Whitney Johnson: applying the principles of disruptive entrepreneurship to talent management

Abstract

Purpose

Whitney Johnson is interviewed about her latest book, Build an A Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve (Harvard Business Review Press, 2018), which extends her disruptive innovation perspective on career development into a talent management strategy for corporate leaders and their organizations. 10; 10;

Design/methodology/approach

In today’s exciting and volatile competitive context, leaders need to see that the skillful and entrepreneurial management of their talent will be at least as important to their organization’s future success as the skillful and entrepreneurial management of their financial resources.

Findings

Eager, capable employees, tackling new challenges are drivers of innovation within organizations, and the primary benefit of an S Curve talent management strategy is elevated employee engagement.

Practical implications

In terms of personal disruption, choosing market risk means being more entrepreneurial with your own career development and seeking out a distinctive learning curve.

Originality/value

Leaders will need to foster work environments that provide learning opportunities, stretch assignments, new challenging roles internally—not necessarily promotions, but also well-conceived lateral moves that can help to give employees the enhanced skillset to ultimately move ahead.

Citation

Leavy, B. (2020), "Whitney Johnson: applying the principles of disruptive entrepreneurship to talent management", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 46 No. 5, pp. 2-9. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-05-2018-0056