Join Rita McGrath, a strategic management expert and Columbia professor, Alex Osterwalder, renowned for his business model innovation, and Ryan Shanks, Accenture's Head of Innovation, as they explore the seismic shifts in consulting due to AI. They discuss the evolution of consulting roles, the importance of human skills in an AI-driven world, and the move towards outcome-based business models. The trio delves into ethical dilemmas, the need for continuous reinvention, and the future landscape of consulting, advocating collaboration and trust amid rapid change.

Richard Rumelt and Rita McGrath discuss strategy, innovation, and growth

To plan for the future, businesses usually look to their past. But what if your company is in uncharted territory? Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath has a different idea: Design experiments to test your assumptions using “discovery-driven growth.”

Rita McGrath, expert in organizational innovation, discusses designing structures for innovation with a permissionless approach. She explains competitive strategies like onslaughts and guerrilla campaigns, entrepreneurial leadership practices, and fostering a culture of opportunity-seeking. Rita advocates for intelligent failure and technology-driven management for human flourishing at work, teasing her upcoming book on organizational design.

In the 1980s, Clayton Christensen cofounded a startup that took over a market niche from DuPont and Alcoa. That experience left Christensen puzzled. How could a small company with few resources beat rich incumbents? It led to his theory of disruptive innovation, introduced in the pages of Harvard Business Review in 1995 and popularized two years later in The Innovators Dilemma. The idea has inspired a generation of entrepreneurs. It has reshaped R&D strategies at countless established firms. And it has changed how investors place billions of dollars and how governments spend billions more, aiming to kickstart new industries and spark economic growth. But disruption has taken on a popular meaning well beyond what Christensen’s research describes. Some critics argue that the theory lacks evidence. Others say it glosses over the social costs of lost jobs of bankrupted companies. And debate continues over the best way to apply the idea in practice. 4 Business Ideas That Changed the World is a special series from HBR IdeaCast. Each week, an HBR editor talks to world-class scholars and experts on the most influential ideas of HBR’s first 100 years, such as shareholder value, scientific management, and emotional intelligence. Discussing disruptive innovation with HBR editor Amy Bernstein are: Rita McGrath, professor at Columbia Business School Felix Oberholzer-Gee, professor at Harvard Business School Derek van Bever, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School Further reading: HBR: What Is Disruptive Innovation?, by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, and Rory McDonald New Yorker: The Disruption Machine: What the Gospel of Innovation Gets Wrong, by Jill Lepore Business History Review: How History Shaped the Innovator’s Dilemma, by Tom Nicholas HBR: Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave, by Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen

Best-selling author and Columbia Professor, Rita McGrath, discusses fostering discovery driven growth and a sustainable innovation strategy. Topics include avoiding whipsaw reactions to major external events, building a process for systematic exploration and exploitation, innovative governance, indicators of blind spots, creating KPIs and metrics that incentivize innovation, and maintaining stability while fostering innovation and dynamic change.

Leading futurists Rita McGrath, Esther Dyson, and Gary Shteyngart discuss past predictions, the digital age, social media, science fiction, and methods for sensing the future. They explore predicting future trends, dystopian inspiration, human connections, and methods for contemplating the future. The podcast also touches on challenges in Korea's advanced economy, re-enchantment, permissionless organizations, potential disruption in advertising, and upcoming books and foresight.

Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath, Copenhagen Business School professor Poornima Luthra, and entrepreneur Andrew Barnes discuss rethinking work to improve mental health. Topics include the impact of a four-day workweek on productivity and employee well-being, creating psychologically safe environments through active listening, and fostering resilience and inclusivity in organizations.

Business strategist Rita McGrath discusses the flawed business model of Meta/Facebook, including its harmful impact on society and deceptive practices. The podcast also explores the challenges Facebook faces in revenue and competitors, particularly with Apple's privacy changes and TikTok's rise as a rival.

Rita McGrath, professor at Columbia Business School, says the need for organizations to adopt digital business models is more important than ever. Change is accelerating as startups tackle incumbents. And suddenly the coronavirus crisis is forcing the hand of many companies that have put off digital transformations. She explains how established firms can avoid bet-the-farm moves and instead take small steps and quickly target their experiments. McGrath is the coauthor of the HBR article "Discovery-Driven Digital Transformation."