Thinkers & Ideas

Spoiler AlertWe preface this podcast with a ‘spoiler alert’ as this novel is different from the more formal economics works we usually discuss on this podcast, and we wish to give the listener the chance to opt-out and read the book first if they wish. We greatly enjoyed the read and even if we don’t see eye to eye on much of the economics in this novel, we found the indulgence of literature a valuable endeavor to make more tangible some of the human aspects of economics — including the fear of collapse.***Lionel Shriver is the author of several prize-winning novels including the best-seller We Need To Talk About Kevin (2003) and A Perfectly Good Family (1996). Her novels typically tackle difficult societal problems. She is also a contributing journalist to publications such as The Economist and The New York Times.She joins BCG Chief Economist Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak in conversation to discuss her book, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047, a riveting and dystopian take on the destructive potential of national debt, currency crisis, and inflation as experienced by one fictional family across several generations and socio-economic circumstances. They discuss the novel, why economic dystopian novels are rare, and the way in which the novel can make the fears of economic collapse come alive.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Mauro F. Guillén is Professor of International Management at the Wharton School. He served as Director of the Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies between 2007 and 2019.His new book, 2030: How Today’s Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything, outlines eight interlocking trends that together will reshape society as we know it by 2030.In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Guillén discusses these trends and the steps companies and leaders need to take in order to remain competitive in the future.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Judy Samuelson is executive director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program. She previously worked in legislative affairs in California, banking in New York’s garment center, and ran the Ford Foundation’s office of program-related investments.In her new book, The Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World, she explores how societal shifts in recent decades have upended the traditional rules of business, calling into question the business’s purpose and its role in society and offering new rules for how to make businesses successful in their new social contexts.In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Samuelson discusses insights from her new book and emphasizes the role of business education in changing the business ecosystem for the better.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Luciano Pietronero is an Italian statistical physics and full professor at the department of physics at University of Rome Sapienza. He was the founder and director of the Institute of Complex Systems of CNR from 2004 to 2014. Luciano’s research activities have been on fundamental and applied problems in the areas of condensed matter theory, statistical physics, and complex systems. His most recent focus is on economic complexity. He is the author of about 400 papers in leading scientific journals, and he has been awarded the Enrico Fermi Prize, highest award of the Italian Physical Society, in 2008.In a conversation with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, BCG Chief Economist, Professor Pietronero discusses using the tools of physics to forecast long-term economic growth, the value and limitations of imposing the rigor of natural science on economics, and why he thinks that the study of nations’ “economic complexity”, a quantification of comparative advantage, is a better predictor of long-term economic growth than existing methods.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

There’s increasing dynamism and stress in business environments and we have “firestorms” ranging everywhere that could consume incumbent businesses at any time. According to Ian C. Woodward, V. “Paddy” Padmanabhan, Sameer Hasija, and Ram Charan, co-authors of The Phoenix Encounter Method, in order to avoid being disrupted, leaders need to go through “phoenix encounters”, in which they contemplate and execute their own disruption.Sameer Hasija, Professor of Technology and Operations Management at INSEAD recently discussed insights from the new book with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Daniel Susskind is a Fellow in Economics at Balliol College, Oxford, and the author of A World Without Work (2020) and The Future of the Professions (2015). Previously he worked in the British Government as a policy adviser in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, as a policy analyst in the Policy Unit in 10 Downing Street, and as a senior policy adviser in the Cabinet Office.In A World Without Work Susskind argues that technology will lead to structural technological unemployment sooner than many economists believe. This will pose a societal distribution challenge as labor markets will be a less effective way of distributing society’s income. The book makes concrete policy proposals to confront inequality and other challenges resulting from technology’s impact. In a conversation with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, BCG Chief Economist, Susskind discusses the drivers of technological unemployment, monopoly power, universal basic income, the future role of the state, as well as the personal implications for future generations.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

John Kay is one of Britain’s leading economists, and has been a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford since 1970. His work is centered on the relationships between economics, finance, and business. Today his main focus is on writing and he is renowned for his ability to express complex ideas clearly and succinctly. He is the author of many books, including The Truth about Markets (2003) and Obliquity (2010).In his new book, Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers, co-authored with Mervyn King, he argues that models have only limited value in guiding business decision making. In a numerical world, decision making should be guided by developing and critically challenging reference narratives, to figure out “what’s going on here?”.In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Kay discusses insights from his new book, epidemiology, the accuracy and applicability of models, and what leaders can do to break with prediction addiction.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Georg Kell is the founding Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative and Chairman of Arabesque Partners.Kell, along with Herman Bril and Andreas Rasche, are the co-editors of Sustainable Investing: A path to a new horizon, a unique combination of perspectives from academics and practitioners on how corporate sustainability and sustainable investing are converging and driving change in markets.In a discussion with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Kell discusses the role of the corporate world and finance in making progress on sustainability, and shares his thoughts on how COVID-19 has impacted how we think about long-term challenges and resilience.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Loizos Heracleous is Professor of Strategy and Organisation at the Warwick Business School, and Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College and Saïd Business School.In his new book, Janus Strategy, he argues that organizations can accomplish strategies that seek to reach competing goals.Traditional strategy wisdom suggests that there are two generic strategies — differentiation and cost leadership. It is assumed to be impossible to combine both for a prolonged period of time, and those who try succeed only temporarily (in new markets that aren’t competitive yet) or fail at both. However, some organizations prove that it is possible to be a sustained cost leader whilst being differentiated or to explore while exploiting. Janus Strategy uses case studies to explore the six factors that make this possible.In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Heracleous explains the mindset and moves leaders need to make their organization a Janus organization.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Marc Levinson is an independent economist and historian. He is the author of The Box (2006) and several other books, a former finance and economics editor of The Economist, a former senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former sell-side analyst. His work has focused on trade, finance, globalization, and business.In his new book, Outside the Box, he argues that a fourth phase of globalization is underway, which will no longer be defined by cost optimization through shipping physical goods. Instead, the fourth globalization is about the spreading of ideas and services trade. In a conversation with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, BCG Chief Economist, he discusses the likely impact of this shift on inequality, inflation, the trade-off between efficiency and resilience, and the U.S.-China decoupling.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.