Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Outthinkers
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| #154 — Christina Farr: The Storyteller’s Advantage for Strategy and Growth | 20 Nov 2025 | 00:39:20 | |
Christina Farr is an investor, startup advisor, and former health-tech journalist. She’s the author of The Storyteller’s Advantage: How Powerful Narratives Make Businesses Thrive and the creator of the Second Opinion newsletter, where she decodes healthcare and technology for leaders. Most leaders try to move markets with features, roadmaps, and metrics. But the winners often move them with narrative—stories that rally investors, customers, and teams to build the future with them. Christina unpacks how great storytellers create belief that becomes momentum. You’ll learn a simple framework to make your strategy legible and compelling, how to pick the right plot for your message, and practical ways to craft origin stories, pitch decks, and CEO communications that persuade. In this episode we cover:
Episode Timeline: 00:00 – Highlight from today’s episode 01:05 – Introducing Christina + the power of narrative in business 03:05 – “If you really know me…” 04:20 – What is strategy? Story as prognostication 07:10 – Why story beats data alone in pitches, sales, and retention 10:55 – The SOAP framework (Surprise, Openness, Authenticity, Pathos) 18:40 – Engineering surprise; calibrating vulnerability 22:00 – Seven plots leaders can borrow (with modern brand examples) 28:45 – Case study: PillPack’s David vs. Goliath playbook 32:40 – Rebirths and tragedies: Apple, Microsoft, WeWork 36:10 – Origin stories that travel (and ones that don’t) 38:10 – CEO comms on divisive topics, without breaking culture 39:20 – Where to learn more from Christina Additional Resources:
Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #153 – Malte Bernholz of Adobe (Part 1): AI & The Creative Future | 17 Nov 2025 | 00:36:04 | |
In this special in-person conversation recorded at Adobe’s global headquarters, host Kaihan Krippendorff sits down with Malte Bernholz, Vice President of Strategy and Incubation at Adobe. Malte brings a unique lens, combining years of experience in consulting and technology leadership, to unpack what might be the most significant technological shift of our lifetime. Together, Kaihan and Malte explore:
It’s a conversation about courage, imagination, and leadership at the edge of technological change. And for the first time, you can watch this conversation as well as listen—check out the video version on Outthinker.com or YouTube. Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #145—Ryan Hamilton: Growing and Managing Customer Segments Successfully | 01 Jul 2025 | 00:47:24 | |
Ryan Hamilton is an associate professor of marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and co-author of The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things. He is also co-host of the podcast The Intuitive Customer, and author of a book by the same name. He has consulted on branding with companies like Walmart, FedEx, Home Depot, Caterpillar, ConAgra, Cigna, Visa, and Ipsos, among others. To start a successful brand, you usually need to focus in on a specific, often niche, customer. But to grow the brand, you need to expand your customer base. A few brands have done this well (e.g., Starbucks or Apple) which have this loyal passionate base of fans that stick with them as the brands become ubiquitous. But, more often, brands fail to scale because the new customer they need in order to scale are too different from those core customers. They have different values or needs or beliefs. In this episode, we dive into this dilemma, discussing how to predict, preempt, and manage the conflicts that will arise between a brand’s initial customers and the more varied customer segments it must attract in order to scale. In this episode we cover:
Episode Timeline: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #55—Anna Tavis: Preparing for the Future of Work | 19 Aug 2022 | 00:22:12 | |
Dr. Anna Tavis is Clinical Professor and Academic Director of Human Capital Management Department at NYU School of Professional Studies, Senior Fellow with the Conference Board, and the Academic in Residence with Executive Networks. Anna has been named to Thinkers50 Radar for 2020. Her latest book, Humans at Work. The Art and Practice of Creating a Remote Workplace, was published in the spring of 2022. Anna publishes regularly and has been quoted by the Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Human Resources Executive, and Training Magazine. Her Harvard Business Review articles with Peter Cappelli "HR Goes Agile" ( 2018) and "The Performance Management Revolution" (2016) were reprinted in HBR's Must Reads and in Agile: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review (2020). She has navigated a diverse global career in academia, business and consulting, and was the Head of Motorola’s EMEA OD function based in London, Nokia’s Global Head of Talent Management based in Helsinki, Chief Learning Officer with United Technologies Corp based in Hartford, CT and Global Head of Talent and Organizational Development with AIG Investments based in NYC. Her work on the topics of Future of Work, People Analytics and Technology, Employee Experience and Intelligent Automation in the Workplace are truly at the cutting edge. In this podcast, she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "With culture, you're dealing with changes in values, but I think even more important: changes in behaviors, how we do things around here." -Anna Tavis __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Anna + The topic of today’s episode 2:29—If you really know me, you know that... 3:38—What is your definition of strategy? 4:43—How do you define work? 5:47—How is work changing? 9:37—Could you give us a visual of how this re-emergence of the era of creative work is happening? 11:05—How is the role of society and companies for employees going to change in light of how work is changing? 13:50—Is culture defined by value or behaviors? 16:22—You talk about the phases of an effective culture transformation—could you talk about those? 21:15—Where can people follow you and your work? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annatavis/es Columbia University Page: https://sps.columbia.edu/speaker/anna-tavis-phd Twitter: https://twitter.com/annatavis Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #54—James Heskett: Building a Culture for Competitive Advantage | 01 Jul 2022 | 00:22:04 | |
James L. Heskett is UPS Foundation Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Business School and author of his latest book, Win From Within: Build Organizational Culture for Competitive Advantage. He completed his Ph.D. at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and has been a member of the faculty of The Ohio State University as well as President of Logistics Systems, Inc. Since 2000, he has authored a blog on the school's Working Knowledge web site. He has served as a consultant to companies in North America, Latin America, and Europe. James was the 1974 recipient of the John Drury Sheahan Award of the Council of Logistics Management, the 1992 Marketing Educator of the Year Award of Sales and Marketing Executives International, and the 2010 Distinguished Career Contribution Award in Services Management of American Marketing Association. Among his publications are books The Culture Cycle (FT Press, 2011), co-authorship of The Ownership Quotient (Harvard Business Press, 2008), The Value Profit Chain (The Free Press, 2003); The Service Profit Chain (The Free Press, 1997); Corporate Culture and Performance, among many others, and numerous articles in such publications as the Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Sloan Management Review, and California Management Review. A member of the faculty of the Harvard Business School since 1965, he has at different times taught courses in marketing, business logistics, the management of service operations, business policy, and service management, general management, and the entrepreneurial manager as well as served as Senior Associate Dean in charge of academic programs. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "With culture, you're dealing with changes in values, but I think even more important: changes in behaviors, how we do things around here." -James Heskett __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing James + The topic of today’s episode 2:33—If you really know me, you know that... 3:14—What is your definition of strategy? 4:05—Could you talk about the relationship between strategy and culture? 7:03—You've talked about how sometimes strategy can be working while culture is eroding. Can you talk about that? 9:25—There's a belief that culture takes a long time to change; do you think that's true? 12:43—What are some of the tools leaders should turn to first to create this cultural change? 13:50—Is culture defined by value or behaviors? 16:22—You talk about the phases of an effective culture transformation—could you talk about those? 21:15—Where can people follow you and your work? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #53—Emmanuel Probst: Branding Hacks to Stay Competitive | 24 Jun 2022 | 00:26:11 | |
Emmanuel Probst is Global Lead, Brand Thought-Leadership at Ipsos, adjunct professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, and the author of Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller Brand Hacks: How to Build Brands by Fulfilling the Human Quest for Meaning Emmanuel’s background combines over 16 years of market research and marketing experience with strong academic achievements. At Ipsos, Emmanuel supports numerous Fortune 500 companies by providing them with a full understanding of their customer’s journey. His clients span across a wide range of industries, including consumer packaged goods, retail, financial services, advertising agencies and media outlets. Emmanuel also teaches Consumer Market Research at UCLA and writes about consumer psychology for numerous publications. He holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Hull, United Kingdom and a Doctorate in Consumer Psychology from the University of Nottingham Trent, United Kingdom. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "What people care about is find something that is fulfilling and something that contributes to building their personality and who they and their family and their world. And brands can help with this. What feels really important to me is the hero is the audience whom becomes the consumer. The hero is not the brand." -Emmanuel Probst __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Emmanuel + The topic of today’s episode 2:35—What is your definition of strategy? 2:57—You write a lot about meaning, can you define what you mean by meaning? 5:20—Is brand purpose different than meaning? 8:38—While the principles we've talked can work on the B2B side, they are more consumer-focused. How do you make them work to your advantage in B2B? 10:39—A brand often has a customer brand and an employer brand—do you think establishing an "ecosystem" brand to appeal to potential partners? 13:11—How do you approach segmenting the different needs various partners may have? 17:09—Is developing a brand for an ecosystem different than developing a brand for a product or company? 21:20—We're shifting towards attracting partners that can help complement the overall customer experience, not just product. What are your thoughts on that? 23:45—Do you have any last thoughts you'd like to share? 24:34—Where can people follow you and your work? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuelprobst Twitter: https://twitter.com/emmanuelprobst Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #52—James Stavridis: Nine Lessons in Making High-Risk Decisions Under Pressure | 17 Jun 2022 | 00:19:43 | |
Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret.) spent more than thirty years in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of four-star admiral. He was Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and previously commanded U.S. Southern Command, overseeing military operations through Latin America. At sea, he commanded a Navy destroyer, a destroyer squadron, and an aircraft carrier battle group in combat. He holds a Ph. D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he recently served five years as dean. He received fifty medals in the course of his military career, including twenty-eight from foreign nations. James is the author of To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision, which he shares insights from here. He has published nine other books, including 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, with Elliott Ackerman. He is chief international analyst for NBC News and a contributing editor for Time magazine. He is currently the Vice Chair, Global Affairs of the Carlyle Group and the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Rockefeller Foundation In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "You have to be willing to bet on yourself in the hardest situations and be determined even when things appear to be going against you." -Admiral James Stavridis __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing James + The topic of today’s episode 2:22—If you really know me you know that... 3:18—What is your definition of strategy? 3:40—What do people get wrong with strategy? 4:30—Can you outline the topics in your book, To Risk it All? 7:31—Could you tell us about the nine core principles and lessons from your stories? 11:00—Could you talk about how your ideas aren't about having a structured set of contingency plans, but more a cultural shift in mindset to be prepared—could you talk about that? 12:50—How do you keep a clear eye on the right target, the "north star" so to speak? 14:48—What's something you've changed your mind about? 17:17—Could you tell us about your novel, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War? 18:38—What put you on the path of entrepreneurship that led you to Village Global, your venture capital firm? 18:43—Where can people follow you and your work? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://admiralstav.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/stavridisj Books: https://admiralstav.com/previous-books/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimstavridis Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #51—Ben Casnocha: Embracing Your Inner Entrepreneur | 10 Jun 2022 | 00:20:56 | |
Ben Casnocha is an entrepreneur and cofounder of Village Global, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has funded hundreds of startups and the co-author, with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, of The Start-Up of You: Adapt, Take Risks, Grow your Network, and Transform Your Career. He delivers keynote speeches on business and globalization and has appeared on CBS’s The Early Show, CNN, and CNBC. He is the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling management book The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age (with LinkedIn chairman Reid Hoffman and entrepreneur Chris Yeh). He started and scaled several ventures, including an e-government software company (Comcate) that currently delivers hosted CRM solutions to hundreds of local governments in America, an online education business, and a top tier boutique management training business. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "One of the new terms is the concept of portfolio careers because we realized that in the last 10 years, there are so many people who don't just have one job. Their career is stitched together, different a lot of writers and speakers and consultants run this at the high end. And at the low end, it's gig workers and everywhere in between. And so people are stitching together kind of braiding the modern career together in a way that's very different than the 40-hour-a-week company man." -Ben Casnocha __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Ben + The topic of today’s episode 1:51—If you really know me you know that... 2:13—What is your definition of strategy? 2:54—Could you tell us about your book, The Startup of You? 5:44—What do you think has changed in the job market that prompted you to change the title of your book from the first to the second edition? 7:41—Can you tell us about how leadership has changed from authority to creating followership? 9:24—What are the implications of your insights into how hiring consequently changes because of these insights? 10:50—What are your thoughts of how the average tenure of CEOs has changed in the last 10 years to be much shorter? 12:58—Do you believe that the shift of power from the employer to the employee is permanent or will swing back at some point? 16:36—Could you talk to us about your idea of luck? 18:38—What put you on the path of entrepreneurship that led you to Village Global, your venture capital firm? 20:13—Where can people follow you and your work? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://casnocha.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/bencasnocha Books: https://casnocha.com/books Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #50—Salim Ismail: Why Exponential Organizations Outperform Others | 03 Jun 2022 | 00:21:21 | |
Salim Ismail is the lead author of the bestselling business book, Exponential Organizations. A renowned technology strategist and serial entrepreneur with ties to Yahoo!, Google, and Singularity University, he consults with governments and the world’s top Fortune 500 companies on innovation and growth. His work has been featured in premier media outlets like the New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, Fortune, Forbes, WIRED, Vogue, and the BBC. Salim founded ExOWorks in 2016 to help transform global business by catapulting organizations into the world of exponential thinking. He travels extensively sharing a global perspective on the impact of breakthrough technologies and how organizations can leverage these disruptions to grow 10 times faster than their peers. He is co-founder and Chairman of OpenExO and an active Board Member of the XPRIZE Foundation. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "We've never seen this much innovation hit us at the same time globally, ever. That means, every piece that you thought about the world before is gone." -Salim Ismail __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Salim + The topic of today’s episode 1:51—If you really know me you know that... 2:10—What is your definition of strategy? 2:58—Could you tell us about your journey with ExO, and what it is? 5:54—Could you explain exponential technology to us? 8:45—How can you function as an ExO organization (the ExO business model) 10:45—Could you give us a breakdown of the tool set you use to transform a business into an exponential one? 12:01—How can you overcome the existing business organization functions to get ideas from being just ideas to reality? 14:26—How do you disrupt your organization's own immune system? 16:55—How are companies branding themselves differently in light of this new wave of businesses? 18:05—What is your opinion on all the newer technologies that have surfaced in the last few year (blockchain, crypto, etc.)? 20:27—Where can people follow you and your work __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://salimismail.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/salimismail ExOworks Site: https://www.exo.works/salim-ismail LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salimismail Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #49—Geoff Smart: A Proven Method for Optimizing Your Hiring Process | 27 May 2022 | 00:20:29 | |
Dr. Geoff Smart is the Chairman & Founder of ghSMART. Founded in 1995, ghSMART helps Fortune 500 CEOs & boards, billionaire entrepreneurs, and heads of state achieve their goals through hiring, developing, and leading talented teams. They serve clients globally from 12 offices in North America and Europe. For three consecutive years, Forbes named ghSMART the best management consulting firm in its industry segment. ghSMART is the subject of two Harvard Business School Cases, and its credo is “We exist to help leaders amplify their positive impact on the world.” ghSMART has published three bestselling books. Who: A Method for Hiring is a New York Times bestseller that is currently ranked #1 on Amazon.com on the topic of hiring talented teams, among a number of other bestsellers such as TopGrading and the Power Score. Geoff has personally advised four sitting U.S. Governors, a U.S. Senator, White House Fellows, world leaders in education, defense, and public health, and the President of the World Bank. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "So to me, strategy and culture both come from having better talent, more talented, diverse good-hearted people on your team than the next competitor. That's the work, that's the hard work once you have that "Oh, sure let's go international, let's go digital, let's smoke this set of competitors. Let's do this customer segmentation." You can do strategy when you have the right talent and culture." -Geoff Smart __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Geoff + The topic of today’s episode 2:13—If you really know me you know that... 2:54—What is your definition of strategy? 3:59—What did you take away with your experience working with Peter Drucker? 6:31—Could you give us a brief overview of the framework from your most successful book, Who? 8:54—What are things you shouldn't do when hiring? 10:49—What are the four things you should be doing for successful hiring? 15:29—The third step of the hiring framework 16:37—The last step of the framework 17:19—What is something you've changed your mind about? 18:14—How can people connect with you and learn more about what you're working on? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://geoffsmart.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/geoffreysmart Books: https://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Smart/e/B001J8ZIV8%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drgeoffsmart Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #48—Insights from Ajay Banga of The World Bank and former CEO of MasterCard | 20 May 2022 | 00:31:44 | |
Ajay Banga is the 14th President of the World Bank Group. Prior to this he was Vice Chairman at General Atlantic, which he joined after 12 years at the helm of Mastercard, leading the company through a strategic, technological and cultural transformation over 11 years as president and chief executive officer and one year as executive chair of the board of directors. Under Ajay leadership, Mastercard’s stock price grew from $30 to $350 per share. Ajay began his career at Nestlé, India, where for 13 years he worked on assignments spanning sales, marketing and general management. He also spent two years with PepsiCo before joining Citigroup, where he rose to the role of chief executive officer of Citigroup Asia Pacific. Over the course of his career, he’s become a global leader in technology, data, financial services and innovating for inclusion. Ajay also serves as Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce and is an Independent Director at Temasek and for Exor, where he serves as Chair of the company’s Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Committee. He became an advisor to General Atlantic’s BeyondNetZero venture at its inception in 2021. He is a co-founder of The Cyber Readiness Institute, Vice Chair of the Economic Club of New York, a former member of the World Economic Forum’s EDISON Alliance, and served as a member of President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, and a past member of the U.S. President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, among many other roles he has served. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "Strategy is a way to create a shining city on the hill, for you to know where you want people to go and to define a way to climb that hill, and to give them the tools and resources to get there. If you do that well and if you do it with simplicity and you do it with clarity—If you do that well, Kaihan, then you have what I call strategy." -Ajay Banga __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Ajay + The topic of today’s episode 2:30—If you really know me you know that... 3:17—What is your definition of strategy? 6:01—Could you share the strategies you used when significantly growing Mastercard's stock price? 9:25—Could you talk about the brand messages you've championed, and how they were transcendent messages that elevated both the business and world? 15:18—What is the best advice you ever received in your career? 17:33—Do you have an advice for strategy officers from a CEO? 20:29—Do you have any tips for amplifying informal influence? 22:47—How do you introduce urgency in a way that moves people to action, not panic? 24:17—How do you structure your day to be efficient as a CEO? 26:26—What is your secret to staying on top of communications and email? 28:31—What are you working on now __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Bio: https://newsroom.mastercard.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ajay-Banga-Bio. Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #47—Pete Newell: Lessons in Accelerating Innovation | 13 May 2022 | 00:20:50 | |
Pete Newell is a nationally-recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage tech accelerator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond. Pete is a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program that focuses on solving national security problems. It has in turned created a series of sister courses—Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Oceans, Hacking for Sustainability, Hacking for Local and others—that use the H4X® framework to solve critical real-world problems Pete is also the Co-Founder and Board Director of The Common Mission Project, a 501c3 non-profit responsible for creating an international network of mission-driven entrepreneurs, including through programs like H4D®. Pete served as the Director of the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF). Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield and was responsible for the Army’s first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs, smart phones merged with tactical radio networks, and tactical drones. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "Part of the beauty of a pipeline is that you start with a lot of volume and you make hard decisions about the things that go through it. So that increases the velocity, both in terms of speed and pressure, because it allows you to focus your resources on a smaller and a smaller group of things until you pile everything you own on the things that you know are going to win, but you can't get there without having a large pool of things you're sourcing." -Pete Newell __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Pete + The topic of today’s episode 2:11—If you really know me you know that... 3:04—What is your definition of strategy? 3:44—Could you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to your work? 6:15—Could you walk us through the key 10 steps of your process of innovation? 9:27—Where do you think large organizations most often falter in this process? 11:00—How does an organization flip failure to seeing it as learning? 15:20—Could you share an example of an organization that gets this process more right than others? 17:18—How do you balance speed and killing ideas off? 17:57—What are the first steps a Chief Strategy Officer should take in their organization? 19:08—How can people connect with you and learn more about what you're working on? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Twitter: https://twitter.com/peteranewell LinkedIn: htt Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| Building Business Ecosystems Series: #3—Felix Oberholzer-Gee | 06 May 2022 | 00:36:31 | |
*Note to listeners* This episode is part of a special sub-series on business ecosystems. Felix Oberholzer-Gee is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. An award-winning instructor, his academic work has been published in the very best, peer-reviewed journals of his profession, and he currently teaches competitive strategy in executive education programs. His work is largely focused on helping businesses apply his framework of Value-Based Strategy, in which businesses learn to identify the biggest value drivers. Within ecosystem-based competition, he’s identified how to specifically leverage ecosystems in maximizing the value delivered to stakeholders. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "When companies vertically integrate the most common reason for that they will say is, 'I get so much more control.' And then you ask people inside your organization, 'What's the hardest thing to do?' And they will tell you, 'Alignment is hard because I don't really have control over everyone.' Well, which is it? Do you have control or do you not have control?" -Felix Oberholzer-Gee __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Felix + The topic of today’s episode 1:35—Could you describe the concept of your 'Value Stick' to us to get familiar? 3:10—Why are ecosystems helpful in staying competitive? 8:34—How the nature and inclusivity of an ecosystem largely depends on who started it, for what purpose, and the capacity to scale 10:42—How do you balance how much you're depending on an ecosystem for complements with giving away customer relationship ownership? 13:52—The two rules the relationship manager working in ecosystems must remember 17:51—How do you manage a changing relationship (buy-out, M&A, etc.) and the effects of that on how much value is being put in vs. received in an ecosystem? 21:51—When is the right time to seek vertical integration? 23:59—How do you translate your idea of the value stick in a model like ecosystems? 29:03—How does the strategy thinking need to change for a company that's starting to embrace the idea of ecosystems? 33:22—What should you consider about switching costs in relation to ecosystems? 35:20—What are some last closing thoughts you'd like to leave us with? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Faculty Page at HBS: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=251462 LinkedIn: https: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #144—Gina O'Connor: Building Your Company's Innovation Competencies | 17 Jun 2025 | 00:41:31 | |
Gina O’Connor is a professor at Babson College, where she teaches on the topics of Corporate Entrepreneurship and Breakthrough Innovation in large mature companies. Previously, she had a long career at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Gina has co-authored three award-winning books on Breakthrough Innovation and published numerous papers in leading journals including Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, RTM and Journal of Product Innovation Management, among others. Her mission is to help large established companies learn how to renew themselves through organic growth via game-changing, strategic innovation. She is a firm believer that to be successful, organizations must develop an innovation function, complete with its own people, processes, metrics and culture that operates within the company to translate emerging science, technology and business models into new platforms of growth that will fuel the company’s future health in spite of itself. In this discussion, we fashion our conversation by following her fascinating journey through three distinct phases of studies over years of research—the foundation of her books—that evolved as her research revealed new findings. Our conversation covers more than we can summarize in this short introduction, but among these insights we discuss:
Episode Timeline: ______________________________________________________________ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #46—Richard Rumelt: Finding the Crux of Your Strategy | 29 Apr 2022 | 00:19:41 | |
Richard P. Rumelt is one of the world’s most influential thinkers on strategy and management. McKinsey Quarterly described him as “strategy’s strategist” and “a giant in the field of strategy.” He is the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters, reviewed by the Financial Times as “the most interesting business book of 2011” and by Strategy + Business as “the year’s best and most original addition to the strategy bookshelf.” Richard received his doctoral degree from Harvard Business School and is the Harry and Elise Kunin Chair Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. His new book, The Crux, goes on sale May 3, 2022, from PublicAffairs. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Richard + The topic of today’s episode 1:46—If you really know me you know that... 2:20—What is your definition of strategy? 6:38—What are some of the ideas or concepts you are most well-known for? 9:17—How do you recognize bad strategy? 10:39—Could you explain the concept of "crux"? 14:50—How to narrow down on actual challenge being solved 16:40—Do you think you've seen a rise in vertical integration, and what is your opinion on it? 18:48—Where can people find you and connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Faculty Page: https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/strategy/faculty/rumelt Newest book: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/richard-p-rumelt/the-crux/9781541701243/ Last book: http://goodbadstrategy.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-rumelt-18520828/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| Building Business Ecosystems Series: #2—Ben Gomes-Casseres | 22 Apr 2022 | 00:36:46 | |
*Note to listeners* This episode is part of a special sub-series on business ecosystems. Ben Gomes-Casseres has been studying ecosystems since before the term as we know it existed. He is an expert on business combinations, in particular alliance strategy and management, having researched this topic for 30 years. He has published five books and many articles and case studies on M&A, alliances, and joint ventures, and his views have appeared widely in the business press. Ben helps companies create value from external resources by improving the way they manage partnerships. He holds degrees from Harvard, Princeton, and Brandeis. A native of Curaçao, he speaks four languages, and his work can be found at www.remixstrategy.com. Drawing from his experience at the beginning of the development of business ecosystems while studying computer companies in the early 90s, Ben has followed the development of ecosystems from a research standpoint since its infancy. In this discussion, Ben shares the in-depth insights he has learned over his time as a cutting edge—and early—expert of ecosystem study. In this discussion, Ben shares his insights on In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "So, it has really been this interesting shift that kind of 2000, this chasm was crossed around opening up ecosystems to different kinds of partners as well, the opportunity to reach different kinds of customers in new ways through new channels." -Ben Gomes-Casseres __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Ben + The topic of today’s episode 1:47—How did you fall into studying ecosystems before it was even a known area? 7:26—How constellations (ecosystems) have evolved in the way they're perceived and defined over time 9:10—Could you walk us through your model of the three laws of business combinations? 12:07—The first law of business combinations 13:10—The second law of business combinations 15:41—The third law of business combinations 18:41—What kind of changes does an organization need to make to be effective in ecosystem-based competition (mindset, capabilities, key success, factors, organizations, structure, incentives)? 21:45—How do you decide what ecosystem to plug into if you're not yet in one? 23:18—How does an ecosystem become more fragemented at the ecosystem or constellation level? What factors go into deciding is? 26:08—How different ecosystems can be organized depending on their needs 26:08—How different ecosystems can be organized depending on their needs 28:32—What is the difference between a platform and a constellation or ecosystem? 30:42—Do you think ecosystem-based competition is becoming more popular and essential to business' success, or has Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #45—Amy Webb: Using Foresight—Not Prediction—to Guide Strategy | 15 Apr 2022 | 00:22:23 | |
Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist and a bestselling, award-winning author. She is a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures. Amy has advised CEOs and heads of strategy of some of the world’s largest companies, three-star generals and admirals and executive government leadership on strategy and technology. She was also a Delegate on the former U.S.- Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, where she worked on the future of technology, media and international diplomacy. She is the author of several popular books, including The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, which was longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year award, shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award, and won the 2020 Gold Axiom Medal for the best book about business and technology. She also wrote The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream, which won the Thinkers50 Radar Award, was selected as one of Fast Company’s Best Books of 2016, Amazon’s best books 2016, and was the recipient of the 2017 Gold Axiom Medal for the best book about business and technology. Amy was named by Forbes as one of the five women changing the world, listed as the BBC’s 100 Women of 2020, and the Thinkers50 Radar list of the 30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led. In this podcast, she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "If you're on a three-year strategic planning cycle, typically...you're marking milestones and KPIs...on that corporate strategy. The problem is that it doesn't account for uncertainty. This is where a lot of companies fall short, and they don't have the ability to recalibrate. So I do not use a line, I use a cone it's a different shape. So the intersecting vectors where that cone begins on the left that represents today. And the further out in time, you go, the wider, the angle becomes on the inside of that cone. And that represents uncertainty over time." -Amy Webb __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Amy + The topic of today’s episode 2:10—What is your definition of strategy? 3:32—A model for thinking about time and foresight 6:05—What's a tip or go-strategy for getting people to appreciate the importance of thinking of long-term horizons? 8:15—Could you explain the difference between predicting the future vs. being ready for many possible futures. Could you explain the difference? 10:22—Using data and evidence to model out plausible next-order impacts 12:24—The term and history of the futurist 13:50—Could you describe your work in synthetic biology? 17:16—You mentioned that synthetic biology will become as commonplace a term as AI, could you explain how other industries could be affected that seem unrelated? 19:27—Do you have any other tips for how people can learn more about this topic? Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #44—Christian Busch: Creating Serendipity for Your Business | 08 Apr 2022 | 00:23:13 | |
Prof. Dr. Christian Busch is the bestselling author of The Serendipity Mindset: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck. Arianna Huffington called it “a wise, exciting, and life-changing book” that Paul Polman says “provides excellent practical guidance for all.” Christian is an internationally-known expert in the areas of innovation, purpose-driven leadership, and serendipity. He is the director of the CGA Global Economy Program at NYU, and also teaches at the London School of Economics. He is a cofounder of Leaders on Purpose and the Sandbox Network, and a former director of LSE's Innovation Lab. His work has been featured by outlets such as the Strategic Management Journal,Harvard Business Review, Forbes, The Guardian, Washington Post, and the BBC. He is member of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Expert Forum, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and on the Thinkers50 Radar list of the 30 thinkers "most likely to shape the future. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "That...idea that we have to stick to the plan is something that...portrays authority, portrays the idea that we are reliable and dependable, but actually a lot of times it does the opposite in the end because we now have an incentive to hide numbers, to somehow try to figure out how we can tweak the budgets to still look good. And so actually from a performer perspective, we actually a lot of times do the opposite." -Christian Busch __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Christian+ The topic of today’s episode 2:23—What is your definition of strategy? 4:23—How did you get into the idea of serendipity? 5:28—How can serendipity be applied to business? 7:10—What are the barriers to seeing these opportunities that serendipity affords? 10:52—What are other leverage points to embed serendipity into a company's culture? 13:05—How companies can encourage or kill serendipity 21:30—What is something people get wrong? 17:40—Could you explain your concept of casting hooks? 19:04—How can people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Company Page: https://theserendipitymindset.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisserendip LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/christianwbusch Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| Building Business Ecosystems Series: #1—Tiffani Bova | 01 Apr 2022 | 00:32:22 | |
*Note to listeners* This episode is part of a special sub-series on business ecosystems. Tiffani Bova is the chief growth evangelist at Salesforce and the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book GROWTH IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business. Tiffani has been named to the latest Thinkers50’s list of the world’s top management thinkers and is a welcomed guest on Bloomberg, BNN, Cheddar, MSNBC, and Yahoo Finance, among others. She also contributes her thinking to publications including Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Quora, Thrive, among others. She is a change-maker who’s thought-provoking and forward-thinking insights have made her a frequent guest on a variety of industry-leading podcasts and live broadcasts. Tiffani Bova began her career as a sales, marketing and customer service executive for startups and Fortune 500 companies where she was recognized as being one of the first to develop a robust go-to-market model for cloud-based solutions and indirect channel strategies. This experience brought her to Salesforce where she became global growth evangelist, driving customer success through a vast network of customer and partner ecosystems. She has consistently been a leader in witnessing, understanding and helping shape the relationship with ecosystems across various organizations. In this discussion, Tiffani shares her insights on: In this podcast, she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "So, it has really been this interesting shift that kind of 2000, this chasm was crossed around opening up ecosystems to different kinds of partners as well, the opportunity to reach different kinds of customers in new ways through new channels." -Tiffani Bova __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Tiffani + The topic of today’s episode 1:58—What are your thoughts on the future of ecosystem-based competition? 5:28—How partnerships in ecosystems are different than traditional business partnerships 7:03—How the internet has changed ecosystems by connecting different players to customers 8:17—Are there more ecosystem-based companies now? 9:57—What are sources of competitive advantage of key success factors that companies need to add to their strategic toolkit in light of ecosystems becoming more prevalent? 15:54—What can you tell us about ecosystem players that just join an ecosystem, vs. have to do a lot of the heavy lifting to build it? 21:29—What are the first steps in evaluating how to enter an ecosystem? 23:00—Could you tell us about organizations that have started organizing themselves like ecosystems internally? 28:46—Thinking of how to build ecosystems regardless of your business or industry 30:09< Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #43—Whitney Johnson: Mastering Your Individual Growth Journey | 25 Mar 2022 | 00:21:43 | |
Whitney Johnson is the CEO of human capital consultancy WLJ Advisors, an Inc. 5000 2020 fastest-growing private company in America. She is an expert at helping high-growth organizations develop high-growth individuals, and recognized as one of the 50 leading business thinkers in the world (#14) as named by Thinkers50. Having worked at Fortune 100 companies, been an award-winning equity analyst on Wall Street, invested with Harvard’s Clayton Christensen, and coached alongside the renowned Marshall Goldsmith, Whitney understands how companies work, how investors think, and how the best coaches coach–––all of which she brings to her work in coaching CEOs and CSuite executives. Whitney works with high growth venture-backed start-ups and Fortune 100 companies across a variety of sectors including consumer goods, technology, higher education and financial services. In 2017, she was selected from more than 16,000 candidates as a “Top 15 Coach” by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. She is an award-winning author, world-class keynote speaker, and frequent lecturer for Harvard Business School's Corporate Learning. She is a popular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, has 1.8 million followers on LinkedIn, where she was selected as a Top Voice in 2018, and her course on Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship has been viewed more than 1 million times. Whitney joined us last year in our podcast as a guest speaker and she introduced us to how the S Curve or adoption curve can be applied to yourself and your career. But in her books so far, the S Curve was sort of a “supporting character.” Now, in her new book, Smart Growth, she puts the S Curve front and center and lays out with remarkable precision and clarity the milestones along that S Curve. In this podcast, she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "And when you know where you are, you increase your capacity to grow and the more you grow, the more you can grow. And so, you can use this for yourself, if you're willing to grow yourself, then you're going to be able to grow your people. And if you can grow your people, then you can grow your organization" -Whitney Johnson __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Whitney + The topic of today’s episode 3:00—Why did you decide to write your third and newest book? 3:56—Could you unpack the metaphor from your book? 8:22—How can you know if you've plateaued, whether in your life or career? 10:45—How do you know if the next S Curve you're stepping on to is the right path? 12:28—Digging deeper into the "Explorer" phase of the S Curve 16:00—The sweet spot of the S Curve 18:05—How can you know when you've reached the mastery phase vs. you're actually just in the beginning phase? 20:10—Are there any last thoughts you'd like to share? 20:48—How can people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #42—Verne Harnish: Proven Insights into Mastering Strategy | 18 Mar 2022 | 00:20:20 | |
Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 16,000 members worldwide, and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program held at MIT, a program in which he still teaches today. Founder and CEO of Scaling Up, a global executive education and coaching company with over 200 partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past four decades helping companies scale up. He’s the author of the bestseller Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword; and wrote Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) which has been translated into 22 languages and has won eight major international book awards including the prestigious International Book Award for Best General Business book. His latest book, Scaling Up Compensation, rocketed to the #1 HR book on Amazon. Verne also chairs the annual ScaleUp Summits and serves on several boards including vice chair of The Riordan Clinic; co-founder and chair of Geoversity; and board member of the social venture Million Dollar Women, and is a private investor in many scaleups. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "We have the framework: right people doing the right things right. So, it’s figuring out the right things for people to do, and that those right things are different than what everyone else in your industry is doing. That is the essence of strategy: doing it different. " -Verne Harnish __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Verne + The topic of today’s episode 2:23—What is your definition of strategy? 4:02—What do you say to CEOs about going after a big market share vs. a niche market? 5:23—How can a company figure out what their niche is? 7:23—Examples of companies that have dominated their niche 8:22—How to "blackmail" a market 11:00—How have you seen the field of strategy evolve in the last few decades? 12:03—The importance of organizing a council 13:48—Why all great thinkers have a physical space for creative thinking 15:55—What is an important framework you'd highly recommend? 19:04—How can people connect with you? 16:55—How can people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Company Page: https://scalingup.com/verne-harnish/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/agilescaleup LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/verneharnish Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #41—Keith Ferrazzi: Redesigning Your Workforce with Radical Adaptability | 11 Mar 2022 | 00:18:41 | |
Keith Ferrazzi is a bestselling author, award-winning speaker, investor, philanthropist, and executive team coach who helps teams transform enterprises. As Founder and Chairman of Ferrazzi Greenlight and its applied research institute, he coaches executive teams in top organizations to achieve transformative outcomes by harnessing Radical Adaptability. He is recognized as one of the world’s most sought-after executive team coaches. Keith is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Who’s Got Your Back, Never Eat Alone, Leading Without Authority, and Competing in a New Work World. He formerly served as CMO and Head of Sales at Deloitte and Starwood Hotels. Fast Company Leadership Hall of Fame and Toastmaster’s 2018 Golden Gavel Award Winner, Keith’s is one of the most in-demand keynote speakers. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "People think to think that reason to be in business is to make a profit. No, profit is the applause you get for creating a motivating environment for your people so they take good care of your customers." -Keith Ferrazzi __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Keith + The topic of today’s episode 2:05—If you really know me, you know that.... 3:24—Having the courage to lean into "I don't know," and the value of crowdsourcing insights 6:12—What's your definition of strategy? 7:15—How the roles of (Chief Marketing Officer) CMOs and (Chief Strategy Officers) CSOs have changed over time 8:27—In light of the pandemic, companies have had to adapt. What do you think of adapting "back"? 9:39—5-Min Exercise: "The foresight Meeting" 13:21—Moving from synchronous to asynchronous teamwork 14:22—What are tools that work well for asynchronous collaboration? 15:58—Resilience: Curating your team's energy to redesign your workforce 17:29—Last thoughts and how to connect with Keith 15:48—What are you working on now? 16:55—How can people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://www.keithferrazzi.com/ Newest publication: https://www.goforwardtowork.com/book Twitter: https://twitter.com/ferrazzi Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #40—Ken Blanchard: Becoming a Servant Leader | 04 Mar 2022 | 00:17:57 | |
Ken Blanchard is one of the world’s most influential leadership experts. A prominent, sought-after author, speaker, and business consultant, Ken is respected for his lifetime of groundbreaking research and thought leadership that has influenced the day-to-day management and leadership of people and companies throughout the world. In 2005, he was inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 bestselling authors of all time. He is the co-author of more than sixty-five books, including the iconic The One Minute Manager, with combined sales of over 23 million copies in forty-seven languages. He and Randy Conley are also co-authors of Simple Truths of Leadership. He is co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies, a leading international training and consulting firm. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "People think to think that reason to be in business is to make a profit. No, profit is the applause you get for creating a motivating environment for your people so they take good care of your customers." -Ken Blanchard __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Ken + The topic of today’s episode 1:58—If you really know me, you know that.... 2:28—What is your definition of strategy? 4:20—How has your business model changed over time? 5:00—Could you tell us about servant leadership? 7:15—How can a leader know that they're not using their title and position as a servant leader? 8:45—Do you have any advice for someone who doesn't have a ton of influence, but is a leader? 10:20—Are there any highlights about trust you could point us to from your book? 11:28—Do you have any frameworks or tips you like to point to in transforming company culture? 12:31—What's something that you've changed your mind about? 14:01—What's something you wish you had learned earlier? 15:48—What are you working on now? 16:55—How can people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://www.kenblanchard.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kenblanchard Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #39—Gary Hamel: Lessons on Keeping Your Business Strategy Competitive | 25 Feb 2022 | 00:36:50 | |
Gary Hamel is one of the world’s most influential and iconoclastic business thinkers. He has worked with leading companies across the globe and is a dynamic and sought-after management speaker. Hamel has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years and is the director of the Management Lab. Gary has written 20 articles for the Harvard Business Review and is the most reprinted author in the Review’s history. His landmark books have been translated into more than 25 languages. His most recent bestsellers are Humanocracy and The Future of Management. In these volumes, Hamel presents an impassioned plea for reinventing management and lays out a practical blueprint for building organizations that are “fit for the future.” Fortune magazine describes Hamel as “the world’s leading expert on business strategy,” and the Financial Times calls him a “management innovator without peer.” Hamel has been ranked by The Wall Street Journal as the world’s most influential business thinker and is a fellow of the Strategic Management Society and of the World Economic Forum. In his work, Gary has led transformational efforts in some of the world’s most notable companies and has helped to create billions of dollars in shareholder value. He is one of the world’s most sought-after management speakers on the topics of strategy, leadership, innovation and change. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "You start with an aspiration and then you work backward from that. You know, innovation is born in the gap between aspiration high and resources." -Gary Hamel __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Gary + The topic of today’s episode 2:40—If you really know me, you know that.... 3:10—What is your definition of strategy? 4:49—What would you say you are most known for? 6:31—Second well-known article, The Core Competence of the Corporation 8:40—The concept of "Strategies Revolution," looking at strategy as an innovation problem, and letting go of strategic planning 10:30—How do you know if you're spending enough time on core initiatives vs. new initiatives? 14:25—How to address "leadership myopia" when you recognize it 19:12—Should all strategists start with strategic intent, or where if not? 20:58—Where do new game-changing strategies come from? 24:37—If you want to be the next "unicorn" creating a process for developing a portfolio of strategic options is essential 27:24—Learning to recognize patterns when developing strategic options 29:58—The benefit of collaboration in making strategic decisions 32:38—How can people connect and engage with you, and what are you working on next? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #143—Robert E. Siegel: Mastering the 5 Cross-Pressures of the Systems Leader | 27 May 2025 | 00:41:58 | |
Robert E. Siegel is a lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he has taught various courses ranging from Systems Leadership to Financial Management for Entrepreneurs to The Industrialist’s Dilemma to Corporations, Finance and Governance in the Global Economy. He is also a Venture Partner at Piva Capital and a General Partner at XSeed Capital, and sits on multiple Boards of Directors and has led investments in Zooz, Cirrosecure, and Lex Machina, among others. His multi-lens background and approach have afforded Robert a deep, intricate understanding into leadership in our constantly in flux world today, and how it requires an ever-more nuanced approach. In this discussion, we dive into key insights from his most recent 2025 book, The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross Pressures that Make or Break Today’s Companies, a perfect complement to his first book, The Brains and Brawn Company. We discuss the constant web of dualities that the modern systems leader confronts on an ongoing basis, as well as:
Episode Timeline: ______________________________________________________________ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #38—Jonathan Knee: Creating Your Competitive Advantage in the Age of Platforms and Ecosystems | 18 Feb 2022 | 00:21:35 | |
Jonathan Knee is a of Professional Practice in Media and Technology and Co-Director of the Media and Technology Program at Columbia Business School, where he has taught Media Mergers and Acquisitions and Strategic Management of Media. He serves as a Senior Advisor at Evercore, an investment banking advisory firm. Before joining here as Senior Managing Director in 2003, he was a Managing Director and Co-head of Morgan Stanley’s Media Group and was previously Publishing Sector Head in the Communications, Media and Entertainment Group at Goldman Sachs. Jonathan also serves on the boards of New Alternatives for Children, the National Women’s Law Center, and the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York and is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic. He is the author of Class Clowns: How the Smartest Investors Lost Billions in Education, The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade that Transformed Wall Street, co-author of The Curse of The Mogul: What’s Wrong With the World’s Leading Media Companies? and his most recent book, The Platform Delusion: Who Wins and Who Loses In the Age of Tech Titans, packed with real-word insights, gathered on the streets, from decades of feasting or fasting based on the accuracy of his prediction of which companies will thrive and which will fall. *Note: We condensed this original hour-long discussion into a format to fit this podcast series, but be on the lookout for the full-length version in the coming weeks. In this podcast, he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ " [An] Ecosystem is really about the overall business environment. Who are the constituents? How do they interact with each other? Platform is a specific business model that connects some part of an ecosystem. But to me what's most interesting about the connection between the structure of the ecosystem and the question that we were just talking about...is: Is the platform a good business or not?" -Jonathan Knee __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Jonathan + The topic of today’s episode 2:46—If you really know me, you know that.... 3:20—What is your definition of strategy? 5:09—Could you talk to us to your ideas behind "platform delusion"? 7:49—What makes a business have a competitive advantage? 9:32—What exactly is a platform, and what is its core value? 12:19—Network effects vs. scale 14:18—Creating customer captivity as a digital company 16:09—Understanding fixed costs and its advantages in the digital world 17:52—When and what kind of data matters, and when it doesn't offer much value 19:30—What is the difference between a platform or an ecosystem, and how do you know which resourc Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #37—Francesca Gino: Embedding Curiosity in Your Workplace | 11 Feb 2022 | 00:19:42 | |
Francesca Gino is an award-winning researcher who focuses on why people make the decisions they do at work, and how leaders and employees have more productive, creative and fulfilling lives. She is the author of Rebel Talent: Why it Pays to Break the Rules in Work and Life, Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan and numerous articles that have been featured in HBR and other top publications. She is the Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School, and also affiliated with the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, as well as the Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative at Harvard, and the Behavioral Insight Group. She co-chairs HBS Executive Education programs on Behavioral Economics (focused on how to apply behavioral insights to organizational problems) and Driving Profitable Growth. Gino has been honored as one of the world’s Top 40 Business Professors under 40 and one of the world’s 50 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers 50. Professor Gino has won numerous awards for her teaching, including the HBS Faculty Award by Harvard Business School's MBA Class of 2015. Her studies have also been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, Newsweek, Scientific American, Psychology Today, and The Wall Street Journal, and her work has been discussed on National Public Radio and CBS Radio. In this podcast, she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ " I collected data on hundreds of employees who are starting new jobs or new roles, and sure enough, across the board...you see curiosity being pretty high, but you go back to the same people nine, ten months later, curiosity had dropped by at least 20%. And so it raises the question of: What is happening? Why are people are losing their curiosity? And I think that again, there is the same fear of a new role, a new place , "others are going to judge me if I try to do things differently,"...so we just follow the usual ways of working." -Francesca Gino __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Francesca + The topic of today’s episode 2:30—If you really know me, you know that.... 3:43—What is your definition of strategy? 4:45—What are you most known for? 6:29—The importance of asking 'why' or 'what if' in an organization. 8:12—How can you encourage people to feel comfortable being curious? 9:33—How do you make learning goals that encourage being curious? 10:43—For someone in a strategy role, what is a way to embed curiosity into the organization in a systematic way? 12:27—How do you distinguish between a learning objective and an outcome objective for your team? 14:42—Building your curiosity muscle 16:49—Could you tell us about your idea of "rebel talent"? 17:30—What are you working on next? 19:05—How can people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #36—Martin Reeves: Employing an Imagination Cycle to Keep Your Strategy Fresh | 04 Feb 2022 | 00:19:59 | |
Martin Reeves is a Managing Director and Senior Partner in BCG’s San Francisco office and Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, where he explores ideas from beyond the world of business, which have implications for business strategy management. He is the co-author of The Imagination Machine: How to Spark New Ideas and Create Your Company's Future (HBR Press, 2021), the series Inspiring the Next Game: Strategy Ideas for Forward Looking Leaders, and arguably one of the best strategy books of all time: Your Strategy Needs a Strategy: How to Choose and Execute the Right Approach (HBR Press, 2015). He has also written numerous articles in top business journals like MIT Press and Harvard Business Review. Martin joined BCG in London in 1989 and later moved to Tokyo, where he was responsible for BCG’s business with Western clients. His consulting career has focused on strategy – with equal emphasis on idea origination and development, and application by consulting with clients on their strategy challenges. A perennial generalist, Martin’s interest range widely. In this podcast he shares :
__________________________________________________________________________________________ " So, therefore, whatever generalization we might want to make about strategy is increasingly inapplicable to the whole. Therefore we need to ask, pluralistically not what the approaches to strategy in the modern business environment, but which approach is applicable under which circumstances." -Martin Reeves __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Martin + The topic of today’s episode 2:05—If you really know me, you know that.... 2:30—What is your definition of strategy? 3:29—What are you most known for? 4:40—Could you talk a bit about your strategy of strategies? 7:24—Do the sources of competitive advantage change in light of the rising dominance of ecosystems? 9:47—What does creativity in strategy have to do with play and imagination? 12:05—The first step of the Imagination Cycle: Seduction 12:50—The second step of the Imagination Cycle: Idea 13:44—The third step of the Imagination Cycle: Collision 14:22—The fourth step of the Imagination Cycle: Epidemic 15:40—The fifth step of the Imagination Cycle: Codification 17:10—The sixth step of the Imagination Cycle: Encore 17:50—How can people connect with you, and what are you working on next? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Company Page: https://www.bcg.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MartinKReeves Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #35—Julian Birkinshaw: Harnessing the Power of Innovation in Incumbent Organizations | 28 Jan 2022 | 00:19:20 | |
Julian Birkinshaw is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Strategic Management Society, and the (American) Academy of Management. Julian is a recognized thought leader on the impact of digital technology on the strategy and organization of established companies, for example such topics as digital disruption, agile working, corporate entrepreneurship, business model innovation and management innovation. He is the author of fifteen books, including Mindtools for Managers, Reinventing Management, and Fast/Forward: Make Your Company Fit for the Future among others, as well as over one hundred articles. He is currently ranked as one of the Thinkers 50 top thought leaders in the field of Management, and is regularly quoted in international media outlets, including CNN, BBC, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, and The Times. He is a regular keynote speaker and a consultant to many large companies, such as BP, Dell Technologies, among others. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ " Traditional hierarchical, top-down methods work ok as long as what you're trying to do is just deliver a standard product a million times...as we move away from efficiency and quality as the narrow definition of performance to innovation and agility and purpose, we need people to take more initiative. We need to find ways of liberating and harnessing their talents." -Julian Birkinshaw __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Julian + The topic of today’s episode 2:10—If you really know me, you know that.... 2:28—What is your definition of strategy? 3:53—What got you interested in strategy? 5:53—Could you talk a bit about your work on ambidextrous organizations and management innovation? 7:44—How was the framework of how we manage ourselves changed over time? 9:45—How has your research supported the idea that corporations or incumbent organizations can become agile? 11:22—Could you talk to us about the survival rate of S&P 500s? 13:30—What should strategy officers in an incumbent organization be aware of? 16:23—For a company that was ahead of the game, like Tesla, what are the potential moves they could take next to not be surpassed? 17:52—What are you working on now, and how can people find you and follow you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal page: https://julianbirkinshaw.com/index.html Twitter: https://twitter.com/JBirkinshaw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-birkinshaw-7044951/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #34—Faith Popcorn: Predictions to Know From a Leading Futurist | 21 Jan 2022 | 00:21:12 | |
Faith Popcorn founded her BrainReserve (FPBR), the futurist marketing consultancy, in 1974. The New York Times has called her “The Trend Oracle," Fortune Magazine named her “The Nostradamus of Marketing," and she is recognized globally as the original and foremost Futurist. She has identified such sweeping societal movements as “Cocooning,“ “SOS,” “AtmosFear,“ “Anchoring,“ “99 Lives" and “Vigilante Consumer." As the key strategist for Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve, Faith and her esteemed team apply their insights to cultural and business Trend Truths, opening the vision of their clients, repositioning their brands/companies, developing new models and innovating for sustainable growth. She is a trusted advisor to the CEOs of The Fortune 200 including such companies as American Express, Apple, Campbell's Soup, Citigroup, Chipotle, Colgate, Comcast, among many others. With a documented 95% accuracy rate, Faith predicted the demand for fresh foods, home delivery, telemedicine, enhanced entertainment and home schooling, as well as capturing the spiritual tenor of the millennium with Cocooning and its impact on COVID-culture. Additionally, she predicted the rise of Social Media. Faith is also the best-selling author of four books: The Popcorn Report, Clicking, EVEolution, Dictionary of the Future and the Upcoming, and Popcorn Report 2030: A Leap of Faith. In this podcast she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ " I think the greatest error that people make about the future is trying to extrapolate what's going to happen from what did happen from the past. That is a major error, the way to figure out the future and become an overnight futurist is look forward." -Faith Popcorn __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Faith + The topic of today’s episode 2:20—If you really know me, you know that.... 3:06—What is your definition of strategy? 3:40—What are you most well-known for? 4:51—What is the process you use, and how do you frame a strategy around those trends? 6:30—How do you define the metaverse, and what does it mean for the future? 8:13—How do you see bitcoin shaping the future? 8:50—Can you give us an example of a company that was reluctant to adapt to change, and the effects of this? 10:00—Tell us more about NFTs 10:50—What happens when technology is misused? 11:33—What are you thoughts on early adapters? 12:23—Talk to us about the future of work 11:33—What are you thoughts on early adapters? 14:05—How will freelance and gig workers find security in the future? 14:50—Can you talk to us about the future of robots? 18:00—What is something people do wrong when predicting future trends, and what kind they do to avoid this? 19:05—What are you working on now? 20:24—How can people find you and follow you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #33—Adam Bryant: Good vs. GREAT CEOs—500 Interviews Reveal What Makes the Difference | 14 Jan 2022 | 00:19:42 | |
Adam Bryant is managing director of The ExCo Group, a senior leadership development and executive mentoring firm. Prior to this, Adam worked for 30 years as a journalist, including 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times. He interviewed more than 500 CEOs for “Corner Office,” a series on leadership that he created in 2009. He also writes a monthly column for Strategy+Business magazine and is the Senior Advisor to the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership at Columbia University. Adam is the author of three books: His new book is THE CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders, published by Harvard Business Review Press, which he co-authored with Kevin Sharer, the former President and then CEO of Amgen during which he grew the company to $16 billion in revenue from just $1 billion. Adam’s first book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, was a New York Times bestseller, drawing on insights from CEOs to identify the qualities that help explain why certain executives are promoted over others to become CEOs. In his second book Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, Adam distilled the wisdom of hundreds of business leaders to identify the secrets to a high-performing corporate culture. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "I think that is one of the things that set effective leaders apart...is they have the skill of simplifying complexity. So take all the complexity in the world, in your industry and your company, and boil it down to a simple framework because I always say it's one of the leader's tests is to be able to stand on a stage at an all-hands meeting...and answer the questions that little kids ask...like 'Where are we going? How are we going to get there? '...To be able to do that takes a certain habit of mind...it is a muscle that you need to develop." -Adam Bryant __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Adam Bryant + The topic of today’s episode 2:32—If you really know me, you know that.... 3:24—What is your definition of strategy? 6:10—Can you explain more what you mean about leaders lacking "shared language"? 6:40—What has been your biggest surprise in interviewing so many CEOs? 9:07—Could you tell us about the seven key attributes that you discovered throughout your work? 11:40—Is the skill of demystifying and clarifying the complex a skill that can be learned? 14:00—Why do people have a tendency to overcomplicate ideas and use hundred-dollar words? 15:10—Getting people accept ideas is more than just simplifying; can you explain the importance of repetition? 16:48—You talk about business being about bets—could you elaborate on that? 18:40—How can people follow, find and learn from you __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #32—Ben Gomes-Casseres: Mastering the Three Rules of Business Combinations | 10 Dec 2021 | 00:23:33 | |
Ben Gomes-Casseres has worked on partnership strategies for thirty years, as a researcher, teacher, and advisor. A professor at Brandeis University, Ben directs the Asper Center for Global Entrepreneurship. Previously, he was at Harvard Business School and at the World Bank. Ben has published five books and many articles and case studies on M&A, alliances, and joint ventures, and his views have appeared widely in the business press. Ben helps companies create value from external resources by improving the way they manage partnerships. He holds degrees from Harvard, Princeton, and Brandeis. A native of Curaçao, he speaks four languages, and his work can be found at www.remixstrategy.com. His newest book is Remix Strategy: The Three Laws of Business Combinations. He also offers two online courses on Linked-In Learning (Lynda.com): “Strategic Partnerships” and “Ecosystems and Platforms.” In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ -Ben Casseres-Gomes __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Ben Gomez + The topic of today’s episode 2:05—If you really know me, you know that.... 3:10—What is your definition of strategy? 5:24—Could you tells us more about your concept of "business combinations"? 6:58—What are the "rules" so to speak about the blurred lines between B2B and B2C in this new ecosystem business environment? 8:50—Could you describe the difference between an ecosystem and a platform? 11:28—Could you walk us through the three rules of ecosystems? 13:16—How does the "pie" get divided so all players get an equal amount of value? 15:12—Tell us about branding. Can an ecosystem have a brand? 17:53—Could you tell us a little more about the "one plus one" rule? 19:38—What do people usually get wrong? 21:23—How can people follow, find and learn from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Company page: www.alliancestrategy.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/bencasseres LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bengomescasseres Brandeis Faculty Page: https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=d6dac7e5051c516ace0f11fbc430d0cd13c40dcf Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #31—Fred Reichheld: How Companies Can Recapture the True Value of the NPS | 03 Dec 2021 | 00:18:25 | |
Fred Reichheld is the creator of the Net Promotor Score (or NPS). He is a Bain Fellow and the founder of their Loyalty practice, which helps companies achieve results through customer and employee loyalty. His work in the area of customer and employee retention has quantified the link between loyalty and profits. He's authored numerous best-selling books including The Loyalty Effect, Loyalty Rules!; and The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer Driven World. His work has been widely covered in outlets like The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Fortune, Business Week and The Economist. Consulting Magazine chose Fred as one of the “25 Most Influential Consultants”. According to The New York Times, "[He] put loyalty economics on the map." The Economist refers to him as the "high priest" of loyalty. This episode covers key take-aways from his most recent book: Winning On Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ -Fred Reichheld __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Fred Reichheld + The topic of today’s episode 2:07—What made you revisit your idea of NPS? 2:47—How are companies misusing NPS? 3:54—Why do the ideas about focusing on various themes that aren't centered around the customer, never work out? 5:25—Can you define the golden rule? 6:22—How do you overcome the resistance to the language of what many consider "soft skill" language? 8:28—What metrics should we be starting to embrace? 11:10—Can you give us an indicator or metric that can help us gauge how much we're learning? 12:54—What is the role of culture and values in this topic? 15:40—Could you explain how capitalism fits into all of this? 17:01—How can people follow, find and learn from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Company page: https://www.bain.com/our-team/fred-reichheld/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/FredReichheld LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredreichheld Newest Book: https://www.netpromotersystem.com/books/winning-on-purpose/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #30—Peter Cappelli: HR Trends and Best Practices in the Post-Covid Workforce | 26 Nov 2021 | 00:20:31 | |
Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA, served as Senior Advisor to the Kingdom of Bahrain for Employment Policy from, was a Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Manpower for Singapore, and was Co-Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce. He was recently named by HR Magazine as one of the top 5 most influential management thinkers, by NPR as one of the 50 influencers in the field of aging, and was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. He is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and writes a monthly column for HR Executive magazine. His recent work on performance management, agile systems, and hiring practices, and other workplace topics appears in the Harvard Business Review. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "When you feel extremely safe, it's kind of like saying the guardrails are off. Now, I suppose if you're a true believer in psychological safety, you would say that there are other ways where you could keep the guard rails on—clear standards and clear norms, a strong culture, that sort of stuff—and we found some evidence for that. Then you get this situation where there's so high of a space psychological safety, that people's performance begins to slide. Not too surprising, too much of good things, in many cases, don't end up being so great." -Peter Cappelli __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Peter Cappelli + The topic of today’s episode 1:45—If you really know me, you know that... 2:20—What is your definition of strategy? 2:58—What got you interested in your topic, and could you tell us about your recent work for your new book? 4:30—Could you describe some of the big gaps in tradeoffs between employees and companies? 7:15—What lessons do we have from companies that have gone fully remote? 8:38—Is there something we can learn from history about what happens when there is no longer a competitive labor market? 11:00—When labor markets are tight, and then aren't, do they revert back to the norm, or are we entering a new kind of contract between employer and employees? 13:08—Do companies compare their wages to market average value often? Are there drawbacks to not doing so? 15:15—What are the differences in how you manage gig or contract workers and employees, could you elaborate on that? 17:10—Could you talk about psychological safety? Is the approach "more is always better" valid? 18:28—Where can people follow your work and find you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Faculty page: https://mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/cappelli/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #29—Dan Toma: Implementing, Managing and Measuring Innovation in the Corporate Startup | 19 Nov 2021 | 00:19:29 | |
Dan Toma is an innovation thought leader and the co-author of two of my favorite books on innovation. The award-winning book The Corporate Startup, (awarded "Management Book of the Year for Innovation and Entrepreneurship" by Chartered Management Institute and The British Library in 2018) and his latest, Innovation Accounting. Dan started his career in entrepreneurship, being involved with technology startups across the world. Puzzled by the questions "Why are innovative products mainly launched by startups?," together with his team at the consultancy company OUTCOME, he focuses on enterprise innovation transformation. Specifically on the changes blue-chip organizations need to make to allow for new ventures to be built in a corporate setting. A big proponent of the ecosystem approach to innovation, Dan has also worked with various government bodies, in Asia and Europe, helping develop national innovation ecosystems and implement national innovation strategies. Most noteworthy is his work in the economic aid program of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vietnam where he helped design and manage a nationwide business acceleration program and supported the capability development activities. Dan was also featured on the Thinkers50 2020 Radar list of "Management Thinkers to Watch," while also being a member of the World Economic Forum’s working group on accelerating digital transformation. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "There's a gap in the market. There's a lot that talks about employees.There's a lot that talks about customers, and then loosely we'll talk about them together. But what is the value? We went out and did some primary research, and we found that brands that do that really well in the U.S. is 1.8X faster growth rates. For a billion-dollar brand, it's a $40-million impact." -Dan Toma __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Dan Toma + The topic of today’s episode 2:32—If you really know me, you know that... 2:50—What is your definition of strategy? 4:40—What got you interested in strategy? 5:27—What are you most known for? 5:56—Could you tell us about how Covid-19 has shifted companies' approach to innovation? 8:59—What are some of the pitfalls of financial accounting? 11:10—Can you give us an indicator or metric that can help us gauge how much we're learning? 12:50—How do you measure a learning? 13:30—What do people get wrong? 14:50—What's the error in measuring innovation of "moon shot" ideas? 16:00—What's something you've changed your mind about? 17:13—Could you describe the framework you lay out in Corporate Startup? 18:36—How can people follow, find and learn from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #142—Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau: The Impact of the Space Industry on Business and Humankind | 13 May 2025 | 00:44:31 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Brendan Rosseau and Matthew Weinzierl co-authors of Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier. This episode is a journey, metaphorically speaking, into the beyond: outer space itself. Matthew is a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and the Senior Associate Dean and Chair of the MBA program, where his award-winning research and teaching focus on economic policy and the business of space. He is the founder of the Economics of Space project at HBS and serves as an adviser on space to government agencies, companies, and investors. Brendan is a recognized leader in the space industry. He works in strategy at Blue Origin (the space company wholly owned by Jeff Bezos). He previously served as a teaching fellow and research associate at Harvard Business School and as a consultant to the U.S. Space Force. He is dedicated to using space technologies to bring about a more prosperous, peaceful, equitable and exciting future. In this episode, we explore the boundaries, and intersection, of fundamental laws of economics within the context of the rapidly developing space industry or market. We also glean insights on how other markets have and will evolve: the automobile industry, ecommerce, precision farming and potentially the economies around AI or blockchain. If we understand these underlying economic forces, we can more accurately anticipate when and how such new markets will emerge and, in the case of space, it may be coming much sooner than most of us outside of the space industry think. In this episode, we discuss:
Episode Timeline: 43:08—What movies or books "get it right" regarding the future of space? Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #28—Tiffani Bova: Modernizing Your Company Strategy to Increase Your Growth IQ | 12 Nov 2021 | 00:22:55 | |
Tiffani Bova is the chief growth evangelist at Salesforce and the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book GROWTH IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business. Tiffani has been named to the latest Thinkers50’s list of the world’s top management thinkers and is a welcomed guest on Bloomberg, BNN, Cheddar, MSNBC, and Yahoo Finance, among others. She also contributes her thinking to publications including Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Quora, Thrive, among others. She is a change-maker who’s thought-provoking and forward-thinking insights have made her a frequent guest on a variety of industry-leading podcasts and live broadcasts. She’s also a host of her own podcast, What’s Next! with Tiffani Bova, an iTunes’ all-time business and management bestseller and a top sales podcast according to Top Sales Magazine. Tiffani has interviewed a growing number of exceptional humans including Arianna Huffington, Dan Pink, Seth Godin and Tom Peters. She's also considered a top Twitter influencer in Business Growth, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation, the Future of Work, and Sales. She was named one of Inc. Magazine’s 37 Sales Experts You Need to Follow on Twitter, a LinkedIn Top Sales Expert to Follow in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and a Top 100 Women in Tech. In this podcast she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "There's a gap in the market. There's a lot that talks about employees.There's a lot that talks about customers, and then loosely we'll talk about them together. But what is the value? We went out and did some primary research, and we found that brands that do that really well in the U.S. is 1.8X faster growth rates. For a billion-dollar brand, it's a $40-million impact." -Tiffani Bova __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Tiffani Bova + The topic of today’s episode 2:20—If you really know me, you know that... 3:18—What is your definition of strategy? 4:38—Could you give us background on Growth IQ, your most well-known concept? 7:53—What's something that appears on your paths to growth that in wasn't included before? 9:59—Could you characterize what makes Salesforce something beyond CRM? 12:15—What made you decide to focus on business growth? 16:16—What are you working on now? 18:10—What should strategists do next, and how can we connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal page: https://www.tiffanibova.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tiffani_Bova LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanibova Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tiffanibova Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #27—Michael Tushman: Why Ambidextrous Organizations Outperform Others | 05 Nov 2021 | 00:20:28 | |
Michael Tushman is a Baker Foundation Professor, Paul R Lawrence Professor Emeritus, and faculty chair of the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at Harvard Business School. He is also a founding director of Change Logic, a Boston-based strategic advisory firm. Michael is internationally recognized for his work on the relations between technological change, executive leadership and organization adaptation, and for his work on innovation streams and organization design. Mike is an active business consultant and educator, working with CEOs and senior teams around the world. Mike leads several Harvard Business School's premier learning opportunities for executives. In addition to AMP, he is faculty co-chair of Leading Change and Organizational Renewal and is a former Faculty Chair for the Professional Leadership Development Program. He also teaches on the Business Analytics Program, HBS’s first online only program. Mike’s publications include Lead and Disrupt, Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Renewal and Change, both with Charles O’Reilly; and Corporate Explorer: how corporates beat startups at the innovation game with Andy Binns. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "My experience with ambidexterity is the structure is pretty trivial. You just put the past in the future. Oftentimes the reason that ambidextrous structures fail is that the senior team cannot deal with the paradox and tensions and contradictions associated with both exploiting and exploring simultaneously. So I would beg the strategy types in the room to help your colleagues attend to inconsistent strategies simultaneously in service of the overarching identity and help their colleagues deal with tension in the room is that is not there exploit always kills, explore." -Michael Tushman __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Michael Tushman + The topic of today’s episode 2:38—If you really know me, you know that... 2:01—What is your definition of strategy? 4:50—What are you most well-known for? 7:25—Could you explain to us the concept of an ambidextrous organization? 10:15—How do you find leaders that can manage the tension between exploit and explore? 15:40—Could you explain how explore companies differ in how they shape the context and rules? 16:50—Could you explain a little more about this identity conflict that companies experience? 19:18—What are you working on now and how should people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Faculty Page at HBS: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=6584 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-tushman-b356a57/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #26—Felix Oberholzer-Gee: Applying a Value-Based Strategy to Drive Your Business | 29 Oct 2021 | 00:24:24 | |
Felix Oberholzer-Gee is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. An award-winning instructor, his academic work has been published in the very best, peer-reviewed journals of his profession. He currently teaches competitive strategy in executive education programs such as the Harvard General Management Program. He also serves as faculty chair of the Senior Executive Leadership Program for China and the Driving Digital Strategy program. He is a cohost of the popular HBR Presents podcast, After Hours. His most recent book Better, Simpler Strategy, Felix is one of the most compelling, complete, and yet, simple strategy books out there. He shows how successful companies that appear to be in very similar businesses – say Home Depot and Lowes - dramatically outperform their rivals. At a time when rapid technological change and global competition conspire to upend traditional ways of doing business, these companies pursue radically simplified strategies focused on value. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "There are two key ideas: One is value creation for customers, and that is just ways to increase willingness to pay for your customers. Willingness to pay is the most a customer would ever be willing to pay for a product or a service. We want to make sure that we do the kinds of things that increase value where value is the difference between willingness to pay the most the customer is willing to pay verses the actual price for a better camera in your smart phone, and the actual price that we charge." -Felix Oberholzer-Gee __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Felix Oberholzer-Gee + The topic of today’s episode 1:54—If you really know me, you know that... 2:01—What is your definition of strategy? 3:22—What are you most well-known for? 5:18—Could you walk us through your framework of what value-based strategy is? 10:15—Differentiating your offer to increase willingness to pay 13:10—What is the right amount of value to capture? 17:40—What is a favorite framework or tool you have? 19:50—Applying the value of differentiation to more than just marketing 23:00—How should people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Faculty Page at HBS: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=251462 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felix-oberholzer-gee-16424b4/ Most recent book: https://www.amazon.com/Better-Simpler-Strategy-Value-Based-Exceptional/dp/1633699692 Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #25—Liz Wiseman: Unleashing the Talents of Your Company's 'Impact Players' | 22 Oct 2021 | 00:22:33 | |
Liz Wiseman is a researcher and executive advisor who teaches leadership to executives around the world. I first met her in 2010 when she had just published her New York Times bestseller Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. I’ve been following her work since, as she published The Multiplier Effect and Wall Street Journal bestseller Rookie Smarts. In this podcast we are going to dig into her latest book, Impact Players: How to Take the Lead, Play Bigger, and Multiply Your Impact. Liz is the CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, AT&T, Disney, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Salesforce, Tesla, and Twitter. Liz has been listed on the Thinkers50 ranking and in 2019 was recognized as the top leadership thinker in the world. She has conducted significant research in the field of leadership and collective intelligence and writes for Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and a variety of other business and leadership journals. She is a frequent guest lecturer at BYU and Stanford University and is a former executive at Oracle Corporation, where she worked as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for Human Resource Development. Have you every found yourself in a situation in which you are working hard, feeling overwhelmed, but you realize you are spinning your wheels and not actually having impact? Yet, somehow, there is that person on your team who is able to avoid the distractions, focus on the right things, and make a breakthrough impact? These are called impact players, and Liz has dedicated her last years of research into discovering what makes them unique. In this podcast she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "In the process of studying leadership and trying to teach this, I came to this realization, and if I've learned anything in my research, it is this: It's not about leadership; it's about contributor-ship. And that is, that people come to work every day desperately wanting to contribute everything they have. When people talk about the experience working for a diminishing leader, they're like, "It was painful, and it was exhausting." Being only able to give 50% of your know-how and capability was exhausting, and demoralizing." -Liz Wiseman __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Liz Wiseman+ The topic of today’s episode 2:50—If you really know me, you know that... 3:30—What is your definition of strategy? 4:22—What are you most well-known for? 6:09—Could you give us an example of a habit a diminisher might exhibit unconsciously? 8:33—Why did you choose "impact players" as your next area of research? 11:01—Clarifying the five practices of impact players 12:20—Figuring out the "job to be done" 13:03—Impact players step up and lead 14:52—Moving things across the finish 16:18—Learning and adapting to change. 18:22—Making work light 19:57—What is the first step you want to leave people with toward creating the environment for fostering impact players? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #24—Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.: Trends You Need to Know About the Workforce | 15 Oct 2021 | 00:19:46 | |
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., is President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. With over 300,000 members in 165 countries, SHRM is the largest HR professional association in the world, impacting the lives of 115 million workers every day. As a global leader on the future of employment, culture and leadership, Johnny is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work, workers and the workplace. He is frequently asked to testify before congress on critical workforce issues and authors the weekly USA Today column, "Ask HR." Johnny’s career spans over 20 years as a lawyer, human resources executive and CEO in both the not-for-profit and for-profit space. He has held senior and chief executive roles at IAC/Interactive Corp, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment Group, the McGuireWoods law firm, and Compass Group USA. He was appointed chairman of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and served as a member of the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board during the Trump Administration. In this episode, it's worth nothing that all of his projections are fact-based, not conjecture, built on a large database of employment data SHRM has been collecting for decades. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "I have a shorthand definition of what culture is, and it's how things really work around here. How things get done, not how they should or how you want them to. So number one, and just practical thing I would say to anyone listening is you've got to sit down and you've got to engage in introspection." -Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. + The topic of today’s episode 2:28—If you really know me, you know that... 2:47—What is your definition of strategy? 3:47—Is strategy changing in nature to being made more spontaneously and spread out, and what's causing it? 6:02—What are the top one or two shifts in strategy that a strategist or CEO needs to be thinking about? 8:44—How would you characterize how Gen Z is different in the way they think about work? 12:00—What can strategists and CEOs to rethink the way that the definition or a 'worker' is changing? 15:01—How can a strategist or CEO if their company needs a cultural reset? 16:42—Among all the frameworks on culture, what's your go-to first step or driver in shifting culture? 18:42—How can people connect and keep learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: SHRM Website: https://www.shrm.org/ Personal Website: https://johnnyctaylorjr.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnnyctaylorjr/ Most recent book: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #23—Pete Fader: Becoming a Customer-Centric Business | 08 Oct 2021 | 00:21:02 | |
Pete Fader is the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His expertise centers around the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping and purchasing activities. He works with firms from a wide range of industries, including telecom, financial services, gaming/entertainment, retailing, and pharmaceuticals. He’s the author of Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage and co-authored The Customer Centricity Playbook with Sarah Toms. Pete co-founded a predictive analytics firm (Zodiac) in 2015, which was sold to Nike in 2018. He then co-founded and continues to run Theta Equity Partners to commercialize his more recent work on “customer-based corporate valuation," a simple but powerful idea, that you can value any company by adding up the value of its individual customers. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching accomplishments. Among these achievements, he was named by Advertising Age as one of its inaugural “25 Marketing Technology Trailblazers” in 2017, and was the only academic on the list. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "Of the portfolio things we sell, here's the next thing that you should buy. That's not customer centricity. I mean, it can be if they love us, and they really do want to buy all of our things in sequence, but in a lot of cases, that's not the way it works. So it really is figuring out who are those valuable customers? And what are their broader wants and needs beyond just the stuff that we sell to them?" -Pete Fader __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Pete Fader + The topic of today’s episode 2:05—If you really know me, you know that... 2:38—What is your definition of strategy? 3:21—What are you most known for? 4:37—Could you define customer centricity? 6:00—What's a company that models being customer-centric well? 9:15—How do you identify who the most valuable customers are? 15:05—Can B2B companies apply these principles as well? 17:57—What's something that you've changed your mind about? 19:05—What last thoughts do you want to leave us with? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Twitter: https://twitter.com/faderp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com › peterfader Faculty Page: https://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/peter-fader/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #22—Richard D'Aveni: Gaining Competitive Advantage—with TEMPORARY Advantages | 01 Oct 2021 | 00:19:26 | |
Professor Richard D'Aveni is the Bakala Professor of Strategy at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. He is considered one of the premier competitive strategists of his time. His research looks for the winning competitive strategies used by corporations, governments, and militaries. He writes regularly for Harvard Business Review and Forbes and is a frequent commentator on strategic and technological developments. Fortune Magazine has described Professor D’Aveni as modern-day Sun-Tzu, the ancient Chinese master of the strategic arts. Marketing News says, “Today's Internet marketers’ worship at the competitive altar of D'Aveni.” Thinkers50 awarded him its 2017 Strategy Award, and nominated him for the 2019 Breakthrough Ideas Award. He has since been inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, along with Peter Drucker, Clay Christensen, and many other groundbreaking innovators. His diverse background includes a Ph.D. from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, as well as a law degree and MBA, bringing a unique perspective into business. His most recent book, The Pan-Industrial Revolution, examined the impact of 3D printing on manufacturing, global competition, and society. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "You know, life is about temporary advantages, not about sustainable advantages. Those days are gone with the 1950s and ‘60s. So that's hypercompetition in a nutshell." -Richard D'Aveni __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Richard D'Aveni + The topic of today’s episode 2:48—If you really know me, you know that... 3:33—What is your definition of strategy? 5:33—Could you summarize your concept of hypercompetition? 8:28—What do people get wrong when it comes to 3D printing? 11:39—How will Wall Street be impacted by the adoption of 3D printing? 14:00—Are there any capabilities or strengths that incumbents can realistically hold on to to keep ahead? 16:58—What's the next shift in strategy; what should leadership in strategists be focusing on? 18:22—How can people find you or follow you and learn from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Direct line to his office at Dartmouth: 603-646-2921 Personal Website: http://daveni.tuck.dartmouth.edu/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-d-aveni-5169749/ Most recent book: http://daveni.tuck.dartmouth.edu/research-and-ideas/the-pan-industrial-revolution Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #21—Alex Osterwalder: How Investing in Culture Ecosystems Leads to Innovation | 24 Sep 2021 | 00:23:01 | |
Dr. Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder is one of the world’s most influential innovation experts, a leading author, entrepreneur, and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started. Ranked No. 4 of the top 50 management thinkers worldwide, Alex is known for simplifying the strategy development process and turning complex concepts into digestible visual tools. Together with Yves Pigneur, he invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Business Portfolio Map—practical tools that are trusted by millions of business practitioners from leading global companies. And they really introduced into the strategy dialogue the idea that business models can be intentionally—and creatively—designed. Strategyzer, Alex’s company, is on a mission to evolve large established companies so that they inspire and activate and liberate their employees to be innovators. They do this using online courses, applications, and technology-enabled platforms. His books include the international bestseller Business Model Generation, Value Proposition Design, Testing Business Ideas, The Invincible Company, and the recently launched High-Impact Tools for Teams. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "So there are now those outliers who have done exactly that. They invested in innovation, but it's not just the money, they gave innovation power and they created this ecosystem for exploration, with tons of failures. They hold up their failures—same thing as Amazon. They hold up their failures and say, "You can't succeed without failures, and the bigger you get, the bigger your failures. But you know that's the system you need to create for the winners to emerge. So, failure's never the goal, but it's an inevitable side consequence of exploration." -Alex Osterwalder __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Alex Osterwalder + The topic of today’s episode 2:05—What is your definition of strategy? 3:01—What got you interested in strategy? 4:01—Could you explain a "dual culture"? 5:50—What are the drivers of culture? 8:09—What are you most well-known for? 11:16—What should a CEO be encouraging to engage innovative behavior? 14:30—What is the key lesson people should take away from the case studies you've described? 16:20—What do most companies get wrong? 18:07—What's a belief that you've changed your mind about? 19:54—What are you working on now, and how can people engage with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal website: https://www.alexosterwalder.com/ Strategyzer Website: https://www.strategyzer.com/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #20—Chris Marquis: Incorporating ESG and B Corp Strategies Into Your Company | 17 Sep 2021 | 00:20:02 | |
Chris Marquis is the Samuel C. Johnson Professor in Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor of Management at the Cornell University Johnson College of Business. Prior to joining Cornell, he worked for 10 years at Harvard Business School and has held visiting positions at Harvard Kennedy School, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Peking University, Fudan University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University. Chris received a PhD in sociology and business administration from the University of Michigan. These research projects build on Chris’ earlier research on how business can have a positive impact on society and in particular how historical and geographical processes have shaped firms’ and entrepreneurs’ social and environmental strategies and activities. He is one of the foremost authorities today on the intersection of corporate social responsibility and strategy. His latest book, Better Business: How the B Corp Movement Is Remaking Capitalism, focuses on the potential for stakeholder governance models to reform capitalism. Chris believes that businesses have a big role to play in a capitalist society. In this podcast he shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "This is where I think the strategist is so important because something like a 'net zero commitment' is easy to say, but actually how to get there is a lot harder. And I think that's where strategy can play a really big role is actually in ways of transforming the company to meet a bold and important objective, like being net zero." -Chris Marquis __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Chris Marquis + The topic of today’s episode 2:10—If you really know me, you know that... 2:40—What is your definition of strategy? 3:08—What got you interested in strategy? 3:44—What are you most well-known for? 4:29—Can you describe a B corp for us? 5:13—Why is it valuable for a company or strategy to be looking at this type of strategic rationale? 6:08—Why do you think the ESG and B Corp movement is happening now? 7:38—Can you help shatter the myth that B Corps must be socially-driven, small entrepreneurial entities? 10:22—What have you changed your mind about with regard to B Corps? 11:13—Is there a set of tools, leverage points or framework a strategist can look at to align the company behind multi-stakeholder benefit? 12:51—Where do you see the future relationship of corporations and stakeholders in society? 14:13—What do you think should be the first steps and agenda for a strategist looking to implement these ideas into their company? 15:43—Of all the strategic advice you've ever gotten, what has been most impactful for you? 16:35—Could you tell us about "Universal Ownership Theory"? 17:36—What are you working on now and how can people connect with you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #19—Robbie Kellman Baxter: Transitioning to a Membership Economy | 10 Sep 2021 | 00:18:09 | |
Robbie Kellman Baxter is a consultant, author and speaker. She is also the author of The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction, and hosts the podcast Subscription Stories. Robbie has more than 20 years of experience providing strategic business advice to major organizations, including Netflix, Fitbit, Microsoft and Consumer Reports and has worked in or consulted to clients in more than twenty industries. She has been focused on subscription and growth strategies for the past decade and coined the popular business term “Membership Economy," which is now being used by organizations and journalists around the country and beyond. Robbie has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on CNN. She earned her MBA from the Stanford GSB, and graduated with honors from Harvard College. In this podcast she shares:
__________________________________________________________________________________________ "You have to think about the impact on the products that you offer, the processes that you use internally, the metrics that you educate your leadership and your board to focus on all of that needs to change as well. If you're [moving toward a membership model], it's not as simple as taking the products you have and slapping a subscription price on it." -Robbie Baxter __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Robbie Baxter + The topic of today’s episode 2:00—If you really know me, you know that... 2:31—What is your definition of strategy? 4:31—What got you interested in strategy? 5:51—What are you most well-known for? 7:53—Can you paint a picture for us of how a business could become a membership economy business? 11:43— What is the key lesson or takeaway from your work? 13:09—How do you align your metrics, business processes and products to a membership economy model? 14:30—Can you be both transactional and subscription, or do you have to choose between two worlds? 15:54—Of all the strategic advice that you've gotten, what has been most impactful? 17:04—Where can people connect with you and what are you working on now? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Subscription Stories podcast: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/podcast-2/ Personal website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbiekellmanbaxter/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #141—Dave Whorton: The Competitive Advantages of Evergreen Businesses | 29 Apr 2025 | 00:48:43 | |
Dave Whorton is a tech investor and founder who spent 20 years of his career at the highest levels of Silicon Valley venture capital and tech startups. At the preeminent tech venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, he worked directly with John Doerr for several years. He cofounded four companies, including drugstore.com and Good Technology. This episode is longer than our usual shorter format—and with good reason. It's about companies that last longer. We dive deep into the world of evergreen businesses—those built to adapt and grow profitably for 100 years and more. Think of these as the direct juxtaposition to venture capital-funded enterprises—where those are built with the sole intention of selling, going public or shutting down if not performing, evergreen businesses are built to endure. In 2013, Dave founded Tugboat Institute to connect, support, and inspire purpose-driven leaders of these businesses, and this upcoming May 2025, Dave, with Bo Burlingham, releases Another Way: Building Companies that Last...and Last...and Last. In this episode, we uncover some of the most profound insights from his book, so many of which fly in the face of current, common, dogmas around innovation and entrepreneurship, including:
__________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #18—April Rinne: Navigating Continual Change with the Flux Mindset | 03 Sep 2021 | 00:20:21 | |
April Rinne is a “change navigator,” speaker, investor, and adventurer whose work and travels in more than 100 countries have given her a front-row seat to a world in flux. She is one of the 50 leading female futurists in the world, a Harvard Law School graduate, a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, and a Fulbright Scholar. She is also a trusted advisor to well-known startups and companies, financial institutions, nonprofits, think tanks, and governments worldwide. Earlier in life she was a global development executive, an international microfinance lawyer, and a hiking guide. She spent nearly four years traveling solo (with a backpack and a shoestring budget) to better understand how to help shape a more inclusive, equitable world. From her varied and vast experiences, she developed her concept of Flux—how to adopt a mindset that thrives in our world's pace of constant change. In this episode, she'll share with us the eight mental shifts you need to make to thrive in a state of constant change, and why you should not try to run fast, but instead run slower. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "The flux mindset, you just nailed it, because one of the ways I'll define it is: It is the state of mind or the ability to see every change whether it's good or bad, loved or hated, unwelcomed or unexpected as an opportunity, as a means of growing and improving even the hard stuff, it’s not a threat but to be able to harness those silver linings." -April Rinne __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing April + The topic of today’s episode 1:48—If you really know me, you know that... 2:15—What is your definition of strategy? 2:53—What got you interested in strategy? 3:47—Could you describe the flux mindset? 5:00—Why does a strategist need to get their head around to build their awareness about a flux mindset? 5:48— Can an organization or a sector or community also have a mindset? 7:09—What's the right perspective to approach flux from? 9:18—Could you explain the concept of slowing down, even if the world is accelerating? 11:14—What are some of the other eight superpowers that we should be mindful of? 13:30—Could you tell us more about the superpower of scenario planning? 15:10—What do people usually get wrong? 16:52—What's some advice or something you wish you had learned earlier? 19:28—Where can people find you and connect with you and learn from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Flux website: https://fluxmindset.com/what-is-a-flux-mindset Personal website: https://aprilrinne.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilrinne/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #17—Dave Ulrich: Creating Value from 'Outside In' | 27 Aug 2021 | 00:20:59 | |
David Ulrich is a Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and the Co-Director of Michigan's Human Resource Executive Program. He is one of the most influential thought-leaders in the area of HR, organizational design, and leadership having written over 30 books on those topics. His teaching and research address the question: How do people create organizations that add value for customers? Dave studies how organizations change, build capabilities, learn, remove boundaries and leverage human resources activities. He is known for continually learning, turning complex ideas into simple solutions, and creating real value to those he works with in three fields: organization, leadership and human resources. In this podcast episode, Dave will share his insights on changing culture while aligning it with your organization as a whole. He'll discuss what it really means to give value (and to whom it's most important), what some common misconceptions are when innovating for value, and how to build your organization for these aspects. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "Yes, we've got to have great talent, people, workforce, but even more, we've got to have a great organization. And if we don't create the right organization, the workplace, and the culture, we're not going to be successful. Individuals can be champions, but teams win championships" -Dave Ulrich __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Dave Ulrich + The topic of today’s episode 2:09—If you really know me, you know that... 2:40—What is your definition of strategy? 4:30—What are you most known for? 6:36—What should people do to implement the idea that value is all about how it's perceived by others? 8:08—Is there a set of tools or checklist of drivers to look at to shape the organization? 11:22— What do people get wrong? 14:21—What's something you've changed your mind about? 17:10—What are some resources or a place to start for companies looking to make the first steps? 18:04—What are you working on now? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveulrichpro/ Latest Book: http://hrfromtheoutsidein.com/ Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #16—Ash Fontana: Practical Strategies for Becoming an AI-Driven Company | 16 Jul 2021 | 00:19:58 | |
Ash Fontana became one of the most recognized startup investors in the world after launching online investing at AngelList. He then became a Managing Director of Zetta, the first investment fund that focused on AI. The firm was the lead investor in category-defining AI companies such as Kaggle, Domino, Tractable, Lilt and Invenia. He has appeared in Fast Company, Bloomberg, Forbes, CNBC and at the UN. Ash previously co-founded Topguest, a Founders Fund-backed company that built customer analytics technology for companies like United, Virgin, and InterContinental. Topguest sold in an eight-figure transaction 18 months after the company was founded. From his experiences, he’s written his first book, The AI-First Company, the definitive playbook to putting AI first in every business conversation. The playbook is an executable guide for applying AI to business problems, made for real companies, with real budgets, that need strategies and tactics to effectively implement AI. In this podcast, we’ll dive into the topics from his book and really understand how you can apply these concepts to infuse AI in your organization. Ash will share with us why the concept we often hold about AI—a big brain in the sky—isn't accurate, and how we should be thinking of AI. He'll also define what it means to be an “AI-First company” and lead us through practical steps you can take now to start moving your organization on the path being an AI leader. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "[AI] is very good at discrete things like making the same decision over and over again, very reliably with a predictable output or making very rational decisions or whatnot. So, I think it's important to just remember it's different from our form of intelligence. And that's why it's important to develop, because if it was the same why would we be bothering with all this." -Ash Fontana __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 01:06—Introducing Ash Fontana + The topic of today’s episode 3:06—What is an AI-first company? 4:49—How do you describe AI? 5:50—Is AI less adaptable than humans at making decisions when the parameters or underlying ideas suddenly shift? 7:16—Could you explain how flywheel concept as it relates to AI systems? 9:08—How would a legacy or incumbent company approach where to start with AI? 10:59—How can a company shift from a lean approach to being "all in"? 13:14— What is some of the languages or some of the words that we need to start learning to grasp AI? 14:49—What do companies most often get wrong when seeking to prioritize AI? 17:10—What are some resources or a place to start for companies looking to make the first steps? 19:20—Where can we find you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashfontana/ The AI-First Company(Book) Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||