Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company

A Wall Street Journal bestseller

Named one of 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 by Thinkers50

Creating a culture of learning and growth.

Growth is the goal. Helping people develop their potential--enabling them to articulate and become the self they want to be, are capable of being, and that best serves them and others in the short and long term--is what we as individuals and leaders strive toward.

But how do we grow? It turns out it happens in a predictable way, which means we can understand where we are in our growth and chart a way forward. In this compact, complete guide, Whitney Johnson dives more deeply than ever into the S Curve of Learning so that you can envision how growth happens and direct yourself and others in your organization to create a culture that fosters it.

The growth and learning journey comes in three phases: the Launch Point, the Sweet Spot, and Mastery. Compelling examples of successful people will show you when and why growth is slow, how to keep going, what to do when growth and learning are almost too fast to keep up with, and how to leap from one growth journey to another.

As individuals grow, so do organizations and societies. Growth is learning put into action--action that betters the world as we better ourselves and our small niches, both personal and professional, within it. Growth occurs when learning is internalized--when we try something new and invest the effort to move it from being something we do to something we are.

Whitney Johnson is the CEO of boutique consultancy WLJ Advisors and an expert on helping high-growth organizations develop high-growth individuals. Thinkers50 ranked her among the top fifty management thinkers in the world in 2015, 2017, and 2019 and short-listed her for the Leadership Award in 2019. Johnson is an award-winning author, word-class keynote speaker, frequent lecturer for Harvard Business School's Executive Education program, and an executive coach and adviser to CEOs. In working with legendary thought leader Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School, she developed an adaptation to the concept of disruption: companies don't disrupt, people do. In 2019 she placed third on the Global Gurus' list of the Top 30 Organizational Culture Professionals. In 2017 she was selected as one of the original coaches for Marshall Goldsmith's 100 Coaches, a project that 16,000 have applied to be a part of. She is the author of several books, including Disrupt Yourself and Build an A Team.

You can find more about Whitney Johnson at: whitneyjohnson.com