Questions are an important part of Arik and Derek Johnson’s lives. The brothers ask them each day. Of each other, of themselves, of others.
They’ve led to self-reflection, helped the two grow personally and professionally, and led to launching a successful business.
“The quality of your questions determines the quality of your future,” says Arik (BA ’92), who founded Aurora WDC, a professional services firm focused on competitive intelligence, market innovation and corporate strategy, in 1995. Derek (MBA ’04) joined as director of research in 2003 before becoming CEO in 2010.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni say they have been significantly influenced over the decades by questions authors have posed in books the two consider must-reads.
The brothers shared the questions, books, and lessons of resilience with Wisconsin MBA students, faculty, staff, and alumni as part of the M. Keith Weikel MBA Leadership Speaker Series held at the Wisconsin School of Business.
Throughout the conversation, the Wisconsin natives discussed how their parents have shaped their decisions and pushed them to be resilient. Derek and Arik’s father died in 1999 and their mother died in 2001.
“You look at all the good lessons that might come to us in our life and some of them might be the most difficult things you’ll ever have to cope with,” Derek says.
Below is a selection of the 15 questions Arik and Derek shared with the audience and their thoughts.
1. Which strategic choices will have the greatest influence on our success?
This question is from Clayton Christensen’s Seeing What’s Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change. It is one of three questions Arik says he has asked every day of his career and helped shape Aurora WDC.
Choice being the operative word there. Choice is really tough inside corporations because choice implies a prerequisite sacrifice. That notion of sacrifice is a deeply human and really tough part of the choice-making process. Most corporations and executives aren’t sitting around thinking about all the sacrifices they’re going to make in order to make a selection. But that’s what it boils down to. A big part of what we have to do is expand the possibilities of options and then narrow it to the superior option, the optimal option. And that is a specific kind of intelligence we call optimality. Optimality is the process of sacrificing all of those really good options in pursuit of the one that’s the best one, that only you as the organization can exploit and enjoy a yield from. —Arik
2. When something goes sideways in your life—personal or professional—who will you blame?
This question is from Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win, a book that Derek says had a huge impact on him and is a reminder to be and remain humble. It also brings up memories of his parents.
This book really resonated with me. When I think about things going sideways in our lives—whether that be our parents dying when we were pretty young or something not going right in our business—who are you going to blame? Are you going to take that and practice this art of extreme ownership? That’s what I’ve learned from this book. And it doesn’t mean it’s easy. In fact, it’s quite difficult to embody that mindset. But when you do, I would argue that it provides you some type of relief from this temptation to blame others. —Derek
When circumstances in your life change, listen to what they might be attempting to tell you because you might be missing a huge opportunity that you’ll never get back.
—Derek Johnson (MBA ’04)
3. How can I be sure that I’ll find satisfaction in my career?
This question is from Clayton Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life? Derek says this book “will change the way you think about things for the better.”
When their parents passed away, Derek had a career he loved. He was an account manager at Northern Capital Management, an investment management firm in Madison founded by Stephen Hawk. But then Arik and Derek began talking about working together, and Derek had to weigh his options. He says had one or both of his parents been alive at the time, he may have been convinced to stay at Northern Capital Management.
How can I be sure that I’ll find satisfaction in my career? You really can’t be but you can certainly be more than just lucky. You’re not always going to be perfect. You’re going to have those moments where you say, “I really wanted to pursue this,” or “I feel stuck to keep in this career because I’ve got a family to support.” Whatever that might be, they’re all valid reasons. But when circumstances in your life change, listen to what they might be attempting to tell you because you might be missing a huge opportunity that you’ll never get back. —Derek
4. How can I avoid compromising my integrity?
This question is from Clayton Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life? This book emphasizes being true to yourself and not compromising your integrity, values, and morals. The question stems from the Enron financial collapse. Christensen’s Harvard Business School classmate was former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling.
The notion of profit being at the expense of everything else is a really important lesson I learned from this book. Meaning is not going to come from profit. Meaning is going to come from making a difference in the world that you can own and that it can be part of your identity. You get to work with people that you love and respect and they champion your cause as much as you champion theirs. Profit is a byproduct of all those other things. Profit is really important, but it’s not the main thing. —Arik