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: The idea that most of us are grossly underestimating the impact of 3D printing on business and global economy An argument for why in the near future assembly lines—the corner stone of manufacturing since the industrial evolution—won’t matter Why Michael Porter's theories might be misplaced in an era of hypercompetition__________________________________________________________________________________________"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 episode2:48—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: 603-646-2921Personal Website: http://daveni.tuck.dartmouth.edu/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-d-aveni-5169749/Most recent book: http://daveni.tuck.dartmouth.edu/reseaThank you to our guest. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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: Why innovation MUST begin with your culture Why if there were only ONE metric you should be tracking to unleash innovation, it should be your “innovation kill rate” Real-world examples of large enterprises who have been able to transform into agile, innovate organizations, proving it CAN be done __________________________________________________________________________________________"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 episode2:05—What is your definition of strategy?3:01—What got you interested in strategy?4:01—Could you explain a "dual culture"?5:50—What are the drivers of culture?8:09—What are you most well-known for?11:16—What should a CEO be encouraging to engage innovative behavior?14:30—What is the key lesson people should take away from the case studies you've described?16:20—What do most companies get wrong?18:07—What's a belief that you've changed your mind about?19:54—What are you working on now, and how can people engage with you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources:Personal website: https://www.alexosterwalder.com/Strategyzer Website: Thank you to our guest. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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: Why corporations need to pursue both positive social impact and profit—and why we no longer get to choose A fascinating concept called “Universal Ownership Theory,” that could explain why suddenly (seemingly) corporations are awakening to this need A practical first step you can help to help your company start embracing multi-stakeholder approach __________________________________________________________________________________________"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 episode2:10—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"?Thank you to our guest. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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: Why you should consider evolving your business model from a transaction-based one into a membership-based one What she learned from working with Netflix and other member-based companies across a range of industries Why evolving into a membership model is not just about changing your pricing structure, but requires you also looking at making three others sets of changes __________________________________________________________________________________________"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 episode2:00—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. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode1:48—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-mindsetPersonal website: https://aprilrinne.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilrinne/Thank you to our guest. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode2:09—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. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode3:06—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. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode1:20—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:Tendayi's BooksThank you to our guest. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode3:01—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. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode2:32—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 disruptor15:57—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 Thank you to our guest. 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast