Thought Sparks

One of the most exciting frontiers in medicine is the use of huge amounts of patient data to help design personalized and highly effective individual treatments which never would have been possible before. My Friday Fireside Chat guest, Glen de Vries, is the co-CEO and co-founder of Medidata, a company which provides an analytical platform that has completely transformed the way clinical trials are done, making them faster, better targeted and more effective. He is also the author of the recent book, "The Patient Equation" which promises to give us a glimpse of the data-intensive future of healthcare.

My good friend Dorie Clark is a master of personal and professional reinvention. After starting out as a journalist and political operative (what careers could have brighter prospects?) she has transformed her career multiple times. She’s written three great books on how to be your own entrepreneur, is an accomplished and sought after speaker, and been at the leading edge of many career trends. While there is a lot we can talk about, I’m particularly interested in her take on how we are all going to be approaching what I call the “tour of duty” career, now and as we get to wherever we’re going to be post-pandemic. I suspect a lot of wisdom will come from her book “Entrepreneurial You.” And if we’re lucky, we’ll get a chance to check out her individualistic cats!

Some of the most magical things that happen at work aren't expensive, hard or risky. Simple human connections, treating each other with dignity and kindness and leveraging the power of appreciation are things anyone at any level can do. My Friday Fireside guests this week are Chester Elton, the "Apostle of Appreciation" and his co-author and co-conspirator Adrian Gostick. Author of several best-selling books about corporate culture, teamwork, and leadership skills, they'll be joining me to leverage their perspective on what we can do to build better organizations now, and whenever we come out of whatever this is.

One of the biggest barriers to growth and innovation is the overhang of the corporate budgeting process. Bjarte Bogsnes, Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Institute and implementation head at Equinor, Scandinavia's largest company, has a better idea. Get beyond rote, mind-numbing budgeting processes and create flexible, changeable structures that allow your company to actually use the new strategy playbook.

Carter Copeland is the President of Melius Research, where he is also the lead research analyst covering the global aerospace and defense sector. He is consistently ranked in Institutional Investor’s annual survey of top analysts, and was named the number one aerospace and defense analyst by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine. His recent co-authored book, "Lessons From the Titans" takes us on an analysts' journey to understand the inner workings of the corporate giants that are so critical to our everyday lives. With CEO's blaming the pressure of Wall Street for an excessive short-term focus and failure to appropriately balance the needs of multiple stakeholders, I'm really interested to hear t

Harvard's Amy Edmondson pioneered the breakthrough concept of psychological safety at work, in which people feel that they can speak up without fear of retribution.  It's been shown to be crucial to innovation and growth.  Psychological safety has also been essential for improvements in hospital care.  I can't think of a more important topic for where we are right now.  In this chat, we'll discuss the initial research behind the concept and how it has now been embraced.  We'll also touch on the core themes of the book "The Fearless Organization" which is a treasure.

Protests in the streets, against the backdrop of a deadly pandemic with political upheaval the world over. What kind of leadership should we look to under such complex and highly uncertain conditions? I'm grateful to be speaking with Chris Fussell of the McChrystal group, who together with Stan McChrystal, transformed the culture in the Joint Special Operations Command to distributed, not hierarchical, leadership with a network form of governance. What Chris learned in highly deadly military situations are essential insights for all of us today.

We are in the midst of several huge inflection points - a global pandemic, a recognition of structural inequities in American society and a looming economic crisis. How timely then to be talking to the founder of Women of Color in Pharma (WOCIP) and a senior executive at Otsuka, with a unique perspective on all three and what needs to happen next.

Protests in the streets, against the backdrop of a deadly pandemic with political upheaval the world over. What kind of leadership should we look to under such complex and highly uncertain conditions? I'm grateful to be speaking with Chris Fussell of the McChrystal group, who together with Stan McChrystal, transformed the culture in the Joint Special Operations Command to distributed, not hierarchical, leadership with a network form of governance. What Chris learned in highly deadly military situations are essential insights for all of us today.

Clive Thompson's recent book "Coders" takes us into the minds and hearts of the people that are actually creating the digital world we all live in.  From the first piece of code many learned to love - "hello, world" to the sophisticated interactions behind artificial intelligence, Thompson gives us a fascinating fly on the wall perspective.  In this #FridayFiresideChat​, he explains why coders hate to be interrupted, why they sometimes don't even eat and why grappling with inhuman amounts of frustration comes with the job.  Have a listen - you'll find it really interesting.