Coach Me! Your Personal Board of Directors

29 The S Curve of Learning

Whitney Johnson

Whitney Johnson is the CEO of Disruption Advisors, a tech-enabled talent development company, one of the top ten business thinkers globally (Thinkers50) and the #1 Talent Coach – Marshall Goldsmith’s Leading Global Coaches. Johnson wrote the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Smart Growth (Harvard Business Press) and hosts the popular Disrupt Yourself podcast.

“Change is the only constant in life.”

Heraclitus

It is not just us, and it is not just now; Heraclitus checked in about 535 BCE and checked out about 60 years later, so change has been our fellow traveler and a defining feature of human life for a long, long time.

As a coach, I have worked with many people, especially managers and top executives, who are resistant to change, especially the inevitable changes that occur in the workforce. This is counterproductive; learning to effectively manage change – rather than being managed by it – is Job One. The most important question facing us is “How do I calibrate my organization to at least survive, and ideally thrive, in changing circumstances?”

I will call him John. He was a frustrated and worried high-level executive of a mid-sized firm. One of the top talents on his team was dissatisfied, suddenly underperforming, and the usually accurate rumor mill strongly suggested that this employee was not just casually surveying other opportunities but was deeply engaged in a serious new job search. This was not the first talented team ...