Thinkers & Ideas

In How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, Michael Bungay Stanier outlines how to set up working relationships for the best chance of success—by following a process of thorough preparation, a keystone conversation, and regular maintenance.Bungay Stanier, founder of coaching firm Box of Crayons, is a world-renowned thought leader on coaching and author of the best-selling coaching book, The Coaching Habit. In his most recent book, he focuses on relationship-building, providing readers with processes and principles, as well as exercises and ample practical advice to sharpen their skills.Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Bungay Stanier discusses how to build the “best possible relationship” and how to maintain and repair it over time. Moreover, they assess how to create a corporate culture conducive to these relationships, and how to make these relationships work in a hybrid or remote setting.Key topics discussed:01:22 | How to make difficult relationships more workable03:39 | Definition of a “best possible relationship” and how to build it05:54 | How to have a keystone conversation12:26 | The impact of corporate culture and different personality types15:44 | How to maintain and repair relationships20:42 | The implications of hybrid and remote work22:31 | How leaders can apply these lessons in their organizations

In his new book, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation recounts his experiences and lessons learned over decades of effecting large-scale social change. He shares how addressing humanity’s thorniest challenges requires a big bets mindset – pushing to solve, rather than merely improve, problems; and going for “big enough”, rather than settling for “good enough”.Prior to his current role, Shah was the Administrator of USAID and a Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He successfully led many transformative change efforts around the globe – including advancing the immunization of children, fighting against hunger and energy poverty, and providing relief for humanitarian disasters.Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Shah discusses insights from his new book, including a mindset he sees crucial to making change possible, the need for public-private partnerships, and the role of businesses in addressing social and environmental issues. The conversation also touches on the importance of continuous experimentation, the involvement of younger leaders in change projects, and the challenges of planning in complex and unpredictable situations.

In his new book,  Mixed Signals: How Incentives Really Work,  Uri Gneezy explains why leaders often create incentives that are misaligned with their organization’s goals.Gneezy, the Epstein/Atkinson Chair in Management Leadership at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management, is one of the world’s leading experts in behavioral economics, and his insights have become a staple in courses around the world. He teaches managers how to be incentive-smart—how to avoid mixed signals and design incentives that are simple, effective, and ethical.Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Gneezy discusses how incentives work, and how we can apply them in the workplace to change habits and spark innovation—he explains why, counterintuitively, successful organizations and initiatives may actually have a greater need to examine their incentives than unsuccessful ones.Key topics discussed:01:11 | How incentives send signals02:08 | Incentives in the workplace09:14 | Incentivizing innovation12:29 | Understanding the use and limitation of incentives18:22 | Changing habits

In his new book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and The Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma, Mustafa Suleyman discusses the new technologies that will transform society—chief among them AI and synthetic biology.Suleyman is a renowned thought leader on this topic, having co-founded Inflection AI and DeepMind, and having served as VP of AI product management and AI policy at Google.Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Suleyman discusses the threats and opportunities posed by AI and synthetic biology, whether and how they will confer competitive advantage, and how governments and companies can collaborate to contain their negative effects while ensuring that society reaps their benefits.Key topics discussed:01:28 | The threats of the coming wave of technologies06:43 | A modern Turing Test for AI10:14 | The competitive advantage conferred by AI15:25 | The benefits and limitations of AI18:34 | Containing the next wave of technologies22:09 | Potential regulatory interventions23:46 | Motivations for writing the book

In her forthcoming book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, Amy Edmondson offers a new framework to think about, discuss, and practice failure wisely, using human fallibility as a tool for making ourselves and our organizations smarter.Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School and the author of seven books, including The Fearless Organization, which has been translated into more than 15 languages. She was ranked number one on the 2021 Thinkers50 list, a ranking of the world’s most influential management thinkers.Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Edmondson discusses the distinctions that can help us separate good failure from bad, strategies to decrease the cost of learning, as well as practical actions for leaders to establish a culture where intelligent failure is predominant.Key topics discussed: 1:13 | The distinction between failing well and failing badly9:36 | How to avoid the "illusion of knowing" and mistaking a mental model for a fact12:02 | Institutional and leadership-level moves to create an environment where intelligent failure is predominant18:27 | How to decrease the cost of learning19:42 | Can AI help to analyze the potential for failure or identify learnable lessons and failure patterns?

In The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society, Mauro Guillén argues that the traditional, sequential model of life—childhood, education, career, and retirement—is being rendered obsolete.Guillén, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the world’s foremost experts on global megatrends. In his most recent book, he focuses on the combination of rapid technological progress, increasing life as well as health spans, and declining fertility rates—which, together, are creating a society in which arbitrary definitions of generations, based on chronological age, are no longer appropriate.Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Guillén discusses the shortcomings of the sequential model of life and what the new, post-generational society will look like. He also highlights implications for businesses, which will need to adapt their marketing practices to changing patterns in consumption and harness the benefits of intergenerational collaboration in their workforces.Key topics discussed: 01:51 | The sequential model of life and its shortcomings04:17 | The post-generational society and the trends creating it07:31 | Implications for corporations14:13 | How CEOs can prepare for a society of perennials17:14 | Implications for academic institutions

In his new book Power and Progress, Simon Johnson, along with his co-author Daron Acemoglu, challenges the techno-optimistic narrative that technological progress will automatically lead to shared prosperity.Johnson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, takes us through a millennium of technological progress to show how the gains from advancements such as the agricultural and early industrial revolutions tended to benefit a narrow segment of interests. While technology can enable the kind of equitable growth that is heralded by techno-optimists, this requires an environment that mitigates the natural power imbalance between workers and owners of technology through regulation, labor organizations, and an active civic society. As we stand on the brink of a new wave of innovation from AI, it’s critical that we learn from the history of economic progress to ensure that this time, the gains are shared broadly in society.In this episode of our Thinkers & Ideas podcast, Johnson joins BCG Henderson Institute Chairman Martin Reeves to discuss the incentives for corporate leaders to create technology directed at equitable growth, the potential impact of AI on society, and the effectiveness of government policies aimed at fostering shared prosperity.Key topics discussed: 01:19 | Motivation for the book02:03 | Progress and shared prosperity07:29 | Effectiveness of redistribution09:43 | Directing innovation toward social good16:42 | The impact of AI20:39 | Role of corporate leaders and investors in directing technology

In his new book, LOOK: How to Pay Attention in a Distracted World, Christian Madsbjerg explores the importance of observational skills. Drawing on various fields—science, philosophy, and the arts—as well as his personal experiences, Madsbjerg offers tools and insights to help us better pay attention and extract insights.Madsbjerg was co-founder and senior partner of consulting firm, ReD Associates and was previously a professor of applied humanities at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He works at the intersection of business and the humanities, guiding firms to develop powerful strategies anchored in human perception.Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Madsbjerg discusses how we can learn to observe the world properly—letting go of oversimplifying assumptions and biases—and how this will help firms unlock insights about their customers far beyond the reach of traditional market research.Key topics discussed: [01:25] How to observe properly[06:57] How “total observation” can unlock new insights[13:14] Distractions of modern life and how to tackle them[18:14] Difference between traditional market research and “total observation”[21:30] How to change how we observe things in the corporate context

In his latest book, Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way, Jonah Berger breaks down the science of language. The right words can influence actions and happiness, and reveal insights about those who say or write them.Berger, an associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School, is an expert on change, social influence, and word-of-mouth communication. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Berger discusses how we can use the language of agency and identity to incite action, how to best balance concreteness and abstraction, and how to harness the power of emotions—drawing on decades of experimental research.He also speculates how large language models will change the production and deployment of language. The book is a broad and practical guide to how we can use language more effectively.Key topics discussed: 01:07 | The power of language and six types of magic words03:57 | Leveraging the language of agency and identity to spark action06:58 | Balancing concreteness and abstraction10:53 | Harnessing the power of emotions13:27 | Limitations of magic words and the importance of authenticity17:41 | The role of ChatGPT and other large language models21:00 | Using magic words in your personal and professional life

In her new book The Case for Good Jobs, Zeynep Ton explains why creating good jobs, particularly for frontline workers, will help companies thrive.Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and president and co-founder of the Good Jobs Institute, has long been an advocate of investing in employees. Traditional bad jobs systems—characterized by low pay, high turnover, and poor operational execution—harm customer satisfaction and undermine a company’s ability to differentiate, innovate, and adapt. In a good jobs system, she explains, leaders unlock a virtuous cycle of employee engagement, which improves operational performance and will ultimately benefit employees, customers, and shareholders.Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Ton discusses various aspects of the good jobs system—how it works, how to implement it, how to measure the value of good jobs, and what good jobs mean in an age in which labor is under threat of substitution by AI.Key topics discussed: 01:06 | The business value of good jobs03:54 | What makes the good jobs system work?12:21 | Data and metrics17:10 | AI and labor substitution20:29 | Good jobs beyond the frontline24:48 | How to implement the good jobs system