I watched this cool talk about “disrupting” yourself, in which Whitney Johnson (@johnsonwhitney) talked about her journey starting as a secretary on Wall Street to co-founder of @claychristensen's investment firm Rose Park Advisors.
The 17 minute talk is worth your time. She gives great examples from her own life, and companies, and individuals, including Eunice Kennedy Shriver who founded the Special Olympics. She summarized with the following tips:
- If the path from where you are won’t get you to where you want to be, try going where no one else wants to be. If you can’t go through the front door, go in the back door, better yet, build your own door.
- Iterate, iterate, iterate again until we get the model right.
- Embrace your constraints. They are problems to be solved, and lead to innovation.
- Be impatient. Impatient for quick wins, small wins, to let you know you are on the right track. Then, be patient for things to pan out, and confident that they will.
- Start. Start now. Disrupt yourself, your status quo.
As I listened to the talk, I was thinking about my current role in strategy, and about the concept risk. In my life, I’ve “disrupted” myself at least 3 times professionally. Most of the time, my colleagues, friends, and family said I was crazy, and I took “steps back,” but always with the confidence of stepping forward – even though I wasn’t sure where the road would lead.
What about companies – big and small, and nonprofits? Heck, our government? What about leadership – and those we celebrate as “great leaders?” Is our definition of “great” always in hindsight?
I would argue yes…and at one time all disruptive ideas were thought of as crazy within the paradigm by which they were constructed.
I would also argue that we have an individual and collective inability to predict the long term outcomes of any one or multiple decisions. Despite all the analysts, research, modeling…
Yet there are those companies, and people who change the game, and redefine what “new” success means.
Be bold – be brave. Your ideas may seem wacky to some, or lack the majority understanding on how that will change the world, make money, or increase stockholder wealth. Maybe in hindsight – you were the catalyst that changed the world.
Thanks, Whitney, for the talk.
Heather
