In conversation with Whitney Johnson, CEO of Disruption Advisors and Wall Street Journal best selling author of Smart Growth, talking about finding our voice and authenticity, understanding and developing our personal growth and nurturing the growth of those around us. In this episode, Whitney and Matt take a deep dive into the S-Curve of Learning – discussing exploration, the sweet spot and the coveted mastery.

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Please note that this transcript is auto-generated from the audio file through Rev - Humans Working Side By Side With The Best Speech-to-Text AI. We believe this to be a good representation of the conversation, but it isn’t checked word-for-word and therefore isn’t 100% accurate.

Matt:

Whitney. Thanks so much for joining zebra talk today. It's an absolute pleasure to have you here and really looking forward to talking about your experience and the new book Smart Growth.

Whitney (00:08):

Thank you for having me, Matt.

Matt (00:10):

So we were introduced by Donna Hicks and listeners of Zebra Talk will remember that I did a fascinating podcast with Donna talking about conflict, and her transference of experience from the conflict resolution domain into helping organizations work on their culture and what could be learned from one domain and transferred to another. And that was absolutely great. So she was a lovely guest, but absolutely delighted that she also introduced me to you. I saw parallels when I read some of your work. In particular, the last book I saw parallels because I think that growth, which is the topic we're going to talk about today, is the topic of your latest book. Growth is very much seen I think, as a fast-paced thing, sometimes an aggressive thing that's about winning and succeeding, what can be achieved at all costs? How hard can I push? But in Donna's work and also in your book, I got this sense that it didn't have to be like that, that there was a kind of gentleness to the themes that you were talking about, that there was patience and reflection and gratitude in there as well as desire to better and improve. And I just wondered how those things connected and how you and Donna connected.

Whitney:

So Donna and I first connected actually when her last book came out about leading organizations with dignity, I think it was called Leading with Dignity and I was introduced to her and invited her to come on the podcast. And I was just really taken by her and by her work and this notion of treating people with dignity, which we certainly need in the world right now, and just every single person is born with that dignity and how do we make sure that we're respecting it in other people as well as in ourselves. And so her work just really felt very important to me and put some words on feelings that I had that I didn't quite know how to describe - ineffable if, and, and perhaps that happened to you as well.

Matt (01:58):

I like your reference to finding words. Because I think trying to find the language to communicate how you feel about something and trying to put some concepts around things that are very intuitive is difficult and not always encouraged in the business world. And I think Donna's been very brave talking about dignity, because that's a word that can polarize people and certainly make people feel uncomfortable, but actually bringing that into mainstream business language and conversation about culture, I think was a really progressive step. And yeah, I recognize some of that, as I said, in some of the work that you've done and I hope we'll talk later about ecosystems, but you have this great story about the co-founder of Pixar and you talk about how trust fuels reciprocity. And I think it's those kinds of sentiments that are the heart of Donna's work. And, and I saw at the heart of your work.

Whitney (02:45):

So Matt, I, I just wanna say thank you for that. You saw something there that I think was my intent, but again, to this idea of putting words into thoughts that aren't quite fully formed, this notion of growth is something that is very organic and something I believe that growth is our default setting and how sometimes we're afraid to grow, but also sometimes we're impatient to grow and the importance of being willing to be in the miasma – that messiness when you first start - the muck – as I describe Lilies in a Lilly pond to be in that place and allow ourselves to have that time to figure out: is this where I want to grow? Is this how I want to grow and make those decisions? So I love that you use the word gentle. That makes me very happy because that is an intent that I have in all of my work

Matt (03:39):

Gentle leadership. What more could we be looking for before we plough into our main conversation? And I think you pick a up a really interesting theme there, which is we’re often encouraged to measure things all the time and that sense of whether we're making progress and growth which is an inherently progress-related thing, is driven by what we can measure. And, you know, I think there are a bunch of things that are really in important to leadership right now in organizations, in countries, in families, in, in, in churches, whatever it may be that are not really easily measured, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't crack on and keep trying to progress. My interest, and much of the audience for Zebra Talk are interested in leadership in the broadest sense. And that's not to mean everyone's a structural leader or an organizational leader, but they're trying to lead, quite often, complicated transitions in businesses and in the communities in which they operate around topics that are contemporary, but not always popular.

I mean, it's about responsible business. It's about making progressive change - often against the mainstream of business understanding and the mainstream understanding of what success is in business. These are people that are struggling with how to make a change and how to influence things. Now, you are an award-winning author. You are a world class keynote speaker. You've been called one of the leading business thinkers in the world. You've got millions of LinkedIn followers. You know, clearly you are an influential person and your own podcast has had guests like Stephen Covey and Brene brown. So you know you are in there and amongst it, and I'm really interested in your backstory and how you got to a place where you decided that you wanted to be a leader, to be influential through your work and telling those kinds of stories.

Whitney (05:18):

I have two thoughts that come to mind - first is that Carl Yin once said that the greatest influence on a child is the unlived life of their parent and my mother, and perhaps many women of her generation, was basically, or she is a contemporary of RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) - she had a lot of unlived life. And she very much wanted to be an author and a writer. And I didn't realize that I had picked up on that until I decided that I wanted to write my first book. And so there was some sense of having something to say, but also wanting to be heard. And I think that that was playing in my psyche somewhere from a very young age. Fast forward many years - my career - I studied music in college and didn't really wanna become a musician. I think that I had studied it and I was good at it, but it didn't feel like my calling. I graduated from college, went to New York with my husband.

I was working on wall street, started out as a secretary. And I remember then I became an investment banker and an Equity Analyst. And that was the first time, being an Equity Analyst, that I started really thinking about voice. Because as an Analyst, you have to build a financial model and make an investment decision. And then say ‘I think this is a buy’ or ‘I think is a sell’ or ‘I think this is a hold’, which isn't really a recommendation. And I remember having someone say to me at one point when I wasn't willing to make a recommendation: ‘You're being a shrinking violet’. And that was this call to me of ‘Whitney, you need to have a voice! You need to have an opinion.’ The only safe harbor is when you do have an opinion - when you say what you think. And so that was this awakening, if you will, to my own voice.

And this is in my thirties, I mean, I'm not in my teens, I'm not in my twenties. I'm in my thirties that this is happening. Fast forward again, and I discover the work of Clayton Christiansen and I'm working still on Wall Street. I'm an Equity Analyst. I have become very good at building these models and making stock picks and buy or sells and stocks move. And so I'm feeling the sense or the power of my voice, but then I work with Clayton. I discover disruptive innovation. I'm working with him on the investment side, but as I'm watching him, he was one of the most preeminent thought leaders or management thinkers of our century. And watching him talk about his ideas and how an idea could cause people to do something differently that his ideas could inspire people to want to change. And so it was in the watching of him and working with him very closely for the better part of a decade.

And then having these ideas around disruption. I think it applies to people, not just companies, that voice that I wanted to have be there started to come forward. And then at the same time to your question about influences, seeing the good that he could do, that he was able to do in his life and thinking ‘I want to be able to do that too’. I want to be able to say things that allow people to make progress that allow people to live a more fulfilled life, to have a happier life. This is all over the course of, you know, 10, 15 years that this is happening, but that's what was burgeoning or bubbling up inside of me. But it did start, I think with my mom is idea of the unlived life and wanting to, to live a life.

Matt (08:44):

You've got me reflecting on a whole bunch of subliminal things I suspect that are in there about unlived life. So that's, that's a really fascinating insight. And that idea of finding a voice I think is also interesting. And whether it's society, whether it's education, we're in a position where people are capable of articulating different positions, often the same person capable of articulating completely contradictory positions, but to actually have our own voice, to have our own security or the confidence to really know what our own opinion is, is something that I see a lot of people struggle with - maybe growth, you know - personal growth, individual growth - is built on that platform of knowing what your voice is.

Whitney (09:22):

I think that's so powerful. And I think to anybody who's listening who wants to write, who wants to have this voice, I remember Matt when I first started writing - not equity research - but my own voice, I had someone say to me ‘You'll know that you are starting to say something when someone who doesn't know you responds to what you say’. But I do remember very clearly writing. And it was like I didn't know who I was. I didn't have a voice. It was just me saying what other people were saying. Or there, there is a whole process to it. And I think that's why it's so powerful. Why so many people want to write books. Why so many people want to do podcasts - because there's some element of ‘we want to be seen’. But I think it's something much deeper, much more urgent, which is we want to find out what we have to say - who we are.

Matt (10:10):

Yeah. And that helps us make choices. And as you say in the book: ‘choose your tide’. And think about the choices – perhaps we'll talk about that later. A great point at which to ask you to tell us a little bit more about Smart Growth - your latest book and, in particular, the S curve model that underpins it and how that might be relevant to people who are thinking about personal growth and growing in a way that can influence in a positive and responsible way.

Whitney (10:31):

Yeah. Some of your listeners are going to be familiar with the S-Curve itself - It's been around for decades. It was popularized by Everett Rogers back in the sixties. And he was using it to figure out how quickly an idea would be adopted. He was looking at a hybrid corn. We used it at the Disruptive Innovation Fund to look at how quickly an innovation would be adopted. At the base of the S you've got growth, which is slow. Then you hit a tipping point, which Malcolm Gladwell popularized, and that's the knee of the curve and you go into hypergrowth and then it’s saturation and the growth tapers off. Well, we were using the S-Curve in our investing with Clayton to look at innovations and to try to time the market. And does it make sense to buy this stock? Or should we short this stock?

I had inside this ‘A-ha!’ that we could use the S-Curve to help us think about not how groups change, but how individuals change over time. That whenever you start something new, you're at the launch point of that curve and, and growth is happening, but it's going to feel slow. It's the messy part that we talked about a minute ago, but then you're gonna, as you put in the effort, if you decide that you wanna stay on this particular S curve, ‘cause you may not. But if you do and you stay with it, you're gonna move into that steep, sleek and back part of the S-Curve where growth not only is fast, it feels fast. And this is the exciting part of the curve. And then you're gonna hit this place of mastery, where you have figured things out, you have this sense of ‘I've done what I came to do on this particular curve’.

And so growth is going to slow. So you've got this slow and then fast and slow as a way to trace the emotional arc of your growth. And the reason this was so compelling for me is that it's so simple and it's so visual that it allows you and I - we can talk about it for five minutes and then we can start to have a conversation about… ‘well, where are you in your growth, Matt? And where am I in my growth? And, and where do I want to be? And where are we as a team? And where are we as an organization? And one of the things that I find is happening quite frequently is that when people are about to do a big change initiative, they say ‘Whitney, can you come in and let's talk about this. Can you context set for us? Because if we understand the S-Curve, then when we do that launch point messy thing that we're talking about, it won't feel quite so scary, ‘cause we'll just say ‘oh yeah, this is normal. I'm supposed to feel uncomfortable and awkward. And I'm unsure ‘cause I'm at the launch point of the curve’’.

Matt (12:48):

The, the early stage messy point is my favorite point on the S-Curve. And maybe that's because I've never achieved mastery, but it's a fantastic space. I mean in my professional life I work with lots of early stage venture-backed companies who are, you know, inherently testing, failing, changing - that's a wonderfully creative place to be - but it's just an incredibly important place to be because I think to scale, if that's the right word, the rest of the S-Curve you have to have that exploration at the beginning, you have to really know that you're committed, or at least have a pretty serious hunch rather than a few ideas. Keen to talk, perhaps a little bit more, about what you call the exploring phase of the S-Curve and in particular, what we talk about in The Zebra Project, which is actually, how can we be authentic and responsible and tackle some of the world's toughest challenges from social inequality through to climate change?

One of the things that's really important is that you've got that genuine commitment to the cause that you are trying to further or influence or show leadership around. I was struck when I read what you'd written about the explorer phase - you talked about the importance of making sure that what you were exploring reflected your identity and reflected your values. And you talked about the why, and you talked about the why in a personal context rather than an organizational context. And I think that's powerful. So I'm interested really on your thoughts around that area, you, how can we explore around identity and value and why, or do we explore things that already align with our identity, value and why?

Whitney (14:17):

All right, well let's start with identity. I think that whenever we do start something new, there's always going to be some shift in our identity. Sometimes it might be subtle. Sometimes it might be massive. I think the question we have to ask ourselves is as we're doing something new, is it consistent with my current identity? ‘Cause if it is then the cost of doing it, the emotional and perhaps financial cost of doing it will be lower. And if it isn't is that because of who I aspire to be? And am I willing to incur that cost? An easy example of that is if you decide that you want to change religions and your family has been Jewish for centuries and you decide that you want to become Catholic, there's going to be a cost to that because this is your entire family's tradition moving from one religion to another.

Now you may decide that this is what you want to do because it's what you believe but you need to also understand that the cost that you're going incur to do that is going to be very high. And are you willing to incur that cost? And so that's the identity piece I think with, with startups maybe it's, you know, do I wanna go from working for a company to becoming an entrepreneur? And what does that mean from an identity standpoint?

So that's the first piece. The second thing is to your question around the why. Our why’s can peel back and refine over time. And so we may not know exactly what our why is or our why when we're 70 might be a very refined version of what it is when we're 20, but at any given time, there needs to be a sense of ‘why am I doing this?’

So if we go to the S-Curve and think of it as a mountain or scaling a startup, you are at the base of that mountain. And there are gonna be days where it is really, really, really hard. And if you're just doing this, cuz you think ‘Oh, this is gonna be fun!’ That's not gonna sustain you. You're gonna have to have a reason of ‘I am doing this because this is why I am here. I am meant to climb this mountain’. If we have that, that is going to give us the conviction and the resolve that we're going to need in order to persist when things are, are very, very difficult. So that's where the why piece comes in. And I think that values is, is very aligned with that as well.

Matt (16:28):

I mean, this is interesting talking about the, the religious choice angle of that. Cause it reminds me in some ways of the, as an example of, of, of how fundamental some of these concepts are in responsible business or they're just wanting to climate change. They, the reactions that people get when they're doing something that's so mainstream, but not mainstream it's societally mainstream, but from a business perspective is not mainstream. The reactions that they get are often is as fundamental, as strong as you get in the religious context. And it's, it's just interesting. You mentioned, in fact, I was talking to my, um, my mother at the weekend about the story of my grandparents and, and my grandparents. One was an Irish Protestant and one was an Irish Catholic and that was not a popular marriage at the time. There were some, some significant consequences, you know, personal and financial to, to their union. And we look back on that now and think, well surely we should be able to work through those kinds of differences. But in the context of the time, they were very significant. And I think we face similar challenges. Now I hope that we look back in 50 or 70 years’ time on some of the fundamental choices we fear making now. And it's just obvious what the right choice should be, but they're deep things.

Whitney (17:37):

They're deep things you made me think of something that I think is interesting. As you said, this idea of, of something like climate change, where it does evoke such emotional visceral response, something even more recent is the vaccine where, you know, if someone was willing, wanted to come out, you know, on either side in a very, very declarative way that was going to require conviction because regardless of where you come out, there was going to be someone who vehemently disagreed with you. So I think that's, I'm really glad that you raised that because that goes to this point of, If you're going to do something that is going to potentially be unpopular, you have to have that conviction to sustain you.

Matt (18:20):

Yeah, absolutely. Straight back to the, the why. Um, and that sense of what your own personal values are. And there's a thread that runs through, certainly through this conversation and, and much of your work, which is the ‘power of the individual’, the, the role of the individual as, as an agent of change, not just for themselves, but for the organizations that they are in. That in itself is, is innovative. It's disruptive. I think for a long time, certainly in the early part of my career, it was all about the organizational direction and how you came into line and, and how you could be a servant to the organization. And I think the fundamental shift that's happened over a relatively short period of time to a recognition to actually start with the individual is something really exciting. I think it's really exciting for all of us in business and or any other organization. Did you know that was the direction you were going down? Have you always been a champion of the individual or was that, that born of experience?

Whitney (19:11):

I think it's both because if you look back at my work, if you think about this framework or personal disruption of my, and this is, you know, 10 years now, is this sense of, if anything is going to change in our home, in our society, in our workplace, it's the fundamental unit of growth is always gonna come to the individual. It's something, I don't know if it's because of my religious upbringing. I'm not sure what, but it's, it's one of those things that I feel so deeply in my soul that we are agentic and that it starts with us. And so that's one of those things that I would pound the table on all day long every day.

Matt (19:49):

Yeah. I read a lot about servant leadership and different leadership styles and, and actually certainly as I get, as I get longer in the tooth and perhaps it's about being a parent of late teenage children as well, that, that idea that you can give someone a platform to choose their own tide, to make their own decisions, to have their own sense of values and trust that the sum of the parts will be greater than, than the whole I think is a really, really important. And, you know, I certainly see in the organizations that we engage with through the Zebra Project, and perhaps this takes us straight back to Donna's work on dignity, there's that sense of the, the integrity of the individual, the dignity of the individual and what they can contribute and, and how we can find ways to encourage and support what an individual achieves we talk about identity-led organizations a lot in my world. And when you actually drill down, what's that about - it's not about washing a purpose or an idea or a concept onto an organization it's actually (It’s) genuinely being able to be an organization that's strong enough to accommodate a whole range of individual perspectives.

And, you know, perhaps that's the, the definition of inclusivity, but it's, it's, I see that change. I see that change in business. And, and I see that the challenge that, that presents for, for leaders. – this can be part of the above quote card but rephrased to: Perhaps that’s the definition of inclusivity – I see that change in business, and I see the challenge that presents for leaders.

Whitney (20:57):

Yeah. One of the things Matt I talk about in the book is that how do you know when you're in the sweet spot of your growth? And I talk about self-determination theory, but I kind of flip it and use an ammonic for car C-A-R. So competence, autonomy, and relatedness. And I think that, um, this idea of dignity and this sense of agency, you know, that you're in this sweet spot because you do feel this expanding sense of autonomy, this expanding sense of agency. And so I think that goes back to the work that you're doing is how do you put create conditions where people can get to this place of agency as quickly as possible, they're going to make progress, but then the organization can also make progress as well.

Matt (21:39):

So there'll be lots of, lots of listeners. I'm sure who like the sound of what we're talking about. And, uh, some may or may not have read the book. I hope they do, but I, I always get faced with this question, which is, you know, I'm, I'm busy, I've got a day job. It's hard. Where do I start? You know, I, I wanna grow personally. I'm I might wanna grow for a good reason. I might wanna grow for a, a frustrated reason, whatever it might be, but I, where do I start? What would you say to those people? And second question, what would you say to the, the people who lead and run the organizations that they form part of?

Whitney (22:11):

I think a great place to start is by just visualizing this S-Curve as a model for what growth looks like. Because if you, whether you're a manager or a person who's reporting into a manager, if you understand and have this visual of, ‘okay, when I do something new, I'm gonna be at the launch point, which means I'm gonna be thrilled and I'm gonna be terrified. And so it's gonna be really uncomfortable.’ And that allows you then to say to your manager or to yourself, ‘Hey, I'm at the launch point right now.’ And now all of a sudden, you've all got permission to know that it's gonna be really messy. It doesn't that you won't eventually be good at it. It just means that you're in this place of learning, which, oh, by the way, the older we get, the more we can insulate ourselves from ever doing anything new.

So now we're giving ourselves permission to experiment. And so, and then on, on the other side, is that when people get into mastery, they can say, have conversations with each other and say things like, ‘you know? I really like working here and I really like working for you. But what I know is that from a neuroscience perspective, I'm not getting any more dopamine. And so I, that's why I can't keep doing this. And this is what the S-Curve is telling me. So I've gotta figure out a way to stretch myself to do something new so that I can continue to work with you in this organization.’ And so for people who are saying, that's nice, where do I start? I would simply start by getting out a piece of paper, drawing an S and start saying, where am I am at the launch point, the sweet spot or mastery, and think about your life as a series of S-Curves. And once you have that simple model, that's actually enough for now, because it will allow you to start to make meaning of some or experiences and to make progress faster because you have the map.

Matt (24:05):

So there's the idea that the ne there can be more than one S-Curve. So life is a series of S-Curves, and maybe there's some S-Curves in parallel, or is that too hard?

Whitney (24:13):

Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. If you think about it. So I, I wrote an article in Harvard business review about how to manage your organization as a portfolio of curves. Your life is a portfolio of curves. And so at any given time, you you're on a few curves right now, you're on a curve as a parent of teenagers, you're on a curve professionally, you're on a curve as a podcaster, and you might have a hobby or two or a religion, etcetera. Um, and so you're on multiple curves. Now, what we know from project management research, what we know from neuroscience research is that you probably can't do more than three or four very well at any given time. And so you wanna balance those curves, just like you would a stock portfolio, but that again, that gives you a way to think about, ‘all right, well, if I'm in the sweet spot on two of my curves, and I probably have capacity to be on the launch point of one, but I probably don't wanna be on the launch point of four S-Curves, like brand new parent brand new job, a new city all at the same time. Probably not a good idea’. but you can then balance out that portfolio once you think of your life as a portfolio of curves.

Matt (25:14):

Yeah. I like that. So, so knowing where you are is the key. Yeah. Which is not always easy in life, but actually being able to sit down and say, I'm here a, makes you feel better about where you are and the challenges of where you are, but B allow, ask you to think yeah. About those, those, uh, concurrent S curves and making sure that you don't overwhelm and overload yourself. Right. This is good advice. Yeah. I'll be, I'll be drawing after this. Yeah.

Whitney (25:35):

And by the way, Matt, I would argue, we talk about peak performance and sometimes people say, well, is peak performance when you're in the sweet spot. And I would say yes and no, I believe that peak performance is your ability to complete the growth cycle. So it's the ability to navigate a launch point, to move through the sweet spot effectively. And when you get into mastery to know that you need to navigate a new launch point to me that is peak performance, ‘cause it's that ability to iterate around growth and, and to make progress quickly.

Matt (26:03):

Right. That's an interesting concept. So one of the, one of the questions I I had in the back of my head ed, when I was reading the book was how does this interrelate with some of the concepts of flow in positive psychology is, is flow when you're in the sweet spot or is it a mastery or can it be anywhere?

Whitney (26:18):

Yeah, it's a great question. I think in general you would argue, and I, I would argue that it isn’t the sweet spot. And yet, as you say, if you want to think of this as a, to and zoom out, I think it's the ability. You could argue that your ability to move through all of these places is flow from a life perspective. We can get very meta very quickly.

Matt (26:38):

We've talked a lot about the individual and, and I think rightly so, ‘cause so much starts with personal responsibility and personal ambition in the book. You, you also come back to the idea of, of ecosystem and how important the ecosystem is. And I think, you know, whether that ecosystem is an innovation economy, whether it's a physical ecosystem, whether it's the organization you are in or your family, I think that that ability to understand where you are in an ecosystem and what your role is within an ecosystem is, is critical self-awareness for making progress is by my, my own experience in the book, you talk about questions like, am I contributing or, or am I taking more than I should in terms of resources from my ecosystem, I'm really interested to understand where the, that thinking came from and your experience around that. And, and whether there are lessons that you would share about how to be a good participant or not be a bad participant in ecosystems.

Whitney (27:34):

All right. So going back to this idea of the mountain, so you're moving along that mountain and um, and then the question becomes, well, what are the weather patterns? Is it some, is it snowing? Is the ecosystem conducive to my, making it up the mountain, but coming back to this idea of the fundamental unit of growth as the individual and that we're agentic and we talk about I'm, you know, the sum of the five people that I spend the most time with, but then I flip that and I say to myself, but wait a second. That means that the people around you are the sum of spending time around you. And I thought about the idea of a Keystone species. And I talk in the book about salmon and how lillies are the Keystone species in a pond. And so the notion of yes, think about your ecosystem and is it conducive to your growth, but as a manager in particular, or as a parent in particular, you are the key stone species, your children, if you want them to grow, a lot of their ability to grow is going to be dependent on what you do, what environment you create. And as a manager, the power is very asymmetric. And so the question you ask yourself is, am I helping people grow? Am I making it possible for the people around me to make progress? And so I wanted to make sure that as we were thinking about the ecosystem, we were not only looking at well, so what's in it for me, but what am I doing to contribute to the ecosystem and the growth of people around me?

Matt (29:01):

That's lovely. Yeah. There are parts of the economy where, where know, that's really ingrained. I do a lot of work in the, in the innovation economy. There are networks and ecosystems where, you know, people contribute and get in amongst the traffic and they hope that they'll win something positive from that. But if not, they'll have made a positive contribution and they'll be happy. There are other parts of the economy where people do very much focus on what can I take out? And I, and I think just that self-awareness through talking about ecosystems is, is absolutely critical.

Whitney (29:29):

Matt. I think we all have periods of our life and, and, and moments where we're, we're taking more than we're giving. And so the question is, is how do we get to the point where we're giving more than we're taking no matter what we're doing. Yeah.

Matt (29:41):

Well, I think that's, that's, that's a good thing to talk about. I mean, we're thinking business in society, you know, whether it's how we look after the communities that we're responsible for, whether it's how we look after the planet, there's, there's a debate which is doing less harm good enough. Or should we be regenerative? And how can, how can we as individuals be regenerative? How can we as organizations, you know, actually expect more of ourselves and be regenerative, not, not just reduce the damage that we do

Whitney (30:07):

And doing less harm is a good start. It's

Matt (30:09):

A, yeah, it is a good start. Right. And, and, and, and I'm a big believer in trying to reduce everything to a practice, right. So yeah, very small daily steps that look like chaos, but might add up to something, whether that's in business or culture or yeah. Life. And I, and I think so you are you're right. To pull me up on that because we should be, we should be happy with starting to reduce damage, but somewhere on the S-Curve, we should, we should be thinking about how we can put more back in without expecting anything in return.

Whitney (30:40):

I’m aware of it, because our daughter is, is vegetarian for climate reasons. You know, and I grew up eating meat. I like meat and I probably will continue to eat meat. In fact, I'm, I'm quite certain that I will. But then the question is, is how can I sort of follow her lead and find ways to do less harm? And so that, that's why I was in my mind thinking, well, what are ways that things that I can do if I may not be ready to like no meat at all? What can I do? That's gradual,

Matt (31:08):

I have those challenge. I have those questions and those, those dilemmas in, in many aspects of life, including through parenting. And I, so I, I hear you on that. And I think it comes back to this idea that choices in life aren't between right and wrong. There's a whole spectrum of outcome between right and wrong. And I, you know, we we've talked about this separately, but I, the idea that it's a polarized, if you're with me or against me that it's black or white, whatever, you know, whatever it might be. I, I think that's, that's a really dangerous thread in business and leadership as much as any other aspect of society. So our ability to cope with that ambiguity and difference of different choices along the way is, is really important. And in fact, it struck me, you were talking in the book about the fund that you've been setting up to invest in women entrepreneurs and your choice to not pursue that good option. And I thought that was really interesting. I think that was the word used, but that really, that was a really interesting way of looking at things because we, it's very popular to talk about turning your back on and it wasn't gonna work. Wasn't good. Enough was gonna fail is bad. And, and actually we can turn our back on good options. And that's, that's part of being grown up.

Whitney (32:12):

Yes, it is making choices,

Matt (32:14):

Making choices. And, um, I regularly find myself saying, uh, to people that I work with, that there is, you know, there is no right and wrong decision. Uh, there's different outcome comes. Um, and the, the biggest risk is not taking a decision. And in my experience, that's the, that's letting something else take control of a situation, but there's different outcomes. And our ability to our willingness to explore, you know, back to the S-Curve, I think our willingness to explore ambiguity, accept different outcomes and understand that that's what we're doing is a skill that we need more of in the world.

Whitney (32:46):

Yes. Agreed.

Matt (32:48):

So you are, um, promoting the smart growth book, no doubt. Working with number of organizations, um, around the principles of that. What's the, what's the next S curve for you?

Whitney (32:57):

The next S-Curve for me is that we are, uh, later this year, we have a lot of coaches that find these ideas very useful in their coaching work, either individually or with organizations. And so we are going to be launching a certification program so that people can know how to use this in their coaching practice.

Matt (33:17):

I'm, uh, I'll look with interest at that. Um, do a little bit of coaching myself and, uh, really enjoy that. And I think it's, it's always great to be able to bring in new, new thinking and, and new ideas we, as we bring our conversation to an end. Um, unfortunately I think the one thing that's stuck with me is this idea that, that growth doesn't have to be an aggressive thing, that it can be a gentle, um, and reflective thing, which is great. So thank you for that, that takeaway for me, I was wondering if there was anything that you had identified or reflected on having had the conversation and, and heard yourself talking about the things that are in the book. Is there anything that struck you as a takeaway from the conversation?

Whitney (33:56):

Yeah, so I have two takeaways. So one is what you just said is you're showing that to me, of, of holding that mirror up of that this process is of growth can be while very challenging can also be gentle so that I really appreciated that insight. The other takeaway for me is not anything that we talked about, but it was very useful in that sometimes when I interview people, I find myself only talking about their work through their lens, trying to just put on their glasses and out of respect and not bringing in my work of thinking about the S-Curve of learning and what I discovered as I was listen and thinking I wasn't being respectful. And yet, as I was listening to you, we were talking about my work in many ways through your lens. I found it very interesting and engaging for me to do that. And so the lesson that I learned from you is do the work, but don't be afraid to show up with your own lens because then you get to have a really interesting and livening conversation, which is what I feel we just had.

Matt (35:00):

That's great. I'll take that. I mean, look for me, it's Zebra Talk is about conversation. It's, it's not intended to be an interview. Um, and, uh, I certainly don't hold myself out as a, as a, as a podcast or a journalist. I just like talking to interesting people about interesting things. And I, I think what we've had is a conversation, which is, you know, been grounded in a concept and an idea in a great, great book. I love the book, but in a, but in also just a whole bunch of really interesting live issues that are as relevant in live society and business. And those are the best kind of conversations, Whitney. I really, really appreciate your time. And I hope that you become involved in, or we, we see more of you in the Ze project. I think you'd be very welcome, um, in our conversation and a broader at any time. And, um, I wish you wish you luck with, with, uh, everything you've got planned for the rest of the year.

Whitney (35:48):

Thank you very much.

Matt (35:49):

Great. Thanks.

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