Disrupt Yourself: Personal Growth, Leadership, and Designing Work That Thrives | DisrupTV Ep. 424

Introduction: The Evolution from HR to Employee Experience

In the latest episode of DisrupTV, co-hosts Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce, and R “Ray” Wang, CEO and Founder of Constellation Research, led a timely discussion on how leadership, culture, and work itself are being redefined in the Age of AI.

The conversation explored a fundamental shift underway in organizations worldwide: the move from traditional Human Resources to employee experience (EX) design. As AI accelerates change, leaders must be far more intentional about how people experience work, growth, and belonging.

Joining the show were Whitney Johnson, CEO of Disruption Advisors, and Dean Carter and Mark Levy, former executives at Airbnb and Patagonia and co-authors of a new book on employee experience design.

Whitney Johnson: Personal Disruption and the S-Curve of Learning

Whitney Johnson reframed disruption not as a technology phenomenon, but as a human one.

She emphasized that real transformation happens when individuals are willing to disrupt themselves—learning new skills, adopting new identities, and stepping into uncertainty. Central to her thinking is the S-curve of learning, which maps growth across three stages:

• Launch Point: Uncertainty, fear, and steep learning
• Sweet Spot: Momentum, confidence, and rapid progress
• Mastery: Competence, comfort—and the risk of stagnation

Johnson stressed that leaders play a critical role in helping employees navigate these transitions by creating psychological safety, encouraging experimentation, and responding constructively to new ideas. Growth, she noted, is humanity’s default setting—fear is simply the signal that learning is happening.

Designing for Agency, Not Compliance

A recurring theme throughout the episode was agency—the ability for employees to act with ownership, creativity, and purpose.

Johnson highlighted that resistance to change often stems from fear, not capability. Leaders who acknowledge this and design experiences that support small, behavior-based wins can help teams move forward with confidence. Immigrants, she observed, often excel at personal disruption precisely because they’ve already navigated profound life transitions.

Dean Carter and Mark Levy: From HR to Employee Experience Design

Drawing from their leadership roles at Airbnb and Patagonia, Dean Carter and Mark Levy described why traditional HR models are no longer sufficient.

Instead of managing policies and processes, organizations must design experiences that reinforce belonging, purpose, and trust—especially as companies scale.

Key principles they shared include:

• Culture add over culture fit: Hiring people who strengthen and evolve values, not simply mirror them
• Values-based hiring: Using core values interviews to assess alignment with mission
• Vulnerable leadership: CEOs who model trust and openness set the tone for the entire organization

Their new book on employee experience design serves as a practical playbook for leaders seeking to preserve culture while growing rapidly.

AI and the Future of Employee Experience

AI was not framed as a threat—but as a design choice.

Carter and Levy emphasized that AI’s impact on work will depend on how intentionally leaders deploy it. While AI can automate tasks and surface insights, it cannot replace belonging, meaning, and human connection.

The challenge for leaders is to ensure AI augments human potential rather than diminishing it. That means investing in people, rewarding good thinking, and designing systems where technology supports—not substitutes—human judgment.

Key Takeaways

• Employee experience design is replacing traditional HR as a strategic leadership priority
• Personal disruption and the S-curve of learning provide a roadmap for sustainable growth
• Psychological safety and agency are prerequisites for innovation
• Culture add hiring strengthens values while enabling diversity and inclusion
• AI must be implemented intentionally to preserve human agency and purpose at work

Final Thoughts: Intentional Leadership in a Disrupted World

As AI reshapes how work gets done, this DisrupTV episode made one thing clear: the future of work is not just about technology—it’s about design.

Leaders who succeed will be those who intentionally craft employee experiences that foster growth, trust, and meaning. By combining personal disruption, thoughtful culture design, and human-centered AI adoption, organizations can build workplaces that don’t just survive disruption—but thrive because of it.

Related Episodes

If you found Episode 424 valuable, here are a few others that align in theme or extend similar conversations:

• The Agentic AI Revolution: Hidden Risks, AI Factories & the Rise of the Introvert Leader | DisrupTV Ep. 420
• From Drift to Discipline: How AI-Powered Leaders Hone Strategy & Reinvent Enterprise Software | DisrupTV Ep. 421
• Leadership in the Age of AI-Driven Cyber Threats | DisrupTV Ep. 423