Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Outthinkers
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| #124—Brian Evergreen: Beyond Digital—The Era of Autonomous Transformation | 06 Sep 2024 | 00:34:52 | |
Brian Evergreen, author of Autonomous Transformation: Creating a More Human Future in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, named a Next Big Idea “Must-Read” and for which Brian was shortlisted for the 2023 Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award. Building on his experiences working at Accenture, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft, Brian advises and speaks to organizations around the world, guest lectures at Purdue University and the Kellogg School of Management, sharing the unconventional and innovative methods and frameworks he developed leading and advising Digital Transformation initiatives at many of the world's most valuable companies. There are very few people in the world who has had as much experience of Brian facilitating strategic conversations that lead to big, breakthrough ideas. At the core of Brian’s ideas is that in this age of accelerated AI, there is not only room for—but a dire need for human reasoning to remain a core component of business strategy in what he calls “autonomous transformation,” which contrast with and complements what we all call digital transformation. In this podcast, he shares:
_____________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #123—Christina Alaimo: The Hidden History of Data and its Role in Modern Strategy | 09 Aug 2024 | 00:40:00 | |
Her research focuses on innovation catalyzed by data-based services and the consequences it has on organizations and society. Cristina also studies the broader ecosystem of data exchanges in which digital platforms are embedded and how these new platform ecosystems emerge and evolve. In her recently released book, DATA RULES: Reinventing the Market Economy, Cristina and her co-author Jannis Kallinikos, dive deep into the unprecedented social and economic restructuring brought about by data. In this episode, we discuss:
_______________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #114—John Winsor: Unveiling the Potential of Open Talent | 05 Apr 2024 | 00:31:35 | |
John Winsor is a prominent figure in strategic marketing and product innovation, known for his deep understanding of future work trends and open talent strategies. His We discuss the intricate layers of the modern workforce, including:
___________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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 Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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-16424 Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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. Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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/ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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 guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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 Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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/ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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 Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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 guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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 guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #113—Jeanne Liedtka: Design Thinking: Unleashing Creativity in Business | 22 Mar 2024 | 00:30:48 | |
Jeanne Liedtka is the Professor of Business at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business, where she teaches both MBAs and executives, as well as consulting on innovation, organic growth and design thinking. Jeanne, has served as Associate Dean of the MBA Program at Darden, Executive Director of the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Corporate Innovation, and Chief Learning Officer at United Technologies Corporation, and consulted with a diverse set of organizations including IBM, Samsung, NASA, The United Nations, and the government of Singapore.
___________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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 guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. 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 guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #15—Tendayi Viki: Be a ‘Pirate in the Navy’ to Innovate Strategically | 09 Jul 2021 | 00:16:24 | |
Tendayi Viki is an author and corporate innovation expert. As Associate Partner at Strategyzer, he helps companies innovate for the future while managing their core business. He has written three books: Pirates In The Navy, The Corporate Startup and The Lean Product Lifecycle. He previously served as Director of Product Lifecycle at Pearson, where he co-developed an innovation framework that won the Best Innovation Program 2015 at the Corporate Entrepreneur Awards in New York. Tendayi has been shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award and was named on the Thinkers50 2018 Radar List for emerging management thinkers to watch. He is also a regular contributor at Forbes. In this episode, Tendayi discusses with Kaihan why innovation has to follow strategy and how you can become a pirate in the Navy (or an employee entrepreneur) to create new innovative solutions. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "One of my pet peeves is when I meet heads of innovation and they say, 'My job is to let a thousand flowers bloom. There's no such thing as a bad idea.'and I just think that it sounds good in a sense that you want to democratize innovation, and yet it's very rare that I've ever found any innovation that is succeeded without some strategic connection." -Tendayi Viki __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Tendaya Viki + The topic of today’s episode 1:20—If you really know me, you know that... 2:04—What is your definition of strategy? 3:07—What got you interested in strategy? 5:13—Which comes first—strategy or letting ideas bloom? 6:18—What would you say you're most known for? 8:15—What story best illustrates why your concept is so important? 9:47—Could you explain your concept of "Pirates in the Navy?" 12:09—What framework or idea has been most impactful for you? 12:56—What's your favorite framework or tool that you like to use? 14:40—What are you working on now? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #14—Whitney Johnson: Disrupt Yourself by Mastering Your Own S Curve | 02 Jul 2021 | 00:21:38 | |
Whitney is the CEO of human capital consultancy WLJ Advisors, a2020 Inc. 5000 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 C-Suite 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 one million times. In this podcast...Whitney shares with us how to apply disruption theory to your career and your life, why sometimes it is a smart move to step back in order to get onto a faster growth curve, and why doing that is often so difficult (and it's not just because of what is going on your mind, but because of what others around you are thinking.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ "With people around us, what we have to remember is that whenever you disrupt yourself, you are disrupting the people around you, your disruption precipitates, their disruption." -Whitney Johnson __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Whitney Johnson + The topic of today’s episode 3:01—If you really know me, you know that... 3:35—What is your definition of strategy? 4:08—What got you interested in strategy? 4:50—What would you say you are most known for? 5:34—How does the traditional concept of the J curve apply to one's own career? 7:25—How then does the S curve apply to people's persona life and career? 9:30—Where does "following your gut" fit into all of this? 10:40—Why is it so hard to disrupt yourself? 12:10—What would you say to someone who's scared of losing their identity in disrupting themselves? 14:49—What are other aspects that hold people back from personal disruption? 15:54—What do people usually get wrong? 16:12—What's one of the most important things that you've changed your mind about? 17:47—What's been most impactful for you or something maybe you wish you'd learned earlier? 18:41—What are you working on now? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #13—David Robertson: Innovating Around the Core of Your Company | 25 Jun 2021 | 00:21:58 | |
David Robertson is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he leads the IEM and EPGM programs. He is one of the most experienced Faculty Directors at MIT, having directed executive programs for dozens of companies over the past 15 years. From 2014 through 2017, David was the host of Innovation Navigation, a weekly radio show and podcast that focuses on the management of innovation. Each week he interviewed thought leaders from industry and academia. David is the author of the award-winning book about LEGO’s near-bankruptcy and spectacular recovery—Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry. He has published articles in Wired, Forbes, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, The Financial Times, and many other business journals. For the past couple of decades, David has focused his work around innovation and disruption. His most recent book, The Power of Little Ideas: A Low-Risk, High-Reward Approach to Innovation, is largely based on his findings in which he discusses how innovation is limited in its scope, understanding and definition. Rather being a sudden discovery, it’s often about rethinking how you work the products and solutions you already have to better meet seemingly incremental customer pain points. In this episode, David discusses with Kaihan why we should be focusing small innovations rather that big, industry changing ones, why Steve Job’s was not a disruptor (at least not intentionally), and the approach to innovation that allows Lego to transform from near bankruptcy to supremacy, and that enabled CarMax, Gatorade, Disney, and USAA to out-innovate their competition. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "But too often, we put so much time, effort, and expense. All the cool kids go work on the disruptive revolutionary projects. And we ignore those things that made us great, we forget to honor the things that the company did to make itself great that our customers still depend on us for and that, in terms of what we know how to do and the people we've hired, that we're not just going to do yesterday and today, but we're going to continue to do tomorrow." -David Robertson__________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing David Robertson + The topic of today’s episode 2:32—If you really know me, you know that... 4:23—What is your definition of strategy or innovation? 5:55—What got you interested in innovation? 6:41—What would you say that you're most known for? 10:26—The mis-told myth of Steve Jobs as a disruptor 15:57—What would be one key lesson you'd want people to take away from The Power of Little Ideas? 17:08—What is the most impactful advice you've ever received? 18:30—What are you working on now + how to connect with David __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #12—David Duncan: Understanding Customers through a Detective Lens | 18 Jun 2021 | 00:20:08 | |
Along with a varied background with a degree in psychology from Duke and a PdD in Physics from Harvard, David Duncan has also worked at career at McKinsey & Company, then Innosight, and collaborated with Clayton Christensen on Competing Against Luck. This has given him a systems perspective and the ability to really understand customers from a unique lens. He is also the co-author of two other books and a number of influential articles, including a groundbreaking book which introduced a simple yet profound idea: customers don’t buy products and services; they hire them to do a job. Building a Growth Factory," co-authored with Scott Anthony, and the Harvard Business Review articles, “Knowing When to Reinvent” and “Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days." In this episode, David discusses with Kaihan why so many companies, business leaders, and strategists mistake the reasons their customers buy from them, and why this can be fatal, why focusing on jobs to be done can help you avoid this trap, and why you should start with “small data” before your you get to “big data." __________________________________________________________________________________________ "Because oftentimes, the most useful aspects of [customer] conversations are unexpected, and they ramble around a little bit, often into the rambling that leads to the greatest insights. And when you see one done well, it often seems a little chaotic and even not that helpful until you learn the underlying principles that were guiding the interview, and that were guiding the insights that they got out of it. " -David Duncan __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing David Duncan + The topic of today’s episode 2:02—If you really know me, you know that... 2:39—What got you interested in strategy? 4:32—What is your definition of strategy? 6:14—You come at problems with this multi-point solution look, can you tell us a little bit about that? 10:03—Explain to us the concept of your new book, The Secret Lives of Customers 12:30—Writing the book in an unorthodox format from a detective's perspective 16:12—Thinking of customers in the concept of "jobs to be done" 17:25—Big data versus qualitative research 19:10—How to connect with David __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: www.marketdetective.com Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #11—Navi Radjou: Striving for a Regenerative Economy and Frugal Innovation | 11 Jun 2021 | 00:22:17 | |
Navi Radjou is a New York-based innovation and leadership scholar who advises senior executives worldwide on breakthrough growth strategies. A Fellow at Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, Navi has served as vice president at Forrester Research. In 2013, Navi won the prestigious Thinkers50 Innovation Award—given to a management thinker who is re-shaping the way we think about and practice innovation. He delivered a talk at TED Global 2014 on frugal innovation which has over 2 million views. Navi co-authored Frugal Innovation: How To Do Better With Less, as well as the global bestseller Jugaad Innovation (over 250,000 copies sold worldwide) and From Smart To Wise. He is working on his next book Conscious Society: Redefining Who We Are, Reinventing How We Consume, Work, Relate, and Live. In this podcast, Navi discusses with Kaihan what we can do to reinvent how business is done—concepts like frugal innovation and focusing on a regenerative economy—both aimed at making the most of the resources we have to affect a larger social impact. He'll also talk about recovering from Covid-19 in a 'Y' pattern rather than a 'V' as many tend to, and the new opportunities that can create. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "So, this is...what regeneration is about. It's essentially going from the old notion of sustainability, which was all about doing less harm, to doing more consciously, to have a more positive impact on the environment, but also the society." -Navi Radjou __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Navi Radjou + The topic of today’s episode 2:13—If you really know me, you know that... 2:43—What is your definition of strategy? 6:15—The 'Y' shaped recovery vs. 'V' shaped recovery path 11:46—Is technology and crowdsourcing creating a drive for a multi-stakeholder approach? 14:48—Digging into the "Regenerative Economy" concept 17:31—The concept of "Frugal Innovation" 19:36—What should strategists do now? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #10—John Hagel: Why You Should "Zoom Out, Zoom In," and Scale From the Edge | 04 Jun 2021 | 00:20:03 | |
John Hagel has had a prosperous 40-year career in the Silicon Valley world. Through it, he's learned firsthand how quickly things can change, and how easy it is for companies to fall behind when they lose sight of this. John has experience as a management consultant, author, speaker, and entrepreneur. As a partner from McKinsey & Company, he helped open up their Silicon Valley office and launched two new practices as a partner at Deloitte and established the Center for the Edge after recently retiring. He recently published his new book The Journey Beyond Fear that addresses the psychology of change, which will be accompanied by a series of programs to help people navigate through change and many levels. John is also a faculty member at Singularity University, where he speaks on the mounting performance pressure created by digital technology and promising approaches to help traditional companies make the transition from a linear to an exponential world. John has several bestselling books under his name, including, Net Gain, Net Worth, Out of The Box, and The Only Sustainable Edge and is widely published in major business publications, including The Economist, Fortune, Forbes, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal among many others. He has won two awards from Harvard Business Review for best article and has been recognized as an industry thought leader by a variety of publications and institutions, including the World Economic Forum and Businessweek. In this episode, John shares two of his most important concepts, "zoom out, zoom in," and "scaling from the edge." Each will transform the mental model by which you think about strategy. He argues that we are indeed facing a big shift in business. He'll also unpack insights from his latest book, The journey Beyond Fear, which in the words of Dan Pink shows "how to move past fear to improve performance and deepen meeting." __________________________________________________________________________________________ "If you zoom out 10 to 20 years—and you understand exponential change—and you think you're going to be the same business that you are today, go back to the table. You haven't figured out what makes leaders out of their comfort zone." -John Hagel __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing John Hagel + The topic of today’s episode 2:33—If you really know me, you know that... 3:20—What is your definition of strategy? 4:23—What got you interested in strategy? 5:08—What are your big strategic ideas that people have adopted? 5:36—"Zoom out, Zoom in" explained 8:45—More on "Scaling from the Edge" 10:55—What are you seeing now that is changing the way organizations need to strategize or lead or function? 12:25—How fear drives people 15:17—The "Passion of the Explorer" concept 17:20—What has been the most impactful piece of advice you've received? 18:45—What are you working on now? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #9—Ram Charan: Trends & Challenges for Strategists Today | 28 May 2021 | 00:21:15 | |
Few people have a pulse on the world like Ram Charan does. Ram is an award-winning professor from Harvard and Wharton and a worldwide expert on business strategy, execution, corporate governance and building high-performance organizations. He sits on seven corporate boards and has worked with the CEOs of some of the world's most successful companies, including GE, Bank of America, Verizon, Coca-Cola, 3M, Merck, Aditya Birla Group and Tata Group. He is the author or coauthor of 32 books, four of them best sellers, including Execution and Confronting Reality. His latest book is Rethinking Competitive Advantage. Ram is known for cutting through the complexity of running a business in today’s fast-changing environment to uncover the core business problem. His work takes him around the globe non-stop and gives him an unparalleled, up-to-date insider view of the challenges and trends from inside the boardrooms leading companies. In this conversation he lays out what you, as a strategist, should be focusing on now, including: why you should focus on cash, not earnings, why the smartest companies have stopped doing strategic planning and what they are doing instead, and what it takes to change the mindset of your CEO, to get them to embrace the customer-centric, digital-first perspective your future will depend on. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "We used to say...strategy first, and then do the execution. That was the case. It's over. Strategy and execution now run simultaneously." "Digitizing is not expensive. Not doing, is very expensive." -Ram Charan __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Ram Charan + The topic of today’s episode 2:00—If you really knew me, you know that... 2:55—What is your definition of strategy? 4:40—Why focus on cash, not earnings per share 8:03—A bit on Execution, and what Ram learned about execution in writing this book 9:30—The importance of external audits 10:30—What to say to the excuse, "I don't have time." 11:15—How algorithms are changing business models 14:42—How organizational structures change because of algorithms 16:00—What are the implications of tech giving us the ability to access a global market? 17:00—How do you approach creating a mindset shift from the top in a company? 19:05—What are you working on now? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #8—Michael Raynor: Disruptive Innovation & the Urgency of Climate Change Intervention | 21 May 2021 | 00:21:14 | |
Disruptive innovation is a term heard around every corner these days. But our default way of thinking about it may have holes in it. In this episode, Michael Raynor discusses a new way of looking at it, in addition to other timely topics. Michael is a Managing Director with Deloitte LLP where he is part of the team working on developing and implementing Deloitte’s two-track response to the global climate crisis. The first track focuses on reducing and eventually eliminating the firm’s carbon emissions, while the second track comprises a portfolio of efforts designed to mobilize larger ecosystems of organizations—commercial enterprises, NGOs, governments, etc.—to generate an impact on the scale of the problem. His book "The Strategy Paradox" (2007) was named by Strategy + Business as one of its top five picks in strategy, and BusinessWeek named it one of that year’s 10 Best Business Books. Michael co-authored The Innovator’s Solution with the late Clayton Christensen and collaborated extensively with Christensen over the years. Another of his books, The Innovator's Manifesto, released in 2011, became a Canadian bestseller, which prompted the Financial Times to call Raynor, "one of the most articulate and interesting of…strategists.” In addition to discussing the discussing what people assume wrongly about disruptive innovation, Michael also leads us through understanding his concept of the "Strategy Paradox," and to understand the urgency of climate change and what our role is within this near future. __________________________________________________________________________________________ I'm of a mind that although there's obviously an appropriately increasing awareness and concern about the climate crisis, I continue to believe that for the most part, we have really not come to terms with the urgency and severity of the problem face." "So you're disruptive as a consequence of your impact on an industry rather than you are disruptive as a consequence of the way in which you have attempted to have an impact. And that's a critically important distinction because what it means is that disruptive innovations are not necessarily successful." -Michael Raynor __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Michael Raynor + The main idea of today’s episode 2:00—If you really knew me, you know that... 2:38—What is your definition of strategy? 3:31—Explaining the concept of tradeoffs 6:15—What got you interested in strategy? 9:07—What are you most known for? 9:50—What are the most important things strategists should know about your work? 12:50—How should the climate question be incorporated into strategy? 16:28—Are we past the point of remedying the global climate change crisis? 17:43—What can a company do to start engaging productively in whatever ecosystem they're in to this common cause? 20:00—Concluding remarks __________________________________________________________________________________________ Resources Mentioned: The Innovator's ManifestoThank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #112—W. Russell Neuman: AI's Role in Evolutionary Intelligence | 08 Mar 2024 | 00:34:20 | |
W. Russell Neuman is Professor of Media Technology at New York University, a founding faculty of the MIT Media Lab, he served as a Senior Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. His books like The Digital Difference: Media Technology and the Theory of Communication Effects and his most recent book EVOLUTIONARY INTELLIGENCE: How Technology Will Make Us Smarter are rooted in the view that human intelligence and human communication are intertwined. Language and communication are intrinsically linked to the evolution of human intelligence since the dawn of humankind. As our technologies for communication have advanced over time, so too has the sophistication of our cognitive abilities. As you heard in the highlighted clip, this insight gives us a very interesting glimpse at how human intelligence may next evolve as AI comes into play.
__________________________________________________________________________________________ 00:00—Highlight from today's episode __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Book site: Evolutionary Intelligence How Technology Will Make Us Smarter Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #7—Josh Linkner: Big Little Breakthroughs | 14 May 2021 | 00:15:33 | |
Innovations aren't born overnight, and we already know that. What many overlook is the idea that you don't have to have big changes in order to be innovative; some of the best out there were born out of a succession of small steps toward it. In this episode Kaihan welcomes Josh Linkner, a Creative Troublemaker passionately a believer that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar. Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Today, Josh serves as Chairman and co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award. In this episode he breaks down why we should focus on “little” innovation breakthroughs rather than big ones and some practical steps to unlock innovation in your employees. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "I think as leaders, because I know we have a lot of leaders listening, it's critical for us to create the conditions that foster creativity. If you think about like a greenhouse what is the optimal conditions for plants to grow. We as leaders probably need to be thinking about creating a greenhouse to nurture and grow the creative capacity of our team." We're often told that innovation only counts if it's a billion-dollar idea, where only certain rules can be innovative, like unless you're wearing a lab coat or a hoodie, forget about it. This is the opposite. It's sort of like innovation for the rest of us. And it encourages people not to take giant, highly-risky moonshot swings, but rather to cultivate high-velocity, high-volume of small micro-innovations, daily acts of creativity." -Josh Linkner __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Josh Linkner + The topic of today’s episode 1:34—If you really knew me, you know that... 2:43—What is your definition of strategy? 3:52—What got you interested in strategy? 4:28—What would you say you're most known for? 5:30—The founding the unicorn company StockX 6:10—"Big Little Breakthroughs" explained 7:53—Examples of little innovations that have had a big impact 11:18—What's something that you believed in that you've changed your mind on? 12:38—Can you give us some practical tips or ideas on what we can do to empower greater employee-led innovation? 14:08—What is one takeaways from this discussion? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Resources Mentioned: Big Little Breakthroughs - Josh Linkner Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #6—Vivek Wadhwa: Harnessing Tech for an Innovative Future | 07 May 2021 | 00:18:11 | |
In this episode Kaihan welcomes Vivek Wadhwa, who talks with him about exponential technologies, what it takes for a large legacy company to act like a nimble entrepreneurial one, and why at this moment, over the next decade or so, we have one of the biggest opportunities humanity has faced in our history. Vivek is a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. He’s based in Silicon Valley and researches, speaks, and writes about advancing technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and nanomaterials. He's the author of five bestselling books and was named one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy magazine, was on TIME magazine’s list of “Tech 40," one of forty of the most influential minds in tech. In this discussion, Vivek helps us understand how we can create a “start trek” future in which we have almost unlimited free clean energy, an abundance of food for the planet, cure almost every disease, and educate the world. We can have that if we make the right choices about how and where technology is used. But if we don’t play our cards right, we could be headed to a dark future, the “mad max” future. He leaves us finally with some concrete ideas of what you can do right now, as an innovator, as a strategist, to move us toward that “star trek” future. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "The problem is that every technology can be used for good and it can be used for evil. The first technology was fire. Fire could use to keep us warm, or it could be used to burn down houses. That's the way it's always been. Use technology for good...You can use technologies for uplifting communities. You can help the poor. You can do a lot of good for the world. Think big, start, small solve problems." -Vivek Wadhwa __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Vivek Wadhwa + The topic of today’s episode 2:30—If you really knew me, you know that... 3:04—What is your definition of strategy? 4:08—How can a linear large company act like an agile exponential one? 6:06—Could you describe exponential technologies and point us to ones that people aren't paying as much attention to that we should be? 8:09—Can you tell us about the implications of devices not only being smarter, but also communicating better? 9:33—What are you predictions for fundamentals, like energy, food, health and education? 12:00—What is the challenge for us to be able to create or plan for this exponential Star Trek future or maybe the dark future? 14:21—We can't rely on the individual to say "This technology should be used for good." How do we unravel that? 16:20—Is there an action, a framework, a tool, a step that you would recommend that someone take? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Resources Mentioned: Clayton M. Christensen: The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #5: Lindsay McGregor: Primed to Perform | 30 Apr 2021 | 00:21:49 | |
Lindsay McGregor is the co-founder of Vega Factor and co-author of bestselling book, Primed to Perform: How to Build the Highest Performing Cultures Through the Science of Total Motivation. Previously, Lindsay led projects at McKinsey & Company, working with large fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, universities and school systems. In this episode she shares the concept of Total Motivation, or ToMo—a simple theory based on the idea that why people work determines how well they work. She'll walk us through the six reasons why people work—three leading to higher performance and three leading to lower performance—and how to measure and manage them all. What is so powerful about her approach is that ultimately it enables you to take something that is often considered "soft" and "squishy"—culture—and turn it into something tangible you can actually measure, track, and manage. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "Your reason for working will change what you do. And there's a spectrum of reasons why people do anything...it can range because you're working because you love the work itself. -Lindsay McGregor __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Introducing Rita McGrath + The topic of today’s episode 1:27—If you really know me, you know that... 2:01—What would you say you're known for? 4:04—What is your definition of strategy? 5:36—What got you interested in strategy? 7:00—The Total Motivation (Tomo) Model 9:34—Indirect negative motives 11:55—Thinking of Tomo as an NPS measurement 13:21—An example of implementing Tomo in an organization 16:36—The Cobra Effect 18:55—How to start influencing culture in your company 20:27—Where to connect with Lindsay __________________________________________________________________________________________ Book: https://www.vegafactor.com/book Total Motivation Survey: https://app.vegafactor.com/take_the_survey Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #4: Rob Wolcott: The Power of Proximity in your Strategy | 23 Apr 2021 | 00:20:54 | |
Rob Wolcott is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth, and Adjunct Professor in Executive Education at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. A managing partner with innovation strategy consultancy Clareo, he is a regular contributor to Forbes regarding the impact of technology change on business, leadership and society. Co-author of the book Grow From Within: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation, his work has appeared in prestigious global outlets including MIT Sloan Management Review (where two of his articles have ranked as among the most downloaded of all time), strategy+business, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times among many others. Co-founder and Chairman of The World Innovation Network (TWIN), a network of senior executives dedicated to driving sustainable innovation, Rob brings together and embraces the value of learning and collaboration across industries. In this episode Rob introduces us to at least two important strategic concepts that will change the way you think about strategy innovation and growth. He will lay out a framework that shows that there are four primary models your, and any, company can follow to manage your growth plans. And he will arm you with a concept called “Proximity.” In full disclosure, I’m working on a book on this topic with Rob, but even if I weren’t I would say that this simply idea of his could be the unifying lens that clarifies what innovation projects you should be pursuing and which you should avoid if you want to lead the future. _______________________________________________________________________________________ "Business is about satisfying desires, perhaps creating desires and demands, but providing supply for the demand and over time. What digital technologies enable is for us to more and more effectively, efficiently, economically drive the production of products and services closer to that moment where they're actually demanded." -Rob Wolcott _______________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00 - Introducing Rob Wolcott + The topic of today’s episode 2:08 - If you really know Rob, you know that… 2:46 - Rob's work with TWIN Global 4:15 - What is your definition of strategy? 5:08 - What kind of objective should an organization have? 5:54 - The 4 Models of Corporate Entrepreneurship 12:53 - The concept of Proximity 15:07 - Examples of how Proximity works with various products 19:21 - What else do you want us to know about you? _______________________________________________________________________________________ Resources mentioned: Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #3: Fons Trompenaars: Reframing Strategy as Reconciling Dilemmas | 16 Apr 2021 | 00:16:31 | |
In this episode of The Outthinker Podcast, Kaihan welcomes Fons Trompenaars. Fons is one of the world's leading thinkers in the area of cross-cultural communication and culture strategy. His work infuses experience from his years as an executive and consultant for Shell, GM, Nike and other global fortune 500 companies with his own thought-leadership and research into the underlying drivers and complex variables that influence cultural understanding and strategy. The author or co-author of over 20 books, including the best-selling Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business, Fons is known for his model of the 7 Dimensions of Culture and other practical frameworks for creating intercultural collaboration and developing culturally aware strategies for global businesses. In this episode, Fons will walk through a six-step process that can be used to reconcile cultural challenges or dilemmas. He will also walk us through an example of a strategic challenge involving a car crash to illustrate a provocative take on strategy: that strategy not about making choices, but about reconciling dilemmas. __________________________________________________________________________________________ "So in fact, culture is a way we approach the dilemma, and it gives foreground and background. Although the dilemma is human, but it depends on your culture what you give priority." -Fons Trompenaars __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00 — Introducing Scott Anthony + The topic of today’s episode 1:40 — If you really knew me, you know that... 2:25 — What is your definition of strategy? 4:05— How do you approach strategy? 5:28 — The 6-Step Process to Reconciling Dilemmas 8:00 — Story on provocative question that highlights how culture comes into play in dilemmas 12:25 — What are you working on now? 15:09 — Where can people go to find you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Resources Mentioned: THT Consulting (Website) Riding the Waves of Culture (Book) Transcultural Competence: reconcile dilemmas to collaborate and innovate (Article) Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #2—Rita McGrath: Strategic Planning Amidst Uncertainty | 08 Apr 2021 | 00:22:35 | |
In this episode of The Outthinker Podcast, Kaihan welcomes Rita McGrath, a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. She received the number one Achievement Award for Strategy from the prestigious thinker's 50 and has been consistently named one of the world's top 10 management thinkers in its biannual ranking. As a consultant to CEOs, her work has had a lasting impact on the strategy and growth programs of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. She is the author of numerous books, including The End of Competitive Advantage, Discovery Driven Growth, and her latest book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. In this episode, Rita talks about her discovery-driven planning approach, which has transformed the traditional strategic planning approaches companies used to design strategies and gave birth to the now popular agile and lean startup approaches. She's going to give us some practical tips to get smarter at predicting and preparing for the inflection points that will inevitably disrupt your industry. __________________________________________________________________________________________ “I realized that I was falling victim to something I warn people about. Just because that's the future you prefer, does not mean that's the only future you should be preparing for.” -Rita McGrath __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:24 – Introducing Rita McGrath + The topic of today’s episode 02:22 – If you really know Rita, you know that… 02:42 – Rita’s definition of strategy 04:08 – What initially got you interested in strategy? 06:22 – Explaining levels of experimentation, trial, and learning as part of a strategy 07:46 – Explaining the discovery-driven planning 10:08 – Where would a strategist start? 12:50 – Does the balance of portfolio change with greater or lower degrees of uncertainty? 14:02 – Explaining the Use of the Term Arena instead of Industry 16:06 – Talking about Her Book, Seeing Around Corners and Strategic Inflection Points 19:12 – What is something that you've changed your mind about? 20:05 – Opportunity of a New Social Contract, Applying Models and Seeing Your Corners __________________________________________________________________________________________ Resources Mentioned:
Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #1—Scott Anthony: Innovate by Overcoming Inertia | 01 Apr 2021 | 00:17:54 | |
In this episode of The Outthinker Podcast, Kaihan welcomes Scott Anthony, Managing Partner at Innosight, a consulting firm founded by the late Clayton Christensen. Scott is the author of several books about business management and has been rated one of 2019’s top 10 management thinkers in the world. Listen in as Scott highlights practical actions you can take right now to boost innovation in your organization and start shifting your company’s culture and behaviors to allow for the kind of innovation that your future depends on. Scott shares what his children have taught him about innovation and divulges his ‘Beans framework’, which can be leveraged to effectively break down barriers to innovation. He then shares his candid thoughts on ambidexterity and what it really takes to be an innovative thought leader in 2021 and beyond. __________________________________________________________________________________________ “One of the greatest enemies inside organizations is what I call the plague of the zombie project, the walking on dead, the projects that suck all the innovation life out of the organization… if you start saying cheers to failure, you put the zombies down, you create the energy, you create space to be more psychologically safe, and lots of good things happen.” -Scott D. Anthony __________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00 – Introducing Scott Anthony + The topic of today’s episode 01:25 – If you really know Scott, you know that… 02:32 – Scott’s definition of strategy 03:21 – What initially got you interested in strategy? 05:03 – Explaining the core concept of his book, Dual Transformation 07:00 – What Scott’s kids have taught him about innovation + How to shift company culture and behavior to drive innovation 10:27 – What’s something that you have changed your mind about? 12:17 – Discussing How Leaders Delude Themselves About Disruption 13:43 – What we’re learning about innovation + Why implement the Beans framework 15:45 – Practical steps you can take to boost innovation in your organization __________________________________________________________________________________________ Resources Mentioned: Dual Transformation: www.innosight.com/insight/dual-transformation Article: How Leaders Delude Themselves About Disruption: www.sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-leaders-delude-themselves-about-disruption Eat, Sleep, Innovate: www.innosight.com/insight/eat-sleep-innovate Find more of Scott’s books: www.innosight.com/team_bio/anthony-scott-d Connect with Scott Anthony on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/scottdanthony Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #111—Tobias Dengel: Voice Technology: Unlocking Efficiency and Evolution | 23 Feb 2024 | 00:25:26 | |
Tobias Dengel is President of WillowTree, a TELUS International Company. WillowTree designs and builds digital experiences for the world’s largest brands, and they sit at the forefront of this breakthrough. Tobias understands voice technology's profound, wide-ranging implications for every industry, including marketing, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, media, and more. He counsels leaders in all these fields about how their companies must adapt to the coming age of voice.
__________________________________________________________________________________________ 00:00—Highlight from today's episode __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal site: https://www.tobiasdengel.com/ All content © 2024 Outthinkers. Thank you to our guests, thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening. Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #110—Sukhinder Singh Cassidy: Embracing Risk, Agility, and Resilience for Success | 09 Feb 2024 | 00:29:05 | |
Sukhinder Sing Cassidy is the leader of the growth and performance of Xero globally. With more than 25 years’ experience in Silicon Valley as a CEO, digital leader and board member, she has experienced building and scaling global companies including Google, Amazon, Yodlee, Joyus and StubHub. She currently serves on the board of publicly traded fintech, Upstart with previous experience serving on the boards of Ericsson, Trip Advisor, Urban Outfitters, Stitchfix and J.Crew. Working across such a diverse, prominent portfolio of companies has given Sukhinder a unique counter-perspective on how leaders and business owners look at risk and reward. Her book, Choose Possibility: Take Risks and Thrive (Even When You Fail) sheds light and dives deep into what she’s learned in her extensive career as a leader in tech, where risk-taking and volatility is the norm.
__________________________________________________________________________________________ 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 27:55—How can people follow you and continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: choosepossibility.com book All content © 2024 Outthinkers. Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #109—Jayshree Seth: Effective Collaboration and Innovation Between Science and Business | 25 Jan 2024 | 00:34:49 | |
Jayshree Seth is a Corporate Scientist at 3M who currently holds 80 patents for a variety of innovations, with several additional pending. Jayshree was appointed 3M’s first ever Chief Science Advocate in 2018 and as is using her scientific knowledge, technical expertise and professional experience to advance science and communicate the benefits of science and the importance of diversity in STEM fields to drive innovation. She has a MS and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University, New York and bachelors of tech in chemical engineering form the prestigious NIIT Trichy in India. In this discussion, we dive deep into the topic of some of books, especially her latest, The Heart of Science, with material from her upcoming book, Engineering Blueprint and a fascinating Fast Company article she co-wrote with our good friend Rita McGrath titles, A guide for managing innovation: 4 big mistakes technologists wish their business leaders would stop making. She has a lifetime of experiencing building bridges between science and business, something 3M is uniquely good at.
In this episode, she shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Fas Company Article: A guide for managing innovation: 4 big mistakes technologists wish their business leaders would stop making. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayshree-seth-6287b45 All content © 2024 Outthinkers. Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #108—Jean-Manuel Izaret: Mastering Your Pricing Strategy: Tips and Insights from JMI of BCG | 12 Jan 2024 | 00:30:24 | |
Jean-Manuel Izaret, or, JMI as he often prefers to go by, is a BCG managing director and senior partner and the global leader of the Marketing, Sales & Pricing practice based in San Francisco. His work as a BCG Fellow focuses on the topic of pricing model transformation. JMI has worked on pricing issues across industries, including consumer goods, retail, high tech, financial services, and industrial goods. JMI has a talent for condensing the intricate and vast topic of pricing into clear, simple concepts that any business person can apply. His book, Game Changer: How Strategic Pricing Shapes Businesses, Markets, and Society, released just this October 2023, and co-written with Arnab Sinha, was written with the mission to flip the flawed and clichéd conversations surrounding pricing to an approach that promises winning strategies for greater and fairer value to the buyer and seller and to society at large. _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, he shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 00:56—Introducing JMI + The topic of today’s episode 3:32—If you really know me, you know that... 5:36—What do people most get wrong when approaching pricing? 7:43—How Netflix's change in their pricing model evolved over time, radically changing the business model itself 8:48—How does a business decide on what unit to use to when establishing price? 12:17—How do you decide what part of the market or customer segment is going to dictate and most influence the decisions you make when shaping your business model and product? 16:57—What has changed over time about pricing? 20:12—Could you walk us through your Hexagon pricing model? 23:58—What are your thoughts around the rise in dynamic pricing? 26:37—As an interesting side tangent—why do you think Europeans have such a different relationship with tipping than Americans? 29:24—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Author Website:https://www.izaret.net/bio Book website: https://www.bcg.com/capabil Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #107—Sheena Iyengar: Demystifying the Relationship Between Creativity and Innovation | 22 Dec 2023 | 00:28:47 | |
Sheena Iyengar is the S.T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, where she has taught since 1998. A graduate of both Wharton and Stanford, she is one of the world's experts on choice and innovation. Famously known for her “Jam Study,” which transformed the way we think about products offered in the marketplace and how we curate them for customers, you may recognize her from one of her Ted Talks, which have collectively been viewed nearly seven million times. Sheena is a masterful speaker and thinker on innovation. She opens our conversation with a fascinating take on how the Statue of Liberty was created to illustrate how though seemingly a quality of “geniuses” actually creativity and innovation are attainable by everyone. Sheena has published two books, The Art of Choosing, and her recent 2023, Think Bigger: How to Innovate, which has been hailed by The New York Times and The Financial Times, among others, as a must read for business leaders. _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, she shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 1:25—Introducing Sheena + The topic of today’s episode 3:32—If you really know me, you know that... 4:59—What is your definition of strategy? 5:20—Could you tell us about the design of the Statue of Liberty, and what it teaches us? 9:13—How do you define innovation vs. creativity? 9:47—Could you walk us through the steps in the "Think Bigger" process? 17:33—Tell us about the last step (step 6) and this concept of the "third eye" 19:15—Could you share your exercise for "developing" this third eye? 23:42—How do you see AI interacting with human creativity? 26:52—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Website: https://sheenaiyengar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheena-iyengar-1592b310/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sheena_Iyengar Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #106—David Lancefield: Strategy and Culture in Tandem | 08 Dec 2023 | 00:23:09 | |
David Lancefield is a catalyst, strategist and coach to senior executives, professionals and entrepreneurs. Over the last 25 years, David has worked with organizations on strategy, innovation, culture from start-ups to blue chips, while building and leading successful businesses and client accounts within PwC. He also speaks, facilitates and hosts the Lancefield on the Line podcast, and writes for Harvard Business Review and is a contributing editor for Strategy+Business, as well as being published by Forbes and Financial Times, among others. David sits in the intersection of how strategy, leadership and culture all come together. In this thought-provoking conversation, we discuss two topics that are prevalent in the business world—strategy and culture. But where they are often treated as one dependent on the other, David brings to us the perspective that the two directly support and inform one another—and that building them in tandem is a competitive advantage is too often overlooked. _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, he shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 1:14—Introducing David + The topic of today’s episode 3:02—If you really know me, you know that... 4:02—What is your definition of strategy? 5:18—How do you align strategy and culture, and which one would you say comes first? 7:22—What is the relationship between behaviors and their relation to culture? 8:59—what happens when strategy and culture are not well aligned? 12:13—How do you measure culture? 13:59—Is there a set of steps you find most effective when enacting a culture change? 15:55—How do you identify your cultural advocates that can help promote your culture? 19:49—What are your thoughts on intrapreneurship? 21:50—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Author Website: https://davidlancefield.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidclancefield/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dlancefield Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #105—Bob Sutton: Leveraging Friction in Your Organization | 24 Nov 2023 | 00:28:14 | |
Bob Sutton is an organizational psychologist and professor of Management Science and Engineering at the Stanford Engineering School. He has given keynote speeches to more than 200 groups in 20 countries, and served on numerous scholarly editorial boards focused around his work on leadership, innovation, organizational change, and workplace dynamics. His most recent book, THE FRICTION PROJECT: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder, co-written with Huggy Rao is focused on scaling and leading at scale. Based on 10 years of research it outlines how to grow organizations, it suggests something really compelling: you know we all almost by default think we should be strive to build a “frictionless organization” to drive agility and efficiency. Bob points out that friction is not bad on its own. In fact, you WANT to create friction to slow down “bad” things while reducing friction to promote good things. This can enhance performance, innovation, and help make sure you fall into the trap of letting bad things grow as the company scales. _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, he shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 1:20—Introducing Bob + The topic of today’s episode 3:50—If you really know me, you know that... 5:05—What is your definition of strategy? 7:07—Can you talk to us about the premise of your book, The Friction Project, and its background? 10:50—Could you talk to us about the moments in which friction can be a good thing, or when to apply "gas vs. brakes 16:05—How do you recognize where to apply this idea of velocity vs. slowing down? 18:57—How is it that some teams seem to come together and work seamlessly, while others seem to struggle? 22:57—What is changing in business in terms of leadership, the way people work, etc.? 26:05—Can you talk to us about the importance of reducing frictions, especially in regards to technology? 26:50—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Author Website: bobsutton.net Email: https://www.bobsutton.net/contact/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobsutton1/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/work_matters Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #122—Stephan Meier: Employee-Centricity as a Competitive Advantage | 26 Jul 2024 | 00:34:14 | |
Stephan Meier, is Chair of the Management Division and the James P. Gorman Professor of Business Strategy at Columbia Business School whose work lies at the intersection of behavioral economics, business strategy, and the future of work. Customer-centricity has long been at the forefront of conversations that involve optimizing profit, with the idea that happy customers lead to increased revenues. But a new theory is quickly gaining traction—that employee-centricity is just as important. Stephen is a big advocate for the idea that happy employees not only boost company morale, but have a clear direct correlation on the bottom line. In his upcoming October 2024 book, The Employee Advantage: How Putting Workers First Helps Business Thrive, he collects fascinating case studies and insights from his research to showcase how businesses that invest in employee experience often outperform others. In this conversation, we discuss key points from his book, including:
_______________________________________________________________________________ Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #104—Andy Binns & Ellie Amirnasr: Paving a Path of Success for Corporate Explorers within Your Organization | 10 Nov 2023 | 00:32:37 | |
In this episode, Andy Binns, co-founder and Director of Change Logic, and an award-winning author who publishes articles on innovation strategy and execution in established firms is joined by an additional guest, Ellie Amirnasr, director of digital ventures at MANN+HUMMEL, who was a chapter author, alongside Andy, of Corporate Explorer Fieldbook: How to Build New Ventures In Established Companies. Their work with this just-released 2023 book brings to the forefront the corporate explorer: the individuals within your organization that have the prowess to lead innovation. In this episode, we delve deep into these pioneers brimming with new ideas. _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, they share:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 1:18—Introducing Andy & Ellie + The topic of today’s episode 2:34—If you really know me, you know that... 5:33—What is your definition of strategy? 8:30—Could you talk to us about your organization, qlair? 9:52—Could you define a "corporate explorer" for us? 11:20—What are some of the aspects that an organization needs to have in place to enable corporate explorers? 13:59—What are some shifts that leaders need to make to allow for corporate explorers? 17:53—Could you lead us through the stages of a new venture and how it relates to decision-making and funding? 26:44—What is the mechanism that makes it more likely to be successful if you state your goals and metrics at the beginning? 29:13—What is the biggest mistake you see corporate explorers make that you could advise them on? 31:14—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Book Website: https://www.thecorporateexplorer.com/ LinkedIn: Ellie Amirnasr, Andy Binns Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #103—Shannon Banks: Unlocking the Power of Social Leadership and Purpose | 27 Oct 2023 | 00:23:41 | |
Shannon Banks is managing director of Be Leadership, and an award-winning facilitator, consultant, and coach. A pioneer in the field of social leadership, she founded her company in 2014 to help organizations bring their purpose to life through their people. In this episode, we'll dive into her steadfast belief that it is leaders that have the power to ignite purpose through social leadership. Shannon has delivered quality, bespoke work to diverse clients across many sectors, including Roche, BNP Paribas, and the UK House of Commons and has partnered with world-changing organizations such as Teach for India, Grameen Foundation, and Siel Bleu. She spent twenty years in the technology industry, including seventeen years at Microsoft where she held a variety of global leadership roles across the business and HR. She has won international awards for her work in leadership development and talent management and is a sought-after public speaker. She is coauthor of the third edition of the field-defining book Optimizing the Power of Action Learning. Her forthcoming book Because: 12 Essential Skills for Connecting How you Lead with Why will be released October 2023. _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, she shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 00:54—Introducing Shannon + The topic of today’s episode 2:55—If you really know me, you know that... 3:49—What is your definition of strategy? 4:25—Could you talk to us about how your career inspired your book? 5:35—Why did you name your company "BE" leadership? 7:28—Could you lead us through your the 12 skills leaders must have? 9:20—Talk to us about your definition of social leadership 12:40—How can executives find their own purpose to help others to connect to theirs? 16:50—What's a powerful insight you could share for leaders on how to use this passion in the workplace? 18:11—Creating change at scale is incredibly difficult—could you share your story of living in Russia that illustrates this? 22:24—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Author Website: https://shannonbanksauthor.com/ Company Website: https://be-leadership.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-banks-be-leadership Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShannonB Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #102—Matt Abrahams: Optimizing Your Strategic Communication Toolkit | 13 Oct 2023 | 00:22:16 | |
In this episode, Matt Abrahams, leading expert in communication with decades of experience as an educator, author, podcast host, and coach shares some of his top insights into strategic communication. He gives us a holistic explanation of what effective communication is, as well as dives into practical daily tips and techniques you can use in any conversation. As a Lecturer in Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, he teaches popular classes in strategic communication and effective virtual presenting. He received Stanford GSB’s Alumni Teaching Award in recognition of his teaching students around the world. When he isn’t teaching, Matt is a sought-after keynote speaker and communication consultant. He has helped countless presenters improve and hone their communication, including some who have delivered IPO road shows as well as TED, World Economic Forum, and Nobel Prize presentations. His online talks garner millions of views and he hosts the popular, award-winning podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart: The Podcast. He is the author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot. His previous book Speaking Up without Freaking Out: 50 Techniques for Confident and Compelling Presenting has helped thousands of people manage speaking anxiety and present more confidently and authentically. _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, he shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 1:13—Introducing Matt + The topic of today’s episode 3:01—If you really know me, you know that... 4:27—What is your definition of strategy? 5:53—Can you give us your developed theory on communication? 7:56—Could we talk about Step 2, "structures"? 9:56—Can you explain improv (improvisational) speaking, and its benefits in business speaking? 12:04—Can you give us some improv-based tactics that can help us navigate unexpected disruptions during our presentation, speech, etc.? 14:15—Can you elaborate on your tactic of "chunking"? 15:22—What can you tell us about the idea that "communication is the thinking"? 17:22—How do you see AI changing communication as a communication strategist? 19:37—Talk us about your ideas around calendar invites... 21:19—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maabrahams Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #101—Bob Muglia: The Critical Role of People in Digital Transformation and the Future of AI | 29 Sep 2023 | 00:25:04 | |
Bob Muglia is a data technology investor and business executive, former CEO of Snowflake, and past president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Division. His rich background as a long-time leader in the tech space afforded him the unique position of being on the frontlines of the internet and related tech revolution. Bob is an advocate that while technology and strategy are important, it is critical to maintain keen awareness of that your people are the critical coupling between digital transformation and your company’s strategic initiatives. Bob also focuses on how innovation and ethical values can merge to shape the data economy's future in the era of AI and he serves as a board director for emerging companies which seek to maximize the power of data to help solve some of the world's most challenging problems _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, he shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 00:49—Introducing Bob + The topic of today’s episode 2:05—If you really know me, you know that... 3:45—What is your definition of strategy (and the benefit of the weekly meeting) 6:02—Would you be able to characterize the approach to strategy in the Microsoft ecosystem, as you worked with Bill Gates, Satya Nadella and others? 9:18—You were part of the team that saw Satya Nadella's transition into CEO. What characteristics did he exhibit that made you feel that was the right choice? 13:13—What can you share about the ecosystem and partnership strategy Microsoft adopted from early on? 19:14—Could you expound on your views around artificial intelligence from a leadership perspective? 21:31—Could you talk to us about how values play into the rise of AI and sophisticated machines? 23:50—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Newest Book: https://www.thedatapreneurs.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-muglia Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bob_Muglia Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #100—Outthinkers Reaches 100: Special Highlights Episode | 15 Sep 2023 | 00:43:47 | |
Dear listeners, this week we celebrate our 100th episode. We want to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and listenership, as we treat you to a compilation of some of our favorite insights over the past years. Below you'll find a highlights reel broken down into clips in four categories: CLASSIC STRATEGY: Featuring Rita, McGrath, Richard Rumelt, John Hagel, and Mike Tushman who each share with us timeless ideas around strategy. LEADERSHIP, CULTURE & WORKFORCE: Featuring Adam Bryant, Ajay Banga, Sally Susman, Johnny C. Taylor, Tiffani Bova, and Elizabeth Altman, who each share critical insights into leadership, our employees, and the quickly changing landscape of the workforce. VALUE CREATION: Featuring Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Thales Teixeira, Pete Fader, and Mohan Subramaniam, who each share alternative and modern views around value creation. INNOVATION, TECH & THE FUTURE: Featuring Alex Osterwalder, Rob Wolcott, Vivek Wadhwa, and Faith Popcorn who each share with us insightful ideas around innovation, upcoming trends in tech and society, and the future of business. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:34—Special Introduction to 100th Episode from Kaihan CLASSIC STRATEGY 2:57—Highlight from Rita McGrath: Strategic Planning Amidst Uncertainty 5:24—Highlight from Richard Rumelt: Finding the Crux of Your Strategy 7:01—Highlight from John Hagel: Why You Should "Zoom Out, Zoom In," and Scale From the Edge 9:01—Highlight from Mike Tushman: Why Ambidextrous Organizations Outperform Others LEADERSHIP/CULTURE/WORKFORCE 10:52—Highlight from Adam Bryant: Good vs. GREAT CEOs—500 Interviews Reveal What Makes the Difference 12:58—Highlight from Ajay Banga: Insights from a Former CEO with Ajay Banga of MasterCard 15:11—Highlight from Sally Susman: Insights from Pfizer's Chief Corporate Affairs Officer in Crafting Public Discourse 17:27—Highlight from Johnny C. Taylor: Trends You Need to Know About the Workforce 19:27—Highlight from Tiffani Bova: Elevating Your EX to Improve Your CX 21:01—Highlight from Elizabeth Altman: Rethinking the Definition of a Workforce in the Modern Era VALUE CREATION 23:24—Highlight from Felix Oberholzer-Gee: Applying a Value-Based Strategy to Drive Your Business 26:11—Highlight from Thales Teixeira: Decoupling the Customer Value Chain for Competitive Advantage 28:36—Highlight from Pete Fader: Becoming a Customer-Centric Business 30:49—Highlight from Mohan Subramaniam: The Future of Competitive Strategy and the Evolving Role of Data, Customers and Digital Ecosystems INNOVATION, TECH & THE FUTURE 33:46—Highlight from Alexander Osterwalder: How Investing in Culture Ecosystems Leads to Innovation 35:57—Highlight from Rob Wolcott: The Power of Proximity in your Strategy 38:31—Highlight from Vivek Wadhwa: Harnessing Tech for an Innovative Future 40:24—Highlight from Faith Popcorn: Predictions to Know From a Leading Futurist 42:34—Closing and Thank you Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #99—Daniel Trabucchi: The Evolution of Platforms: Creating Value Beyond Digital Archetypes | 01 Sep 2023 | 00:24:06 | |
Daniel Trabucchi is the co-author, with Tommaso Buganza, of Platform Thinking: Read the past. Write the future. He is Senior Assistant Professor at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano where he fosters research and teaches at the intersection between innovation management and leadership, with a strong focus on platform thinking and the human side of innovation. He is the co-founder of Symplatform, the international symposium on digital platforms that aims to match managers and academics coming from various disciplines and he is the co-founder and scientific director of Platform Thinking HUB the observatory that aims to help established firms in finding innovation opportunities through platforms. Finally, he co-hosts with Philip Meier “Talking About Platforms,” the podcast where the latest research on platforms is featured and spread. His work has been featured by outlets such as Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technovation, Technological Forecasting and Social Change and many others, but he aims to make scientific research as accessible as possible, so—in addition to the book—his platform knowledge can be found also on Coursera in four courses under the title of “platform thinking." The idea of value creation has come a long way—where we used to think of providing value along a linear chain for stakeholders, platforms open up an incredible amount of possibilities in making customers and other stakeholders active participants—not only the end-receivers—of value creation. _________________________________________________________________________________________ "This is the power of platform thinking. You've got the brand. You've got the customers. You've got resources. If you find the right idle assets in your organization, you could actually use platforms as a new way to perceive a value creation." -Daniel Trabucchi _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, he shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 1:08—Introducing Daniel + The topic of today’s episode 2:42—If you really know me, you know that... 3:51—What is your definition of strategy? 4:21—Let's start with the foundation—how do you define a platform? 8:07—Could you describe the four types of platforms? 13:12—What are some of the mindset changes that need to happen for people to see these different ways to use platforms in value creation? 19:04—What are the first steps to take in creating or plugging into a platform? 21:40—How ca Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #98—Dorie Clark: Crafting a Powerful Personal Brand in the Age of AI | 18 Aug 2023 | 00:21:31 | |
Dorie Clark helps individuals and companies get their best ideas heard in a crowded, noisy world. She has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. She was honored as the #1 Communication Coach by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards and one of the Top 5 Communication Professionals in the World by Global Gurus. She is a keynote speaker and teaches for Columbia Business School. She is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Long Game, Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You,and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of the Year by Inc. magazine. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Dorie has been described by the New York Times as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.” She is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and consults and speaks for clients such as Google, Yale University, and the World Bank. Forbes has declared that “her insights connect marketing, social media, communications, learning technologies, and personal discovery to give us a blueprint for success in the future economy.” She is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, a producer of a multiple Grammy-winning jazz album, and a Broadway investor. _________________________________________________________________________________________ "We are all being commoditized. But I think that what we can fight back with is relationships, and with brand equity. If you become a person that people wanna be around, if you are a person that people like enough, that they respect enough, then it doesn't matter that AI is nearly as good as what we are doing." -Dorie Clark _________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, she shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 1:16—Introducing Dorie + The topic of today’s episode 3:00—If you really know me, you know that... 4:53—What is your definition of strategy? 5:17—Can you define "personal brand," and characteristics of a powerful personal brand? 6:50—How does one assess their personal brand? 9:25—What are some tips on figuring out how to define your personal brand? 13:50—What are the similarities between defining your business brand vs. your personal brand? 15:09—Could you talk to us about why you decided to write The Long Game? 17:16—In what way do you see work itself changing, the future of work? 20:38—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue l Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #97—Tiffani Bova: Elevating Your EX to Improve Your CX | 04 Aug 2023 | 00:25:42 | |
What questions are addressed in this podcast?
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Summary: Tiffani Bova is the global growth evangelist and business strategist at Salesforce, an author, and a keynote speaker. We were lucky enough to have Tiffani join us for a second time on this podcast, and in this episode, she brings us a new wealth of much-needed perspective. Where our last episode with Tiffani focused on the how to maximize your company’s Growth IQ—the 10 paths to growing your company—now we shift our focus to the internal movers of this growth—employees and the employee experience, also known as EX. Tiffani’s career taught her that without the people who make the Customer Experience, you can only get so far in fulfilling your brand promise. In her newest book, The Experience Mindset, she dives into how to complement your CX by revamping your EX. In this episode, she shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ "Let me just say to you that that strategy one-pager in that vision and value statement and your tagline does not show up and solve a customer problem. It does not show up and sell something to a customer. It does not show up and design a product. People do that, not the strategy deck that gets you funding from your board." -Tiffani Bova _________________________________________________________________________________________ Action Items: If you'd like to put takeaways from this episode into action in your organization, we recommend starting here:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 00:56—Introducing Tiffani + The topic of today’s episode 2:58—If you really know me, you know that... 3:31—What is your definition of strategy? 4:31—What prompted you to begin your research into the topic of Employee Experience (EX)? 7:05—What were some of the unexpected findings in your research that led you to wri Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #96—Michael Lenox: Unraveling Digital Transformation | 30 Jun 2023 | 00:22:33 | |
Michael Lenox is an award-winning professor, consultant, author, speaker, and podcaster. For over twenty-five years, he has been helping MBA students and executives navigate the competitive dynamics of markets in the face of innovation and disruption. He is the author of five books, including his latest, Strategy in the Digital Age: Mastering Digital Transformation (Stanford Business Books, June 27, 2023). Michael is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He has served on the faculty at Duke and NYU and as a visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT in Technology Management and Policy and a BS and MS in Systems Engineering from UVA. His Digital Transformation course on Coursera currently has over 150,000 students enrolled. He has had well over a half-million students across all of his online courses, making him one of the most popular teachers on Coursera. Lenox has extensive expertise on the topics most important to today's executives, from decarbonization to digital transformation. As a strategy consultant, he has helped numerous organizations devise effective strategies, such as General Motors, Dominion Energy, NASA, and the NCAA. As an online educator, he has helped millions of learners improve their strategic thinking and reasoning. In this episode, he shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 00:56—Introducing Michael + The topic of today’s episode 2:40—If you really know me, you know that... 3:28—What is your definition of strategy? 4:03—What are the three fundamental technologies that impact digital transformation? 6:38—How does competitive advantage change in light of how the sheer amount of data is changing? 8:41—What are some misconceptions about competing in the platform age against platform titans? 11:11—Can you talk about the deconstruction of the customer value chain? 13:14—What are some of the positionings companies can take to stay competitive amongst platforms? 14:39—Could you about the distinction between prediction and judgment, the concept from your book? 16:55—Can you talk about some of the ideas you have around how newer technologies like AI are going to affect different industries, like pharma or utilities, for example? 19:09—Can you talk to us about what phases a strategist should tackle to prepare their organization to lead in the digital age? 21:15—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||
| #95—Terence Mauri: Navigating Complexity and Uncertainty with Agility and Resilience | 23 Jun 2023 | 00:22:02 | |
Terence Mauri is the founder of the management think thank Hack Future Lab, a bestselling author and a visiting Professor at IE Business School. Terence challenges leaders to pivot from ‘wait and see’ to ‘explore and disrupt’ in a world of complexity and uncertainty. Terence says: ’Building a bold and resilient future never happens by accident. To sustain vitality for the long-term, we must have an eye on the future while searching every day for the upside of disruption.’ His recent publications include co-authoring Thinkers50’s Certain Uncertainty: Leading with Agility and Resilience in an Unpredictable World’ and Building Resilient Organizations: Best practices, tools and insights to thrive in ever-changing contexts. In this episode, he shares:
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode Timeline: 00:00—Highlight from today's episode 00:55—Introducing Terence + The topic of today’s episode 2:24—If you really know me, you know that... 3:33—What is your definition of strategy? 4:33—Can you talk to us about your concept of unlearning? 6:59—What is the barrier that keeps organizations from implementing a culture of unlearning? 9:24—Could you explain your concept of "concept over control"? 11:18—What does a career ladder look like nowadays? 12:25—Could you talk to us about the risk of standing still? 14:14—Why do you believe we should we be planning from the future? 16:26—How does one do the third piece of activating the urgency within your organization? 18:03—How do you suggest companies move to a more decentralized org structure without the cognitive overload? 20:20—What do you think is something people should know as a closing thought? 21:01—How can people follow you and connect with you to continue learning from you? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Resources: Personal page: https://www.terencemauri.com/ Books: https://www.terencemauri.com/#bestsellers Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terencemauri Twitter: https://twitter.com/terencemauri Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening. | |||