Many listeners will know that Clay had a homemade “Anomalies Wanted” sign in his office at Harvard Business School – it was the backbone of his approach to research and theory building, as he worked to strengthen and refine his frameworks over the years. Many past guests on this podcast, when asked about what made Clay such a powerful thinker and teacher, responded saying that he was humble, that he was open to learning from everyone, and that he was always on the lookout for anomalies. Specifically, Clay viewed anomalies not as threats to the viability or applicability of his work but – quite the opposite – as presenting opportunities to learn and to improve the frameworks. In this episode, you'll hear from a number of people who were near and dear to Clay, all of whom share their reflections and insights on the theme of "Anomalies Wanted." Thank you to the following individuals for their participation in this 100th episode project: Derek van Bever, Tom Bartman, Cliff Maxwell, Jon Palmer, Karen Dillon, Bob Moesta, Michael Horn, Max Wessel, Scott Anthony, and Ann Christensen. Thank you also to Tracy Kim Horn for getting this podcast off the ground back in 2016; to Craig McDonald for his work behind the scenes, overseeing the recording sessions; to our many wonderful guests and hosts; to our listeners, for tuning in and for sharing The Disruptive Voice with others; and, of course, to Clay, who continues to inspire us. We look forward to the next 100 episodes and to the discovery of those anomalies that we'll undoubtedly uncover along the way. If you have anomalies to share with us, please do reach out! Anomalies Wanted.  

When you receive a brochure in the mail from your local symphony or visit a website for your regional orchestra, what do you typically see? You’re very likely going to read flowery language about the beauty of the art and the skill of the artists, accompanied by photos of the conductor and the musicians on the stage. You probably won’t see the audience or how the experience might impact them. The arts sector, however, is in the midst of an audience crisis – and the time has come for arts organizations to stop ignoring their customers. In this episode, The Christensen Institute’s Ruth Hartt, who spent 17 years as an opera singer, joins host Katie Zandbergen to discuss how the Jobs To Be Done framework can be used as an effective tool by arts organizations, helping them to better engage with and grow their audiences. While many in the arts world have been operating under the comfortable assumption that they’ve nailed customer motivation, believing that “Help me to experience art performed at its highest level” is the primary motivator for ticket purchases, this approach fails to truly understand customers’ struggling moments and the reasons why they may hire an orchestral performance or an evening out at the opera. Armed with techniques and insights drawn from Jobs Theory, arts organizations can successfully shift from simply trying to push tickets to actually helping their customers and their communities through the arts-focused experiences that they provide. Listen to learn more about the opportunities for audience engagement and growth that await those arts administrators and marketers who recognize that the world revolves not around the performances they stage but rather around their customers and the progress they’re seeking to make in their lives.

Founding Dean at Jefferson College of Population Health, Dr. David Nash, recently co-authored a book entitled "How Covid Crashed The System: A Guide To Fixing American Health Care", in which he and Charles Wohlforth draw parallels between flying a plane and delivering healthcare services. Leaning into the analogy, they liken the American healthcare system to an airplane crash – and they’re the post-crash investigators searching for the black box. The first half of the book describes to readers what was found in the black box of our healthcare system, while the second half presents the authors’ report about how we might fix this mess and get the plane back in the air. In this episode, David joins The Christensen Institute’s Ann Somers Hogg to discuss insights about the fault lines in American healthcare; how the pandemic shone a spotlight on the challenges that were already present long before March of 2020; and steps that we can take – including a more aggressive approach to tackling drivers of health, realigning incentives, and rethinking medical education – to address the multiple system failures in our current healthcare system. Listen to hear more about this opportunity to build a better, safer, and more equitable healthcare system in the United States.

One of the items you’ll find on Booster Co-Founder & CEO Frank Mycroft’s desk is a BSSE placemat, highlighting the frameworks that are covered in the course, which Frank took at Harvard Business School in 2012. Since its founding in 2015, Booster has built an energy-agnostic, modular, mobile network in which the company knows the energy demands of its customers, has the ability to procure the right energy products at the right time, and can leverage technology to ascertain the sustainability scores of these energy products – and all without needing to build complicated brick-and-mortar infrastructure that can make it impossible to get to the scale that alternative energy types and fuels need to be successful. In this episode, Frank joins Rose Park Advisors' Steve Geskos to discuss the story of Booster, from the struggling moments that were the seeds of its founding and innovative approach to energy delivery; to the transition to fleets; to today’s smart energy and data management initiatives; to Frank’s thoughts on Booster’s future upmarket moves and growth. Given that Frank has drawn on insights gleaned from the BSSE frameworks throughout his time building and scaling the business, Booster represents a great example of theory in action, in this case, as applied to the acceleration of adoption of greenhouse emissions-reducing products, such as renewable diesels, biofuels, electricity for EVs, and hydrogen. Listen to learn more about how Booster is helping its customers to navigate the mixed energy future!

Clayton Christensen and Rita McGrath, one of the top management thinkers in the world, spent over two decades as both colleagues and friends. To this day, the concept of Discovery-Driven Planning, first widely introduced in a 1995 HBR article by Rita and Ian MacMillan, is taught in the Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise course at Harvard Business School. In this insightful conversation, Rita joins host Derek van Bever to discuss a number of topics highly relevant to management and strategy, including her work on inflection points and spotting the future before it arrives; the importance of testing fundamental assumptions (and why we so often fail to do so); barriers to innovation and growth; and Valize, the company that Rita founded to help organizations build lasting innovation capability as the basis for long-term shared prosperity. Listen to learn more!

Earlier this summer, members of the Innosight team attended The Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit 2022 in Dublin, Ireland, where they joined industry leaders and spoke on the topic of Dispelling The Myths of Customer-Centricity. In this Disruptive Voice episode, Scott Anthony is joined by his colleagues, Claudia Pardo and Pontus Siren, to further delve into these myths. Through the lenses of the Jobs To Be Done framework, and drawing on a number of real-world examples, they consider how the application of Jobs Theory fundamentally changes how one thinks about innovation, strategy, and how best to set an organization on a path to success. Creating a customer-centric organization grounded in the idea of a Job To Be Done, however, remains a remarkably elusive target, despite many knowing that it’s important and that it provides clear benefits. In other words, being customer-centric may seem like a relatively simple and straightforward idea – but customer-centricity is often difficult to implement in practice. Tune in for a fascinating discussion about the myths of customer-centricity, including why its practical application is so challenging and, crucially, actionable steps that organizations can take and tools that they can use to truly become more customer-centric, thereby increasing the odds of successfully building and sustaining a successful enterprise. 

After college, Kareem Farah became a high school math teacher, teaching in the traditional way that most of us experienced as students, with the instructor standing in front of the classroom and lecturing on the information that students were supposed to learn. Much to his frustration and dismay, however, he soon discovered that there were some things that were shockingly wrong about traditional teaching and learning, namely that the instructional model was largely broken and kids in his classroom were not being well-served by it. As such, Kareem, along with fellow teacher, Rob Barnett, co-founded The Modern Classrooms Project – addressing their personal Job To Be Done of “Help me to replace this broken instructional model so that I can better serve my students.” In this episode, and through the lenses of the Jobs To Be Done framework, Kareem joins The Christensen Institute’s Tom Arnett to discuss the unique instructional delivery professional development model that they’re building at Modern Classrooms Project, including features such as the model being opt-in only and both curriculum and grade level-agnostic, and also how it results in more student-centered classrooms, along with better outcomes for both teachers and students. The Modern Classrooms Project is a great example where the founders’ own struggling moments were indeed the seeds for innovation in the K-12 classrooms where teachers have adopted the Modern Classrooms instructional model. Listen to learn more! 

Southeast Asia is a vibrant, fast-growing, and diverse region of the world, home to vast opportunities, particularly for those supporting market-creating innovations. In this episode, Nick Ongkowijaya - an HBS and BSSE alumnus who also worked as an Associate at Innosight - joins host Katie Zandbergen to share the story of the new venture studio that he's building in Southeast Asia, called Gradient. Nick discusses the local context, including the drivers of non-consumption of entrepreneurial opportunities in the region; how he's building his venture studio to bring more would-be entrepreneurs into the startup ecosystem; the many BSSE frameworks that he regularly draws upon, both in building Gradient and in thinking about the venture studio's pipeline of companies; and the potential of market-creating innovations in Southeast Asia, particularly as they relate to solutions for the informal economy. Through the founding of Gradient - and drawing on the work being done there to foster entrepreneurship and innovation - Nick presents listeners with a number of great examples of theory in action out there in the world! 

In this episode, The Christensen Institute’s Ann Somers Hogg joins host Ann Christensen to, through the lens of the business model framework, discuss the significance of drivers of health to the future of the health care industry. In her newly-released paper, You Are What You Treat: Transforming The Health Care Business Model So Companies And People Thrive, Ann Somers provides a compass to guide leaders as they develop transition plans to succeed in a value-based future. The paper – and this conversation – addresses questions surrounding why our health care industry is where it is when it comes to tackling drivers of health; why business model transformation in the health care space is particularly challenging; what organizations employing innovative business models are doing to improve people’s health and overall quality of life; and what health care leaders can learn from these examples. Truly, a sharper focus on foundational business model structures in the health care space can transform lives! Tune in to this thought-provoking conversation to learn more.

In her book, The Long Game: How To Be A Long-Term Thinker In A Short-Term World, Dorie Clark both reflects on the importance of having a longer-term strategy for our personal and professional lives, and provides readers with practical steps that can be taken to optimize for the future. In this episode, she joins hosts Derek van Bever and Katie Zandbergen to discuss the book and, in doing so, draws a number of parallels between her work and How Will You Measure Your Life. Together, they discuss a range of topics, including the value of long-term thinking, and why it’s often so challenging; discovering one’s purpose; managing uncertainty; finding balance between personal and professional goals; different types of networking; reorienting to see the bigger picture, and more! Truly, the power of making small, strategic changes today can be enormous in terms of impact on future success – it’s all about playing the long game.