April 18, 2025 • 21 mins
Organizational disruption is a critical yet often overlooked aspect of leadership that can dramatically enhance innovation and growth when applied strategically. Too many companies keep the same people in the same seats for too long, creating stagnation that hurts creativity, motivation, and ultimately, market performance.
• Johnson & Johnson's military-style three-year rotation model promotes innovation and fresh thinking
• Whitney Johnson's book "Disrupt Yourself" details the S-curve of innovation and why personal disruption is essential
• Strategic disruption increases motivation, innovative thinking, and helps break through status quo mentality
• Organizations with the same leadership for extended periods often see flattened growth curves
• Top executives regularly make strategic changes to their leadership teams to maintain momentum
• Not all organizations need disruption—some currently need stability first
• Thoughtful, strategic implementation works better than chaotic reorganization
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some of you don't have a problem with this at all,
like stability is your biggestchallenge.
You just need people to stay inthe same seats in the
organization for a while, likecan we just have some stability
around here?
But others of you, you have theexact opposite problem, and the
word I want to talk to youabout today is disruption.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
You cannot be serious.
Strengthen your ability to leadin less than 30 minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Years and years ago, harvard Business School
professor Clayton Christensengained a ton of fame by writing
a book about the innovatorsdilemma, and in this book he was
taught this is really at theadvent of thecom, uh explosion
and the internet growth and allthese sorts of things when
(00:58):
traditional companies, if youwill, if there is such a thing,
um were needing to innovate andcompanies have always needed to
innovate, but the rate ofinnovation was dramatically
changing.
And so Carlton wrote this bookthat made him a household name,
at least in executive circlesaround.
(01:19):
How do you innovate inside anorganization around?
How do you, how do you innovateinside an organization?
And then he had a protege, acolleague who worked with him, a
gal by the name of WhitneyJohnson, who ended up gosh maybe
(01:40):
15 years later.
She helped work on the researchand and with Carlton at Harvard
and she ended up writing a bookabout personal innovation,
which I cannot recommend enough.
It's been out for a long timenow and Whitney is she's a
valuable voice in in the area ofpersonal disruption.
So I want to talk to you inthis episode about how some of
your organizations this thisepisode is going to play to all
(02:02):
of.
It's really important for allof us as leaders, to think about
how we're doing in this area.
But some of you and it's notthe vast majority of you, for
most of you, your organizationsyou do have an issue with what
I'm going to talk about and,quite frankly, in some of the
organizations that we haveexposure to or have had exposure
(02:23):
to over the years, this drivesme nuts.
It's crazy, and it's prettyobvious what they need to do in
order to gain market share andto start growing again.
And that's what we're going totalk about in this episode.
Welcome into the Lead in 30podcast.
In less than 30 minutes, we'llgive you an idea, a framework, a
best practice, an example, astory, something to think about
(02:45):
implementing in the way that youlead others.
Lead in 30 also has a companionleadership course called Lead
in 30.
Lead in 30 in less than 30 days.
Obviously, it's a course.
You can find out more atlonerockio.
We also have recently launchedthree.
I don't even know if it's onour website yet at the time this
(03:06):
is going out, but it will besoon, and we're doing some
webinars in the next severalmonths.
Um, and you should payattention, um, and and I'll talk
more about it when we've gotthe links up, um, we've, we've
got one that's coming up and andat the time we're recording
this, it's going to be in themonth of May.
That is, oh my gosh, it's goingto be so valuable.
(03:29):
You have to register for it oryou have to send somebody from
your organization.
It's free, we're not sellinganything, and it's all about
leading through change and it'susing a model that we've used
for years but we've refined it alittle bit based on all of the
change that's going on and allthe organizations that we're
interacting with that aredealing with it.
So lonerockio is where you canfind out all about those four
(03:53):
courses now and the webinars andall that fun stuff.
I make my living coaching,consulting senior executive
teams, and I've done that for along time.
My colleagues at our firm dothat as well.
We've got a consulting side ofour business that works with
executive teams, primarily largeorganizations and like fortune
500 companies.
And then, um, I had I don'tknow I shouldn't say this in the
(04:16):
podcast, but I had I had oneconsulting client say to me
recently within the last fewdays he said, wow, you guys so
expensive and he's in amulti-year, his company's in a
multi-year agreement and he'ssaying we're bringing tons of
value.
But he was just reminding usagain that we do charge a hefty
(04:37):
amount for our consultingclients.
We don't apologize for that,just like Apple doesn't
apologize for the price of theiPhone.
You are getting a superiorproduct.
If you want that in your pocket, you need to pony up for it.
The same thing is true forliving in that neighborhood or
that city or driving that car orhaving access to that appliance
(05:00):
.
Just quality costs more, and soif you're more focused on the
deal and getting it, if you'remore of like a Walmart and I say
with all due respect, if you'remore of a discount shopper hey,
I'm going to find the cheapestdeal on everything then you're
probably not even listening tothis podcast because you're more
(05:22):
concerned about discounts thanon growth.
I'm going to pay for access tothe brightest minds I can find
and the innovative thinkers andpeople who are pushing me,
because that's what growth takes.
It's the path less traveled,quite honestly.
Anyway, okay, so we've got theconsulting side of our business.
(05:44):
We've got the leadershipdevelopment side of our business
.
So one's for senior executiveteams, the other is for
mid-level managers, and we makeour living working in the
leadership lab.
We love it.
So the word disruption is on mymind today.
I'm just going to get to thepunchline immediately, and that
(06:05):
is that too many of yourorganizations and you know who
I'm talking about when I saythis you're gonna be like, yep,
that's me, yep, that's us.
Some of you this won't apply to, but you're like the.
You're like 10, 20%, the 80% ofyou.
You got people sitting in thesame seat way too long.
You need to disrupt yourorganization, you need to move
(06:28):
people around, you need tochange things up, you need to
innovate and you need to do itinternally.
I'm going to give you someexamples to make my case here in
the next few minutes, whileI've got you tuned in.
But I want you thinking aboutif this applies to you.
I want you to think about theimpact it's having on your
(06:51):
organization.
So let's use a few examplesJohnson, johnson, an
organization we've consulted.
They've put through hundreds ofleaders, through Lead in 30.
So they're a client of ours onthe consulting side as well, and
have been for a long, long timeas well as on the leadership
training side.
So we're super familiar withJohnson and Johnson One of the
(07:13):
interesting aspects of theirculture for a lot of years is
they treated almost like themilitary.
I grew up an army brat, and somy dad, who was serving in the
US Army, he moved.
He got a different assignmentevery three years.
So our family we'd we live inalabama, my dad would work at a
(07:36):
hospital on base.
He was a hospital administrator, and so he'd work on that.
You know and and um, andimplement change and policies
and work with that team, andthen, boom, he was gone.
Now we're going to ok, oklahoma, now we're living in Oklahoma,
he's working in a hospital onthat base, and now we're going
to San Antonio, which had fivemilitary bases at the time and a
(07:58):
ton of some of the world's besthospitals, and so my dad would
get assigned down there and thenthree years later he'd move on.
Right, that's just the way thatI grew up.
So every three years we moved,and so the military believed in
that model.
For lots of different reasons,johnson and Johnson employs the
same model, and so why did theydo that?
(08:22):
So you might be the leader of afactory and you're producing
all kinds of great results andall of a sudden J&J is like okay
, well, the three years has beenup.
It's time for you to, and youwould apply right, so you'd be
looking at different positionsand they had internal systems to
make sure this works.
(08:43):
You guys, I'm still battlingthe stupid cold, so forgive me
that my throat's bothering me alittle bit.
I feel great.
Um, it's just a few littlehangover stuff on this cold.
That's just like, ah, can youjust let me go?
Um, but as far as um, my headspace, it is operating.
(09:04):
The CPU is spinning just asfast as it ever is.
That's debatable, but but no it, I'm feeling great.
Okay, so why did they do that?
Why does?
Why does JJ have these internalsystems?
To be able to move peoplearound?
Because of the impact it has oninnovation.
The impact that it has onmotivation, the impact it has on
(09:28):
new ideas.
The impact it has on disruptingstatus quo.
The impact it has on motivation, the impact it has on new ideas
, the impact it has ondisrupting status quo.
The impact it has on creativity.
The impact it has on buildingagility.
The impact it has, if you'vebeen with J&J for 15 years, how
many different factories oroffices or locations have you
been at?
Numerous sites, right, so youbecome much more well-rounded in
(09:51):
the organization, becauseyou've seen different things,
you've you've had differentperspectives, and so we're
increasing your value to theorganization.
Not only are we doing all theseother things in the moment that
are serving our immediate needsas an organization and the
customer's needs we're gettingdifferent perspectives and
different outlooks and all thissort of stuff but we're also
(10:13):
investing in the development ofour leaders, and so there's a
ton of value in that.
I will tell you also that, um,I'll give you a couple of um,
real time examples too.
We've got a senior leader at apharma company, pharmaceutical
company, a global pharma company, pharmaceutical company, a
global pharma company who, um,how do I say this in a way that
(10:38):
doesn't give too much weight?
She, she leads a large group.
We'll just put it at that.
She's a senior executive,seasoned, experienced,
exceptional, and so she's.
She's constantly.
Now, when I I shouldn't sayconstantly she is regularly,
that's a better, that's a betteradjective.
She is regularly and I'd evenprobably use the word
consistently making adjustmentsTo her senior team, the people
(11:02):
that report into her.
Why?
Because, for all the reasonsI've just listed creativity,
disrupt status quo, innovativethinking, uh, well-rounded, uh,
executives getting differentperspectives, mixing it up,
innovating.
If the if you had the same modelof iphone let's say the battery
didn't change, like it stillwas as effective today as it was
(11:26):
five years ago and and wouldyou be satisfied that, okay,
this hasn't gotten any better?
Some of you are like, yeah, I'dbe good, keeping it for 10
years Saves me money.
We're not talking about you,okay, because you're probably
the individual no discredit, no,no harm meant in it, but you're
(11:47):
not really growth minded.
Well, you know what I mean inthat area.
Like you don't want the latest,doesn't really matter to you,
but in, or an organization can'tbe that way.
Like we can't be the company.
That's just kind of, yeah,we're like, we're super stable,
things are going well.
Yeah, but how about growth?
Well, what about new features?
(12:11):
What about new products for thecustomers, or innovative
approaches or different?
Don't talk to us about that.
Like, okay, you can be at thatcompany, but let's just deal
with a couple of realities.
Number one your customers aregoing to be ticked.
Your market share is going todecline because, tell me the
(12:33):
customer that wants the samelevel.
Do you want to go to the cancertreatment center that has the
same solutions for cancer thisyear as they had 25 years ago.
Not a chance, not a chance.
You want to go to the placethat's full of innovation,
research, development of newideas, not that's trying out
(12:54):
every little thing and not surewhat they're doing.
You don't want that.
But you want the place that'slooking for new solutions, right
, and so we, as customers?
Well, that's just our mindsetwe want.
We want take what's good andmake it better constantly, and
that's what a shareholder, aninvestor, an owner of an
(13:16):
organization wants.
We want that in the company.
We demand growth.
Well, how do I fuel that as anexecutive?
Well, the thing you don't do isleave bob in that position for
12 freaking years.
And so you know who you are.
Look at your team.
You don't want people.
(13:37):
You I don't know how to say itmore clearly you need to act on
this Some of you, this is anissue in your organization.
You've got to solve it.
You've got the same people inthe same role and and and you
look at your team, or the seniorteam, or the lead, the, the
(13:58):
leadership team of this businessunit, and you're like well, no,
lisa left last year.
Okay, well, that's awesome.
12%, 8%, 4% of the teamleadership team changed I'm
talking three years.
I don't want you in your rolegenerally Not, there are
(14:20):
exceptions for more than threeyears or I want you to mix it up
.
I want you to change it up.
I need you to disrupt.
It goes back to what I wastalking about.
Whitney Johnson yeah, she talksabout.
She wrote this book aboutdisrupt yourself.
I highly recommend it.
So, and it talks about the Scurve of innovation growth.
(14:42):
You hear me talk about this allthe time in this episode, in
these episodes about.
I'm addicted to growth and sowhen the, when the growth, when
the growth curve or the line ofgrowth flattens or plateaus, I
need to mix it up.
One of the reasons we launched aleadership training company was
disrupting ourselves.
(15:03):
We were doing awesome on theconsulting side.
We've been having to add peoplerecently to the executive
consulting side of our business,which we swore we weren't going
to do because we didn't want togrow that side of our business,
but we keep getting more andmore clients over there.
We keep having demand, which isan awesome problem to have.
(15:23):
Right, I say that with allhumility.
We work our butts off.
I spent three hours on callstoday internally on innovation
with our consulting clients newideas, new thought processes,
new things that we can bring tothem in the coming months, that
are in reaction, in response tocurrent things.
(15:44):
They're dealing with themesthat we are seeing.
We spend a ton of effortdisrupting ourselves, innovating
, thinking through, pushing onourselves.
Nobody is a bigger critic of usthan we are.
We've got the highest standards.
And so I, I, I, I look at thatand I say, okay, we, those of
(16:11):
you that are leadingorganizations, this is just
something I want you to look atand think about.
Now, again, I'm going toacknowledge that some of you
don't have this problem.
You're in the minority.
Your issue right now is a totallack of stability.
You're like oh my gosh, we,what we need is not disruption,
we need stability.
And and, yeah, you got to fixthat.
(16:31):
You, you've got to solve that.
We don't want the spinningwheel, we don't want the, the
what do they call that?
In the front of the hotel, the,uh, the door that goes, the
revolving door.
We don't want the revolvingdoor of leadership.
Like man, we can't keep anybodyin any role for like more than
six months.
That's a problem you need tosolve that.
Typically, that means the, thatthere's either something wrong
(16:53):
with the culture, there's not anaggressive growth strategy that
is sound, that people believein.
Or, like I said, there's atoxic part of the culture that
people don't want to stay.
So they come in, they seereality, like, oh yeah, thank
you, I'll take my bag and I'mout, or it's something else.
(17:18):
I'm not going to dig into thatin this moment.
But so those of you that needstability this doesn't apply to
you in the moment, but it will.
It will at a certain time whenyou've got that figured out.
And then now you're like, oh,we've got people in their roles
for a while.
Mix it up.
The church that I go to, thechurch that I go to, has lay
(17:39):
leadership right.
Nobody's paid, and so I'vespent time.
I've talked about this.
I wrote about it in my firstbook, decide to Lead.
I wrote about my experienceleading a congregation in our
church and it was a fascinatingexperience.
A congregation of more than 700people, when our congregations
(17:59):
are generally divided upgeographically to no more than
300 or 400 to make them smaller.
So you take 17 million peopleor whatever it is the current
number that are part of ourreligion and you divide that up
as small as you can into kind ofthese micro units so that
people get to know each otherand everybody gets an
opportunity to serve.
So when I was called to serveas the leader, they call it a
(18:20):
bishop.
So when I was called to serve asa bishop, a leader of the
congregation, that that that hada time limit on it wasn't like
ah, and there are lots ofreasons for that.
I personally am a believer thatthe time limit that they put on
that right now is way too long,happens to years.
I think that's insane.
Not insane, that's a bad wordto use describing religious
whatever, but it's.
(18:41):
It's not the best, it's notideal.
In my mind, if I was king for aday, if I was prophet or
president of the church for aday, I'd switch that to three
years max and and I'd put peoplein there and move them out
because, uh, lots of differentreasons People burn out.
The growth curve flattens, it,plateaus, it's taxing on
individuals.
(19:01):
They want to change.
So I see it in the religion, Isee it in the military, I see it
in J&J, I see it in thispharmacology, I see it all these
different places.
I see how much people, whenwe're working with an executive
on the consulting side of ourbusiness, they move to a new
organization or they move into anew part of the organ, a new
part of the organization theytake over.
Whatever they thrive, and thebusiness unit usually thrives
(19:24):
too.
You see additional growth, yousee new ideas.
They, they're they're no sacredcows to them.
Or the person that's sitting inthere for 10 years, or been in
that same spot for 8 or 12.
They're like, well, we can'treally touch tina because she's
been in that same spot for eightor 12,.
They're like, well, we can'treally touch Tina because she's
been in that role.
We don't, we don't want to.
She, she knows the client listor so-and-so, is the office
(19:46):
manager and we wouldn't want to.
Oh, I'm sorry, somebody elsecan figure it out.
You know what I mean.
So, um, I'm being dramatic, uh,for effect, but the.
What I want you thinking aboutin this episode is disruption
(20:07):
and the why behind it, theimpact of it.
So if your organization rightnow doesn't seem that inspired,
doesn't seem that motivated,doesn't seem that innovative,
doesn't have that muchcreativity, might not be growing
from a key, you know, a keyperformance indicator, a key
result standpoint, as fast asother organizations could be
growing or are growing in yourindustry.
You need disruption.
You need disruption Now.
(20:28):
That doesn't mean we just go inand like all right off with
everybody's head and we're justgoing to move people around like
just throw, like spin thechairs around, everybody's on
the news.
No, you do it strategically,you do it smart.
The senior executive I wastalking about at a pharma
company.
She doesn't move everybodyaround.
She moves this person and thenmaybe three months, four months,
(20:50):
six months later she makes thisstrategic move over here and
moves that person over there.
So within a given year thereare probably three or four
changes on the executive team,maybe more and different people
in the room.
There's a different feel,there's different energy,
there's different perspectives.
People are coming in like ah, Inever knew that this was part
of our business over here and Imean it's so valuable disruption
(21:14):
, so many organizations need it.
That's what's on my mind inthis episode Of the Lead in 30
podcast.
Lead in 30.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast With Russ
Hill.
You're listening to Lead in 30.
Some of you don't have a problem with this at all,
like stability is your biggestchallenge.
You just need people to stay inthe same seats in the
organization for a while, likecan we just have some stability
around here?
But others of you, you have theexact opposite problem, and the
word I want to talk to youabout today is disruption.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
You cannot be serious.
Strengthen your ability to leadin less than 30 minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Years and years ago, harvard Business School
professor Clayton Christensengained a ton of fame by writing
a book about the innovatorsdilemma, and in this book he was
taught this is really at theadvent of thecom, uh explosion
and the internet growth and allthese sorts of things when
(00:58):
traditional companies, if youwill, if there is such a thing,
um were needing to innovate andcompanies have always needed to
innovate, but the rate ofinnovation was dramatically
changing.
And so Carlton wrote this bookthat made him a household name,
at least in executive circlesaround.
(01:19):
How do you innovate inside anorganization around?
How do you, how do you innovateinside an organization?
And then he had a protege, acolleague who worked with him, a
gal by the name of WhitneyJohnson, who ended up gosh maybe
(01:40):
15 years later.
She helped work on the researchand and with Carlton at Harvard
and she ended up writing a bookabout personal innovation,
which I cannot recommend enough.
It's been out for a long timenow and Whitney is she's a
valuable voice in in the area ofpersonal disruption.
So I want to talk to you inthis episode about how some of
your organizations this thisepisode is going to play to all
(02:02):
of.
It's really important for allof us as leaders, to think about
how we're doing in this area.
But some of you and it's notthe vast majority of you, for
most of you, your organizationsyou do have an issue with what
I'm going to talk about and,quite frankly, in some of the
organizations that we haveexposure to or have had exposure
(02:23):
to over the years, this drivesme nuts.
It's crazy, and it's prettyobvious what they need to do in
order to gain market share andto start growing again.
And that's what we're going totalk about in this episode.
Welcome into the Lead in 30podcast.
In less than 30 minutes, we'llgive you an idea, a framework, a
best practice, an example, astory, something to think about
(02:45):
implementing in the way that youlead others.
Lead in 30 also has a companionleadership course called Lead
in 30.
Lead in 30 in less than 30 days.
Obviously, it's a course.
You can find out more atlonerockio.
We also have recently launchedthree.
I don't even know if it's onour website yet at the time this
(03:06):
is going out, but it will besoon, and we're doing some
webinars in the next severalmonths.
Um, and you should payattention, um, and and I'll talk
more about it when we've gotthe links up, um, we've, we've
got one that's coming up and andat the time we're recording
this, it's going to be in themonth of May.
That is, oh my gosh, it's goingto be so valuable.
(03:29):
You have to register for it oryou have to send somebody from
your organization.
It's free, we're not sellinganything, and it's all about
leading through change and it'susing a model that we've used
for years but we've refined it alittle bit based on all of the
change that's going on and allthe organizations that we're
interacting with that aredealing with it.
So lonerockio is where you canfind out all about those four
(03:53):
courses now and the webinars andall that fun stuff.
I make my living coaching,consulting senior executive
teams, and I've done that for along time.
My colleagues at our firm dothat as well.
We've got a consulting side ofour business that works with
executive teams, primarily largeorganizations and like fortune
500 companies.
And then, um, I had I don'tknow I shouldn't say this in the
(04:16):
podcast, but I had I had oneconsulting client say to me
recently within the last fewdays he said, wow, you guys so
expensive and he's in amulti-year, his company's in a
multi-year agreement and he'ssaying we're bringing tons of
value.
But he was just reminding usagain that we do charge a hefty
(04:37):
amount for our consultingclients.
We don't apologize for that,just like Apple doesn't
apologize for the price of theiPhone.
You are getting a superiorproduct.
If you want that in your pocket, you need to pony up for it.
The same thing is true forliving in that neighborhood or
that city or driving that car orhaving access to that appliance
(05:00):
.
Just quality costs more, and soif you're more focused on the
deal and getting it, if you'remore of like a Walmart and I say
with all due respect, if you'remore of a discount shopper hey,
I'm going to find the cheapestdeal on everything then you're
probably not even listening tothis podcast because you're more
(05:22):
concerned about discounts thanon growth.
I'm going to pay for access tothe brightest minds I can find
and the innovative thinkers andpeople who are pushing me,
because that's what growth takes.
It's the path less traveled,quite honestly.
Anyway, okay, so we've got theconsulting side of our business.
(05:44):
We've got the leadershipdevelopment side of our business
.
So one's for senior executiveteams, the other is for
mid-level managers, and we makeour living working in the
leadership lab.
We love it.
So the word disruption is on mymind today.
I'm just going to get to thepunchline immediately, and that
(06:05):
is that too many of yourorganizations and you know who
I'm talking about when I saythis you're gonna be like, yep,
that's me, yep, that's us.
Some of you this won't apply to, but you're like the.
You're like 10, 20%, the 80% ofyou.
You got people sitting in thesame seat way too long.
You need to disrupt yourorganization, you need to move
(06:28):
people around, you need tochange things up, you need to
innovate and you need to do itinternally.
I'm going to give you someexamples to make my case here in
the next few minutes, whileI've got you tuned in.
But I want you thinking aboutif this applies to you.
I want you to think about theimpact it's having on your
(06:51):
organization.
So let's use a few examplesJohnson, johnson, an
organization we've consulted.
They've put through hundreds ofleaders, through Lead in 30.
So they're a client of ours onthe consulting side as well, and
have been for a long, long timeas well as on the leadership
training side.
So we're super familiar withJohnson and Johnson One of the
(07:13):
interesting aspects of theirculture for a lot of years is
they treated almost like themilitary.
I grew up an army brat, and somy dad, who was serving in the
US Army, he moved.
He got a different assignmentevery three years.
So our family we'd we live inalabama, my dad would work at a
(07:36):
hospital on base.
He was a hospital administrator, and so he'd work on that.
You know and and um, andimplement change and policies
and work with that team, andthen, boom, he was gone.
Now we're going to ok, oklahoma, now we're living in Oklahoma,
he's working in a hospital onthat base, and now we're going
to San Antonio, which had fivemilitary bases at the time and a
(07:58):
ton of some of the world's besthospitals, and so my dad would
get assigned down there and thenthree years later he'd move on.
Right, that's just the way thatI grew up.
So every three years we moved,and so the military believed in
that model.
For lots of different reasons,johnson and Johnson employs the
same model, and so why did theydo that?
(08:22):
So you might be the leader of afactory and you're producing
all kinds of great results andall of a sudden J&J is like okay
, well, the three years has beenup.
It's time for you to, and youwould apply right, so you'd be
looking at different positionsand they had internal systems to
make sure this works.
(08:43):
You guys, I'm still battlingthe stupid cold, so forgive me
that my throat's bothering me alittle bit.
I feel great.
Um, it's just a few littlehangover stuff on this cold.
That's just like, ah, can youjust let me go?
Um, but as far as um, my headspace, it is operating.
(09:04):
The CPU is spinning just asfast as it ever is.
That's debatable, but but no it, I'm feeling great.
Okay, so why did they do that?
Why does?
Why does JJ have these internalsystems?
To be able to move peoplearound?
Because of the impact it has oninnovation.
The impact that it has onmotivation, the impact it has on
(09:28):
new ideas.
The impact it has on disruptingstatus quo.
The impact it has on motivation, the impact it has on new ideas
, the impact it has ondisrupting status quo.
The impact it has on creativity.
The impact it has on buildingagility.
The impact it has, if you'vebeen with J&J for 15 years, how
many different factories oroffices or locations have you
been at?
Numerous sites, right, so youbecome much more well-rounded in
(09:51):
the organization, becauseyou've seen different things,
you've you've had differentperspectives, and so we're
increasing your value to theorganization.
Not only are we doing all theseother things in the moment that
are serving our immediate needsas an organization and the
customer's needs we're gettingdifferent perspectives and
different outlooks and all thissort of stuff but we're also
(10:13):
investing in the development ofour leaders, and so there's a
ton of value in that.
I will tell you also that, um,I'll give you a couple of um,
real time examples too.
We've got a senior leader at apharma company, pharmaceutical
company, a global pharma company, pharmaceutical company, a
global pharma company who, um,how do I say this in a way that
(10:38):
doesn't give too much weight?
She, she leads a large group.
We'll just put it at that.
She's a senior executive,seasoned, experienced,
exceptional, and so she's.
She's constantly.
Now, when I I shouldn't sayconstantly she is regularly,
that's a better, that's a betteradjective.
She is regularly and I'd evenprobably use the word
consistently making adjustmentsTo her senior team, the people
(11:02):
that report into her.
Why?
Because, for all the reasonsI've just listed creativity,
disrupt status quo, innovativethinking, uh, well-rounded, uh,
executives getting differentperspectives, mixing it up,
innovating.
If the if you had the same modelof iphone let's say the battery
didn't change, like it stillwas as effective today as it was
(11:26):
five years ago and and wouldyou be satisfied that, okay,
this hasn't gotten any better?
Some of you are like, yeah, I'dbe good, keeping it for 10
years Saves me money.
We're not talking about you,okay, because you're probably
the individual no discredit, no,no harm meant in it, but you're
(11:47):
not really growth minded.
Well, you know what I mean inthat area.
Like you don't want the latest,doesn't really matter to you,
but in, or an organization can'tbe that way.
Like we can't be the company.
That's just kind of, yeah,we're like, we're super stable,
things are going well.
Yeah, but how about growth?
Well, what about new features?
(12:11):
What about new products for thecustomers, or innovative
approaches or different?
Don't talk to us about that.
Like, okay, you can be at thatcompany, but let's just deal
with a couple of realities.
Number one your customers aregoing to be ticked.
Your market share is going todecline because, tell me the
(12:33):
customer that wants the samelevel.
Do you want to go to the cancertreatment center that has the
same solutions for cancer thisyear as they had 25 years ago.
Not a chance, not a chance.
You want to go to the placethat's full of innovation,
research, development of newideas, not that's trying out
(12:54):
every little thing and not surewhat they're doing.
You don't want that.
But you want the place that'slooking for new solutions, right
, and so we, as customers?
Well, that's just our mindsetwe want.
We want take what's good andmake it better constantly, and
that's what a shareholder, aninvestor, an owner of an
(13:16):
organization wants.
We want that in the company.
We demand growth.
Well, how do I fuel that as anexecutive?
Well, the thing you don't do isleave bob in that position for
12 freaking years.
And so you know who you are.
Look at your team.
You don't want people.
(13:37):
You I don't know how to say itmore clearly you need to act on
this Some of you, this is anissue in your organization.
You've got to solve it.
You've got the same people inthe same role and and and you
look at your team, or the seniorteam, or the lead, the, the
(13:58):
leadership team of this businessunit, and you're like well, no,
lisa left last year.
Okay, well, that's awesome.
12%, 8%, 4% of the teamleadership team changed I'm
talking three years.
I don't want you in your rolegenerally Not, there are
(14:20):
exceptions for more than threeyears or I want you to mix it up
.
I want you to change it up.
I need you to disrupt.
It goes back to what I wastalking about.
Whitney Johnson yeah, she talksabout.
She wrote this book aboutdisrupt yourself.
I highly recommend it.
So, and it talks about the Scurve of innovation growth.
(14:42):
You hear me talk about this allthe time in this episode, in
these episodes about.
I'm addicted to growth and sowhen the, when the growth, when
the growth curve or the line ofgrowth flattens or plateaus, I
need to mix it up.
One of the reasons we launched aleadership training company was
disrupting ourselves.
(15:03):
We were doing awesome on theconsulting side.
We've been having to add peoplerecently to the executive
consulting side of our business,which we swore we weren't going
to do because we didn't want togrow that side of our business,
but we keep getting more andmore clients over there.
We keep having demand, which isan awesome problem to have.
(15:23):
Right, I say that with allhumility.
We work our butts off.
I spent three hours on callstoday internally on innovation
with our consulting clients newideas, new thought processes,
new things that we can bring tothem in the coming months, that
are in reaction, in response tocurrent things.
(15:44):
They're dealing with themesthat we are seeing.
We spend a ton of effortdisrupting ourselves, innovating
, thinking through, pushing onourselves.
Nobody is a bigger critic of usthan we are.
We've got the highest standards.
And so I, I, I, I look at thatand I say, okay, we, those of
(16:11):
you that are leadingorganizations, this is just
something I want you to look atand think about.
Now, again, I'm going toacknowledge that some of you
don't have this problem.
You're in the minority.
Your issue right now is a totallack of stability.
You're like oh my gosh, we,what we need is not disruption,
we need stability.
And and, yeah, you got to fixthat.
(16:31):
You, you've got to solve that.
We don't want the spinningwheel, we don't want the, the
what do they call that?
In the front of the hotel, the,uh, the door that goes, the
revolving door.
We don't want the revolvingdoor of leadership.
Like man, we can't keep anybodyin any role for like more than
six months.
That's a problem you need tosolve that.
Typically, that means the, thatthere's either something wrong
(16:53):
with the culture, there's not anaggressive growth strategy that
is sound, that people believein.
Or, like I said, there's atoxic part of the culture that
people don't want to stay.
So they come in, they seereality, like, oh yeah, thank
you, I'll take my bag and I'mout, or it's something else.
(17:18):
I'm not going to dig into thatin this moment.
But so those of you that needstability this doesn't apply to
you in the moment, but it will.
It will at a certain time whenyou've got that figured out.
And then now you're like, oh,we've got people in their roles
for a while.
Mix it up.
The church that I go to, thechurch that I go to, has lay
(17:39):
leadership right.
Nobody's paid, and so I'vespent time.
I've talked about this.
I wrote about it in my firstbook, decide to Lead.
I wrote about my experienceleading a congregation in our
church and it was a fascinatingexperience.
A congregation of more than 700people, when our congregations
(17:59):
are generally divided upgeographically to no more than
300 or 400 to make them smaller.
So you take 17 million peopleor whatever it is the current
number that are part of ourreligion and you divide that up
as small as you can into kind ofthese micro units so that
people get to know each otherand everybody gets an
opportunity to serve.
So when I was called to serveas the leader, they call it a
(18:20):
bishop.
So when I was called to serve asa bishop, a leader of the
congregation, that that that hada time limit on it wasn't like
ah, and there are lots ofreasons for that.
I personally am a believer thatthe time limit that they put on
that right now is way too long,happens to years.
I think that's insane.
Not insane, that's a bad wordto use describing religious
whatever, but it's.
(18:41):
It's not the best, it's notideal.
In my mind, if I was king for aday, if I was prophet or
president of the church for aday, I'd switch that to three
years max and and I'd put peoplein there and move them out
because, uh, lots of differentreasons People burn out.
The growth curve flattens, it,plateaus, it's taxing on
individuals.
(19:01):
They want to change.
So I see it in the religion, Isee it in the military, I see it
in J&J, I see it in thispharmacology, I see it all these
different places.
I see how much people, whenwe're working with an executive
on the consulting side of ourbusiness, they move to a new
organization or they move into anew part of the organ, a new
part of the organization theytake over.
Whatever they thrive, and thebusiness unit usually thrives
(19:24):
too.
You see additional growth, yousee new ideas.
They, they're they're no sacredcows to them.
Or the person that's sitting inthere for 10 years, or been in
that same spot for 8 or 12.
They're like, well, we can'treally touch tina because she's
been in that same spot for eightor 12,.
They're like, well, we can'treally touch Tina because she's
been in that role.
We don't, we don't want to.
She, she knows the client listor so-and-so, is the office
(19:46):
manager and we wouldn't want to.
Oh, I'm sorry, somebody elsecan figure it out.
You know what I mean.
So, um, I'm being dramatic, uh,for effect, but the.
What I want you thinking aboutin this episode is disruption
(20:07):
and the why behind it, theimpact of it.
So if your organization rightnow doesn't seem that inspired,
doesn't seem that motivated,doesn't seem that innovative,
doesn't have that muchcreativity, might not be growing
from a key, you know, a keyperformance indicator, a key
result standpoint, as fast asother organizations could be
growing or are growing in yourindustry.
You need disruption.
You need disruption Now.
(20:28):
That doesn't mean we just go inand like all right off with
everybody's head and we're justgoing to move people around like
just throw, like spin thechairs around, everybody's on
the news.
No, you do it strategically,you do it smart.
The senior executive I wastalking about at a pharma
company.
She doesn't move everybodyaround.
She moves this person and thenmaybe three months, four months,
(20:50):
six months later she makes thisstrategic move over here and
moves that person over there.
So within a given year thereare probably three or four
changes on the executive team,maybe more and different people
in the room.
There's a different feel,there's different energy,
there's different perspectives.
People are coming in like ah, Inever knew that this was part
of our business over here and Imean it's so valuable disruption
(21:14):
, so many organizations need it.
That's what's on my mind inthis episode Of the Lead in 30
podcast.
Lead in 30.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
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Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast With Russ
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