you not to judge me.

[00:13:21] But you're going to meet somebody who's going to be pretty pivotal in your future.

[00:13:25] Yes.

[00:13:26] At church, aren't you?

[00:13:27] Yes, I am. A man that I met at church, I won't tell you his name yet. So I'm, this is now,

[00:13:34] I'm now, I've now been an equity analyst for about four or five years and I go to church and I hear

[00:13:41] this man speak and I am just wowed. Just, he's six foot eight inches. He's a professor at Harvard.

[00:13:50] He's delivering this lecture about how God is not an accountant. I start hearing him,

[00:13:56] I start wondering who is this man? His name is Clayton Christensen. He wrote a book called

[00:14:01] The Innovator's Dilemma. He then went on to write a book called How Would You Measure Your Life? And I was

[00:14:06] absolutely just gobsmacked by, he was just so impressive. And so I started reading everything

[00:14:14] that he had written and wanted to get my hands on. And I suddenly have this experience of, as I'm

[00:14:20] covering telecom in Latin America, every single quarter, America Mobile, which is the largest telecom

[00:14:28] provider in or cellular provider in Latin America, they were beating my numbers every single quarter.

[00:14:33] And I'm like, what is going on? And I realized they're disrupting wireline because I've now read

[00:14:39] Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma. And so that, and I told everybody who would listen about

[00:14:46] this, but the thing that started to be pivotal for me personally is as I read his work, I now have

[00:14:52] this explanatory mechanism from an equity analyst perspective, but I had gone into one of my managers

[00:14:58] and said, I think I want to do more. I'm institutional investor ranked. I want another opportunity,

[00:15:03] maybe go into management, maybe cover another sector in the United States, et cetera. And they basically

[00:15:08] said to me, we like you right where you are. And you don't say, we like you right where you are to

[00:15:15] Whitney. That sounds like a dirty dancing. You don't say that to baby. Anyway, I've now read the

[00:15:21] Innovator's Dilemma and I've had this kernel of an idea that disruption isn't just about products and

[00:15:26] services and companies and countries. It's actually about people. And I have this almost

[00:15:31] inchoate sense that if I'm going to do what I feel like I'm meant to do in my life, whatever that is,

[00:15:37] because we don't know for sure, I'm going to need to disrupt myself. I'm going to need to leave

[00:15:43] Wall Street and become an entrepreneur. And as you said, and I eventually went on to co-found a fund

[00:15:50] with him and his son, Matt Christensen. But outside of my family, it is a very safe,

[00:15:57] it's very safe to say he is the most influential figure in my life.

[00:16:02] So there was no fear, no trepidation as you decided to disrupt yourself and to rip away this

[00:16:10] relative security blanket.

[00:16:12] What's interesting that you asked that, Roy Field, there wasn't. And I think that there's a little

[00:16:17] bit of almost rebellion going on inside of me, which is interesting because I'm not a rebellious

[00:16:21] person by nature. But I think there was also hubris. There was a little bit of hubris of,

[00:16:25] of course, I'm going to be fine. Of course, I can do this. And in retrospect, maybe that's a good

[00:16:30] thing because I don't know that I would have done it if I hadn't had a little bit of that.

[00:16:33] Now when people want to do something new and disrupt themselves, I'm like, hold on just a second.

[00:16:38] Let's plan this out a little bit. But yeah, I just was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to

[00:16:42] become an entrepreneur. I'll figure it out. We did have a couple of rough years as a consequence.

[00:16:46] But again, I don't know if I would have done it if I had thought through all the implications of

[00:16:51] the decision I was making.

[00:16:52] And Greg's going to take over in a minute here, but I find it really fascinating that someone who's

[00:16:59] built their career around disruption says they're not a rebellious person. To me, these are somewhat

[00:17:07] synonymous, but I have somewhat of a lizard brain here. So explain to me if you're going to

[00:17:12] disrupt yourself, teach people how to disrupt industries, change fundamentally, not just change,

[00:17:19] evolution, disrupt. How you can do that and fundamentally not be rebellious?

[00:17:25] That's a great question. I think when I said that rebellious streak, we talk about one of the

[00:17:30] accelerants in our framework is taking the right risk of taking market risk. I think there's sometimes

[00:17:35] reckless risk and there's thoughtful, deliberate risk. And you're rebellious in that sense that when

[00:17:41] you do that, but it's that willingness to say, I'm going to take this risk. And yes, I'm bucking

[00:17:47] against the system or tradition or convention or whatever that is, but I'm also being thoughtful

[00:17:54] about it and aware of the cost and the benefit that is in place. And again, I think maybe sometimes

[00:18:02] it's good that we don't do that because we might not do it, but that's what I meant by rebellious.

[00:18:07] So Whitney, then the sort of third act was, and it does strike me that in your first act,

[00:18:15] and we're not going to bring Chekhov's rule about the gun on the table or anything, but the...

[00:18:20] You could.

[00:18:23] Yeah, but then somebody needs to get shot in the third act.

[00:18:26] Yeah, okay, we're not doing that. Okay, let's not.

[00:18:29] In the first act, you were very much tied to an institution. And in the second act,

[00:18:36] you were very much tied to Clayton Christensen, which is not a bad thing to be tied to.

[00:18:42] Correct.

[00:18:43] But the third act, it seems to me, has really been all Whitney's. Can you tell us about that? Because

[00:18:48] you've become your own industry. And what I think is really interesting about the third

[00:18:54] All Whitney Act is that All Whitney Act has been very much focused on empowering others.

[00:19:03] So could you tell us about that transition?

[00:19:06] I feel, I actually feel moved when you described it that way, because what that articulates,

[00:19:11] it's that in some respects, a hero's journey for not just for me, but all of our journey that we

[00:19:18] go on as human beings is, how do we come into our own power? How do we come into who we are as

[00:19:26] individuals of being able to do what it is that we were meant to do in the world? And so that's really

[00:19:31] beautiful, as I hear you say that. What I would say, Greg, is that if I go back, and I think of back

[00:19:39] on Wall Street, there was something that was starting to happen in my brain that I was more interested in

[00:19:46] the momentum of people than of stocks. I remember we were doing this training. And I found myself

[00:19:52] reading Tom Peters, A Brand Called You, and what's your brand as a stock analyst? There was something

[00:19:57] bubbling up inside of me. And then I'm working with Clayton and write an article in Harvard Business

[00:20:02] Review called Disrupt Yourself. And again, I'm taking this management theory.

[00:20:06] I remember that article.

[00:20:07] Yeah, 2012. So I'm going from stocks to people. I'm taking management theory, applying it to people.

[00:20:14] So there was something that was very important to me to be able to take these ideas and say,

[00:20:21] the fundamental unit in your organization, it's the individual. So how does the individual grow?

[00:20:26] How does the individual change? And so I'd written that article, Disrupt Yourself.

[00:20:31] And so in 2012, after that, I had written my first book, Dare, Dream, Do, which if you think about it,

[00:20:37] is very autobiographical. There's stories of 50 other people, but it's really me saying,

[00:20:42] I'm trying to find my voice here. What does that sound like? And I did a TED Talk, which was terrible,

[00:20:51] but it was the first time I'd spoken, 2011. And just the sense of probably watching Clay and the

[00:20:58] influence that he was able to have in the world as a thought leader, I wanted to be able to do that.

[00:21:04] I wanted to be able to help other people do what I was struggling so desperately to do for myself,

[00:21:10] which is to find my own voice and to help other people find theirs and to do good in the world.

[00:21:16] Something that I think a lot about Clay, yes, I learned disruption theory from him, but something that

[00:21:22] was so powerful for me is he did not separate the secular from the spiritual. He approached

[00:21:28] life holistically. He brought his faith to work and he brought his work to his faith. And I wanted to

[00:21:35] be able to do that same thing. But again, it's always, if you ask me like, why do I do the work

[00:21:39] that I do? It's because I want people to be able to make progress. I want people to be able to

[00:21:45] become who they are.

[00:21:47] And can you tell us a little bit about the work you're doing now?

[00:21:50] Yeah, for sure.

[00:21:53] Yeah. So the company I have now is called Disruption Advisors and I actually have a

[00:21:57] co-founder. So speaking of other pivotal people, so her name is Amy Humble. We partnered about three,

[00:22:04] we started partnering about six or seven years ago, but she had worked with Jim Collins as his chief of

[00:22:09] staff. So good to great. So very fun to take good to great disruption, put those together.

[00:22:13] But at its simplest, what we do today is we will go into an organization that says, I want to achieve

[00:22:21] some specific business outcomes, whatever they are. I want to grow revenue. I want to grow profitability.

[00:22:26] And we will go in, we assess their growth readiness through our S-curve Insight tool. And then through

[00:22:33] whether it's coaching at the executive level or workshops, we will create conditions. So not unlike

[00:22:40] what you do, Greg, create conditions where change becomes possible. Not only because people feel

[00:22:46] inspired to want to do something differently, but also because they have the tools to disrupt

[00:22:51] themselves. Because if they can disrupt themselves individually, their mindsets, then their teams,

[00:22:57] because of the contagion effect, can disrupt themselves. And if you've got teams who are

[00:23:02] thinking disruptively, then your organization is now equipped to effect disruption vis-a-vis an industry.

[00:23:08] So that's the work that we do. I want to thank you for bringing it back to my favorite subject,

[00:23:14] which is, of course, me. Of course.

[00:23:19] But I also want to talk to you about there's been a bit of a backlash. And I think the backlash is

[00:23:26] growing towards this disruption mindset and this idea that everything needs to be disrupted. And when we

[00:23:32] work with organizations on change, one of the first things we tell them is don't make a lot of noise.

[00:23:40] The point about an S-curve is it starts off slowly. And we know from decades of research that the

[00:23:47] tipping point for change is about 10 to 20 percent participation.

[00:23:52] You and so to get there, that's your goal is to get there. You don't need to bring in everybody at

[00:24:01] once. And listening to you and knowing you, it it's more even more clear having this conversation

[00:24:11] that the prerequisite for disrupting yourself is creating a sense of safety, which is what

[00:24:19] you clearly learned to do for yourself. And that first your husband helped you do it and create

[00:24:27] that sense of safety. But if you're in, you mentioned that's what Clayton Christensen believed

[00:24:34] as well. A lot of people blame this kind of disruption, this cult of disruption on Clayton,

[00:24:43] but it wasn't his fault. Most people who talk about disruption never read his book and are completely

[00:24:51] familiar with his work. But this idea, almost like a yin and a yang, that you need disruption,

[00:24:58] to have disruption, you need safety. And it's what I've learned from my work is how important it is

[00:25:04] to build safety into that change conversation. Amy Edmondson is essential for Clayton Christensen,

[00:25:14] right? Yeah, I love that. But and that really seems to me what you do for your clients, just knowing you.

[00:25:24] And as as Roy Field was talking about is you not being a risk taker, but being disruption. And it seems

[00:25:33] to me that you really embody that disruption through building a sense of safety. And that those two

[00:25:41] things can't be not only do they go together, they can't really be separated. Thank you. That's

[00:25:48] beautiful. Thank you for the compliment. So maybe you could talk a little bit about how you do that

[00:25:55] for others? Yeah. So are you saying like individuality or like with a team, like what

[00:26:02] that might look like? What's your- Yeah, yeah. So when you go into an organization- Yeah.

[00:26:06] Because now your change is really helping others. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So let me think about,

[00:26:13] so here's a great example. We do a lot of work. One of our large clients is a company,

[00:26:18] it's a consumer products company, they make ketchup. So maybe you could guess who they are.

[00:26:23] And so one of the things that we'll do is if you've got, we did this just recently is coaching one of

[00:26:30] the senior executives or on the executive team. But then that senior executive is standing up a brand

[00:26:36] new team. And when you stand up a new team, people are feeling really unsure of themselves, right? How am I,

[00:26:43] I'm in a new role. What's that going to look like? Am I going to be able to be successful? And I'm

[00:26:47] working with all new people. Am I going to be able to succeed in working with them? And so what we

[00:26:55] will then do through a combination of coaching, through a combination of offsites, through giving

[00:27:00] people, providing people with the S curve, which we haven't talked about, but talking about the S

[00:27:05] curve, we've got Everett Rogers and he introduced this as the adoption curve that you just described

[00:27:10] of understanding how groups change. But we had, or I should say, I had this big insider aha that we

[00:27:17] could use this to understand how individuals change. So we'll give people this container a way of saying,

[00:27:23] you're about to do something new individually and collectively. You're on an S curve. And this S curve

[00:27:30] can help you understand what growth looks like, and importantly, what it feels. So right now,

[00:27:36] you're all at the launch point of the curve. And that launch point is uncomfortable and it's awkward

[00:27:42] and it is, you're going to be impatient and you're going to feel like an imposter.

[00:27:47] Mathematically, growth is happening very, very quickly, but it is not apparent. So it feels slow

[00:27:52] and it feels like a slog. But now that you know this, now that you know that this is exactly what

[00:27:57] it is supposed to look like, you've normalized it. And people are like, oh, okay, got it.

[00:28:03] And then we're able to talk them through. But you'll know that you've moved into the sweet spot

[00:28:08] because it's going to start feeling more comfortable and you're going to feel exhilarated. And yes,

[00:28:12] I'm supposed to be in this role. Yes, I'm supposed to be on this team. And that's going to feel really

[00:28:16] good. Growth is going to feel fast. It is fast. And then you're going to get to mastery. And that

[00:28:23] mastery place, that top of that curve is now you're going to be like, great, I did it. And you're

[00:28:28] going to celebrate and you're going to be happy and you're going to feel like you did what you came to do.

[00:28:32] But your brain now needs some more dopamine because it's not learning anymore.

[00:28:38] So you've got this dilemma because part of you wants to stay here, master while you survey.

[00:28:44] But the other part of you knows that learning is the oxygen of human growth. So you've got to find a

[00:28:49] way you're going to have to disrupt yourself so that you can either move back into the sweet spot of

[00:28:54] the curve or jump to a new curve so that you can continue to grow. And you can then use this S curve

[00:29:01] as a way for every individual on the team to make meaning of the experience that they're having.

[00:29:05] You can use it for the team to collectively make meaning of the experience that they're having as a

[00:29:11] team and with any project. And so by giving people a way to map out the experience that they're having

[00:29:19] functionally and more importantly, emotionally, that becomes that force that makes it feel like,

[00:29:26] okay, I can do this. I now understand the emotions that I'm having. And so I'm going to be able to

[00:29:32] manage this and I'm going to be able to manage it individually, collectively. So you can use it on

[00:29:36] a project with a team in an organization.

[00:29:39] So I love that. But what I think is, we keep coming back to as this sort of yin and yang

[00:29:47] of safety and disruption. And when looking back on your incredible journey, that I think is a theme.

[00:29:59] And Greg, and then maybe you'll have some idea of what my next book is about.

[00:30:04] We'll have to have you back to talk about that. And of course, your work with Chumac,

[00:30:11] the leading ketchup manufacturer in Ukraine.

[00:30:16] Which I just assume is the company you were doing.

[00:30:19] Of course it is. A future client, right? I love that. You'll have to introduce this to them.

[00:30:25] We'll have to have you back. Thanks so much for coming on. I feel like I've gotten to know a new Whitney.

[00:30:34] After all these years.

[00:30:36] Interesting. Okay. Thank you for having me and reconnecting.

[00:30:41] And Royfield, very nice to meet you for the first time.

[00:30:45] There we go. We're all good.

[00:30:47] That didn't hurt too bad, I hope.

[00:30:49] That was truly enjoyable. Thank you to both of you.

[00:30:59] Whitney is so inspiring.

[00:31:01] Absolutely.

[00:31:03] Absolutely. And for me, one of the things that she really emphasized, it isn't just being professional and being able to think creatively, laterally, etc.

[00:31:16] But also the strength of home and how that gives you the stability actually then to maybe forge a new path for yourself actually at work.

[00:31:27] And I think it's something which a female business leader is probably a little bit more conscious of than a male one.

[00:31:34] A male one just takes it as a given type of thing.

[00:31:37] But the support that she had at home was really vital in her success at work.

[00:31:43] And not just at home.

[00:31:44] I think all too often people who seek to lead change, they're trying to create a sense of urgency around it.

[00:31:51] They're talking about disruption, where what you really need is to create a sense of safety around change conversation.

[00:32:01] Because unless people feel safe in the change, they're not going to accept disruption.

[00:32:09] People don't want to be disrupted.

[00:32:11] So I think you need both of those things together, safety and disruption.

[00:32:18] And another thing that really impressed me is that change is really a team sport.

[00:32:27] It was through her relationships with her first boss, with Clayton Christensen, with her husband, with her present partner.

[00:32:38] And it's one of the most underrated aspects of strong change makers.

[00:32:45] People look at someone like Steve Jobs, who are these charismatic personalities.

[00:32:52] And they think that being an innovator or being a change maker is about running around and breaking all the furniture.

[00:33:00] But really, it's about building those relationships that enrich you and that you can enrich.

[00:33:08] Even Steve Jobs had a strong, loyal team around him for years.

[00:33:15] And you can really see that through Whitney's journey and her success.

[00:33:20] The relationships she built along the way was such a key part of that.

[00:33:26] Yeah, and you really crystallized for me with the way that you summed this up is the kind of three levels of support that we all need.

[00:33:36] So your Steve Jobs is going to be inspirational.

[00:33:38] And Clayton Christensen for her is inspirational.

[00:33:42] He's like a guiding light.

[00:33:43] And there's somebody who has given you the will to strive.

[00:33:48] And then you need a mentor as well.

[00:33:51] Somebody who can actually help shepherd you through that, give you that advice when you go to the various different steps.

[00:33:58] And then there's the emotional support, which is her husband.

[00:34:01] So to the point he made before, that she felt safe enough to take risks because she wasn't worrying about things at home or etc.

[00:34:11] So those three levels of supporting are really important.

[00:34:16] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:34:17] And that's why so much of change is about networks, which I write about in my book.

[00:34:22] And the way you build a network is maintain the ties you have, but keep connecting out.

[00:34:33] Thanks for tuning in to Changemaker Mindset.

[00:34:35] If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and follow us on social media to stay updated on all the latest episodes.

[00:34:45] Your support helps us bring more insightful conversations to the table.

[00:34:49] And don't miss out on our next episode, where we'll be chatting with Enyina Okere, the Chief Operations Officer in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

[00:34:58] He has a deep commitment to fostering community safety through collaboration and empathetic leadership.

[00:35:04] Born in Nigeria, he immigrated to Canada, where his experiences shaped his understanding of public service and community investment.

[00:35:12] Since its inception in 2019, the EPS Community Safety and Wellbeing Bureau was the first in Canada structured to work with community partners to divert appropriate people away from the criminal justice system.

[00:35:26] Until then, keep making change happen.