Demystifying Organizations

Sharon Parker is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Curtin University, Director of the Centre for Transformative Work Design, and an Honorary Professor at the University of Sheffield. We discuss remote work in the covid era.   

Michele Zanini is the co-founder of the Management Lab.  Together with Gary Hamel, Zanini helps forward-thinking organizations become more resilient, innovative and engaging places to work.  Zanini was previously an Associate Partner at McKinsey and Company. Zanini’s work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal.  Zanini holds degrees from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Pardee RAND Graduate School.  He is the co-author of the upcoming book Humanocracy.

The faculty at Washington and Lee University recently voted to remove Lee from the name of the institution.  Ultimately, this monumental decision rests with the board of trustees.  In this episode, I speak with faculty members that represent three distinct perspectives on this issue: keep the name as is, remove Lee from the name, remove both Washington and Lee.

Geoffrey Cain is an award-winning foreign correspondent, author, commentator, anthropologist and scholar of East and Central Asia. His first book, SAMSUNG RISING, from a decade of his coverage of the world’s largest technology conglomerate, was published in March 2020 and is the topic of our conversation.  A former correspondent at The Economist, Cain is a regular commentator in The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The New Republic, and a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, BBC and Bloomberg. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  

  Grant Williams is a preeminent thinker on finance, markets and the economic implications of coronavirus.  Over the past 30 years he has held senior positions at a number of investment banks and brokers across the globe.  Grant is a senior advisor to Matterhorn Asset Management AG in Switzerland, a portfolio and strategy advisor to Vulpes Investment Management in Singapore and also one of the founders of Real Vision Television — an online, on-demand finance channel showcasing the brightest minds in finance. He is the founder of Things That Make You Go Hmmm..., which has grown to become one of the most popular and widely-read financial publications in the world.

Nate Bennett, Ph.D., is a professor of management and the faculty director of Georgia State University’s executive MBA program. He has published in many widely read resources for managers including the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek.com and Forbes.com. He is co-author of two books, Riding Shotgun: The Role of the COO and Your Career Game: How Game Theory Can Help You Achieve Your Professional Goals.  We discuss his recent article “Readying millennials for the C-suite.”

Arun Arora is a partner at McKinsey with over 25 years of experience managing operations for US-based and multinational companies. He has extensive expertise in all environments, including digital, retail, and omnichannel. Arun specializes in helping clients transform their business and overall customer experience by harnessing the power of technology. We discuss his new book “Fast Times: How Digital Winners Set Direction, Learn, and Adapt.”  

Jennifer Logg is an Assistant Professor of Management at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business​.  Prior to joining Georgetown, she was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard University. Logg’s research examines how people expect algorithmic and human judgment to differ.  In this podcast, we discuss a wide range of issues surrounding algorithms and decision making.

Peter Zeihan is an expert in geopolitics: the study of how place impacts financial, economic, cultural, political and military developments. He presents customized executive briefings to a wide array of audiences which include, but are not limited to, financial professionals, Fortune 500 firms, energy investors, and a mix of industrial, power, agricultural and consulting associations and corporations. Mr. Zeihan has been featured in, and cited by, numerous newspapers and broadcasts including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, AP, Bloomberg, CNN, ABC, The New York Times, Fox News and MarketWatch.

Susan David is one of the world’s leading management thinkers and an award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist. We discuss her new #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Emotional Agility.  Susan’s TED Talk on the topic went viral with over 1 million views in its first week of release. She is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and guest on national radio and television. Susan was named on the Thinkers50 global list of the top management thinkers. 

Josh Wolfe is the co-founder and managing partner of Lux Capital,  a venture capital fund with $2.5 billion under management that invests in emerging science and technology ventures at the outermost edges of what is possible.  Josh is a columnist with Forbes and Editor for the Forbes/Wolfe Emerging Tech Report. He has been invited to The White House and Capitol Hill to advise on nanotechnology and emerging technologies, and a lecturer at MIT, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia and NYU. He is a term member at The Council on Foreign Relations.

Lisa Leslie is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at New York University’s Stern School of Business.  Leslie's research focuses on strategies for facilitating social justice and strong performance in diverse organizations. She also conducts research in the related areas of cross-cultural organizational behavior and conflict management.

Robin Ely a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She conducts research on race and gender relations in organizations with a focus on leadership, identity, and organizational culture change. Examples of her past research include studies of men and masculinity on offshore oil platforms; the impact of racial diversity on retail bank performance; and how organizational narratives about gender, work, and family limit both men’s and women’s ability to thrive personally and professionally. Her work is published in many of the top management journals. 

Jason Fried is the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp, a software development company. Jason is the author of many books, including his recent “It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work.” The Economist wrote, “Their book is funny, well-written and iconoclastic and by far the best thing on management published this year.”  And I second that opinion.

Leslie K. John is a Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Leslie is a behavioral scientist who studies how people make decisions, and the wisdom or error of those decisions. In her primary line of research, Leslie studies privacy decision-making, identifying what drives people to share or withhold personal information, as well as their reactions to firms’ and employers’ use of their personal data. She joins me on the podcast to discuss current issues with data privacy.

Part I- Travis May committed 5 armed robberies at the age of 16.  Travis tells his remarkable, inspiring story. Part II- Keramet Reiter is an associate professor of criminology, law and society at the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology.  Keramet studies prisons, prisoners’ rights, and the impact of prison and punishment policy on individuals, communities, and legal systems.  Jeff and Karamet discuss Travis' story and related criminal justice issues.

Blair Garrou is a co-founder and Managing Director at Mercury Fund, an early stage venture capital fund with over $275 million under management.  Blair focuses on investments in enterprise SaaS and cloud computing startups. In addition, Blair teaches courses on venture capital at Rice University and was named to the Houston Business Journal’s inaugural “40 under 40.”  

Jack Huffard is the President and CEO of Tenable Network Security, a $2 billion cyber security corporation. Jack co-founded Tenable in 2002. Before Tenable, Jack was the Director of Corporate Development for Enterasys Networks. In 2013, he received the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for defense and security.

Mark Coddington is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at Washington and Lee University.  He is the author of the recent book, Aggregating the News.  Mark earned his Ph.D. in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a contributor to the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. His research has been published in journals including Mass Communication and Society, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism Studies, and the International Journal of Communication.

Megan Reitz is listed on the Thinkers50 Radar of global management thinkers and on the 2018 HR Most Influential list of Thinkers. Reitz is the author of the new book, Speak Up, as well as Dialogue in Organizations and Mind Time  and a professor of leadership and dialogue, Hult Ashridge Executive Education. She is an international speaker, coach and consultant and her work focuses on the intersection of leadership, change, dialogue and mindfulness. 

Sandra Sucher is a Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. Sucher is the author of over 100 business cases, technical notes, video interviews, and teaching notes cases on leadership and the ethical dilemmas of businesses and their managers, and two books: The Moral Leader: Challenges, Insights and Tools, and Teaching The Moral Leader: A Literature-based Leadership Course, A Guide For Instructors.

Tom Davenport is a professor of information technology and management at Babson College, the co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics, a Fellow of the MIT Initiative for the Digital Economy, and a Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics. He has written or edited twenty books including The AI Advantage and over 250 print or digital articles for Harvard Business Review (HBR), Sloan Management Review, the Financial Times, and many other publications. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University and has taught at the Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago.

Will Dudley is the president of Washington and Lee University.  He was previously the provost and professor of philosophy at Williams College.  He is the author of two books, "Understanding German Idealism" (2007) and "Hegel, Nietzsche and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom" (2002). He is the editor of volumes on Kant and Hegel and has published numerous scholarly articles.

Tricia Griffith is the CEO and president of Progressive Insurance, the 3rd largest auto insurance company in The United States.  In 2018, Tricia became the first women to be named Fortune’s Businessperson of the year.  She leads Progressive’s 33,000 employees. We discuss a range of issues including culture, managing executives, diversity, technology and leadership. 

Peter Singer has been dubbed by many as the “world’s most influential living philosopher.”  Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University.  He has written co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, untold number of articles and his writings have appeared in more than 25 languages. Singer is the founder and board chair of The Life You Can Save, a nonprofit that fights extreme poverty.

Stephen P. Willams and Jeff Schatten discuss the promise of blockchain, some of the attributes and challenges inherent in cryptocurrencies and the ways in which blockchain might change the world.   Stephen P. Williams is a writer, journalist, and author, with over a dozen published books. Author of Blockchain: The Next Everything, from Scribner publishers.

Barry Schwartz and Jeff Schatten discuss why we work, what motives excellence, the and role that money plays in performance.          Barry Schwartz is an emeritus professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and a visiting professor at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley. He has spent forty years thinking and writing about the interaction between economics and morality.  He has written several books that address aspects of this interaction, including The Battle for Human Nature, The Costs of Living, The Paradox of Choice, Practical Wisdom, and most recently, Why We Work. The Paradox of Choice was named one of the top business books of the year by both Business Week and Forbes Magazine, and has been translated into twenty-five languages. Schwartz has been interviewed on Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN), the PBS News Hour, The Colbert Report, and CBS Sunday Morning. Schwartz has spoken three times at the TED conference, and his TED talks have been viewed by more than 16 million people.

Nicolaj Siggelkow is a business Professor at the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a Ph.D. in Business Economics the Harvard Business School. His research on how firms create and sustain competitive advantage has been published in the leading management journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, and Organization Science. Professor Siggelkow is one of the most sought-after professors in Wharton’s MBA program, having been the recipient of more than 20 teaching awards. He also has extensive experience in executive education, teaching in a range of open enrollment and custom programs. His most recent book “connected strategies” explores how to create tighter connections between firms and customers.

Roger Martin was named the world’s #1 management thinker by Thinkers50, a biannual ranking of the most influential global business thinkers. Roger serves as the Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship at the Rotman School of Management. From 1998 to 2013, he served as Dean. In 2013, he was named global Dean of the Year by the leading business school website, Poets & Quants.  He has published 11 books the most recent of which are Creating Great Choices, Getting Beyond Better  and Playing to Win  which won the award for Best Book of 2012-13 by the Thinkers50. He has written 25 Harvard Business Review articles. Roger is a trusted strategy advisor to the CEOs of companies worldwide including Procter & Gamble, Lego and Verizon.

Celeste Headlee is an award-winning journalist, professional speaker and author of Heard Mentality and We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter. In her 20-year career in public radio, she has been the Executive Producer of On Second Thought at Georgia Public Radio and anchored programs including Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. She also served as co-host of the national morning news show, The Takeaway, from PRI and WNYC, and anchored presidential coverage in 2012 for PBS World Channel. Celeste’s TEDx Talk sharing 10 ways to have a better conversation has over 19 million total views to date.

Marty Latz is an author, international speaker, and the founder of LATZ Negotiation. Since 1995, Latz has taught more than 100,000 lawyers and business professionals around the world how to negotiate more effectively. Mr. Latz received his law and negotiation training at Harvard Law School, and was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where one of his students was former President Barack Obama.  Latz also negotiated for The White House on the White House Advance Teams. Marty is the author of Gain the Edge! Negotiating to Get What You Want and The Real Trump Deal: An Eye-Opening Look at How He Really Negotiates.  

Renée Mauborgne is a professor of strategy at INSEAD.  She is also Co-Director of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute. Mauborgne is ranked in the top 5 management gurus in the world in the Thinkers50 listing of the World’s Top Management Gurus, a title she has held for ten straight years. She is the highest placed woman ever on Thinkers50. Mauborgne served on President Barack Obama’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for the President’s two terms. Mauborgne is the co-author of the 3.6 million global bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy and the follow-up, Blue Ocean Shift.  Blue Ocean Shift is a New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller. Only a year out, and Blue Ocean Shift is already being published in 30 languages. The Financial Times called it “one of the bestselling business books of the century” and The Economist called it “the most successful book on business master-planning”.

Adam Grant and Jeff Schatten discuss Grant’s recent article “The Surprising Value of Obvious Insights” and the challenge that many managers have in adopting “best practices.”  They also discuss how to give constructive feedback. Adam Grant has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for seven straight years. He is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as one of the world's 10 most influential management thinkers and Fortune's 40 under 40. He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books that have sold over two million copies and been translated into 35 languages: Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. His books have been named among the year's best by Amazon, Apple, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Adam is the host of WorkLife, a chart-topping TED original podcast. His TED talks on original thinkers and givers and takers have been viewed more than 17 million times. Adam was tenured at Wharton while still in his twenties, and has received the Excellence in Teaching Award for every class that he has taught.

Nancy Koehn and Jeff Schatten discuss why some leaders are able to excel in crisis situations.  They address key leadership issues such as whether leaders are born or created and the ways in which leaders navigate between values and strategy.  They also discuss the leadership legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Nancy Koehn is a historian at the Harvard Business School. Koehn's research focuses on how leaders, past and present, craft lives of purpose, worth, and impact. Her book, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times, is an enthralling historical narrative filled with critical leadership insights.  Koehn is the author of numerous books, articles, and Harvard Business School cases. She writes frequently for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Harvard Business Review Online. She is also a weekly commentator on National Public Radio and has appeared on PBS’s “NewsHour,” ABC’s “Good Morning America,” A&E’s “Biography,” and on CNN and MSNBC, among other TV outlets. She has coached leaders from many organizations and speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and in many other venues. She has a PhD in History from Harvard. Of interest: one of my favorite websites. Check out Nancy’s home which as you "tour" you pick up insights into life, leadership and history.  

Edgar Schein, Peter Schein and Jeff Schatten discuss the benefits and potential challenges of “humble leadership,” when leaders establish a personal relationship model with subordinates instead of basing interactions on a quid pro quo mindset.  They discuss a wide range of issues relating to leadership, culture and professional relationships in a high-tech world.    Edgar is a Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  He is considered one of the foremost experts on organizational culture.  Edgar has a masters in social psychology from Stanford University, and a PhD in social psychology from Harvard University.  Peter Schein is also an expert in organizational culture.  His the Co-founder and COO for the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute.  Peter has worked in a variety of management roles in a diverse set of companies in silicon valley.  You can check out their new book "Humble Leadership" here

Eugene Soltes and Jeff Schatten have a wide ranging discussion about white-collar crime and the complex motivations and factors that underlie corporate criminal behavior.    Eugene Soltes is the Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.  Eugene has has been widely quoted by the media including in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Bloomberg.  He has fascinating work on corporate misconduct and fraud, which culminated in the book Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal, which is an in-depth look on white-collar criminality.

Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, and Jeff Schatten discuss globalization, artificial intelligence, the relationship between employment and well-being, and the future of work.  Bremmer has authored several books, including the national bestsellers, Every Nation for Itself and The End of the Free Market. Bremmer has published articles in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsweek, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Affairs. He appears regularly on CNBC, Fox News Channel, National Public Radio, and other networks. Bremmer has a PhD in political science from Stanford University and was the youngest-ever national fellow at the Hoover Institution. He presently teaches at Columbia University. Bremmer has a new book out "Us vs Them: The Failure of Globalization."   

Susan Cain and Jeff Schatten discuss the introversion and the ways in which workplaces can better reflect and respect the dynamic range of personalities that makeup the population. Susan Cain is the Chief Revolutionary of Quiet Revolution and the author of the bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, which has been translated into 40 languages, is in its seventh year on the New York Times best seller list, and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company magazine, which also named Cain one of its Most Creative People in Business. LinkedIn named her the 6th Top Influencer in the world. Her writing has appeared in the The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her record-smashing TED talk has been viewed over 20 million times and was named by Bill Gates one of his all-time favorite talks. Cain was named one of the world’s top 50 Leadership and Management Experts by Inc. Magazine.  

Henry Mintzberg, one of the world’s most influential thinkers in management, and Jeff Schatten discuss a wide range of issues that include leadership as a bottom-up process, the problem of relying on data, and how to stop short-term thinking. Henry Mintzberg is currently a professor at McGill University in Montreal.  Mintzberg earned his PhD in management from MIT in 1968. Henry Mintzberg writes prolifically on the topics of management and business strategy, with more than 150 articles and fifteen books to his name. His seminal book, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (Mintzberg 1994), criticizes some of the practices of strategic planning today.  His new book is “Bedtime Stories for Managers.” 

Ritz-Carlton co-founder Horst Schulze and Jeff Schatten discuss the founding and growth of the Ritz-Carlton.  The conversation covers Horst’s creation of a people-centered corporate culture based on integrity and trust that he applied to employees and customers. During his tenure at The Ritz Carlton, Mr. Schulze served as President and COO responsible for $2 billion in annual operations worldwide.  Today, Mr. Schulze serves on various boards and acts as a consultant across industries.  He recently published a new book “Excellence Wins.” 

UCLA law professor and National Book Award finalist Adam Winkler and Jeff Schatten discuss the way in which corporate power has changed via rulings by The Supreme Court. They delve into the role of corporations in the founding of The United States and how corporations have increased their influence, which culminated in The Citizens United ruling. UCLA law Professor Adam Winkler is a specialist in American constitutional law and the Supreme Court. His scholarship has been cited in landmark Supreme Court cases on the First and Second Amendments, and according to a 2016 study he is one of the top twenty law professors for citations by the courts. His popular writing has appeared in New York Times Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Atlantic, Slate, Scotusblog, and Daily Beast. He is a frequent commentator about legal issues and has appeared on Face the Nation, CNN, ABC News, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Marketplace. He is the author of We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights (2018), which was named a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. 

Deloitte’s Michael Raynor and Jeff Schatten discuss what separates top performing companies from those that are middle of the pack.  They also address the ways in which companies can leverage new big data methods to address goal-setting challenges.  Michael Raynor is a managing director at Deloitte. His research and client work is focused on strategy and innovation in a wide variety of industries. He is the author of four best-selling and critically-acclaimed books, including The Innovator’s Solution. His most recent work is The Three Rules: How Exceptional Companies Think. 

Harvard's Gary Pisano and Jeff Schatten discuss innovation in the corporate space.  They explore the ways in which corporations sit at the forefront of innovation. Gary Pisano is a Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development at the Harvard Business School.  Pisano is an expert in the fields of technology and operations strategy, the management of innovation, and competitive strategy.  His research and consulting experience span a range of industries including aerospace, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, specialty chemicals, health care, nutrition, computers, software, telecommunications, and semiconductors.  Gary Pisano serves as an advisor to senior executives at leading companies throughout the world and has been a director of both public and private companies. Pisano is the author of over 90 articles and case studies and is an author of six books including his latest book Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation.

Douglas Rushkoff and Jeff Schatten discuss the complex relationship between modern organizations and technology and the challenges that ubiquitous computing poses for individuals, business and democracy. Douglas Rushkoff was named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Team Human, which we discuss on the podcast today.  Rushkoff’s work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice.  He is a columnist for Medium, technology and media commentator for CNN, a research fellow at the Institute for the Future, and a lecturer on media, technology, culture and economics around the world. He has written and hosted three award-winning PBS Frontline documentaries.  Douglas is a professor of media theory and digital economics at CUNY Queens. 

Francesca Gino and Jeff Schatten explore rule breaking, rebels with and without a cause, why traditions should be challenged, the role of curiosity, and the (many) benefits of failure.  Francesca Gino is a full professor at the Harvard business school.  She was chosen by Poets & Quants to be among their "40 under 40", a listing of the world's best business school professors under the age of 40. In addition to being featured in the major peer review outlets, Francesca Gino has been published in The Economist, The New York Times, Newsweek, Scientific American, Psychology Today, and The Wall Street Journal, and her work has been discussed on National Public Radio and CBS Radio.  She has a new book out called “Rebel Talent: Why it pays to break the rules at work and in life.”

Vinay Shandal and Jeff Schatten discuss the opportunities and challenges of shareholder activism.  They explore the role of that businesses and corporations have in social causes (environment, 2nd amendment rights, etc.) and how shareholders impact these issues.  Further, they discuss how institutional investors influence corporate policies in areas that relate to environmental, social and corporate governance.    Vinay Shandal is a partner and managing Director at The Boston Consulting Group.  Shandal is the head of the Canadian Principal Investors and Private Equity practice and helps to lead Boston Consulting Groups’s efforts on the shareholder activism topic as a core member of the Corporate Development practice area. Vinay Shandal has extensive experience in private and public company mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances, and investments in a range of industries.

Daniel Pink and Jeff Schatten explore a wide range of topics on the cutting edge of social science that argues that timing is everything.  The conversation covers well-being, management, childhood education, employee performance, and why it’s not so bad to be a night owl. Daniel Pink is the author of six provocative books — including his newest, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, which spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list and was named a best book of 2018 by Amazon, iBooks, Goodreads, and several more outlets. His other books include the long-running New York Times bestseller A Whole New Mind and the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human.