Thinkers & Ideas

In The CEO: The Role, the Reality, the Responsibility, Nitin Nohria argues that the CEO’s real work is not making the big decisions personally but building the conditions under which thousands of good decisions get made by everyone else.

Nohria is the former dean of Harvard Business School, where he is currently the George F. Baker Professor of Administration, and for nearly 30 years he has run the invitation-only New CEO Workshop for recently appointed chief executives of the world’s largest companies. His latest book draws on that work, on empirical research into how much CEOs actually affect company performance, and on roughly 70,000 hours of data from real CEO calendars, to replace the myth of the heroic chief executive with a clear-eyed account of what the job involves: setting direction, allocating resources, shaping culture, managing stakeholders, and absorbing relentless scrutiny.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Institute, Nohria discusses how much the person in the seat really matters, why new CEOs have to stop being COOs, where the hours in a CEO’s day actually go, how to tell a genuine crisis from daily noise, the structurally induced narcissism the role invites, what AI and geopolitics demand of this generation of leaders, and the one piece of advice he gives every CEO.

Key topics discussed:

01:00 | How much the CEO in the seat actually matters

03:51 | Making decisions versus ensuring good decisions get made

06:19 | Why new CEOs struggle to stop being the COO

08:15 | The unexpected challenges of the job

10:19 | Inside 70,000 hours of CEO calendar data

13:18 | Whisper warnings, siren songs, and daily noise

16:21 | What CEOs must protect in their calendar, and what to cut

19:44 | Loneliness and structurally induced narcissism

23:59 | What AI and geopolitics demand of CEOs

[26:42] How CEOs use AI, and the problem of AI slop

[28:58] Why anyone would want the job

[29:49] The single most important piece of advice

Additional inspirations from Nitin Nohria:

In How Great Ideas Happen: The Hidden Steps Behind Breakthrough Success, George Newman argues that great ideas are not conjured from within but discovered outside of us, already present in the world, and that finding them is a methodical search anyone can run rather than a flash of genius reserved for a gifted few.

Newman is a cognitive scientist and psychologist, and an associate professor of organizational behavior and human resource management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, having previously held joint appointments in management, psychology, and cognitive science at Yale. In his first book, he draws on research across the arts, science, and business to recast creativity as an archeological dig: survey the terrain for fertile ground, grid the site, dig for volume, and only then sift for what is worth keeping.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Institute, he discusses why organizations "turtle up" under pressure when they should be looking outward, why our best ideas arrive after we think we have run out, where AI genuinely helps the creative process and where it flattens it, the roughly 95/5 balance between proven ground and original twist, and why breakthrough ideas often feel uncomfortable at first.

Key topics discussed:

01:01 | Reframing creativity as discovery rather than inspiration

02:38 | The archeology method: survey, grid, dig, sift

04:33 | Why organizations "turtle up," and how to stay outward-looking

06:13 | The creative cliff illusion: why the best ideas come last

08:35 | AI as an excavator: when it helps and when it doesn't

10:49 | Transplanting ideas from other domains

13:08 | The 95/5 balance of proven ground and original twist

16:13 | Ideas versus execution, and Steve Jobs' rock tumbler

19:36 | Creative hot streaks, from Jackson Pollock to Mondrian

25:14 | Why good ideas often feel uncomfortable at first

27:28 | How Newman applies his own research to his work

In Manage the Machine: How to Harness Human-AI Collaboration at Work, Paula Goldman argues that AI has crossed over from being a tool to being a partner, and that the companies that win will not be the ones automating the most or the fastest, but the ones that deliberately design around where humans still need to lead.

Goldman is the first-ever chief ethical and humane use officer at Salesforce, where she is also EVP of Product, and previously led the Tech and Society Solutions Lab and impact investing at Omidyar Network. She has served on the US National AI Advisory Committee, chairing its generative AI working group. Her new book is a practical guide to integrating AI across functions from sales to HR to legal, setting out how to decide which tasks can safely be delegated to AI, which should stay with people, and what guardrails keep either from going astray.

In her conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Institute, she discusses her "human at the helm" model of AI adoption, the role customer emotion plays in deciding where AI belongs, whether AI erodes the very human judgment it depends on, how to measure AI ROI beyond time saved, and what it takes to move from pilots to enterprise-wide rollout.

Key topics discussed:

01:01 | What changes for leaders once AI shifts from tool to partner

02:28 | The "human at the helm" model in practice

07:09 | How the chief ethical and humane use officer role fits into AI governance

09:43 | Customer and employee emotion as a design input

12:39 | Skill decay: does the model erode itself over time?

15:54 | The jagged technological frontier and where to deploy AI

18:32 | Calculating AI ROI: cost savings versus new products

22:14 | Navigating two moving frontiers, better and cheaper

27:09 | Getting from successful pilot to enterprise rollout

In Global by Design: How to Create Innovations That Scale, Travel, and Transform, Vijay Govindarajan argues that the most powerful innovations are designed from the ground up for emerging markets like rural China or India, and then travel back to disrupt wealthy ones.

Govindarajan is the Coxe Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business and one of the world’s foremost experts on strategy and innovation, most known for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Reverse Innovation. In his new book, co-authored with MIT engineer Amos Winter, he fuses business strategy with engineering science to show how high-value, low-cost products built for poorer countries can win there first and then upend established markets abroad, offering a roadmap for innovators across engineering, business, NGOs, and government.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses how GE built a $15,000 ultrasound machine for rural China; why most multinationals chase only the thin top slice of emerging markets; the three phases of his innovation framework; the difference between serial and parallel reverse innovation; and why globalization behaves like gravity even in a fragmented, multipolar world.

Key topics discussed:

03:29 | How reverse innovation works: GE’s ultrasound machine for rural China

06:39 | Why most multinationals aren’t global by design

08:01 | The mistake of serving only the thin top slice of emerging markets

10:00 | Phase 1, elucidating requirements: P&G’s 3,000 hours redesigning a razor

13:00 | Phase 2, closing the innovation gap: GE’s low-cost CAT scanner

16:48 | Phase 3, serial vs. parallel reverse innovation

20:20 | Value-driven innovation, the Segway cautionary tale, and where the biggest opportunities lie

24:14 | Global by design in a geopolitically fragmented world

Additional inspirations from Vijay Govindarajan:

In Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, Renée Mauborgne argues that lasting growth does not come from winning market share in crowded existing industries, but from creating entirely new market space that no one is competing in yet.

Mauborgne is a professor of strategy at INSEAD and co-director of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute. Blue Ocean Strategy, co-written with W. Chan Kim has sold more than 4 million copies and is recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written. The new 20th anniversary edition tests the original theory against today’s market realities and is enhanced with fresh cases, including NVIDIA’s three successive market-creating moves, a new preface that highlights the book’s ongoing global impact, and a curated list of over fifty blue ocean cases across diverse industries that expand far beyond those in the original version.

In her conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Institute, Mauborgne discusses when a company should stop competing and start creating, why the search for new demand begins with non-customers rather than customers, how NVIDIA chases “zero-billion-dollar markets,” why differentiation and low cost need not be a trade-off, whether AI’s commoditizing effect makes advantage harder to defend, and how to reconcile bold commitment with the case for keeping options open.

Key topics discussed:

01:12 | Why beating the competition is the wrong goal

02:34 | How to know when it’s time to shift from competing to creating

05:26 | Finding a blue ocean: value innovation and the role of non-customers

07:02 | Where the process starts inside an organization

09:25 | NVIDIA and the pursuit of zero-billion-dollar markets

12:46 | Breaking the trade-off between differentiation and low cost

16:21 | What prompted the new edition

18:33 | Will blue oceans stay defensible as AI commoditizes capabilities?

24:17 | Why using AI only for speed and efficiency is a trap

25:36 | Reconciling bold commitment with the need for optionality

Additional inspirations from Renée Mauborgne:

As uncertainty continues to define the business landscape, we’re revisiting our conversation with economist and complexity scientist Doyne Farmer on why conventional forecasting often falls short in a world shaped by interconnected, dynamic systems. Drawing on decades of research, he explains how complexity science offers a more realistic way to think about prediction, risk, and decision-making—and how leaders can navigate uncertainty with greater confidence.

Whether you’re hearing this conversation for the first time or revisiting it with fresh perspective, Doyne’s insights remain as relevant today as ever.

In Crisis Engineering: Time-Tested Tools for Turning Chaos Into Clarity, Matthew Weaver and Mikey Dickerson argue that organizational crises are not problems to be survived but are rare windows in which rapid, directed transformation becomes possible within days rather than years.

Weaver was a founding Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) at Google and later established the Defense Digital Service at the U.S. Department of Defense. Dickerson, also a founding SRE at Google, led the rescue of healthcare.gov, an effort that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. President Barack Obama subsequently appointed him deputy chief information officer of the United States, where he created the United States Digital Service. Together with their co-author Marina Nitze, the three are partners at the crisis engineering firm Layer Aleph. Drawing on decades of experience inside some of the most complex systems in government and industry—from the healthcare.gov rescue to wildfire response and pandemic logistics—the writers deliver a practical framework for identifying the five signals of a genuine crisis, and how to use that moment to drive lasting change across tech, government, healthcare, and beyond.

In their conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss why breakdowns in sensemaking cause well-trained operators to make situations worse, what the healthcare.gov rescue reveals about co-location and shared urgency, how crisis disrupts normal incentive structures to surface the organization’s real map, the concept of bracketing as a tool for directing team attention, and how AI integrations are creating the conditions for larger and harder-to-manage crises ahead.

Key topics discussed:

01:24 | What “crisis engineering” means and what conditions define a true crisis

05:28 | Sensemaking: the invisible force driving decisions under pressure

10:38 | The 2013 healthcare.gov collapse: arriving on the crisis scene

14:05 | Why physical co-location is essential in a crisis

17:18 | Using a crisis to remap how the organization actually works

20:17 | Bracketing: deliberately defining the beginning and end of a crisis

25:33 | Why organizations struggle to define an exit condition

27:34 | Capturing crisis learning before returning to normal operations

30:22 | How AI is changing (and likely multiplying) crisis situations

35:51 | Advice for business leaders on building crisis readiness before a crisis hits

In The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us, Benjamin Recht argues that the optimization and mathematical rationality we apply to every corner of modern life—from dieting to hiring to strategy—often fails when encountering the messy realities of life.

Recht is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley. In his new book, he traces how a narrow conception of rationality, born from 1940s wartime computing, came to dominate decision-making across society—and shows that this approach works brilliantly in closed, controlled systems like microchip design but breaks down in the complex, unpredictable domains where most real decisions are made.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the origins of mathematical rationality, why optimization works for microchips but not for diets, why game theory fails to describe how humans actually behave, and how leaders should think about the boundary between human and machine intelligence in the age of AI.

Key topics discussed:

01:02 | What is mathematical rationality and where do we encounter it?

02:49 | The origins of rational thinking in the 1940s

07:18 | Where optimization works: microchips, logistics, controlled systems

09:13 | Where it fails: Chernobyl, Waymo, and the limits of control

13:17 | When human “qualitative irrationality” is the right answer

14:59 | A framework for assigning decisions to machines vs. humans

17:45 | How the boundary between human and machine decision-making will evolve

19:14 | Why game theory fails to describe how humans actually behave

22:07 | Kahneman vs. Klein: two views on human decision-making

24:30 | What we risk losing as we outsource more decisions to AI

In AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own, Verity Harding argues that AI governance is too important to be left to technologists alone—and that the rest of us need to join the conversation to shape this technology’s future.

Harding is the director of the AI and Geopolitics Project at the Bennett School of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and the founder of Formation Advisory. She spent more than a decade at Alphabet, first as head of Security Policy at Google, then as DeepMind’s first global head of Policy. In her book, she draws on historical case studies to show that democratic societies have successfully governed transformative technologies in the past.

In her conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, she discusses why the nuclear arms race is the wrong analogy for AI, what the 1967 Outer Space Treaty can teach us about cooperation between rivals, how Britain’s regulation of IVF became a gold standard by depoliticizing the technology, and what business leaders get wrong about their own role in shaping AI governance.

Key topics discussed:

01:56 | Why the framing of AI as “too complex for nonexperts" is harmful

07:46 | Why the nuclear arms control analogy is counterproductive for AI

12:25 | The Space Race and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as a model for cooperation

17:11 | IVF, the Warnock Committee, and why a philosopher led the regulation effort

20:38 | The internet: from open ideals to commercialization and surveillance

26:41 | What business leaders can do to shape AI governance

30:50 | Four principles for AI: peaceful intent, embrace limitations, purpose over profit, societal trust

35:25 | If you could mandate one thing for global AI governance, what would it be?

In Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, Eric Ries argues that mission-driven companies face an invisible pressure that pushes them toward short-termism and conformity, no matter the intentions of their stakeholders.

Ries is the best-selling author of The Lean Startup, founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, and advisor to startups around the globe. In his new book, he traces a recurring pattern across two centuries of business: principled founders build something exceptional, only to watch it be corrupted—not by greedy individuals, but by systemic forces baked into how capitalism is structured.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, Ries discusses how corporate corruption starts, why shareholder primacy became the norm, the concept of financial gravity, and the structural protections companies can put in place to defend their mission.

Key topics discussed:

01:09 | How corporate corruption starts

03:50 | The rise of shareholder primacy

08:18 | Why mission-driven companies outperform but don’t dominate

11:06 | Are private equity and activist investors always destructive?

15:31 | Financial gravity: the invisible force that pulls companies off course

19:31 | Structural defenses: purpose, coherence, and integrity

27:06 | Can mature companies still be corrupted or still protect themselves?

31:14 | What Eric Ries would add to The Lean Startup if he could

Additional inspirations from Eric Ries:

In Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, David Epstein argues that constraints—not freedom—are what drive creativity, clarity, and focus.

Epstein is a number one New York Times–best-selling author, known for Range and The Sports Gene. In his new book, he draws on psychology, economics, and case studies from NASA to Pixar to Dr. Seuss to show that our brains default to the path of least resistance—and that blocking that path is the only reliable way to force genuinely new thinking.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why freedom is the enemy of creativity, how leaders can set constraints that unlock rather than stifle their teams, why creativity is not the same as originality, and how Herbert Simon’s idea of “satisficing” can improve both decisions and well-being.

Key topics discussed:

01:03 | Why constraints drive creativity and freedom doesn’t

04:06 | What kinds of constraints to use and when they backfire

09:30 | Constraints in innovation vs. execution

13:08 | How to set constraints that maximize creativity without killing autonomy

16:34 | Why creativity is not the same as novelty or originality

19:29 | “Preregistering hypotheses” and how it applies to business

23:19 | Herbert Simon’s “satisficing”: choosing good enough over endless optimization

26:13 | How Epstein applies constraints in his own life and writing process

Additional inspirations from David Epstein:

In Genius at Scale: How Great Leaders Drive Innovation, Linda A. Hill argues that innovation fails not because companies lack ideas, but because they struggle to scale those ideas across the enterprise—and that the solution lies not in structure or processes, but in leadership.

Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, faculty chair of the Leadership Initiative, and one of the top ten management thinkers in the world as ranked by Thinkers50. In her new book, co-authored with Emily Tedards and Jason Wild, she draws on deep case studies of organizations from Mastercard to Pfizer to Pixar to show that scaling innovation requires three distinct but complementary leadership roles: architects, bridgers, and catalysts.

In her conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, she discusses why innovation labs alone don’t work, the ABCs of innovation leadership, how to build a culture of creative abrasion, and why even senior leaders need coaching to get innovation right.

Key topics discussed:

01:28 | Why innovation fails at the point of scaling, not ideation

03:59 | The ABCs of innovation leadership: architects, bridgers, catalysts

06:29 | Getting metrics and incentives right for innovation

10:42 | What bridgers do and why organizations don’t have enough of them

14:33 | Is innovation leadership a team sport or a solo act?

18:48 | How to know which role you’re best suited to and how to learn the others

24:04 | How incumbent leaders can create urgency without being the new CEO

Additional inspirations from Linda A. Hill:

In Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business, Marcus Buckingham argues that love—not engagement, satisfaction, or motivation—is the only feeling that reliably changes the behavior of employees and customers, and that it can be deliberately designed into business.

Buckingham is one of the world’s foremost researchers on human performance. He is a former senior vice president at Gallup turned New York Times–best-selling author, having written First, Break All the Rules. In his new book, he draws on decades of research to show that the relationship between experiences and outcomes is not linear—only experiences so positive that people describe them as “love” actually drive loyalty, productivity, and advocacy.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why love is categorically different from engagement, the five feelings that make up a loving experience, three disciplines leaders can use to design love into their organizations, and why common practices like outsourcing and large spans of control are fundamentally unloving.

Key topics discussed:

01:16 | Why love is categorically different from engagement or satisfaction

04:43 | The nonlinear relationship between experiences and outcomes

08:24 | How experiences drive behaviors that drive outcomes

12:34 | Designing love in: the five feelings and three disciplines

16:00 | Can love be designed into products, not just experiences?

19:13 | The three disciplines: walk the stage, equip the people, sequence the scenes

27:39 | Spans of control and the one-to-12 rule

30:17 | The limits of artificial experience–making

Additional inspirations from Marcus Buckingham:

In this special episode, Rich Lesser, BCG’s global chair, and Martin Reeves, former chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, reflect on the shocks and surprises that shaped the first half of the decade and what they reveal about the future. They explore the traits leaders need today: building trust, staying geopolitically aware, and adopting AI in a people-centered way.

In The Transformation Economy: Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations, B. Joseph Pine II argues that an economic shift is underway, in which transformations—not commodities, goods, services, or experiences—will become the highest form of value creation.

Pine is an internationally acclaimed author, known for having coined the term “experience economy” in the 1990s. He works as a speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 companies. In his new book, he suggests that most companies compete by improving what they sell, while missing what customers actually want: to become different people.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, Pine discusses the evolution of economic value creation, the North Star for transformation businesses, and how to scale from one to many transformation journeys.

Key topics discussed:

01:01 | The evolution of economic value creation

03:35 | How to get into the transformation business

10:35 | The North Star for transformation businesses

15:07 | Scaling beyond individual transformation journeys

16:46 | Different types of transformation journeys

20:37 | Making transformations last

24:12 | Taking the first step toward the transformation economy

Additional inspirations from B. Joseph Pine II:

The Experience Economy, With a New Preface by the Authors: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money, co-authored by James H. Gilmore (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019)

In The Doom Loop: Why the World Economic Order Is Spiraling into Disorder, Eswar Prasad argues that we are caught in a destructive feedback loop between economics, domestic politics, and geopolitics.

Prasad is a professor of Trade Policy and Economics at Cornell University, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. In his new book, he explores how globalization, international institutions, the rise of “middle power” countries, and technological innovations had the potential to promote shared prosperity—but instead are driving global instability.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the breakdown of the rule-based system, implications for trade policy in Europe and elsewhere, and the role AI plays in driving global instability.

Key topics discussed:

01:20 | The doom loop driving global instability

06:41 | The positive aspects of globalization and middle powers

12:02 | Implications for European trade policy

15:51 | The breakdown of the rule-based system

18:36 | The role of AI and other technologies in the doom loop

23:57 | Reasons for remaining optimistic

Additional inspirations from Eswar Prasad:

The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance (Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2023)

In The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies, Mehran Gul examines how innovation works in different countries around the globe—diving deep into the ecosystems that produce great technology companies.

Gul is a writer and leading technology thinker, having served as the Lead for the Digital Transformation of Industries at the World Economic Forum. His book, which was nominated as a Financial Times best business book of 2025, he discusses why the United States remains at the world’s technological frontier, with only China being a true challenger.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, Global Leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he talks about how innovation ecosystems are converging, the role of statecraft in fostering innovation ecosystems, and the main forces that will shift the global innovation landscape in the coming decade.

Key topics discussed:

01:22 | Attributes of successful innovation ecosystems

06:57 | US vs. China talent pool

10:26 | What China gets right about innovation

13:20 | Why Europe lags behind on innovation

18:54 | The role of intentional statecraft in fostering innovation

23:31 | The convergence of innovation ecosystems around the globe

26:34 | Implications for businesses

28:56 | How the global innovation landscape will evolve in the next decade

In Flourish: The Transformative Power of Creating Community, Daniel Coyle investigates the ecosystems in which humans do their best work—from sports teams, to the boardroom, and our daily lives.

Daniel Coyle is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, in which he explores how people and groups grow, perform, and flourish. He combines immersive field reporting with behavioral science to create practical frameworks for building skill, culture, and meaningful connection.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses his definition of flourishing, how to find moments of stillness in our turbulent world, and how leaders can balance efficiency with the disorder that fosters creativity.

Key topics discussed:

01:03 | The definition of flourishing

09:13 | Finding moments of reflection and stillness

16:41 | Crisis as a trigger for flourishing

19:52 | Messiness and creativity

26:39 | Balancing disorder and efficiency

29:40 | A starting point for leaders

Additional inspirations from Daniel Coyle:

The Culture Playbook: 60 Highly Effective Actions to Help Your Group Succeed (Random House Audio, 2022)The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups (Bantam, 2018)The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. (Bantam, 2009)

In Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World: A New Economics for the Middle Class, the Global Poor, and Our Climate, Dani Rodrik proposes new modes of cooperation and policy experimentation to address our greatest global challenges.

Rodrik is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. He codirects both the Reimagining the Economy Program at Harvard and the Economics for Inclusive Prosperity network.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the trilemma between democracy, prosperity, and sustainability, how hyper-globalization contributed to this struggle, and his proposed framework for resolving it.

Key topics discussed:

01:06 | The trilemma of democracy, prosperity, and sustainability

03:50 | The shortcomings of hyper-globalization

10:33 | Why manufacturing is no longer an escape from poverty

14:47 | Services as drivers of development

18:33 | The new framework of productivism

23:25 | The power of unilateral climate actions

27:26 | Implications for business leaders

Additional inspirations from Dani Rodrik:

Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017)Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015)

In The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things that Last, Jimmy Wales explains how he turned an impossible idea—creating an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit—into a global institution.

Wales is the founder of Wikipedia. In his new book, he distills two decades of lessons from building one of the world’s most trusted collaborative projects. He argues that trust isn’t a soft virtue but a practical system—a set of design principles that allow people and organizations to cooperate effectively, solve problems honestly, and endure.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses whether Wikipedia could still be created today, how it can retain its trusted status in an age of polarization, and what we can learn from Wikipedia to rebuild trust within society.

Key topics discussed: 

01:02 | How to scale interpersonal trust

04:02 | The importance of assuming good faith

07:13 | Could Wikipedia still be created today?

09:06 | How Wikipedia can retain its trusted status in an age of polarization

10:30 | The impact of AI on trust

15:40 | How institutions can reclaim lost trust

18:01 | Reasons to remain optimistic about rebuilding societal trust

In How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage, Ranjay Gulati argues that being bold is something you can learn—not a trait you have to be born with.

Gulati, a professor at Harvard Business School, is a leading organizational sociologist and management scholar. In his new book, he explores the science and psychology of courage—showing that bravery is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the difference between uncertainty and risk, strategies for building courage at the individual and corporate level, and why we shouldn’t be worried about boldness leading to excessive risk-taking.

Key topics discussed:

00:58 | The definition of courage

05:11 | Boldness and excessive risk-taking

06:34 | Strategies for building courage as an individual

14:51 | The power of sense-making

18:16 | Risk management systems

21:13 | How to build a culture of courage

31:40 | One thing executives should do differently

Additional inspirations from Ranjay Gulati:

In The Land Trap: A New History of the World’s Oldest Asset, Mike Bird shows why land remains the ultimate currency of power.

Bird is the Wall Street editor at The Economist, where he leads coverage across the American financial industry and cohosts the magazine’s flagship podcast Money Talks. In his new book, he presents a bold new framework explaining how land exerts influence over the modern world, shaping housing, banking, and geopolitics.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, Bird discusses the history of land usage and ownership, how land is related to modern economic crises, and different governance models for land.

Key topics discussed: 

01:01 | What makes land unique, and why is it a trap?

04:58 | The history of land ownership

11:38 | The relation between land and economic crises

16:00 | The role of “superstar cities”

19:08 | How land could be governed

23:36 | Business implications of land

In SuperAdaptability: How to Transcend in an Age of Overwhelm, Max McKeown argues that the key to thriving under uncertainty is adaptability—being able to change with your environment, again and again, getting better each time.

McKeown is a leading strategy thinker, coach to Fortune 100 companies, and an award-winning author. In his new book, he reveals how figures as different as Frida Kahlo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Simone Biles all relied on the same pattern of thinking to adapt to radically changing circumstances.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the difference between adaptability and resilience, and how to scale adaptability from one person to a team to an entire organization.

Key topics discussed: 

01:14 | The power of adaptive intelligence

03:03 | Adaptability vs. resilience

05:15 | The RUN loop: Recognize, understand, necessary action

09:08 | How to help others become more adaptable

11:57 | How to make your company more adaptable

16:19 | Applying the loop logic to innovation

23:56 | Real life stories of adaptability

29:23 | Bringing adaptability to life with illustrations

Additional inspirations from Max McKeown:

In Capitalism and Its Critics: A Battle of Ideas in the Modern World, John Cassidy offers a multi-century history of global capitalism, told through the eyes of its dissenters.

Cassidy is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His new book blends biography, history, and economic analysis to reveal the roots of urgent debates the business world and society face today, as AI, climate change, and inequality are forcing us to reexamine the economic system.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, Cassidy discusses the main historical themes of capitalism critique, why the system continues to endure, how it is being, and what its future may be in the current context of assaults on the system from both the political left and right.

Key topics discussed: 

01:44 | The main themes of capitalism critique

04:17 | Why capitalism endures

09:15 | The paradox of state capitalism

14:21 | The misunderstood Luddites

19:09 | Trade tensions and global economic asymmetry

24:45 | The role of unpaid domestic labor in driving the capitalist system

28:50 | The most surprising insights in writing the book

31:33 | The future of capitalism

Additional inspirations from John Cassidy:

In Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain, Nicholas Wright argues that war and competition are rooted in human biology—in our drives for survival, fairness, territory, and belonging.

Wright is a neuroscientist who researches the brain, technology, and security at University College London; Georgetown University; and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, where he also advises the Pentagon. In his new book, he explores how each region of the brain is linked to a certain dimension of conflict—explaining why war seems inevitable, yet also why peace is possible.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why neuroscience is a powerful lens to understand conflict, how it helps military leaders make decisions, and why we need to give AI a prefrontal cortex to ensure it makes wise decisions in conflict situations.

Key topics discussed: 

01:27 | Neuroscience as a lens to understand conflict

04:10 | The role of prediction error in the psychology of war

07:29 | The clash between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex

12:46 | How AI and its interaction with humans may influence the future of conflict

18:55 | How neuroscience insights help military leaders make decisions

22:13 | Training political and business leaders based on neuroscience insights

In After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People, Dean Spears and Michael Geruso argue that the defining demographic risk of this century is global depopulation.

Spears and Geruso are both professors at the University of Texas at Austin, focusing on economic demography and development economics. In their new book, they explore the trend of falling birth rates, how it threatens human progress, and what actions may reverse this trend.

In their conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss projections for global depopulation, why advances in AI and robotics will not replace humans, why fewer people may not be good for the planet, and what the implications of all this are for business leaders.

Key topics discussed:

01:06 | Projected global population levels

06:11 | The impact of depopulation

11:00 | The potential for AI and robotics to replace humans

17:00 | The environmental implications of depopulation

21:24 | Potential solutions to falling birth rates

26:02 | Implications for business leaders

28:26 | Reasons to remain hopeful

Additional inspirations from Dean Spears:

In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations, Carl Benedikt Frey argues that progress, throughout history, has not just depended on technological innovations but also on the flexibility of our institutions.

Frey is the associate professor of AI & Work at the University of Oxford, where he directs the Future of Work program. In his new book, he explores how technological progress has unfolded throughout history, from the Qin Dynasty to Silicon Valley. He argues that progress is always fragile, resting on achieving a delicate balance between decentralized innovation and centralized scaling of new technologies.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses how to achieve institutional flexibility, the hurdles we must overcome to turn AI into progress, and what lessons history holds for business leaders looking to navigate the conundrum of innovating versus scaling.

Key topics discussed: 

01:15 | The fragility of progress

05:35 | The role of decentralization and centralization

11:24 | How to achieve institutional flexibility

17:29 | The hurdles to overcome for turning AI into progress

21:04 | How business leaders can navigate the conundrum of innovating vs. scaling

25:00 | Why progress might not yet end

Additional inspirations from Carl Benedikt Frey:

In Anointed: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in A Winner-Take-Most World, Toby Stuart dives deeply into the power that social status holds over us.

Stuart is the Leo Helzel Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. In his new book, he explores how social status shapes everything—from who we trust and what we value, to which ideas and innovations change the world and who gets credit for their success.

In his conversation with Adam Job, Senior Director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the cumulative effects of social status, whereby small initial differences can snowball into outsize effects. He also outlines why the social status system persists despite a prevailing distrust in elites—and how AI may yet be poised to change the system.

Key topics discussed: 

01:44 | The importance of social status

05:15 | The role of anointment in modern times

13:23 | The cumulative effects of social status

19:18 | Why the social status system persists

21:23 | How AI may change the role of social status

24:45 | The downsides of high social status, and how to deal with them

In Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy, Sangeet Paul Choudary explores common misconceptions about how AI will change work, organizations, and business ecosystems.

Choudary is the founder and CEO of Platformation Labs and a senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. An expert on AI, platforms, and the economics of big tech, he has sold more than half a million books on these topics. In his latest work, he explores how new forms of coordination—rather than automation and augmentation—are the true superpower of AI.

In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses how AI will supercharge coordination, move us towards a more modular, on-demand economy, and how companies can account for all of this in their strategies.

Key topics discussed: 

01:31 | How AI will impact jobs

04:38 | Assessing the value of jobs

09:25 | AI’s power to supercharge coordination

14:23 | Unlocking “coordination without consensus”

19:00 | Moving towards a modular, on-demand economy

25:56 | Crafting a strategy for the age of AI

Additional inspirations from Sangeet Choudary:

InThe Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World, Hal Brands illuminates the historical patterns we must understand in order to better navigate the geopolitical rivalries of the present.

Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. In his new book, he traces the arc from World War I to today’s rivalries between the United States and China, and between NATO and Russia.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why the 20th and 21st centuries are the Eurasian (rather than the American) Era, how today’s rivalries among great powers differ from those of the past, and what global business must pay attention to in navigating current geopolitical tensions.

Key topics discussed: 

01:28 | The 20th and 21st centuries as the Eurasian era

05:32 | The “historic achievement” of the Cold War

08:34 | How today’s rivalries among great powers are different

13:14 | The future of Eurasia

15:59 | How global businesses can operate in a polarized geopolitical world

20:13 | Reasons to be optimistic vs. pessimistic about the future

Additional inspirations from Hal Brands:

In The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters, Dame Diane Coyle argues that traditional measures like GDP no longer capture economic realities.

Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. She is also the director of the Productivity Institute, a fellow of the Office for National Statistics, and a member of the UK’s Competition Commission. Drawing on her deep expertise, she proposes an alternative framework for measuring productivity that enables better policymaking.

In her conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, she discusses the shortcomings of GDP—such as a lack of accounting for immaterial goods or natural capital, alternative measures of progress, and how corporate leaders should rethink their approach to measurement.

Key topics discussed: 

01:32 | The shortcomings of GDP as a measure of productivity

09:14 | The issues of inflated GDP statements

11:12 | Alternative measures of productivity and progress

13:47 | A time-based approach to measuring productivity

16:39 | How productivity measurement works in practice

18:57 | Implications for corporate leaders

Additional inspirations from Diane Coyle:

In Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare, Edward Fishman argues that the nature of international power has fundamentally shifted from military might to economic statecraft.

Fishman is a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and an adjunct professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia. Previously, he served at the US State Department, leading work on economic sanctions. In his new book, he examines how governments—particularly the US’s—are increasingly using financial tools, regulatory measures, and targeted sanctions to shape international relations, secure strategic advantages, and resolve conflicts.

In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the history of sanctions, how the US came to wield them so powerfully, how diplomatic back channels are navigated in applying them—and what is important for making them effective in enforcing the desired governance changes.

Key topics discussed: 

02:05 | The history of chokepoints and US dominance over them

08:45 | The role of businesses in economic diplomacy

12:17 | Navigating diplomatic back channels

15:32 | The role of technology and export controls

19:45 | Oil price caps as an innovation in sanctions design

23:10 | The effectiveness of sanctions in enforcing governance changes

27:44 | On the origins of this book

Additional inspirations from Edward Fishman:

In There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift, Kevin Evers examines the singer-songwriter's remarkable career success from a business strategy perspective.

Evers is a senior editor at Harvard Business Review, where he has edited bestselling and award-winning books on high performance, creativity, innovation, digital disruption, marketing, and strategy.

In discussion with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, they cover the scale and longevity of Swift's success, the strategic moves and innovations that have driven her rise and staying power, her ability to reinvent herself and connect with fans in new ways, and lessons for strategists and companies.

In Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier, Matthew C. Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau discuss the discuss the history, the present, and the future of the space economy.

Weinzierl is the Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and founder of the Economics of Space project at HBS. Rosseau is an Orbital Launch strategy manager at the American space technology company Blue Origin. Together, they provide in-depth academic and practitioner perspectives on the space economy.

In their conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss the central governance vs. market-driven models of the space economy, the geopolitics of space, and whether the first trillionaire will be an asteroid miner.

Key topics discussed: 

02:03 | The three phases of the space economy

05:28 | Central governance vs. market-driven model of the space economy

08:23 | Geopolitics of space

11:33 | The market structure of the space economy (on Earth)

17:14 | Space junk

21:03 | Asteroid mining

23:47 | How to make space interesting again

In The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told About Business Is Wrong, John Kay provides a novel perspective on the evolution of the contemporary corporation.

One of the UK’s leading economists, Kay is a fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. He was the first dean of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and has held chairs at London Business School, the University of Oxford, and the London School of Economics and director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In his conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Kay discusses the essence of the modern corporation, the changing relationship of capital and labour, the gap between the our historic concept of the corporation and the current reality and the forces that have and will further shape the corporation including sustainability, geopolitics, and technology.

Key topics discussed: 

01:56 | The essence of a 21st century corporation

05:53 | The changing roles of workers and capital

12:26 | Limits to corporate scale

16:00 | Forces that will shape the future of corporations sustainability, geopolitics, technology

21:50 | The impact of AI on the nature of the corporation

24:12 | Implications for managers

Additional inspirations from John Kay:

In Uncertainty and Enterprise: Venturing Beyond the Known, Amar Bhidé revisits and modernizes the concept of Knightian uncertainty. Introduced more than 100 years ago, the concept offers great potential for better understanding corporate decision-making.

A renowned expert on innovation, entrepreneurship, and finance, Bhidé is a professor of Health Policy at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, as well as a professor emeritus of Business at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

In his conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Bhidé discusses the important distinction between repeated and unique events, the relationship between uncertainty and imagination, how corporations can use persuasive narratives and social routes to navigate the future, and whether AI will help or hinder these practices.

Key topics discussed:

01:16 | The definition of uncertainty

04:49 | The relation between uncertainty and imagination

09:32 | The power of corporate routines

15:57 | The changing nature of uncertainty

17:25 | How AI impacts uncertainty

21:02 | Corporate implications

22:38 | Implications for business education

Additional inspirations from Amar Bhidé:

In The M&A Failure Trap: Why Most Mergers and Acquisitions Fail and How the Few Succeed,Baruch Lev and Feng Gu provide a wealth of evidence on the success and failure factors of acquisitions.

Lev, professor emeritus of Accounting and Finance at NYU’s Stern School of Business and Gu, professor of Accounting and Law at the State University of New York, have analyzed more than 40,000 acquisitions over the past four decades. This has not only allowed them to understand the reasons why 75% of deals fail but also to develop a scorecard that can help decision-makers assess the likelihood of acquisition success ex ante.

In their conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Lev and Gu discuss how to measure acquisition success, how to curb overconfidence on the side of the acquirer, and key lessons for CEOs seeking inorganic growth.

Key topics discussed:

[02:45] How mergers and acquisitions have changed

[05:00] Judging the success or failure of acquisitions

[08:16] Drivers of acquisition failure

[14:41] Patterns of successful acquisitions

[17:27] Overconfidence and its causes

[19:51] Managerial implications

In Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior, Sandra Matz explores what our digital footprints reveal about us and how these insights are used to influence our daily decisions.

Matz is the David W. Zalaznick Associate Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, where she also serves as co-director of the Center for Advanced Technology and Human Performance. Using her background in psychology and computer science, Matz investigates the intricate connections between our digital and real lives and how these are shaped by technology.

In her conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Matz discusses the power of psychological profiling, highlights the harms as well as benefits of the personalization it enables, and outlines implications for businesses and regulators, including the possibility of entirely new business models.

Key topics discussed: 

[01:10] Power of psychological profiling

[05:05] Scale and impact of big data–based psychological profiling

[09:06] Benefits and harms of personalization

[16:05] Challenges of regulating profiling and personalization

[17:57] Ramifications of the AI-driven content revolution

[23:20] Implications for businesses

[28:37] How to manage your data footprint

Additional inspirations from Sandra Matz: 

In The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions and How the World Lost Its Mind, Dan Davies examines why companies and governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims they do not want.

Davies is an economist, writer, and former investment banker known for his insightful analysis of finance, corporate governance, and decision-making systems. He has written extensively on topics such as financial fraud, accountability in organizations, and the intersections of economics and management. His latest book combines cybernetics theory and real-world examples to explain how decisions are increasingly made not by accountable individuals, but by systems.

In his conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Davies describes the pathologies of failing decision-making systems, explains why we tend not to learn from past mistakes, and outlines why he worries that AI might not improve our capability to make decisions unless we carefully redesign decision systems to tap its potential.

Key topics discussed: 

01:03 | Unintended outcomes generated by decision-making systems

07:08 | What we can learn from the theory of cybernetics

09:49 | Pathologies of failing information systems

11:49 | Why we make the same mistakes again and again

14:41 | How AI may impact decision-making

16:39 | Steps toward improving our decision-making systems

Additional inspirations from Dan Davies:

In AI Snake Oil: What AI Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference, Sayash Kapoor and his co-author Arvind Narayanan provide an essential understanding of how AI works and why some applications remain fundamentally beyond its capabilities.

Kapoor was included in TIME’s inaugural list of the 100 most influential people in AI. As a researcher at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, he examines the societal impacts of AI, with a focus on reproducibility, transparency, and accountability in AI systems. In his new book, he cuts through the hype to help readers discriminate between legitimate and bogus claims for AI technologies and applications.

In his conversation with Martin Reeves, chair of the BCG Henderson Institute, Kapoor discusses historical patterns of technology hype, differentiates between the powers and limitations of predictive versus generative AI, and outlines how managers can balance healthy skepticism with embracing the potential of new technologies.

Key topics discussed: 

01:05 | Examples of AI “snake oil”

04:42 | Historical patterns of technology hypeand how AI is different

07:26 | Capabilities and exaggerations of predictive AI

11:42 | Powers and limitations of generative AI

17:11 | Drivers of inflated expectations

20:18 | Implications for regulation

23:26 | How managers can balance scepticism and embracing new tech

24:58 | Future of AI research

Additional inspirations from Sayash Kapoor:

In The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World, Karthik Ramanna provides a framework for leaders to navigate outrage—the intense, polarized reactions to perceived social injustices, political stances, and misaligned corporate actions—by addressing root causes, engaging stakeholders, and building resilience.

Ramanna, a professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, specializes in business-government relations and corporate accountability.

In conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Ramanna discusses the three causes of outrage (fear of the future, past injustices, and ideologies of othering), common instincts that mislead leaders, and his five-step framework for navigating the age of outrage.

Key topics discussed: 

01:08 | Managing in the age of outrage

4:21 | Three causes of outrage: fear of the future, past injustices, and ideologies of othering

5:48 | The five-step framework for navigating the age of outrage

19:04 | Instincts which mislead companies into taking the wrong stance or making the wrong analysis

20:45 | The impact of “temperate leadership” and leadership attributes

25:22 | Key factors impacting the age of outrage

Additional inspirations from Karthik Ramanna:

In The Corporate Life Cycle: Business, Investment, and Management Implications, Aswath Damodaran presents the corporate life cycle as a universal key for demystifying business finance, strategy and company valuation.

Damodaran is a professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University. Known as “the Dean of Valuation,” he has published extensively in academic journals, written many books for students and practitioners, and remains the world’s foremost expert on the subject of corporate valuation. In his latest book, he outlines how corporations age, describes the characteristics of each stage of their life cycle, and discusses implications for managers and investors.

In his conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Damodaran outlines how to determine where in the life cycle your company is at, what leadership skills and behaviors are required at each stage, and how the distribution of life cycle stages has changed over recent decades.

Key topics discussed: 

00:56 | The stages of the corporate life cycle

02:21 | How to determine your stage in the life cycle

03:36 | The importance of acting your age

10:06 | Balancing capital allocation across the portfolio

11:27 | Leadership skills for different stages in the life cycle

16:56 | Creating value at any stage of the life cycle

20:21 | How the distribution of life cycle “shapes” is changing

22:58 | The art of communicating complex ideas in simple ways

Additional inspirations from Aswath Damodaran:

In Big Bet Leadership: Your Transformation Playbook for Winning in the Hyper-Digital Era, John Rossman provides a playbook for becoming an innovation and transformation winner.

Rossman was previously an executive at Amazon, responsible for launching their Marketplace business. Now, he is the managing partner of Rossman Partners, advising leading enterprises on large-scale change, and author of the best-selling books The Amazon Wayand Think Like Amazon. In his latest book, he examines why high-stakes change efforts fail and how to frame and manage them more effectively. Companies need to think in terms of “big bets,” which will require executives to adopt the right mindset, tactical steps, and leadership habits.

In his conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Rossman explains why we need to work in prose, not in PowerPoint; how to think big, while betting small; and how to make the critical decisions to “continue, pivot, or kill” a project.

Key topics discussed: 

01:19 | What makes a “big bet”

04:10 | Thinking in outcomes

06:49 | Prose over PowerPoint

12:51 | Thinking big, but betting small

16:21 | Thinking in systems

19:21 | How to decide to “continue, pivot, or kill” – and avoid confusion

22:45 | Where “big bet” thinking can be applied

Additional inspirations from John Rossman:

In Critical Systems Thinking: A Practitioner's Guide, Michael C. Jackson emphasizes the need for integrating diverse systems methodologies to navigate complexity and uncertainty.

Jackson, an emeritus professor of management systems and former dean of the University of Hull Business School, has also served as president of several prominent systems thinking organizations, including the UK Systems Society, the International Federation for Systems Research, and the International Society for the Systems Sciences. His most significant contribution to the field is his development of Critical Systems Thinking (CST), which emphasizes the combined use of different systems approaches to deal with the complexity that leaders face.

In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Jackson introduces the EPIC process (Explore, Produce, Intervene, and Check), a four-stage, sequential framework to help leaders deploy systems methodologies. Their discussion includes how different systems perspectives can be combined, how theory informs interventions, how organizations are embracing system thinking, barriers to adoption, and the relevance of systems thinking to today’s business environment.

Key topics discussed:

2:40 | What systems thinking can offer the traditional MBA toolkit

5:20 | Systems thinking in contemporary business scenarios

6:37 | The EPIC process: Explore, Produce, Intervene, and Check

16:52 | Characteristic tools of systems thinking

17:34 | The five lenses of systems thinking

21:54 | Advancing the agenda of systems thinking

Additional inspirations from Michael C. Jackson:

There is no shortage of technologists touting the promise of AI, but the frontier of AI fervor is a noted philosopher who thinks the economy could double every few months—and that space colonization by self-replicating machines may not be hundreds of years away.

Enter Nick Bostrom, who previously authored the 2014 bestseller Superintelligence about the dangers of AI, and now considers what can go right with AI in his new book Deep Utopia. Bostrom was formerly a professor at Oxford University, and currently principal researcher of the Macrostrategy Research Initiative.

In this episode, he joins Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, Chief Economist of BCG, who is skeptical of AI narratives and thinks technology’s economic impact has long-lagged expectations. They discuss different takes on the likely size and speed of AI’s impact on the macroeconomy, and why they disagree about the prospect of tech-driven mass unemployment. Bostrom also explains key themes from Deep Utopia, including stages of utopia, “shallow and deep” redundancy, implications for policy, as well as the unique rhetorical style of the book.

Key topics discussed: 

01:45 | Is tech jumping ahead or behind schedule?

03:24 | Is Deep Utopia really a book about AI or about philosophy?

04:39 | Technological unemployment: Real or fallacious

10:54 | Taxonomy of utopia

13:59 | What about public policy, such as UBI?

15:47 | Concept of shallow and deep redundancy

18:50 | Concept of “interestingness”

21:07 | Rhetorical style of book

23:29 | AI regulation and policy

Additional inspirations from Nick Bostrom:

In The Great Disconnect: Hopes and Fears After the Excess of Globalization, Marco Magnani explores the factors that are driving the crisis of globalization we are currently experiencing.

Magnani teaches international economics at LUISS University in Rome and Università Cattolica in Milan. Previously, he was a senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and worked in investment banking for two decades. In his new book, he discusses the history of internationalization and the benefits that modern globalization has brought—as well as the drawbacks that have become increasingly apparent.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Magnani discusses the causes of the increasing global disconnect—beyond U.S.-China tensions. He also lays out four scenarios for how globalization may play out, as well as practical tips for how executives can prepare for these different futures in a time of deep uncertainty.

Key topics discussed: 

01:19 | The great disconnect

04:13 | The benefits and downsides of modern globalization

07:21 | Future scenarios for globalization

13:28 | What the history of internationalization reveals about where we are heading

15:25 | Implications of AI for globalization

16:33 | How globalization or de-globalization might play out in practice

21:10 | Implications for businesses

Additional inspirations from Marco Magnani:

In Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future, Carissa Carter and Scott Doorley explore the intangible forces that make it hard to anticipate how new technologies create impact and what we can do about this challenge during the design process for new applications.

Carter is the Director of Teaching and Learning at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford – also known as the Stanford d.school. Doorley is a Creative Director at the d.school, having previously worked in the film industry for more than a decade.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss how designers, technologists, and corporate leaders can more effectively harness transformative technologies like AI and artificial biology by giving more weight to non-technical factors like emotions, perceptions, imagination, and serendipity.

Key topics discussed: 

01:23 | The problem of runaway design

03:16 | The forces that make technology impact unpredictable

09:17 | The role of emotions in design

11:59 | Why we are not thinking about unpredictability in designing technologies

15:17 | Potential solutions to new design problems

22:22 | Applying these solutions to AI

24:20 | Implications for businesses

Additional inspirations from Scott Doorley: 

Additional inspirations from Carissa Carter:

In How to Become Famous: Lost Einsteins, Forgotten Superstars, and How the Beatles Came to Be, Cass Sunstein reveals why some individuals become celebrities—and others don’t.

Sunstein has long been at the forefront of behavioral economics. He is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School and served as the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. He has authored numerous best sellers, such as Nudge and The World According to Star Wars. In his new book, he explores the roles played by skill, luck, and social processes in the achievement of fame and success—based on recent research on informational cascades, reputation cascades, network effects, and group polarization.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Sunstein discusses how a better understanding of these mechanisms can help businesses make better decisions in marketing, talent management, and innovation - and why the greatest composer of all time may not be J S Bach, but rather Taylor Swift.

Key topics discussed: 

03:18 | How to prove whether or not fame is driven by merit

06:08 | The importance of quality and skill to fame

09:33 | Enduring vs. transient fame

11:36 | The greatest composers of all time: Bach vs. Taylor Swift

14:44 | Social factors driving fame

19:54 | The role of group polarization and network effects

28:48 | Implications for businesses: Marketing, talent, innovation

33:19 | The art of manipulating information cascades

Additional inspirations from Cass Sunstein:

In The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions, Michael Norton explores how the little things we do can create big impact.

Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he also leads the unit for negotiation, organization, and markets. A well known and respected researcher on behavioral economics and well-being, his new book demonstrates the power of small acts—and how a subtle shift of turning habits into rituals can add purpose and pleasure to life.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Norton discusses how we can use rituals deliberately and effectively in our life and work, why it is important that rituals evolve over time, and how COVID changed our rituals as individuals and as teams.

Key topics discussed: 

00:52 | Ritual vs. habit

03:39 | The power (and pitfalls) of rituals

07:08 | Deliberately using rituals (in private life and the workplace)

13:41 | The importance of evolving rituals

18:22 | How COVID changed our rituals

21:20 | How CEOs can harness the power of rituals

Additional inspirations from Michael Norton: 

In Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times, Rebecca Homkes guides leaders on how to turn uncertainty into opportunity.

Homkes teaches business strategy at the London Business School, is on the faculty of Duke Corporate Education, and consults major companies on strategy. She has developed a framework for leading through uncertainty based on three principles: setting up the firm for continuity through shocks (survive), making strategic choices for growth as the situation changes (reset), and ensuring implementation of the new business model (thrive).

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Homkes discusses how to thrive under uncertainty and how her framework applies in the context of the AI revolution.

Key topics discussed: 

02:11 | How uncertainty affects strategy

03:40 | The survive, reset, thrive framework

05:20 | How to survive a shock

09:20 | How to reset for a new environment

14:42 | How to execute so you can thrive in the long term

19:12 | The creative vs. competitive aspects of strategy

24:11 | How algorithms and AI will affect strategy and the strategy process

27:49 | Applying this framework in your personal life

At the BCG Henderson Institute, we aim to bring forward-looking leaders the ideas and inspirations that will shape their next game. To honor this mission—and celebrate the 100th episode of our Thinkers & Ideas podcast—we welcomed three leading futurists to discuss the evolution of business and society.

Rita McGrath is a professor of management at Columbia Business School, and has been ranked among the top 10 management thinkers globally by Thinkers50 for years. Gary Shteyngart, a professor of writing at Columbia University is also a New York Times bestselling author of science fiction novels. Esther Dyson, founder of Wellville, is an investor, writer, and expert on all things tech, space, and health.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss their complementary perspectives on the future. They also divulge their methods for making predictions, providing valuable hints for how business leaders can use similar approaches to shape their perspectives and strategies.

Key topics discussed: 

02:06 | Revisiting past predictions about the future

05:08 | The digital age

08:16 | Social media and a technology-centred society

12:47 | Methods for sensing the future”

17:23 | Harnessing the power of science fiction

22:31 | Using metaphors

24:41 | Bringing together these future-sensing methods

31:07 | Predictions about what is coming next

Additional inspirations from Rita McGrath, Gary Shteyngart, and Esther Dyson:

In Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, Cass Sunstein, together with his co-author Tali Sharot, discusses the importance of reevaluating the familiar to discover new insights.

Sunstein has long been at the forefront of behavioral economics. He is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School and served as the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. He has authored numerous best sellers, such as Nudge and The World According to Star Wars., In his new book, he explores the effects of habituation—ceasing to notice the familiar.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Sunstein discusses the perils of habituation and how to see the unseen. He also identifies ways that company leaders can strategically avoid habituation to ensure their organizations do not get stuck in mental models that limit adaptability to new trends and challenges.

Key topics discussed: 

01:09 | How habituation works

04:25 | What dishabituation is

08:18 | How to see the unseen

13:51 | How corporations should think about (dis-)habituation

22:08 | Breaking free from a mental model

24:21 | Personal strategies for dishabituation

Additional inspirations from Cass Sunstein:

In Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality, Venki Ramakrishnan explores the current research on and prospects for human longevity.

Ramakrishnan leads a group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. For his research on the structure and function of ribosomes, he won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. From 2015 to 2020, he served as president of the Royal Society. In his new book, Ramakrishnan explains the mechanisms of aging and their potential impacts on life expectancy, health span, and lifespan.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Ramakrishnan discusses the likely social, economic, and ethical implications of increasing longevity as well as the specific efforts researchers are making to prolong healthy life—and how close they are to achieving a breakthrough. He shines a light on a set of technologies which could be every bit as impactful as artificial intelligence, which therefore also deserve our attention.

Key topics discussed: 

02:28 | Life expectancy vs. health span vs. maximum lifespan

08:21 | Mechanisms of aging

13:25 | Potential interventions for promoting longevity

18:27 | How close are we to a longevity breakthrough?

24:02 | Societal and ethical implications

28:48 | The art of communicating complex idea

Additional inspirations from Venki Ramakrishnan:

In Making Sense of Chaos: A better economics for a better world, J. Doyne Farmer challenges traditional economic models, which rely on simplistic assumptions and fail to provide accurate predictions.

Farmer, a complex systems scientist at the University of Oxford and the Santa Fe Institute, argues that with technological advances in data science and computing, we are now able to apply complex systems thinking to build models that more accurately capture reality and enable us to make better predictions about the economy.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Farmer discusses the limitations of standard models of economics as well as the consequences of such limitations. He proposes an alternative based on complex systems thinking and agent-based modeling—and describes how it can be applied in various fields, including business.

Key topics discussed: 

01:42 | Limitations of the standard model of economics

04:44 | How complex systems thinking works

09:01 | Consequences of using inadequate economic models

12:44 | Agent-based modeling as a powerful alternative

19:02 | Leveraging alternative modeling techniques in business

24:59 | How CEOs can start embracing complexity thinking

In Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, Ethan Mollick explains how to engage with AI as a co-worker, a co-teacher, and a coach.

Mollick is a professor of management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship. In his new book, he discusses the profound impacts AI will have on business and education, using many examples of AI in action. His book challenges us to utilize AI’s enormous power without losing our human identity, to learn from it without being misled, and to harness its gifts to create a better human future.

Together with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Mollick discusses how to train people to use AI effectively, whether AI will substitute or complement workers, and how businesses can move beyond a short-term efficiency gains perspective to generate value with AI in the long term.

 Key topics discussed: 

02:27 | The four rules for living with AI

09:04 | Educating people to use AI effectively

10:47 | What experiments reveal about where AI adds (and destroys) value at work

12:45 | Substituting (vs. complementing) workers with AI

14:14 | Generating value with AI in the long-term

17:10 | Bringing about the social change in organizations alongside the tech change

20:48 | AI regulation

27:18 | How AI will transform education

Additional inspirations from Ethan Mollick:

In The Intelligence of Intuition, Gerd Gigerenzer challenges a commonly held view of intuition—namely, that it is somehow inferior to logical rationality.

Gigerenzer is director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and an expert on human decision-making. He argues that intuition is a form of unconscious intelligence shaped experience and evolution in dealing with uncertain and dynamic situations—situations for which logic and algorithms are often ill-fitted. As leaders deal with uncertainty and complexity and embrace new AI technologies, they must not forget the power of intuition.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Gigerenzer explores the power of intuition, when to use it in business, and how to cultivate and employ it.

Key topics discussed: 

01:23 | Difference between intuition and rationality

04:49 | Role of heuristics

06:29 | Why intuition is often looked down upon

08:06 | Power of intuition

15:21 | How to use intuition in business

18:45 | Distinguishing right intuition from wrong intuition

25:12 | Considering how AI use intuition

Additional inspirations from Gerd Gigerenzer:

In Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions, Akshat Rathi tells the stories of people around the world who are building impactful solutions to tackle climate change.

Rathi is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News, focusing on climate and energy. He also hosts the weekly Zero podcast, in which he talks to the people leading the fight for a zero-emissions future. In his new book, Rathi argues that the best way to cut carbon pollution is by harnessing capitalism. Combating climate change requires a combination of smart policies, financing, technological innovations, and leadership—without killing markets or competition.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Rathi discusses the essence of climate capitalism, how to scale up individual success stories, and how to navigate the challenging political context.

 Key topics discussed: 

02:09 | Definition of climate capitalism

07:19 | Success stories: Chinese EVs, Orsted

11:31 | The need to combine tech, policies, and finance

12:52 | How to scale case studies to big solutions

16:24 | Navigating a polarized political context

18:45 | Making climate solutions profitable

24:06 | Where CEOs should start

In Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, Kohei Saito explores the relationship between capitalism and the climate crisis. He argues, controversially, that to have any chance of achieving true sustainability, we must move to a system which deemphasizes growth, adopts different metrics of progress, expands the commons, and places value on goods and services which are not currently considered as part of the economy, like caregiving and nature.

Saito is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo and a recipient of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science prize, which is awarded to the top scholar in Japan under the age of 45. His book, published previously in Japan, became an unexpected bestseller, shipping more than half a million copies to date.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Saito discusses the arguments for fundamental economic system change, explores the feasibility of less radical alternatives, and assesses implications for business leaders. The book’s propositions will likely seem very radical to many of our business listeners—but as Saito notes, sometimes utopian ideas can be a stimulus for generating new thinking for complex intractable topics like climate change.

Key topics discussed: 

01:50 | Defining the problem and the need for system-level change

06:21 | The relation between capitalism and technological progress

08:41 | Exploring alternative, less radical solutions

13:32 | The need for a new measurement of economic and social progress

17:08 | The feasibility of a transition to a new system

21:41 | Implications for business leaders

25:35 | Reasons to remain hopeful

In Higher Ground: How Businesses Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World, Alison Taylor explores how companies can navigate the complexity of modern business ethics.

Taylor, a clinical associate professor at NYU Stern, has spent decades advising large multinational companies on risk, corruption, sustainability, and organizational culture. In her new book, she combines her experience with vivid case studies to guide companies toward reaching what she describes as the “higher ground”—a space where companies can act ethically and achieve long-term strategic advantage.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Taylor discusses why good governance is now more important than ever, how leaders can navigate a polarized political landscape, and how businesses can build trust.

Key topics discussed: 

02:44 | The rising importance of internal governance

06:10 | Common traps of internal governance

07:55 | Best practices for deploying purpose

10:53 | Businesses taking political stances

14:58 | Importance of trust and traps in pursuing it

17:12 | Solutions for businesses to pursue

24:15 | How to apply these lessons in your own work

In The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder, Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao share insights on friction—the forces that make it harder, slower, more complicated, or even impossible to get things done in organizations.

Sutton is an expert on organizational psychology at Stanford University and a best-selling author. His latest book is a culmination of a seven-year research effort on how effective organizations function without driving employees and customers crazy.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Sutton explores what friction is, where it comes from, and its effects - both positive and negative. They discuss the practical steps leaders and employees can take to remove and add friction in the right places. They also discuss broader implications, like whether the nature and consequences of friction will change in a world increasingly characterized by machine-machine and machine-human, rather than only human-human interactions.

Key topics discussed:

00:54 | What is organizational friction

04:30 | The negative consequences of friction

08:42 | What does good friction look like?

14:14 | How to remove friction

17:22 | What creates friction

19:11 | Removing friction and creating problems

22:04 | Is friction less problematic in a world of AI?

25:26 | How can ideas about friction be applied in academia?

In Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence, along with their coauthors, Gordon Brown and Reid Lidow, consider how we’ve arrived at this state of constant instability and insecurity—and suggest concrete ways to break the cycle.

Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens’ College Cambridge University, was previously the chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council, a Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund, and CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO.

Michael Spence, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Philip H. Knight Professor and dean, emeritus, at Stanford Graduate School of Business, was awarded the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Together with Martin Reeves, the Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, El-Erian and Spence discuss new approaches to thinking about growth, economic management, and managing a global order, as well as how leaders could unlock the full potential of technologies that could drive growth, and ensure that the benefits of technological advancements, like AI, are widely distributed to avoid exacerbating national tensions.

Key topics discussed: 

01:59 | Defining permacrisis

08:58 | The essence of how we need to think differently about growth and value

10:32 | Unlocking the full potential of technologies that could drive growth

14:09 | How to ensure that the benefits of technological advancements, like AI, are widely distributed to avoid exacerbating national tensions

19:40 | Anticipating or managing similar crises (COVID-19) in the future

25:15 | Reforming multilateral institutions

In The Worlds I See, Dr. Fei-Fei Li provides a personal and deeply insightful depiction of two convergent journeys. One describes her own life and career; Li immigrated to the U.S. from China at age 15, and within a few years had launched into research in computer vision and AI. The other is a history of AI, which has involved many breakthroughs over the past 70 years, culminating in a technology that is now changing life and business.

Li is one of the world’s foremost experts on AI and was named by Time magazine as one of the top 25 most influential thinkers in AI in 2023. She previously served as Google’s chief AI and machine learning scientist.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Li discusses critical inflection points in the history of AI, emerging AI technologies businesses must be aware of, and what implications AI will have for competitive advantage.

Key topics discussed: 

01:19 | Is our education system fit for the future?

07:13 | What were the key milestones in the history of AI?

11:48 | Which emerging AI technologies do businesses need to be aware of?

13:38 | How should we be thinking about ethical issues surrounding AI?

20:39 | How will AI transform business? Where will it create competitive advantage?

In his new book The Secret of Culture Change: How To Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization, Jay Bryan Barney discusses why changing company culture is sometimes necessary but always challenging—and how the power of stories can help leaders mobilize their employees around a new strategy.

Jay Barney, a professor of strategic management and the Pierre Lassonde Chair of Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, is one of the world’s leading strategists and the father of so-called resource-based competition.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Barney explores the connections between the realms of strategy and culture—discussing the power of stories to change culture and support a new strategy, and identifying the key characteristics of great stories and story-making, such as being authentic and putting the leader at the heart of the narrative.

Key topics discussed: 

01:10 | How do you define culture and why do we sometimes need to change it?

03:31 | What are some examples of successful culture change?

08:01 | What are the key characteristics of culture-changing stories?

16:33 | How do leaders navigate social/political “culture wars” in their own culture?

22:20 | Are stories and culture change something that can be shaped or are they emergent?

25:40 | How do stories and culture change apply to a business school setting?

In The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results, Andrew McAfee describes how a new approach to corporate culture based on science, ownership, speed, and openness, is driving value creation in the 21st century.

McAfee is an expert on how technological progress changes the world, being named to both the Thinkers50 list of top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics. In his new book, he outlines how the giants of Silicon Valley found success not just because they are at the center of the digital technology revolution, but also because they are revolutionizing the way business is done—what McAfee describes as the “geek way.”.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, McAfee explores the core tenets of a corporate culture that embraces the “geek way” and explains why it works, drawing on insights from the science of cultural evolution. They also discuss how traditional, non-tech firms can embrace this new culture and operating system.

Key topics discussed:

02:12 | What are the core tenets of the “geek way”?

08:55 | How could these tenets be applied to any businesses?

11:31 | How can we overcome the limitations of the “geek way” (e.g., negative corporate culture aspects, retaining culture as a firm grows)?

15:05 | Is the “geek way” unique to American firms? What can we learn from the Chinese tech sector?

17:46 | What is the role of strategy in a “geek way” company?

20:11 | How might the “geek way” culture change in the future, given new challenges (e.g., elevated costs of capital)?

23:01 | What are the first steps a CEO should take to establish the “geek way” in their firm?

Additional inspirations from Andrew McAfee:

In Head & Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership, Dr. Kirstin Ferguson provides a practical guide to balancing the rational and emotional components of leadership.

Ferguson is an expert on leadership, an experienced leader in the private and public sectors, and a longtime advocate of gender equity. In her new book, she identifies the key attributes of a “head and heart” leader, providing people with the tools to reflect on and adapt their own approach to each situation. She combines vivid stories and extensive research to inspire her readers to become better, more authentic, modern leaders.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Ferguson discusses the evolution of leadership thinking, what makes a “head and heart” leader, and how leaders can improve their effectiveness and adaptability. They also reflect on how leadership, and particularly the “heart” attributes, will be more crucial than ever with the rise of AI in the workplace.

Key topics discussed:

02:36 | How has thinking on leadership evolved?

06:05 | What are the attributes of a “head and heart” leader?

08:25 | How can you improve your “head and heart” leadership attributes?

18:24 | Are leaders aging, and is there a need to make space for younger talents?

20:05 | How might AI change the art of leadership?

Additional inspirations from Dr. Kirstin Ferguson:

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 workable

03:39 | Definition of a “best possible relationship” and how to build it

05:54 | How to have a keystone conversation

12:26 | The impact of corporate culture and different personality types

15:44 | How to maintain and repair relationships

20:42 | The implications of hybrid and remote work

22:31 | 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 signals

02:08 | Incentives in the workplace

09:14 | Incentivizing innovation

12:29 | Understanding the use and limitation of incentives

18:22 | 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 technologies

06:43 | A modern Turing Test for AI

10:14 | The competitive advantage conferred by AI

15:25 | The benefits and limitations of AI

18:34 | Containing the next wave of technologies

22:09 | Potential regulatory interventions

23:46 | 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 badly

9:36 | How to avoid the "illusion of knowing" and mistaking a mental model for a fact

12:02 | Institutional and leadership-level moves to create an environment where intelligent failure is predominant

18:27 | How to decrease the cost of learning

19:42 | 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 shortcomings

04:17 | The post-generational society and the trends creating it

07:31 | Implications for corporations

14:13 | How CEOs can prepare for a society of perennials

17:14 | 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 book

02:03 | Progress and shared prosperity

07:29 | Effectiveness of redistribution

09:43 | Directing innovation toward social good

16:42 | The impact of AI

20:39 | 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 words

03:57 | Leveraging the language of agency and identity to spark action

06:58 | Balancing concreteness and abstraction

10:53 | Harnessing the power of emotions

13:27 | Limitations of magic words and the importance of authenticity

17:41 | The role of ChatGPT and other large language models

21:00 | 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 jobs

03:54 | What makes the good jobs system work?

12:21 | Data and metrics

17:10 | AI and labor substitution

20:29 | Good jobs beyond the frontline

24:48 | How to implement the good jobs system

In this special episode of the Thinkers & Ideas podcast, we invited Sir Partha Dasgupta and Simon Levin – co-authors of the forthcoming report "Economic Factors Underlying Biodiversity Loss" – and Georg Kell to discuss a topic often overlooked in sustainability discussions: biodiversity. They discuss gaps in our current thinking, a potential path forward, how to measure our progress along it – and the role corporations must play in all this.

Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge. He is widely regarded as the world's most influential expert on development economics and ecological economics, and is the author of The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review (2021).

Simon Levin is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University and a recipient of the National Medal of Science, for his international leadership and critical contributions to environmental science and ecology.

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.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss the importance of ecosystem services to our well-being and the impacts of human activity on biodiversity. Moreover, they discuss inclusive wealth and other measures that can be used to change incentive structures and track our progress on sustainability issues. Finally, they point out what businesses and governments must do to increase awareness and engagement on biodiversity matters.

Key topics discussed: 

02:28 | How are humans impacting nature, specifically biodiversity?

04:08 | The distinction between natural goods and natural services

07:02 | Is biodiversity and the natural impact issue on the radar screens of business?

09:03 | Are we at a point of no return? How would we know if we are?

10:50 | Do we in fact look after biodiversity by looking after the climate?

12:42 | Inclusive wealth vs. GDP

18:18 | How can governments and companies begin to act on the problem of the encroachment on natural systems?

26:41 | What can we learn from our limited successes on massive collective action problems and how we might practically orchestrate this agenda?

Bent Flyvbjerg has a sobering statistic to share: 99.5% of major projects fail to deliver their targeted results on time and on budget. His new book How Big Things Get Done, coauthored with Dan Gardner, explores this phenomenon—from infrastructure projects to major sporting events to corporate transformations.

Flyvbjerg, the first BT Professor of Major Programme Management at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and VKR Professor of Major Program Management at the IT University of Copenhagen, is the world’s foremost expert on megaproject management—a subject on which he has published prolifically.

He recently joined Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, to discuss the patterns and drivers of the failure of big projects, as well as potential solutions that can help executives overcome these dramatic odds. For example, cognitive biases, particularly at the C-suite level, cause leaders to act too spontaneously—when they would be better off acting fast only after first thinking slowly and deliberately. They explore not only conventional project success but also how the thinking can be applied more broadly – from personal projects to climate change.

Key topics discussed: 

01:16 | The Iron Law of megaprojects

04:03 | Patterns of failure

09:02 | Solutions (think slow but act fast, think from right to left, reference class forecasting)

17:28 | Continuous vs. episodic change

20:47 | Tackling climate change: a megaproject?

23:03 | Impact of technology

25:46 | Practical recommendations

In a new book with longtime collaborator W. Chan Kim, Beyond Disruption, Renée Mauborgne describes an alternative path to pursue innovation and growth. Non-disruptive creation taps into a new market outside or beyond the boundaries of existing industries, to not only drive economic growth but also have a positive impact on society by avoiding the negative aspects of disruption, like job displacement.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Mauborgne discusses the rising importance of non-disruptive creation given increased sensitivity to the social impact of business. She explains the differences between non-disruptive creation, disruptive creation, and blue ocean strategy and provides tools for companies to identify and unlock non-disruptive opportunities.

Mauborgne, a professor of strategy at INSEAD, is also the co-author of the influential Blue Ocean Strategy and has been recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the World’s Most Influential Management Thinkers.

Key topics discussed: 

00:53 | What is non-disruptive creation (NDC)

08:27 | How companies can identify and invent NDCs

16:01 | The role of disruptive creation

21:08 | Challenges and capabilities needed for NDC

23:53 | AI and NDC

26:22 | Renee on coining NDC

A “microstress,” as defined by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon in their new book of the same name, is a small amount pressure from our everyday interactions that is hardly perceived in the moment. But when many microstesses pile up, they become debilitating.

Cross, the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., has studied the underlying networks of effective organizations and the collaborative practices of high performers for more than 20 years. Dillon is a former editor of Harvard Business Review and the author of such books as How Will You Measure Your Life?andCompeting Against Luck.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss the microstresses that drain capacity, deplete emotional reserves, and challenge identity. Although these pressures are impossible to eliminate, there are strategies—building resilience, leading a healthy life, and finding purpose—that can mitigate the impact, enabling people to reshape their interpersonal interactions and live more satisfied lives.

Company leaders, the authors argue, should also be aware of microstress triggers hiding in plain sight: the burdens levied by our agile, collaborative way of working that can have damaging ripple effects.

Key topics discussed:

01:11 | The gravity of microstress

07:29 | Types of microstress

12:26 | Solutions to microstress

19:04 | Microstress in organizations

25:35 | Positive aspects of microstress

29:14 | Where to start with countering microstress

About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

In her book Think Bigger: How to Innovate, Sheena Iyengar dispels the notion that the best way of coming up with a good idea is to have a group brainstorm or to rely on the unpredictable intuitions of special gifted individuals.

Iyengar is the S. T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and an expert on decision-making and choice. Drawing on advances in brain science, she argues that creativity is not mysterious, but is instead quite similar to analytical thinking.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Iyengar discusses her six-step methodology to help people unlock their ability to create useful new ideas, illustrating this with many examples from business.

Key topics discussed:

About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

In his new book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Financial Times’ chief economics commentator Martin Wolf explores the causes of and solutions to today’s global democratic recession.

Wolf, who in 2000 was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) “for services to financial journalism,” is the author of several earlier books on global economics. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss the fragile marriage of liberal democracy and market capitalism. They are twin ideologies—both based on the belief in human agency and the rule of law. But when wealth leads to political power or political power to wealth, the system breaks down. We are seeing this play out in keystone liberal democracies struggling to contain populism, and in authoritarian regimes that are gaining momentum.

The struggle with populism, in particular, can be traced to three developments: the emergence of societal rifts around questions of identity, the decline of the economic and political position of the working class, and the rise of the financial and tech sector as the new elite. Essential to the restoration of liberal democracy, Wolf and Reeves note, is the imperative to improve economic and political institutions such that opportunity, security, and dignity are available to all.

Key topics discussed:

About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

In their book Sustainability, Technology, and Finance: Rethinking How Markets Integrate ESG, Georg Kell and Andreas Rasche explore the swiftly emerging and crucially important nexus among sustainability, finance, and technology.

Kell is Chairman of the tech company Arabesque, which uses AI and data to assess sustainability performance and guide investments. He is also founder of the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. Rasche is a professor of business in society and Associate Dean of Copenhagen Business School. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss the bleeding edge of sustainability thinking.

ESG investment, Kell and Rasche explain, should be viewed through three lenses as they relate to technology. First, technological innovations, such as chemical recycling for plastics, shape firms’ ESG performance. Second, technological developments enable investors to assess ESG performance more accurately (for example, the use of blockchain tech to enhance supply chain transparency). Finally, the ESG investment agenda itself is influenced by technology; consider that Bitcoin mining creates significant emissions. Based on this three-lens framework, Kell and Rasche explain how technology can be a critical part of the sustainability solution.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

This conversation was recorded on November 16th, 2022.

In her book Direct: The Rise of the Middleman Economy and the Power of Going to the Source, law professor Kathryn Judge examines the changing role of intermediaries in the economy.

Judge, an expert on banking, financial markets, and regulation, is the Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Intellectual Life at Columbia Law School. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Judge discusses both the positive and negative impacts of intermediaries in the economy.

She explains that although they have undoubtedly created new value, in some cases middlemen have become entrenched over time, leading to market distortions and new sources of fragility. While markets have started to self-correct, regulators will also have a crucial role to play. Judge proposes a balanced way forward, emphasizing the possibilities of direct exchange.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

This conversation was recorded on November 28th, 2022. 

Ram Charan is a business consultant, author, and CEO advisor who has had more than 40 years of experience advising executives and boards of top companies around the world. Ram has authored 30 books and sold over 4 million copies globally.

In his latest book, Leading Through Inflation: And Recession and Stagflation, Ram provides hands-on guidance for business leaders to navigate inflation. He explains how leaders are challenged in doing and emphasizes the importance of taking a macro-view, looking forward, understanding inflations drivers, looking at particulars for a business or industry, managing cash flow, and taking preemptive action.

In discussion with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Ram explores not only how to manage inflation but how this relates to leading through crisis and choosing the right talent to do so.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

In his latest book, How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms, psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer examines how humans need to adapt in order to make the best use of new technologies like AI.

Gerd Gigerenzer is director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam and director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute and is an expert on human decision making. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the uses and limits of AI, the cost-benefit of using technology, and how we can do to better equip ourselves as individuals and societies to deal with this.

In particular, he argues that shaping the context for using AI or improving the skills of users may often yield greater returns than improving the technology itself. He proposes that using AI without doing either of these things can cause the atrophy of skills, create ambiguity around truthfulness, and foster unhealthy reliance. He proposes various practical strategies for making ourselves smarter in an increasingly algorithmic world.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Adi Ignatius is the Editor in Chief of Harvard Business Review(HBR). Prior to joining HBR, Adi worked for many years at Wall Street Journal as the Moscow and Beijing bureau chief, and subsequently served as deputy managing director of Time. He has authored several books, including Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang and President Obama, the Path to the White House.

In this special episode of Thinkers & Ideas, Adi discusses Harvard Business Review at 100, which highlights the 30 articles that helped popularize some of the best and most enduring business ideas.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Adi shares his unique perspective on the origin of big ideas, as well as the trends and technologies that underlie them. They also discuss the evolution of HBR’s content curation, accessibility, market exposure, and commitment to its mission over time.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Stefan Larsson, MD, Ph.D. is a pioneer in the field of value-based health care. Dr. Larsson is an independent advisor to healthcare organizations, a BCG senior advisor, a co-founder and board member of the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM), a non-profit that works to create global standards for measuring health outcomes, and a distinguished fellow on the Health and Healthcare team of the World Economic Forum.

Jennifer Clawson is a Partner and Director in BCG’s Madrid office and a global head of the firm’s Center for Value in Health Care. She has worked in both private- and public-sector organizations to create new value-based business models to improve health outcomes.

In their new book, Patient Priority: Solve Health Care's Value Crisis by Measuring and Delivering Outcomes That Matter to Patients co-authored with Josh Kellar, Managing Director and Partner in BCG’s Chicago office, Stefan and Jennifer discuss based on their decades of experience in the healthcare industry some of the bright spots of progress and innovation in our journey towards value-based healthcare, while laying out an ambitious and compelling path for the journey still ahead.

In conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss a value and outcome-based approach to healthcare, explaining how value in healthcare needs to include both the outcomes that matter to patient groups and the resources needed to deliver those outcomes. They also opine on the approach as a template for addressing other complex organizational challenges.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Will Guidara made his name in the hospitality industry as the co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, transforming it from a "good" New York restaurant to a 3 Michelin star establishment that was ranked number one on "The World's 50 Best Restaurants" list in 2017.

In his new book, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect, Will shares his personal memoir and manifesto, outlining his business management philosophy on the art of service.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Will discusses how to be intentional in the pursuit of relationships with both the people you work with and those you serve, and the impact of digging deeper to explore new creative approaches that turn ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Brian Elliott is an Executive Leader at Future Forum. He has spent the last three decades leading teams and building companies as a startup CEO, a product leader at Google, and Senior Vice President at Slack.

In his book How the Future Works. Leading Flexible Teams to do the Best Work of Their Lives, co-authored by Sheela Subramanian and Helen Kupp, he points out that the way we worked in pre-pandemic times is no longer effective and the concept of nine-to-five, five-days-a-week, in-office work environments does not resonate with most employees today, or with the requirements of our knowledge-based economy.

In conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Brian discusses ways leaders can optimize for better outcomes by extending the more flexible approach we take towards different customers and applying this model to individual employees within their company. By doing so, leaders can make work more productive, fairer, more attractive to employees, and even a source of competitive advantage.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

George Serafeim is the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is one of the leading academics and voices on corporate purpose, sustainability, and the integration of ESG concerns into business strategy and investing. George is the co-founder of KKS Advisors, a leading sustainability strategy consulting firm, an academic partner at State Street Associates, a board member of Liberty Mutual, and has served on the inaugural Standards Council of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board.

In his new book, Purpose and Profit: How Business Can Lift up The World, George describes how incorporating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues into business have come from being seen as a trade-off to a compliment, with some companies now viewing it as a key driver of economic value.

In discussion with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, George describes key trends that have contributed to this shift in perception and behavior, outlining how companies, investors, and employees can use these societal trends to drive impactful change in their businesses, their investments, and their lives.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Joshua Gans is a Professor of Strategic Management and the holder of the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair of Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He is also the Chief Economist of the University’s Creative Destruction Lab.

In 2018, together with Ajay Agrawal and Avi Goldfarb, he published Prediction Machines, an exploration of how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by leaders.

The trio’s latest book, “Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence” explains the economics of A.I. through the lens of decision systems.

In conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Joshua discusses how the transformational potential of A.I. is only unlocked if decision systems are reconsidered holistically, mirroring the pattern observed in previous technological revolutions like the application of steam power, electricity, or digital communication.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Mike Evans made his name as the founder of GrubHub, which he co-founded back in 2004, guiding it to a successful IPO in 2014. Since then, he has bicycled across the United States, founded Fixer.com, a handyperson service and B-Corp focused on social impact, and written a memoir titled HANGRY: A Startup Journey focused on how to start and grow a business.

In conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Mike discusses a central theme in his new book, the art of starting something from nothing. The conversation touches on the importance of iterative experimentation, treating financial performance as an oblique goal, and knowing when to let go and abandon ideas when they are no longer working. They also discuss the necessity and challenges of cultivating entrepreneurialism within large established companies.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Jeremy Utley is a Director of Executive Education at Stanford’s d.school and an adjunct professor at Stanford’s School of Engineering. He is the host of the d.school’s widely known program, “Stanford’s Masters of Creativity.”

Perry Klebahn is an adjunct professor and Director of Executive Education at Stanford’s d.school. Previously he served as COO for Patagonia and CEO of Timbuk2.

In their new book, IDEAFLOW: The Only Business Metric That Matters, Jeremy and Perry explain that creativity is not reserved for a select few, but can be developed like any other skill and applied to any problem.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Jeremy and Perry discuss the concept of “ideaflow”, which can be described as the rate at which one is able to generate ideas. They share various techniques for leaders to master and implement a culture of ideaflow, such as setting up metrics that communicate to their teams that they value creativity, creating evaluation and selection techniques to move ideas forward, and deploying diversity.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Dr. Mohan Subramaniam is a Professor of Strategy and Digital Transformation at the IMD Business School. His research is focused on the digital transformation of incumbent industrial firms, specifically, new sources of competitive advantage in the digital age.

In his latest book, The Future of Competitive Strategy: Unleashing the Power of Data and Digital Ecosystems,Mohan discusses how companies must adapt their competitive strategies to capture the value from data, suggesting that the context of competitive strategy has shifted from industries to digital ecosystems.

In conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Mohan explains the concept of digital myopia, referring to the inability of modern-day firms to envision the full scope of value that digital technologies can offer. Together, they evaluate the success factors of famous tech giants and how legacy companies can effectively compete with them.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

In this special episode of the Thinkers & Ideas podcast, Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, is joined by two of the leading minds in strategy to discuss the nature of competitive advantage.

Join Rita McGrath and Roger L. Martin as they debate whether competitive advantage is more or less sustainable today, whether it has shifted in nature and whether it will shift prospectively. In addition to defending their own positions, they discuss how two very different views of competition can be reconciled. They also offer thoughts for open questions in strategy which merit further consideration.

Rita McGrath is a Professor of Strategy at Columbia Business School and the Founder of Valize, a company focused on helping organizations to build lasting innovation capabilities and long-term growth. She has been consistently named one of the world’s top 10 management thinkers in the Thinkers 50 ranking. Rita’s latest book, Seeing Around Corners is a guide to anticipating and capitalizing on disruptive inflection points shaping the marketplace — you can listen to our conversation with her about the book here.

Roger L. Martin is a Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and a trusted strategy advisor to CEOs of worldwide companies including Procter & Gamble, Lego, and Ford. In 2017, Roger was named the number one management thinker by Thinkers 50. His most recent book, A New Way to Think— which he discussed with us on the show earlier this year — challenges leaders to rethink dominant mental models by revisiting misconceptions and pitfalls in the application of common frameworks and ideas.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Nathan Furr is an Associate Professor of Strategy at INSEAD. His research focuses on how new and established firms adapt to technology, change, and enter new markets. Susannah Harmon Furr is a designer, entrepreneur, and art historian with a research focus on the Dutch Baroque period. She is the founder of a successful women’s clothing line inspired by her research on intricate embroidery.

In their new book, The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown, Nathan and Susannah introduce a positive outlook on uncertainty, and how all possibility and success arise from uncertain situations.

Nathan and Susannah discuss with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, their toolkit for productively managing uncertainty, “the uncertainty first aid cross”. They outline four distinct stages — reframe, prime, do and sustain — and number tools for each. Toward the end of their discussion, they touch upon the similarities and connections between harnessing individual and institutional uncertainty, as well as how the authors have applied their approaches in their own careers.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Tony O’Driscoll is a Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Pratt School of Engineering. He has authored two books on learning and organizational performance and numerous articles for publications such as the Harvard Business ReviewandThe Financial Times.

In his latest book Everday Superhero: How You Can Inspire Everyone and Create Real Change at Work,a graphic novel co-authored with Gary Zamchick, Tonytells the story of a change champion, Mae B, a middle manager faced with a heroic challenge, hampered by an ineffective traditional approach to change.

Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Tony discusses how Mae B’s enlightened approach to leadership is a parable for the change challenges that organizations face today.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Albrecht Enders is a Professor of Strategy and Management and Co-Director of the Transition-To-Business Leadership Program at IMD Business School. Together with Arnaud Chevallier, Professor of Strategy, Director of Global Management Programs, and Director of Science in Sustainable Management and Technology at IMD Business School he recently co-authored Solvable: A Simple Solution to Complex Problems, which walks readers through critical steps needed to solve any complex problem, specifically how to make a good decision when information is limited.

In conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Albrecht and Arnaud share insights from the book, address both the technical and people side of problem-solving, and provide concrete ways to adopt an evidence-based approach while managing key stakeholders.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.

Alan Murray is the President and CEO of Fortune Media. He is a lifelong journalist having previously held leadership positions at the Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

In his latest book, Tomorrow’s Capitalist: My Search for the Soul of Business, Alan discusses the history and future of corporate capitalism, suggesting that a variety of social, political, technological, and environmental forces are fundamentally reshaping the accountabilities of businesses beyond profit generation.

In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Alan discusses key insights from his new book including: the progress and challenges he sees on various aspects of stakeholder capitalism; the evolution of ESG reporting; issues and approaches to collective action problems such as climate change; and the trend towards business becoming more human.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The 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.