Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work

Thinkers50 Management Thinker of 2015 Whitney Johnson wants you to consider this simple, yet powerful, idea: disruptive companies and ideas upend markets by doing something truly different—they see a need, an empty space waiting to be filled, and they dare to create something for which a market may not yet exist.

As president and cofounder of Rose Park Advisors’ Disruptive Innovation Fund with Clayton Christensen, Johnson used the theory of disruptive innovation to invest in publicly traded stocks and private early-stage companies. In Disrupt Yourself, she helps you understand how the frameworks of disruptive innovation can apply to your particular path, whether you are:

• a self-starter ready to make a disruptive pivot in your business

• a high-potential individual charting your career trajectory

• a manager looking to instill innovative thinking amongst your team

• a leader facing industry changes that make for an uncertain future

We are living in an era of accelerating disruption; no one is immune. Johnson makes the compelling case that managing the S-curve waves of learning and mastery is a requisite skill for the future. If you want to be successful in unexpected ways, follow your own disruptive path. Dare to innovate. Do something astonishing. Disrupt yourself.

About the Author

Whitney Johnson is the leading thinker on driving corporate innovation through personal disruption. She cofounded Rose Park Advisors, a boutique investment firm, with Clayton Christensen, and was an Institutional Investor-ranked analyst for eight consecutive years, including at Merrill Lynch. She is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and the author of Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream (Bibliomotion 2012). She was named a Future Thinker Finalist by Management Thinkers50 in 2013, and one of Fortune's 55 Most Influential Women on Twitter in 2014. Johnson is cofounder of the Forty Over 40 List, recognizing women who are reinventing, disrupting, and making an impact. She is represented by the New Leaf Speakers bureau, along with other key thought leaders in innovation and business.