Outthinkers

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 episode2:00—If you really knew me, you know that...2:38—What is your definition of strategy?3:31—Explaining the concept of tradeoffs6:15—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 InnovThank 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode1:34—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 StockX6:10—"Big Little Breakthroughs" explained7:53—Examples of little innovations that have had a big impact11:18—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 LinknerThank 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode2:30—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 FailVivek WaThank 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode1:27—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) Model9:34—Indirect negative motives11:55—Thinking of Tomo as an NPS measurement13:21—An example of implementing Tomo in an organization16:36—The Cobra Effect18:55—How to start influencing culture in your company20:27—Where to connect with Lindsay__________________________________________________________________________________________Book: https://www.vegafactor.com/bookTotal Motivation Survey: https://app.vegafactor.com/take_the_surveyThank 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode2:08 - If you really know Rob, you know that…2:46 - Rob's work with TWIN Global4:15 - 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 Proximity15:07 - Examples of how Proximity works with various products19:21 - What else do you want us to know about you?_______________________________________________________________________________________Resources mentioned:Twin Global The Four Models of Corporate EntrepreneurshipThank 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode1:40 — 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 Dilemmas8:00 — Story on provocative question that highlights how culture comes into play in dilemmas12:25 — 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 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode02:22 – If you really know Rita, you know that…02:42 – Rita’s definition of strategy04:08 – What initially got you interested in strategy?06:22 – Explaining levels of experimentation, trial, and learning as part of a strategy07:46 – Explaining the discovery-driven planning10:08 – 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 Industry16:06 – Talking about Her Book, Seeing Around Corners and Strategic Inflection Points19:12 – 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:Article: What if you changed the world and nobody noticed: https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/when-you-change-the-world-and-no-one-notices/Find more of Rita’s books: https://www.ritamcgrath.com/books/Connect with Rita McGrath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritamcgrath/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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

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 episode01:25 – If you really know Scott, you know that…02:32 – Scott’s definition of strategy03:21 – 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 innovation10:27 – What’s something that you have changed your mind about?12:17 – Discussing How Leaders Delude Themselves About Disruption13:43 – What we’re learning about innovation + Why implement the Beans framework15:45 – Practical steps you can take to boost innovation in your organization__________________________________________________________________________________________Resources Mentioned:Dual Transformation: www.innosight.com/insight/dual-transformationArticle: How Leaders Delude Themselves About Disruption: www.sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-leaders-delude-themselves-about-disruptionEat, Sleep, Innovate: www.innosight.com/insight/eat-sleep-innovateFind more of Scott’s books: www.innosight.com/team_bio/anthony-scott-dConnect with Scott Anthony on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/scottdanthonyThank 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.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast