The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

Robert Rosenberg served as chief executive officer of Dunkin’ Donuts from 1963 until his retirement in 1998. For over 35 years! Under Robert's leadership, Dunkin’ Donuts grew from a regional family business to one of America’s best known and loved brands. Robert received his MBA from Harvard Business School, and just weeks after graduating at the age of 25, he assumed the position of chief executive officer. Upon his retirement, Rosenberg had grown the Dunkin’ Donuts chain to over 4,000 stores worldwide with annual system-wide sales in excess of $2 billion. In his book, Around The Corner To Around The World: A Dozen Lessons I Learned Running Dunkin’ Donuts, Robert shares many of the stories behind this historic company and actionable business advice. Checkout out our newsletter "Monday Morning 8 a.m."

Hi, everyone. This is Monday Morning 8 a.m., a newsletter that goes out—as you guessed it—every Monday. You can listen to the audio version of this Monday Morning 8 a.m. episode by searching “Strategy Skills” in any podcast app! If you want to receive a written version of this podcast, with links to mentioned articles, you can sign up for it on www.firmsconsulting.com/promo   In this newsletter, we have one goal: to help you distill the insights from the noise out there. So here are the big themes we’re noticing in the news this week and the deep insights you should be extracting from those themes.   

Hi, everyone. This is Monday Morning 8 a.m., a newsletter that goes out—as you guessed it—every Monday. You can listen to the audio version of this Monday Morning 8 a.m. episode by searching “Strategy Skills” in any podcast app or sign up for a written version here!    In this program, we have one goal: to help you distill the insights from the noise out there. So here are the big themes we’re noticing in the news this week and some of the deep insights you should be extracting from those themes.   www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Damon Deaner is a director at IBM. In this interview, we focus on design thinking.  Get sample training episodes from our advanced strategy training programs: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to episode 113 of the Strategy Skills podcast. An interview with McKinsey senior partner, Aaron de Smet (Houston office). Aaron counsels leadership teams as they transform their organizations to improve performance, organizational health, speed, and agility. He is also an expert on organizational design, corporate culture, leadership development, team effectiveness, capability building, and transformational change. Get sample training episodes from our advanced strategy training programs: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Let us introduce you to a recognized expert in Leadership, Diversity & Inclusion, HR/Talent, career change and growth. Victoria Pelletier is an IBM Vice President & Senior Partner, North American Talent & Transformation Leader. She is one of those rare, impactful speakers who you hear once, and remember. She brings her authenticity, her passion, and her smarts, in a way that connects, resonates, and moves the audience. She is recognized across North America as a dynamic, captivating keynote speaker, published author and dynamic executive.  Her own story of overcoming unspeakable odds to live a life of no excuses is both moving, and incredibly inspiring. Victoria is a recognized leader in her industry, having won multiple awards, including the 2019 HSBC Diversity & Inclusion in Finance & technology Award and most recently, the 2020 Mentor of the Year from the Canadian Women in Communications & Technology organization. She has been featured in many podcasts, conferences and events, including Generation Now (Gary Vaynerchuk as Keynote), Fearless Women Podcast, Canada's Podcast, CBC National Television - Weekend Business Panel, Women Talk Tech, multiple IBM and other technology conferences and many more.

An interview with Rob Chesnut, Chief Ethics Officer at Airbnb, about his new book INTENTIONAL INTEGRITY: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution. Buy Rob's book: https://amzn.to/30twtVQ (paid link) Most companies think they have integrity… until they get boycotted, protested and skewered in the press. They’ll punish and apologize for lapses but have no clue about prevention. In an interview, Rob discusses how creating a culture of integrity can clarify and energize employees to act on their values and lead. Rob is a former Federal Prosecutor who prosecuted spy Aldrich Ames, he went on to found the Trust and Safety Department for eBay and the integrity training program for Airbnb: two companies with business models dependent on trust that had to invent the rules in the new frontiers of e-commerce and platforms.  Get sample episodes from our advanced training programs: http://www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Kevin P. Coyne is a founder of Coyne Scientific. He is the former Director and co-leader of both McKinsey’s Worldwide Strategy Practice and CEO transitions practice, and the host of The Consulting Offer II Kevin attended the Harvard Business School after his junior year of college. He simultaneously graduated from both Rice University and Harvard in 1978 and joined McKinsey as the youngest associate ever and one of the youngest principals ever appointed. During a 27 year career at McKinsey Kevin advised clients on a variety of issues and across a broad range of industries including banking, consumer goods, venture capital, industrial, telecommunications and the public sector. His primary area of focus was corporate strategy. He has worked one-on-one with over twenty-five different CEOs. Kevin has been an active leader in civic roles throughout his career. He served as an Executive Assistant and sole policy advisor to the Deputy Secretary of the United States Treasury, the second ranking department official in the Reagan Administration. In that role he advised on Brazil’s economic growth, served as an intermediary between Britain and Argentina after the Falklands war and advised on opening Japan’s capital markets. He recently co-led several pro-bono efforts, including the following: Setting up the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund Leading the Atlanta and London Olympic Games committees on several initiatives Leading the team supporting former US President Carter on the Atlanta Project helping low-income citizens Kevin has co-written 6 Harvard Business Review articles, 12 McKinsey Quarterly articles and 2 bestselling business books, as well as many other articles across influential business publications. You can view FIRMSconsulting programs with Kevin on StrategyTraining.com/apps. Get sample episodes of our advanced training programs: firmsconsulting.com/promo

Strategy Skills iTunes channel episode with Bain senior partner Sarah Elk. - Global leader of Bain's Operating Model practice - Author of Doing Agile Right - Member of Bain's global governance committee for compensation and promotion Doing Agile Right book: https://amzn.to/3fRGNw0 (paid link) "Agile has the power to transform work--but only if it's implemented the right way. For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of a huge chasm: They aspire to create nimble, flexible enterprises. But their day-to-day reality is silos, sluggish processes, and stalled innovation. Today, agile is hailed as the essential bridge across this chasm, with the potential to transform a company and catapult it to the head of the pack. Not so fast. In this clear-eyed, indispensable book, Bain & Company thought leader Darrell Rigby and his colleagues Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's rise to prominence--the idea that it can reshape an organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They illustrate that agile teams can indeed be powerful, making people's jobs more rewarding and turbocharging innovation, but such results are possible only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way. The key, they argue, is balance. Every organization must optimize and tightly control some of its operations, and at the same time innovate. Agile, done well, enables vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability essential to traditional operations. The authors break down how agile really works, show what not to do, and explain the crucial importance of scaling agile properly in order to reap its full benefit. They then lay out a road map for leading the transition to a truly agile enterprise. Agile isn't a goal in itself; it's a means to becoming a high-performance operation. Doing Agile Right is a must-have guide for any company trying to make the transition--or trying to sustain high agility." #agile #Bain #Bainandcompany

Conversation with Tim Koller, a core leader of McKinsey & Company’s Corporate Finance Practice. “WHAT is the most influential contemporary book about the world economy? An obvious choice is Capital in the Twenty­ First Century, a 696­ page analysis of inequality by Thomas Piketty, a French economist. There is another candidate: Valuation, an 825­page manual on corporate finance and shareholder value. Some 700,000 copies of it encumber the bookshelves of MBA students, investors and chief executives around the globe…The sixth edition of Valuation, published last year, a quarter of a century after the first, is a reminder of why shareholder value is still the most powerful idea in business and why many criticisms thrown at it are unfair.” – The Economist “A 'how-to' guide for corporate executives who want to get at the unrealized shareholder values trapped in public companies.” ―New York Times “The book's clarity and comprehensive coverage make it one of the best practitioners' guides to valuation.” ―Financial Times