Podcasts about business before they happen

Undiscovered Country - Preparing for the future now: how to lead your teams to thrive in uncertainty Join host Peter Mulford in this first episode of Undiscovered Country, a podcast about the future, and future back thinking at work. Here he speaks with Professor Rita McGrath, C-Suite advisor, professor at Columbia Business School, best-selling author of The End of Competitive Advantage, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, and Discovery Driven Growth, and one of the world's top experts on leading innovation and growth in times of uncertainty. Together they explore a range of future-focused topics, including strategic inflection points and how to spot them; discovery driven growth as a tool to de-risk projects; the importance of agility and adaptability and how to develop them; the digital, dematerialized future; talent in a digital world; and AI as a partner along your journey. Listen now!

Most business owners don't realize the profound consequences of not having their legal bases covered, he says. They are a team of lawyers who help business owners and individuals from losing their business to threats that most couldn't anticipate. That way you can manage legal problems before they happen, build a profitable business, and gain an advantage over your competition.He says it's not about the client always being right. It's about always making the client successful. This doesn't mean they are a doormat, but they do everything they can to be as helpful and guiding as possible for you to succeed. https://contiguglia.com/http://www.yourlotandparcel.org

In the intricate tapestry of business, the threads of strategy and ethical leadership intertwine to shape the very fabric of an organisation's success. In this episode, we delve into the profound nuances of strategy and ethical leadership with Professor Rita McGrath. With a career trajectory that shifted from public service to the corridors of academia, Professor McGrath brings a unique blend of experience, knowledge, and a discerning eye for the intricacies that define effective leadership. Join us as we navigate the complexities of strategic decision-making, embracing the challenges and opportunities presented by ethical considerations. [00:36] - About Prof. Rita McGrath Rita is the Professor at Columbia Business School. She is the Founder of Valize. She is a bestselling author. Her most recent book is titled, “Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen.” Professor Rita is a well-known speaker and strategic advisor.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tbcy/support

Guest Bio: Rita McGrath is a best-selling author,  sought-after advisor and speaker, and  longtime professor at Columbia Business School. Rita is one of the world's top experts on strategy and innovation and is consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world, including the #1 award for strategy by Thinkers50.  McGrath's recent book on strategic inflection points is Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Rita is the author of four other books, including the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Since the onset of the pandemic, Rita has created workshops, strategy sessions and keynotes, applying her tools and frameworks to strategy under high levels of uncertainty to specific issues organizations are facing.  As Rui Barbas, the Chief Strategy Officer for Nestle USA said, “You were incredibly insightful and, despite the virtual setting, there was lots of engagement and comments from leaders sharing eye-opening observations and building on your examples throughout. You delivered the inspiration and illustration desired and it was exactly the right focus and challenge for this team. Appreciate your time throughout the process to align on content and delivery. The future-focus theme was the perfect close to our leadership summit.” Rita's work is focused on creating unique insights.  She has also founded Valize a companion company, dedicated to turning those insights into actionable capability.  You can find out more about Valize at www.valize.com. McGrath received her Ph.D. from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and has degrees with honors from Barnard College and the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. She is active on all the main social media platforms, such as Twitter @rgmcgrath.  For more information, visit RitaMcGrath.com.   Social Media/ Websites: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritamcgrath/ Twitter: @rgmcgrath Instagram: @ritamcgrathofficial Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rgmcgrath Websites: https://ritamcgrath.com and valize.com Rita's Newsletter/ Articles Substack: https://thoughtsparks.substack.com/ Medium: https://rgmcgrath.medium.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/thought-sparks-6787762418471755776/ Books Seeing Around Corners by Rita McGrath https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeing-Around-Corners-Inflection-Business/dp/0358022339 The Entrepreneurial Mindset by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian MacMillian https://www.amazon.co.uk/Entrepreneurial-Mindset-Continuously-Opportunity-Uncertainty/dp/0875848346 The End of Competitive Advantage by Rita Gunther McGrath https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Competitive-Advantage-Strategy-Business/dp/1422172813 Disrupt Yourself by Whitney Johnson https://www.amazon.co.uk/Disrupt-Yourself-New-Introduction-Relentless/dp/1633698785 Humanocracy by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini https://www.amazon.co.uk/Humanocracy-Creating-Organizations-Amazing-People/dp/1633696022 Reimagining Capitalism by Rebecca Henderson https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reimagining-Capitalism-Business-Save-World/dp/0241379660 When More is Not Better by Roger L. Martin https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-More-Not-Better-Overcoming/dp/1647820065/ Being An Adult by Lucy Tobin https://www.amazon.co.uk/Being-Adult-ultimate-getting-together-ebook/dp/B07GQ1KRTC/ Only The Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove https://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew-Grove/dp/1861975139  Ula Ojiaku: My guest today is Dr. Rita McGrath. She's a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker and advisor and consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world, including the #1 award for strategy by Thinkers50. In this episode, Rita talked about the concept of inflection points from her book ‘Seeing Around Corners' and how as leaders, we can train ourselves to spot these inflection points and act on the information we receive. She also talked about making complex things simple for the people we work with. I learnt a lot speaking with Rita and I'm sure you will find this conversation insightful as well. Thank you again for watching! It's an honor to have you on the show, Rita McGrath. Many, many thanks for joining us. Rita McGrath: Well, thank you Ula. It's a pleasure to be here. Ula Ojiaku: Great. Now, can you tell us about yourself? How did the Rita, Dr. Rita McGrath we know today evolve? Rita McGrath:  Well, it would have to start with my parents, of course. I mean, all great stories start with your parents. And so, my parents were both scientists. My mother was a Microbiologist, and my father was an Organic Chemist. And so, I grew up in a house where, you know, (if) a question couldn't be answered, you went and got the reference book and figured it out. And both, (had) incredible respect for science and for diligence. And, you know, the house was always full of books and lots of emphasis on learning. I wouldn't say we were, financially all that well-off – we weren't poor by any means. But it was, you know, there wasn't like a lot of money to spare, but there was always money for books, and there was always money for, you know, educational experiences and that kind of thing. So, that's the household I grew up in. So, my parents, when I was born, were both on the staff at the Yale Medical School. So, they were both researchers there. And then my dad in the late 60s, got an offer to go join this upstart, fledgling company that was at the cutting edge of all kinds of things in his field and that was Xerox Corporation. And he was very conflicted about leaving academia, but went off eventually to Xerox. So, we moved the family to Rochester, New York. So that's where I did most of my growing up. And my mother at that time, decided to stay home, more or less. And then she started a scientific translation business. So, she moved into an entrepreneurial career more than her scientific career. And then when it came time to go to college, I went to Barnard College in the City of New York. I'd always thought New York was an amazing place and was accepted there. So, went off to New York, did my Bachelor's and my Master's in Political Science and Public Policy. I was very interested in public policy and matters of social contract and those kinds of things. And then my first job was actually with the City of New York, I ran purchasing systems for government agencies. It doesn't sound very glamorous. But today, we would call it digital transformation. It was the very first wave of companies taking their operations in a digital form. And it was very exciting and I learned a lot. Then I got to the end of… the thing about public service is when you start, there's (this) unlimited sort of growth that can happen for a few years, and then it really just levels off. And you're never going to go beyond that. So, I kind of reached that headroom and decided to do something different. Ula Ojiaku:  Was it at that point that you decided to go for your PhD? Rita McGrath:  And that was one of the options I was considering. And my husband basically said, ‘look, if you get into a top five school, it's worth doing and if you don't, it's probably not.' But you have to think in that time, MBA programs were just exploding, and there'd been a lot of pressure on the administrators of MBA programs, to put PhD accredited faculty in front of their students. The big knock against the MBA at the time was, oh, they're just trade schools. You know, we've got some guy who ran an entire company comes in and talks and that's not really academically suitable. And so, there was a huge pressure for schools to find PhD accredited people-  that still exists (but) the market pressures has changed a lot. But when I was doing my PhD, it was pretty sure I would get a job if I managed to complete the degree. So that that gave me that extra input to do that. Ula Ojiaku:  Did you already have like children when you started the PhD? Rita McGrath: Yes Ula Ojiaku:  And how did you cope? Rita McGrath:  Our son was, how old was he? He would have been nine months old when I started my PhD program. Yeah. Ula Ojiaku: Wow, 9 months old. Rita McGrath: Oh, yeah, it was a real challenge. And I guess everybody manages those kinds of challenges in their own way. But yeah, it was a struggle because, you know, typical day would be you know, get up, get the baby to daycare or wherever and then do school or whatever I had to do that day. And then it was sort of pick them up. By the time I had a second child it was pick them up, get them dinner, get them bedtime, get them story, and then I'll be back at my desk at nine o'clock at night, trying to do what I needed to do. So, it was a new turn. It was tough. It was difficult years. I mean, joyful years though but it was just hard to fit everything in. Ula Ojiaku:  I can imagine. I mean, although I'm thinking of starting my PhD (studies), my children aren't that small but I do remember the time (they were), you know, I was still working full time. So, the challenge is you'd go to work and then come back to work. I mean, to another type of work. And then when they go to bed, the work continues. Yeah, it's interesting. Rita McGrath: Quite exhausting. Ula Ojiaku: You can say that. I'm so glad they're not in diapers anymore. So, it's baby steps, we are getting there. So, can we go on to your book, “Seeing Around Corners, How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen”. I'd like to start from an unusual place in the book. I started from the dedication page, and you know, reading everything, and I noticed that, you referred to a conversation, one of the last conversations you had with your mother. Could you tell us about that? Rita McGrath:  Oh sure. She was well, at the time, she was quite ill, she had sarcoma in her lung, and she was quite ill. It's a horrible disease, and we haven't got any real treatments for it. So, the recommendation is you do chemo and that really knocks you out. So, she was quite ill and sort of migrating between the chair and the couch and the chair and the couch. And in one of those conversations, she just said ‘I want you to know I'm proud of you. And I've had a good life and I'm prepared for whatever comes next.' And I thought that was lovely of her to say and I thought in that moment to pass it on to all these other women. And you know you bring up motherhood and being a working woman and all those complicated emotions that come with that because there seems to be guilt around every corner you know, if you're not at home full time, oh you're a terrible mom. And if you're not at work full time, you're a terrible worker. I just I think so many of those things are just designed to twist us up into little balls. And when I look at my own mother's experience - she was a working woman… I grew up but I think I'm third or fourth generation working woman so it never even occurred to me that wouldn't be possible. But I think what often is missing is this validation, you know that for women who are trying to you know make their way professionally and be great, responsible parents and do all these other things that often there's a sense of a lack of self-worth you know, ‘oh, I'm not doing enough.' The more I hear that… Ula Ojiaku:  I feel like that some… most days I feel like that… Rita McGrath: Believe me, you are doing enough Ula Ojiaku:  Sometimes I ask my children, am I a good mom? Rita McGrath:  I think part of it too is we, and when I say we, I mean baby boomer mothers and maybe a little younger. We got ourselves all tangled up in this if it's not like organic, hand-processed  lima beans with you know, organic succotash, mixed in you know, it's not good baby food. Honestly, Gerber's exists to provide perfectly nutritious food for really young babies and they've been doing it for decades and you can trust that and if it makes your life easier, go with it. Ula Ojiaku:  Thank you! Rita McGrath: You know, I think we I think we get ourselves all tossed up in like, what does good mean? I mean, honestly, the kids don't mind you know? I mean, they'd celebrate if it was chicken finger night. Ula Ojiaku:  Let's go to the book. You know, because in your book you said you it's about how to spot inflections before they happen in business. Can you give us examples of, you know, businesses that had these inflection points occur, and they failed to recognize it and what was the impact? Rita McGrath:  Sure, let's take one that is quite sad to me, which is Intel. And Intel built its, well, Intel went through a major inflection point, in fact, the originator of the concept was Andy Grove, who was their former CEO. And he talked about his inflection points in his book, Only the Paranoid Survive, which is really a brilliant, brilliant book. And one of the reasons I wrote my book was that very little had been done since his book on that topic. And Grove built this incredible company, Intel. And they were making microprocessor chips. And they were very, very powerful, very fast chips. And so, the assumptions inside Intel's business model was, what customers were going to pay for was faster, faster, faster, more computation power, more and more powerful. But what they didn't really think about was energy consumption. And as the world went more mobile… so the Intel product is the PC, and the PC, the desktop PC remains firmly plugged into the wall. And then later, we make PC chips that maybe have slightly lower power consumption to power PCs, but it's still that notion of power, you know, and I think the inflection point that caught Intel by surprise, to some extent was, this movement towards mobile, where the vast majority of chips being made were these completely different architecture chips by  companies like ARM and you know, and companies like that, which, from their inception, recognized that low power was the way to go. Then they weren't very powerful in the sense of speed, which is what Intel was driving its business towards. But they were powerful in the sense of ubiquitous low power, long battery life, that kind of thing. And I think that's an example of the kind of assumption that can cause a company to get into trouble, when the underlying shift in the business environment says, ‘wait a minute, this thing you've been building all this time may not be what is needed by the marketplace.' Ula Ojiaku:  That's interesting. So, it brings me to the point of, the points you made about, you know, the indicators, the early warnings, and you mentioned the concept of you know lagging, current and leading indicators. And there was an emphasis in your book on, you know, leading indicators. Could you tell us a bit about that? Rita McGrath:  Sure. Well, so leading indicators are today's information about tomorrow's possibilities. And what we unfortunately rely on a lot in business is lagging indicators - so profits, performance, you know, ROI, all those things are lagging some kind of decision that you made a long time ago. So, the concept of leading indicators is to try to get business leaders to think about what would have to be true, you know, before I was able to make a certain decision, what are the leading indicators? So, an example would be back in the 90s, computer scientists all over the world realized that come the year 2000, from the turn of the millennium, that the way computer programs had been programmed, was only two digits for the year. And so, when the year went to zero-zero, computers, were going to think it was 1900 and this was going to be terrible. Because they all get out of sync, you know, and planes would drop out of the sky. You're gonna become unstable, and you'll all need to move to Montana and stuff … I don't know if you can remember this. Ula Ojiaku: Yeah, the Y2K bug… Rita McGrath: Oh my goodness…! Ula Ojiaku: It was a big sensation. Yeah… Rita McGrath: Apocalyptic – remember?! And yet, when the big moment came the year 2000. What happened? Well, nothing happened. Why did nothing happen? We looked at that early warning, and we said, whoa, if that happens, it's bad. And then so companies, prodded by their accounting firms, prodded by other security considerations invested billions in correcting that flaw. And so, that's an example of an early warning. And there are a couple of things to understand about early warning. So, the first important thing is, the measure of a good early warning is not, did it predict what happened. The measure of a good leading indicator is, did it help you prepare for what might happen? And so, I think that's a really important distinction, because we oftentimes, oh, you that didn't predict this or that. But that's not the point. The point is, did it help you think more broadly about what might happen so that you could be prepared? So, I think that's the first thing. The second thing to remember about leading indicators is they're often not quantitative in the way that we like to think about quantitative things. They're often qualitative. They often take the form of stories. And they often come from what are called unrepresentative parts of your mental ecosystem. So, you know, it's that person on the loading dock (saying to themselves), ‘this is, well, that's weird, a customer never asked for that before', or the person answering the phone, you know, in headquarters going, ‘Well, I don't understand why they need that information…' You know, it's those little anomalies or things that depart from business as usual, that are often the weak signals that you need to be paying attention to. Ula Ojiaku:  So, can you give us an example where you mean, I mean, of how we can go about choosing good leading indicators? Rita McGrath:  Well, in the book, I describe a technique that I use, which is you take a couple of uncertainties and juxtapose them on each other. And that gives you four or more you can do this for as many as you like, stories from the future, possibly a future that we could live in. And then depending on which one you want to think about, you say, ‘okay, I'm gonna write a headline as if it came from a newspaper story about that scenario. And I'm gonna work backwards and say, what has to be true for that headline to emerge.' So, take an example that's playing out right now, chronic and accelerating decline in birth rates in the United States. People are just deciding not to enlarge their families or not to start their families at all. And for very good reasons, you know, the level of social support for families is very low. Mostly women are bearing the burden. And very often women are the ones that make a large part of the decision about whether the family is going to grow or not. And so, we're facing a real baby bust. Well, if that's true, and we follow that along, well, what are some things that would be early warnings or indicators of what that world will be like? Well, you'll see a decline of working people relative to retired people, or people needing assistance, you'll see, you know, fewer kids with more resources to support them. So, the kind of baby Prince phenomena we saw in China. There are lots of things you can kind of work through. But once you say, ‘okay, I see a world with a million fewer children three years from now, than we would have expected well, okay, what now working backward? What does that tell us we need to be paying attention to today? Ula Ojiaku:  Yes, yes. That's a great example. And I wonder, though, so given all, you know, the research that has led to, and your experience as well, consulting with, you know, most of these large organizations, the case studies, you've come to witness and all that, what would you, what would be your advice to leaders of such organizations, you know, in terms of how they can better prepare themselves or equip themselves to recognize these inflection points, and lead effectively? Rita McGrath:  Well, I think the first principle is you have to be discovery driven. In other words, you have to be curious about what's going on. And if you're the kind of leader who (when) someone brings you a piece of information, and instead of treating it like a gift, you're like, oh no, you don't understand that's wrong. That's not the way the world works. If you're dismissive of information people are bringing you that's very dangerous. Because the information you need is not going to come from your lieutenants at headquarters, it's going to come from that guy on the loading dock. So, I think you want to think about establishing some kind of information flows, that go directly from where the phenomena are happening to your desk. So, as an example, a company I really admire is the German metal services company Klockner. And their CEO, Gisbert Ruehl was taking them through a digital transformation. And his big concern was not that they meant it, right? But that his lieutenants, his middle manager, cohort, would be so expert, and so experienced at the way business was, that they would just shut down these digital efforts. And he was very, very concerned about that. He said, well, I need some way of making my message heard directly to the people that are on the frontlines and I also need a way of hearing from them what's going on. So, he implemented Yammer, called non-hierarchical communication. And the deal was anybody in the company that had something he needed to know should feel comfortable sending him a note. And I'm told, I don't know this for a fact that I'm told that at headquarters, he had his instance of Yammer set up so that the lower the hierarchical level of the person, the higher it came in his newsfeed. Ula Ojiaku: Oh, wow. Rita McGrath: So, you know, I can talk to my lieutenants, anytime. Information I need is in the, you know, 24-year-old person who's just joined us with an engineering degree, who's looking at our manufacturing process for screwdrivers and saying, ‘Why do you do it that way? There must be a better way of doing this…' That's the information I really need and he set up a whole system to try to get that information to him, to himself. Ula Ojiaku:  Would you say there's a typical kind of leader with, you know, some certain characteristics that's best equipped to spot the inflection point, and you know, kind of lead the charge and get the organizations in line? Rita McGrath:  You know, I think it's more of the behavior, it's not the characteristics. So, I've seen charismatic, attractive, you know, movie star type CEOs be good at this. I've seen people you look at and you go ‘Really? He looks kind of like he slept in his clothes all night.' I've seen those people be good at it. So, you know, I think the differentiation is this, this hunger for new information, this curiosity, this relentless… ‘tell me again…' and ‘why was that and why was that?' It is this urgent need to really learn what's going on. And then and then putting yourself in the, in the context. So, one of the people I'm working with right now is a brilliant retail CEO, and everything. And one of the things he would do before hiring anybody into his senior team, is he would spend a day or two walking the stores, you know, and in his explanation to me was, ‘I want to see how they react to the stores. I want to see how they treat the people working in stores. I want to see what they notice, you know, I want to see if they notice that there's a thing out of array and I want to see how they are with me, like if they spend their whole two days in store visits, sucking up to me - that's not somebody I need, you know. And so, I think the best leaders along those lines are people who are relentlessly curious, bring people around them who are diverse, you know, you don't just want echo chambers of themselves. Ula Ojiaku:  True, true. You don't want ‘yes' men if you really want to make an impact really. Yeah, and how can I, as a person, train myself to also recognize these inflection points. Rita McGrath:  Well, it depends what the inflection point is. So, if it's a question of, you've been making nice steady progress in your career, and now you've hit some kind of ceiling and you just feel you're not growing or developing any more, then that choice is really okay, I need to… the way Whitney Johnson would put this, she's written a great book on this, “Disrupt Yourself”, right? You go up this S curve, then you need to make the decision if you're going to take on the J curve, right, which is the part below the S curve before you get into the next round of learning. So, that's a personal decision, really only you can make a decision like that. Then there are the cases where inflection points are thrust upon you. So you lose a job, your spouse has some setback, a family member has an urgent need that makes whatever you were doing before impossible. I mean, there's all kinds of outside things that can happen to you. Ula Ojiaku: Yeah… Rita McGrath: And I think the best way to try to look at those is. ‘is this a slingshot to a better future, potentially?' And you know, how many people have you talked to who got fired, and some years later say, ‘that was the best thing that ever happened to me, it shook me out of my complacency. It made me think differently.' And so, I think a lot of times, you know, we, it's very comfortable (staying) stuck in our ruts. And sometimes it takes a bit of a jolt to get us out of that. Ula Ojiaku:  That's a great one. Can I just ask you about so it's not really about your book, Seeing Around Corners, but this one is about the Entrepreneurial Mindset? Just one quick question. Because there's a quote, in your book, that book that says, you know, “the huge part of becoming an entrepreneurial leader is learning to simplify complexity, so that your co-workers can act with self-confidence.” That quote, it made me kind of be more conscious about, am I really making things simpler for my co-workers instead of, you know, rather than to enable us, you know, achieve the best that we could as a group? So why did you, make that quote and associate it with an Entrepreneurial Mindset? Rita McGrath:  Well, because if you make things complicated for people, there's maybe three responses, right? One is they'll start on whatever they start on, which is kind of random. And maybe they finish it, and maybe they don't, but it's really now you're leaving it to chance. Because if you give people more to digest than they can manage, you're going to get back some fraction of it. So that's one thing. Second thing that happens is, if it's too complex, a lot of times people will pick what they want to do, not have anything to do with the agenda that you want to set for the organization. And the third thing is there's just a laziness that comes from having things be complex. I know for myself, when I've had to do strategy statements for myself, or my business, it takes a long, long time to get it done into a few simple things. And each word has to mean something. So, as an example, some years back, I started a sister company. It's called Valize. And the strategy really is to its mission, its purpose for me, is to help organizations create innovation and transformation capability as the basis for shared prosperity. And that sounds really simple. That sounds really kind of ‘duh, that's not so grand, but I mean, the hours it took to get to that simplicity of statement. And then once you've got something like that, you can go back and you could say, okay, well, here's the thing that I'm being asked to do or think I'm thinking of, does it build capability? Yes. No. Does it build shared prosperity? Yes, no. Does it help organizations to help themselves? Yes, no. And it sorts out a lot of stuff means a lot of stuff we could do. But there are only a few things that really fit into that sweet spot of shared capability. So, having that simplification allows you to clear out a lot of the …, there are always wonderful options that you got to do things, right? And it's a question of abundance, you've usually got more great options than you could possibly exercise. So, picking the best ones is the challenge. Ula Ojiaku:  Wow, wow. I'm going to listen to this part again. You've mentioned some books already, like Andy Grove's, Only the Paranoid, I mean, Only the Paranoid survive. And you've mentioned the book, Disrupt Yourself… In addition to these books, and your wonderful suite of books, what other books would you recommend to the audience that you believe have influenced you that you'd recommend to the listeners that would help them you know, learn more about this topic? Rita McGrath: Oh, that's hard, because there's so many. Well, I love Safi Bahcall's Loonshots. I think that's a brilliant, brilliant book. And it really gets to the heart of how innovation actually happens rather than how we think it happens. I rather like Gary Hamel's and Michele Zanini's book, Humanocracy which has the basic question, you know, if you look at Instagram, or Twitter or any of these social platforms, you see these people who are just brilliant. I mean, they're creating incredibly creative stuff. And then we put them inside companies. And we insist that they do things by the rule, and we block all the creativity out of them. So, why do we do that? You know, I think that's a really great one. I'm very taken with Rebecca Henderson's, Re-imagining Capitalism in a World on Fire. Very, very brilliant. Roger Martin, When More is not Better. Just recently had a Julie Lythcott-Haims on my fireside chat program, which is and she's got a book called Your Turn, How to be an Adult”, which is, on a personal level, absolutely fascinating - really good book. I like Peter Sim's, Little Bets. You know, they're just so many I mean, I wouldn't even know where to where to start. Those are the ones that are sort of top of mind at the moment. Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. scribbling away as you're talking, and yeah, these all these would be in the show notes with the links to them. So that's great. Now, how can the audience reach you? If they want to, you know follow your work. Rita McGrath: The best place to start is my website, which is really ritamcgrath.com, that's easy. I have columns that I write for. They're currently going up on substack and medium. If you just search my name and or medium, you'll find me there. I do weekly, LinkedIn post, which goes to subscribers on LinkedIn. Also, that's all sort of good places to start. Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. Are you on social media? Rita McGrath:  Oh, yes. So yes. I'm on Twitter @RGMcGrath. And I'm on LinkedIn. Okay. I'm not on Facebook so much. But I have put things I post there, but I'm not really on it very much. Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. All right. That's, I mean, thanks for those. Now, let's wrap up any ask of the audience first? Rita McGrath:  I think we're in a remarkable moment, right now, you know, we've had so many of our previous habits and assumptions disrupted, that I think it would be a shame to lose, to lose all that and just go back to the way things were. So, I think it's an opportunity to reflect and to really think about, what kind of future do we want to build now that so many of our assumptions and institutions have been challenged, and we learned whole new tricks, we learned whole new ways to do things. Let's not just snap back to the way it was, let's think about inventing better. Rita McGrath:  Really, I think there's going to be great opportunity coming out of this current crisis and those who are thinking ahead will benefit from it. Ula Ojiaku:  Okay, great. Well, Rita, thank you so much for your time, and it's been a pleasure again, having you on the show. Rita McGrath: Thank you very much.  

Show Notes:Introduction: Who is Carol Hill?Carol's origin story and journey to LEGO EducationGlobal insights that led to successIdentifying a problem before falling in love with a solutionThe meaning of being agileDeveloping an agile, growth mindset in colleagues and studentsBuilding psychological safety and promoting a nimble approachCarol's preferred structure/framework for agile workThe importance of providing quality feedbackCapturing deep levels of thinking while being agile and working with othersKey Quotes:"If you don't have that psychological safety, really, not a whole lot is going to come of the conversations in the room.""Don't fall in love with the solution; fall in love with the problem.""It's so impactful to take the time, and it does take time to build these kinds of skills [problem identification]."Listener Challenge:Share ideas you gathered from the conversation with us on social media. What resonated with you?Resources Mentioned in Show:Carol Hill's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-rueckert-hill/List of books from her post and discussionRadical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity https://amzn.to/43GuoEQThe Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth https://amzn.to/40jEZCuRebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking https://amzn.to/3mFBKrnNonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships (Nonviolent Communication Guides) https://amzn.to/3MLqEMdEMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products (Silicon Valley Product Group) https://amzn.to/3A2o2lxINSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group) https://amzn.to/43GyuNeCascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change https://amzn.to/3MPCOnbBuilding a Culture of Innovation: A Practical Framework for Placing Innovation at the Core of Your Business https://amzn.to/3KJZFhjSeeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen https://amzn.to/3L7cljISense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously https://amzn.to/3KN46YGPirates in the Navy: How Innovators Lead Transformation https://amzn.to/3mNIu6qBe Less Zombie: How Great Companies Create Dynamic Innovation, Fearless Leadership and Passionate People https://amzn.to/40hJFsuThe Corporate Startup: How established companies can develop successful innovation ecosystems https://amzn.to/3A5XEad The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses https://amzn.to/3ULUFxdThe Agile Leader: How to Create an Agile Business in the Digital Age https://amzn.to/3UJPJsOSucceeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn)) https://amzn.to/3A3YNz1Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice https://amzn.to/3GPSF1mStrategyzer (5 book series) Kindle Edition https://amzn.to/3KQCmmeWhat's Your Problem?: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve https://amzn.to/41dVoK7 Favorite Ideas from the Conversation:Building psychological safety for learnersFocusing on understanding the problem rather than jumping to solutionsDeveloping an agile mindset that embraces iterative development, testing, adapting, and dealing with uncertaintyUsing LEGO bricks as a storytelling tool to express thoughts and feelings more comfortablyThe power of tangible building activities (e.g., using LEGO) in facilitating communicationJUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITE IDEAS FROM THE CONVERSATION! 

Rita McGrath is a Strategy Professor at Columbia Business School and the author of the best-selling book, "Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen." She attended Barnard in the late 70s and received her Ph.D. from Wharton. After that, Professor McGrath was involved in the public sector working for NYC engaged in digital transformation. In addition to her work as a professor, Professor McGrath also speaks, consults, and provides executive education for organizations all around the world. Learn More About Rita McGrath's Book Here: https://amzn.to/3L5u3nXTwitter of Host (Shamus Madan): @mbitpodcastTwitter of Guest (Rita McGrath): @rgmcgrath

How can you predict opportunities for massive innovation before they happen? By identifying inflection points before they happen.  Inflection points are moments of significant change for a business, industry, or market. They feature prominently in Dr. Rita Gunther McGrath's latest book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen.  Dr. McGrath discusses how to identify and navigate these inflection points in business — so you can position yourself and your organization for success in the age of disruption. Tune in to the full conversation to hear how to spot inflection points before they happen, how to keep innovating without putting yourself or your business at catastrophic risk, and find out what happens when we let AI take over the interview and ask some questions. Dr. Rita Gunther McGrath is a leading authority on strategic innovation and growth. She is a professor at Columbia Business School, a globally recognized thought leader, and the author of several best-selling books. Resources: Learn more at ritamcgrath.com Read Seeing Around Corners Connect with Dr. McGrath on LinkedIn Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

Many professionals realize that a published book is a great business card – but is anyone actually reading it?  Does your book have an impact? Today, we discuss the journey of publishing, marketing, and building a full business model from a book. To share their insights on that topic, we've invited two great guests that have the publishing process down pat. Rita Gunther McGrath is a highly regarded speaker, professor at Columbia Business School, and the author of multiple best-selling books such as Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. A.J. Jacobs is a journalist, TED Speaker, and seven-time author including the best-selling book Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey. Our conversation starts by discussing the business side of publishing. Our best-selling authors clarify the focus of their recent work, and discuss the various purposes that a published book can serve. While creating a "book-sized" calling card will put you ahead of some, your content still needs to be more than a glorified article if you want people to read it and take action based on your insights. Many first-time authors believe that once the book is written, the job of marketing will fall to the publisher. That's no longer the truth! Nowadays, publishers have stepped back from marketing - leaving the author to get the word out themselves. Rita shares how she plans the marketing of a book before any real writing even begins, while A.J. seeks innovative and creative ways to slice the topics of his books into as many sectors as possible, in order to earn a larger audience. The final leg of our conversation involves taking the information from the page and turning it into teachable content. Our guests share their strategies for turning thought leadership insights into lessons, creating systems and capabilities for instruction that can be brought into an organization in order to create measurable impact. Three Key Takeaways: * When writing a book, ensure your content is bigger than a simple article could contain. * Consider the method of publishing and marketing for your book before you start writing. * Publishers no longer promote books. As the author, you'll need to build a platform to reach the audience by yourself.

This vibrant discussion held in the summer of 2022 focused on innovation, design, strategy and communication. Rita Gunther McGrath is a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. Rita has received the #1 achievement award for strategy from Thinkers50 and has been consistently named one of the world's Top 10 management thinkers. As a consultant to CEOs, her work has had a lasting impact on the strategy and growth programs of Fortune 500 companies. Rita is the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage and Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. ----- Fred Dust is the founder of Dust&Co and works at the intersection of business, society and creativity. As a designer, author, educator, consultant, trustee, and advisor to social and business leaders, he is one of the world's most original thinkers, applying the craft and optimism of human-centered design to the intractable challenges we face today. Using the methodology in his book Making Conversation, he has been working with The Rockefeller Foundation to explore the future of pressing global needs. As a former Global Managing Partner at the acclaimed international design firm IDEO, Fred works with leaders and change agents to unlock the creative potential of business, government, education, and philanthropic organizations.  

There is a void of leadership following the pandemic, and everything feels uncertain. That uncertainty – precarity – is an area of study for generative leadership specialist Kathleen Curran.Kathleen defines herself as an “explorer with purpose”, and helps people not only bring their whole self to work, but fully inhabit it. She is a co-author on a book about precarity, with her contribution focusing on the word of certainty and normalcy that opened in the wake of the global pandemic.Takeaways from Dan and Pia The void in leadership opened by the pandemic is still in place today. It's sometimes necessary for those without traditional leadership positions to step up, to do the work that needs to be done. There is a disconnect in the communication of our need for connection, between anecdotal conversations and data collected on teams. Links Precarity Find Kathleen on LinkedIn Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, by Samantha Montano VUCA: Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, by Rita McGrath Enough Leadership. Time for Communityship, a blog post by Henry Mintzberg Leave us a voice message

Rita McGrath is a best-selling author, sought-after speaker, and longtime professor at Columbia Business School. As one of the world's top experts on innovation and growth, Rita's work is regularly published in the Harvard Business Review. She is consistently ranked among the Top 10 management thinkers in the world and was ranked #1 for strategy by Thinkers50. Rita is the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Her most recent book is Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin In this episode Rita McGrath talks about the importance of inflection points in business and why they are even more relevant in today's world. What you will take away from this podcast: As a leader: How to spot weak signals and leverage them for competitive advantage Tools to help you navigate the future of work in an increasingly complex and competitive world Frameworks to adapt your leadership style Lessons from other leaders As an individual contributor: How to use inflection points to guide your own career How to look for early markets and use cases where weak signals are getting stronger How to influence your company leadership around weak signals My favorite quote from the podcast is from Steve Blank - "The answers are never in the building" Leaders mentioned in this podcast: Andy Grove Jeff Bezos Satya Nadella Books Referenced: Only The Paranoid Survive - Andy Grove The End of Competitive Advantage: Rita McGrath Seeing Around Corners: How to spot inflection points in business before they happen Rita's Book Recommendations: Smart Growth - Whitney Johnson Arriving Today - Christopher Mims Winning The Right Game - Ron Adner Links: ritamcgrath.com (Personal Website) ritamcgrath.com/blog (Blog) www4.gsb.columbia.edu/cbs-directory/detail/494874/Rita%20McGrath (Company Website) Company: www.valize.com Learning Hub: https://learninghub.valize.com/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ritamcgrath Check out her weekly Thoughtsparks Twitter: @rgmcgrath --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/shobhana-viswanathan/support

In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk with Rita McGrath,  best-selling author, sought-after speaker, and  longtime professor at Columbia Business School. Consistently named one of the world's Top 10 management thinkers, Rita is the author of the best-selling books The End of Competitive Advantage, and Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen.  As a consultant to CEOs, her work has had a lasting impact on the strategy and growth programs of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. We talk with Rita about:How CI professionals can build a grass-roots movement, rather than waiting around for a "seat at the table"The concept of "continuous strategy" and the implications for CI professionalsWarning signs that your organization's competitive advantage is waningA new way of tracking and responding to weak signals

Guest Bio: Rita McGrath is a best-selling author,  sought-after advisor and speaker, and  longtime professor at Columbia Business School. Rita is one of the world's top experts on strategy and innovation and is consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world, including the #1 award for strategy by Thinkers50.  McGrath's recent book on strategic inflection points is Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Rita is the author of four other books, including the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Since the onset of the pandemic, Rita has created workshops, strategy sessions and keynotes, applying her tools and frameworks to strategy under high levels of uncertainty to specific issues organizations are facing.  As Rui Barbas, the Chief Strategy Officer for Nestle USA said, “You were incredibly insightful and, despite the virtual setting, there was lots of engagement and comments from leaders sharing eye-opening observations and building on your examples throughout. You delivered the inspiration and illustration desired and it was exactly the right focus and challenge for this team. Appreciate your time throughout the process to align on content and delivery. The future-focus theme was the perfect close to our leadership summit.” Rita's work is focused on creating unique insights.  She has also founded Valize a companion company, dedicated to turning those insights into actionable capability.  You can find out more about Valize at www.valize.com. McGrath received her Ph.D. from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and has degrees with honors from Barnard College and the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. She is active on all the main social media platforms, such as Twitter @rgmcgrath.  For more information, visit RitaMcGrath.com.   Social Media/ Websites: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritamcgrath/ Twitter: @rgmcgrath Instagram: @ritamcgrathofficial Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rgmcgrath Websites: https://ritamcgrath.com and valize.com Rita's Newsletter/ Articles Substack: https://thoughtsparks.substack.com/ Medium: https://rgmcgrath.medium.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/thought-sparks-6787762418471755776/ Books Seeing Around Corners by Rita McGrath https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeing-Around-Corners-Inflection-Business/dp/0358022339 The Entrepreneurial Mindset by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian MacMillian https://www.amazon.co.uk/Entrepreneurial-Mindset-Continuously-Opportunity-Uncertainty/dp/0875848346 The End of Competitive Advantage by Rita Gunther McGrath https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Competitive-Advantage-Strategy-Business/dp/1422172813 Disrupt Yourself by Whitney Johnson https://www.amazon.co.uk/Disrupt-Yourself-New-Introduction-Relentless/dp/1633698785 Humanocracy by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini https://www.amazon.co.uk/Humanocracy-Creating-Organizations-Amazing-People/dp/1633696022 Reimagining Capitalism by Rebecca Henderson https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reimagining-Capitalism-Business-Save-World/dp/0241379660 When More is Not Better by Roger L. Martin https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-More-Not-Better-Overcoming/dp/1647820065/ Being An Adult by Lucy Tobin https://www.amazon.co.uk/Being-Adult-ultimate-getting-together-ebook/dp/B07GQ1KRTC/ Only The Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove https://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew-Grove/dp/1861975139  Ula Ojiaku: My guest today is Dr. Rita McGrath. She's a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker and advisor and consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world, including the #1 award for strategy by Thinkers50. In this episode, Rita talked about the concept of inflection points from her book ‘Seeing Around Corners' and how as leaders, we can train ourselves to spot these inflection points and act on the information we receive. She also talked about making complex things simple for the people we work with. I learnt a lot speaking with Rita and I'm sure you will find this conversation insightful as well. Thank you again for watching! It's an honor to have you on the show, Rita McGrath. Many, many thanks for joining us. Rita McGrath: Well, thank you Ula. It's a pleasure to be here. Ula Ojiaku: Great. Now, can you tell us about yourself? How did the Rita, Dr. Rita McGrath we know today evolve? Rita McGrath:  Well, it would have to start with my parents, of course. I mean, all great stories start with your parents. And so, my parents were both scientists. My mother was a Microbiologist, and my father was an Organic Chemist. And so, I grew up in a house where, you know, (if) a question couldn't be answered, you went and got the reference book and figured it out. And both, (had) incredible respect for science and for diligence. And, you know, the house was always full of books and lots of emphasis on learning. I wouldn't say we were, financially all that well-off – we weren't poor by any means. But it was, you know, there wasn't like a lot of money to spare, but there was always money for books, and there was always money for, you know, educational experiences and that kind of thing. So, that's the household I grew up in. So, my parents, when I was born, were both on the staff at the Yale Medical School. So, they were both researchers there. And then my dad in the late 60s, got an offer to go join this upstart, fledgling company that was at the cutting edge of all kinds of things in his field and that was Xerox Corporation. And he was very conflicted about leaving academia, but went off eventually to Xerox. So, we moved the family to Rochester, New York. So that's where I did most of my growing up. And my mother at that time, decided to stay home, more or less. And then she started a scientific translation business. So, she moved into an entrepreneurial career more than her scientific career. And then when it came time to go to college, I went to Barnard College in the City of New York. I'd always thought New York was an amazing place and was accepted there. So, went off to New York, did my Bachelor's and my Master's in Political Science and Public Policy. I was very interested in public policy and matters of social contract and those kinds of things. And then my first job was actually with the City of New York, I ran purchasing systems for government agencies. It doesn't sound very glamorous. But today, we would call it digital transformation. It was the very first wave of companies taking their operations in a digital form. And it was very exciting and I learned a lot. Then I got to the end of… the thing about public service is when you start, there's (this) unlimited sort of growth that can happen for a few years, and then it really just levels off. And you're never going to go beyond that. So, I kind of reached that headroom and decided to do something different. Ula Ojiaku:  Was it at that point that you decided to go for your PhD? Rita McGrath:  And that was one of the options I was considering. And my husband basically said, ‘look, if you get into a top five school, it's worth doing and if you don't, it's probably not.' But you have to think in that time, MBA programs were just exploding, and there'd been a lot of pressure on the administrators of MBA programs, to put PhD accredited faculty in front of their students. The big knock against the MBA at the time was, oh, they're just trade schools. You know, we've got some guy who ran an entire company comes in and talks and that's not really academically suitable. And so, there was a huge pressure for schools to find PhD accredited people-  that still exists (but) the market pressures has changed a lot. But when I was doing my PhD, it was pretty sure I would get a job if I managed to complete the degree. So that that gave me that extra input to do that. Ula Ojiaku:  Did you already have like children when you started the PhD? Rita McGrath: Yes Ula Ojiaku:  And how did you cope? Rita McGrath:  Our son was, how old was he? He would have been nine months old when I started my PhD program. Yeah. Ula Ojiaku: Wow, 9 months old. Rita McGrath: Oh, yeah, it was a real challenge. And I guess everybody manages those kinds of challenges in their own way. But yeah, it was a struggle because, you know, typical day would be you know, get up, get the baby to daycare or wherever and then do school or whatever I had to do that day. And then it was sort of pick them up. By the time I had a second child it was pick them up, get them dinner, get them bedtime, get them story, and then I'll be back at my desk at nine o'clock at night, trying to do what I needed to do. So, it was a new turn. It was tough. It was difficult years. I mean, joyful years though but it was just hard to fit everything in. Ula Ojiaku:  I can imagine. I mean, although I'm thinking of starting my PhD (studies), my children aren't that small but I do remember the time (they were), you know, I was still working full time. So, the challenge is you'd go to work and then come back to work. I mean, to another type of work. And then when they go to bed, the work continues. Yeah, it's interesting. Rita McGrath: Quite exhausting. Ula Ojiaku: You can say that. I'm so glad they're not in diapers anymore. So, it's baby steps, we are getting there. So, can we go on to your book, “Seeing Around Corners, How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen”. I'd like to start from an unusual place in the book. I started from the dedication page, and you know, reading everything, and I noticed that, you referred to a conversation, one of the last conversations you had with your mother. Could you tell us about that? Rita McGrath:  Oh sure. She was well, at the time, she was quite ill, she had sarcoma in her lung, and she was quite ill. It's a horrible disease, and we haven't got any real treatments for it. So, the recommendation is you do chemo and that really knocks you out. So, she was quite ill and sort of migrating between the chair and the couch and the chair and the couch. And in one of those conversations, she just said ‘I want you to know I'm proud of you. And I've had a good life and I'm prepared for whatever comes next.' And I thought that was lovely of her to say and I thought in that moment to pass it on to all these other women. And you know you bring up motherhood and being a working woman and all those complicated emotions that come with that because there seems to be guilt around every corner you know, if you're not at home full time, oh you're a terrible mom. And if you're not at work full time, you're a terrible worker. I just I think so many of those things are just designed to twist us up into little balls. And when I look at my own mother's experience - she was a working woman… I grew up but I think I'm third or fourth generation working woman so it never even occurred to me that wouldn't be possible. But I think what often is missing is this validation, you know that for women who are trying to you know make their way professionally and be great, responsible parents and do all these other things that often there's a sense of a lack of self-worth you know, ‘oh, I'm not doing enough.' The more I hear that… Ula Ojiaku:  I feel like that some… most days I feel like that… Rita McGrath: Believe me, you are doing enough Ula Ojiaku:  Sometimes I ask my children, am I a good mom? Rita McGrath:  I think part of it too is we, and when I say we, I mean baby boomer mothers and maybe a little younger. We got ourselves all tangled up in this if it's not like organic, hand-processed  lima beans with you know, organic succotash, mixed in you know, it's not good baby food. Honestly, Gerber's exists to provide perfectly nutritious food for really young babies and they've been doing it for decades and you can trust that and if it makes your life easier, go with it. Ula Ojiaku:  Thank you! Rita McGrath: You know, I think we I think we get ourselves all tossed up in like, what does good mean? I mean, honestly, the kids don't mind you know? I mean, they'd celebrate if it was chicken finger night. Ula Ojiaku:  Let's go to the book. You know, because in your book you said you it's about how to spot inflections before they happen in business. Can you give us examples of, you know, businesses that had these inflection points occur, and they failed to recognize it and what was the impact? Rita McGrath:  Sure, let's take one that is quite sad to me, which is Intel. And Intel built its, well, Intel went through a major inflection point, in fact, the originator of the concept was Andy Grove, who was their former CEO. And he talked about his inflection points in his book, Only the Paranoid Survive, which is really a brilliant, brilliant book. And one of the reasons I wrote my book was that very little had been done since his book on that topic. And Grove built this incredible company, Intel. And they were making microprocessor chips. And they were very, very powerful, very fast chips. And so, the assumptions inside Intel's business model was, what customers were going to pay for was faster, faster, faster, more computation power, more and more powerful. But what they didn't really think about was energy consumption. And as the world went more mobile… so the Intel product is the PC, and the PC, the desktop PC remains firmly plugged into the wall. And then later, we make PC chips that maybe have slightly lower power consumption to power PCs, but it's still that notion of power, you know, and I think the inflection point that caught Intel by surprise, to some extent was, this movement towards mobile, where the vast majority of chips being made were these completely different architecture chips by  companies like ARM and you know, and companies like that, which, from their inception, recognized that low power was the way to go. Then they weren't very powerful in the sense of speed, which is what Intel was driving its business towards. But they were powerful in the sense of ubiquitous low power, long battery life, that kind of thing. And I think that's an example of the kind of assumption that can cause a company to get into trouble, when the underlying shift in the business environment says, ‘wait a minute, this thing you've been building all this time may not be what is needed by the marketplace.' Ula Ojiaku:  That's interesting. So, it brings me to the point of, the points you made about, you know, the indicators, the early warnings, and you mentioned the concept of you know lagging, current and leading indicators. And there was an emphasis in your book on, you know, leading indicators. Could you tell us a bit about that? Rita McGrath:  Sure. Well, so leading indicators are today's information about tomorrow's possibilities. And what we unfortunately rely on a lot in business is lagging indicators - so profits, performance, you know, ROI, all those things are lagging some kind of decision that you made a long time ago. So, the concept of leading indicators is to try to get business leaders to think about what would have to be true, you know, before I was able to make a certain decision, what are the leading indicators? So, an example would be back in the 90s, computer scientists all over the world realized that come the year 2000, from the turn of the millennium, that the way computer programs had been programmed, was only two digits for the year. And so, when the year went to zero-zero, computers, were going to think it was 1900 and this was going to be terrible. Because they all get out of sync, you know, and planes would drop out of the sky. You're gonna become unstable, and you'll all need to move to Montana and stuff … I don't know if you can remember this. Ula Ojiaku: Yeah, the Y2K bug… Rita McGrath: Oh my goodness…! Ula Ojiaku: It was a big sensation. Yeah… Rita McGrath: Apocalyptic – remember?! And yet, when the big moment came the year 2000. What happened? Well, nothing happened. Why did nothing happen? We looked at that early warning, and we said, whoa, if that happens, it's bad. And then so companies, prodded by their accounting firms, prodded by other security considerations invested billions in correcting that flaw. And so, that's an example of an early warning. And there are a couple of things to understand about early warning. So, the first important thing is, the measure of a good early warning is not, did it predict what happened. The measure of a good leading indicator is, did it help you prepare for what might happen? And so, I think that's a really important distinction, because we oftentimes, oh, you that didn't predict this or that. But that's not the point. The point is, did it help you think more broadly about what might happen so that you could be prepared? So, I think that's the first thing. The second thing to remember about leading indicators is they're often not quantitative in the way that we like to think about quantitative things. They're often qualitative. They often take the form of stories. And they often come from what are called unrepresentative parts of your mental ecosystem. So, you know, it's that person on the loading dock (saying to themselves), ‘this is, well, that's weird, a customer never asked for that before', or the person answering the phone, you know, in headquarters going, ‘Well, I don't understand why they need that information…' You know, it's those little anomalies or things that depart from business as usual, that are often the weak signals that you need to be paying attention to. Ula Ojiaku:  So, can you give us an example where you mean, I mean, of how we can go about choosing good leading indicators? Rita McGrath:  Well, in the book, I describe a technique that I use, which is you take a couple of uncertainties and juxtapose them on each other. And that gives you four or more you can do this for as many as you like, stories from the future, possibly a future that we could live in. And then depending on which one you want to think about, you say, ‘okay, I'm gonna write a headline as if it came from a newspaper story about that scenario. And I'm gonna work backwards and say, what has to be true for that headline to emerge.' So, take an example that's playing out right now, chronic and accelerating decline in birth rates in the United States. People are just deciding not to enlarge their families or not to start their families at all. And for very good reasons, you know, the level of social support for families is very low. Mostly women are bearing the burden. And very often women are the ones that make a large part of the decision about whether the family is going to grow or not. And so, we're facing a real baby bust. Well, if that's true, and we follow that along, well, what are some things that would be early warnings or indicators of what that world will be like? Well, you'll see a decline of working people relative to retired people, or people needing assistance, you'll see, you know, fewer kids with more resources to support them. So, the kind of baby Prince phenomena we saw in China. There are lots of things you can kind of work through. But once you say, ‘okay, I see a world with a million fewer children three years from now, than we would have expected well, okay, what now working backward? What does that tell us we need to be paying attention to today? Ula Ojiaku:  Yes, yes. That's a great example. And I wonder, though, so given all, you know, the research that has led to, and your experience as well, consulting with, you know, most of these large organizations, the case studies, you've come to witness and all that, what would you, what would be your advice to leaders of such organizations, you know, in terms of how they can better prepare themselves or equip themselves to recognize these inflection points, and lead effectively? Rita McGrath:  Well, I think the first principle is you have to be discovery driven. In other words, you have to be curious about what's going on. And if you're the kind of leader who (when) someone brings you a piece of information, and instead of treating it like a gift, you're like, oh no, you don't understand that's wrong. That's not the way the world works. If you're dismissive of information people are bringing you that's very dangerous. Because the information you need is not going to come from your lieutenants at headquarters, it's going to come from that guy on the loading dock. So, I think you want to think about establishing some kind of information flows, that go directly from where the phenomena are happening to your desk. So, as an example, a company I really admire is the German metal services company Klockner. And their CEO, Gisbert Ruehl was taking them through a digital transformation. And his big concern was not that they meant it, right? But that his lieutenants, his middle manager, cohort, would be so expert, and so experienced at the way business was, that they would just shut down these digital efforts. And he was very, very concerned about that. He said, well, I need some way of making my message heard directly to the people that are on the frontlines and I also need a way of hearing from them what's going on. So, he implemented Yammer, called non-hierarchical communication. And the deal was anybody in the company that had something he needed to know should feel comfortable sending him a note. And I'm told, I don't know this for a fact that I'm told that at headquarters, he had his instance of Yammer set up so that the lower the hierarchical level of the person, the higher it came in his newsfeed. Ula Ojiaku: Oh, wow. Rita McGrath: So, you know, I can talk to my lieutenants, anytime. Information I need is in the, you know, 24-year-old person who's just joined us with an engineering degree, who's looking at our manufacturing process for screwdrivers and saying, ‘Why do you do it that way? There must be a better way of doing this…' That's the information I really need and he set up a whole system to try to get that information to him, to himself. Ula Ojiaku:  Would you say there's a typical kind of leader with, you know, some certain characteristics that's best equipped to spot the inflection point, and you know, kind of lead the charge and get the organizations in line? Rita McGrath:  You know, I think it's more of the behavior, it's not the characteristics. So, I've seen charismatic, attractive, you know, movie star type CEOs be good at this. I've seen people you look at and you go ‘Really? He looks kind of like he slept in his clothes all night.' I've seen those people be good at it. So, you know, I think the differentiation is this, this hunger for new information, this curiosity, this relentless… ‘tell me again…' and ‘why was that and why was that?' It is this urgent need to really learn what's going on. And then and then putting yourself in the, in the context. So, one of the people I'm working with right now is a brilliant retail CEO, and everything. And one of the things he would do before hiring anybody into his senior team, is he would spend a day or two walking the stores, you know, and in his explanation to me was, ‘I want to see how they react to the stores. I want to see how they treat the people working in stores. I want to see what they notice, you know, I want to see if they notice that there's a thing out of array and I want to see how they are with me, like if they spend their whole two days in store visits, sucking up to me - that's not somebody I need, you know. And so, I think the best leaders along those lines are people who are relentlessly curious, bring people around them who are diverse, you know, you don't just want echo chambers of themselves. Ula Ojiaku:  True, true. You don't want ‘yes' men if you really want to make an impact really. Yeah, and how can I, as a person, train myself to also recognize these inflection points. Rita McGrath:  Well, it depends what the inflection point is. So, if it's a question of, you've been making nice steady progress in your career, and now you've hit some kind of ceiling and you just feel you're not growing or developing any more, then that choice is really okay, I need to… the way Whitney Johnson would put this, she's written a great book on this, “Disrupt Yourself”, right? You go up this S curve, then you need to make the decision if you're going to take on the J curve, right, which is the part below the S curve before you get into the next round of learning. So, that's a personal decision, really only you can make a decision like that. Then there are the cases where inflection points are thrust upon you. So you lose a job, your spouse has some setback, a family member has an urgent need that makes whatever you were doing before impossible. I mean, there's all kinds of outside things that can happen to you. Ula Ojiaku: Yeah… Rita McGrath: And I think the best way to try to look at those is. ‘is this a slingshot to a better future, potentially?' And you know, how many people have you talked to who got fired, and some years later say, ‘that was the best thing that ever happened to me, it shook me out of my complacency. It made me think differently.' And so, I think a lot of times, you know, we, it's very comfortable (staying) stuck in our ruts. And sometimes it takes a bit of a jolt to get us out of that. Ula Ojiaku:  That's a great one. Can I just ask you about so it's not really about your book, Seeing Around Corners, but this one is about the Entrepreneurial Mindset? Just one quick question. Because there's a quote, in your book, that book that says, you know, “the huge part of becoming an entrepreneurial leader is learning to simplify complexity, so that your co-workers can act with self-confidence.” That quote, it made me kind of be more conscious about, am I really making things simpler for my co-workers instead of, you know, rather than to enable us, you know, achieve the best that we could as a group? So why did you, make that quote and associate it with an Entrepreneurial Mindset? Rita McGrath:  Well, because if you make things complicated for people, there's maybe three responses, right? One is they'll start on whatever they start on, which is kind of random. And maybe they finish it, and maybe they don't, but it's really now you're leaving it to chance. Because if you give people more to digest than they can manage, you're going to get back some fraction of it. So that's one thing. Second thing that happens is, if it's too complex, a lot of times people will pick what they want to do, not have anything to do with the agenda that you want to set for the organization. And the third thing is there's just a laziness that comes from having things be complex. I know for myself, when I've had to do strategy statements for myself, or my business, it takes a long, long time to get it done into a few simple things. And each word has to mean something. So, as an example, some years back, I started a sister company. It's called Valize. And the strategy really is to its mission, its purpose for me, is to help organizations create innovation and transformation capability as the basis for shared prosperity. And that sounds really simple. That sounds really kind of ‘duh, that's not so grand, but I mean, the hours it took to get to that simplicity of statement. And then once you've got something like that, you can go back and you could say, okay, well, here's the thing that I'm being asked to do or think I'm thinking of, does it build capability? Yes. No. Does it build shared prosperity? Yes, no. Does it help organizations to help themselves? Yes, no. And it sorts out a lot of stuff means a lot of stuff we could do. But there are only a few things that really fit into that sweet spot of shared capability. So, having that simplification allows you to clear out a lot of the …, there are always wonderful options that you got to do things, right? And it's a question of abundance, you've usually got more great options than you could possibly exercise. So, picking the best ones is the challenge. Ula Ojiaku:  Wow, wow. I'm going to listen to this part again. You've mentioned some books already, like Andy Grove's, Only the Paranoid, I mean, Only the Paranoid survive. And you've mentioned the book, Disrupt Yourself… In addition to these books, and your wonderful suite of books, what other books would you recommend to the audience that you believe have influenced you that you'd recommend to the listeners that would help them you know, learn more about this topic? Rita McGrath: Oh, that's hard, because there's so many. Well, I love Safi Bahcall's Loonshots. I think that's a brilliant, brilliant book. And it really gets to the heart of how innovation actually happens rather than how we think it happens. I rather like Gary Hamel's and Michele Zanini's book, Humanocracy which has the basic question, you know, if you look at Instagram, or Twitter or any of these social platforms, you see these people who are just brilliant. I mean, they're creating incredibly creative stuff. And then we put them inside companies. And we insist that they do things by the rule, and we block all the creativity out of them. So, why do we do that? You know, I think that's a really great one. I'm very taken with Rebecca Henderson's, Re-imagining Capitalism in a World on Fire. Very, very brilliant. Roger Martin, When More is not Better. Just recently had a Julie Lythcott-Haims on my fireside chat program, which is and she's got a book called Your Turn, How to be an Adult”, which is, on a personal level, absolutely fascinating - really good book. I like Peter Sim's, Little Bets. You know, they're just so many I mean, I wouldn't even know where to where to start. Those are the ones that are sort of top of mind at the moment. Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. scribbling away as you're talking, and yeah, these all these would be in the show notes with the links to them. So that's great. Now, how can the audience reach you? If they want to, you know follow your work. Rita McGrath: The best place to start is my website, which is really ritamcgrath.com, that's easy. I have columns that I write for. They're currently going up on substack and medium. If you just search my name and or medium, you'll find me there. I do weekly, LinkedIn post, which goes to subscribers on LinkedIn. Also, that's all sort of good places to start. Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. Are you on social media? Rita McGrath:  Oh, yes. So yes. I'm on Twitter @RGMcGrath. And I'm on LinkedIn. Okay. I'm not on Facebook so much. But I have put things I post there, but I'm not really on it very much. Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. All right. That's, I mean, thanks for those. Now, let's wrap up any ask of the audience first? Rita McGrath:  I think we're in a remarkable moment, right now, you know, we've had so many of our previous habits and assumptions disrupted, that I think it would be a shame to lose, to lose all that and just go back to the way things were. So, I think it's an opportunity to reflect and to really think about, what kind of future do we want to build now that so many of our assumptions and institutions have been challenged, and we learned whole new tricks, we learned whole new ways to do things. Let's not just snap back to the way it was, let's think about inventing better. Rita McGrath:  Really, I think there's going to be great opportunity coming out of this current crisis and those who are thinking ahead will benefit from it. Ula Ojiaku:  Okay, great. Well, Rita, thank you so much for your time, and it's been a pleasure again, having you on the show. Rita McGrath: Thank you very much.

Rita Gunther McGrath is a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. Rita has received the #1 achievement award for strategy from the prestigious Thinkers50 and has been consistently named one of the world's Top 10 management thinkers in its bi-annual ranking. Rita is the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage. On this episode, we discussed her new book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, and its implications for learning leaders. Rita also shared her thoughts on the challenges and opportunities of innovation and what people often get wrong when thinking about it. Finally, Rita shared what makes her optimistic and what she's most curious about heading into the new year.

As 2021 ends, I wanted to look back at some of the best leadership advice we heard from our guests over the last year and a half. I interview around 50 guests every year, and I've had the privilege of speaking with many great leaders around the world; these are some of my favorite conversations.  I have picked out some short clips from my interviews with five past guests. These leaders have brought their companies & their people through the pandemic and all the changes that came with it, and they have continued to thrive despite all the challenges they faced. I hope you enjoy looking back at parts of these conversations and the lessons we can learn from these leaders.  Mark Lashier is the CEO of CPChem, a company that produces petrochemicals and plastics with 5,000 employees worldwide. Chevron owns 50% of the company, and Phillips owns 50%. Mark has served in leadership roles at Chevron Phillips Chemical and Phillips Petroleum for three decades.  Mark explains that being an effective leader entails building trust, showing transparency, and simplifying your employee's workload. It is critically important that all our leaders demonstrate the behaviors of trust, transparency, and simplicity every day; we talk a lot about that as leaders.   "People are incredibly perceptive. If they smell something inconsistent, they're not going to buy it, and they're going to say, okay, you say you want trust, but you're not exhibiting trust," he says.   --------------------------- There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work! --------------------------- Shellye Archambeau is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based governance, risk, and compliance software company, and the author of the new book, Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Terms. She also serves on the boards of Verizon, Nordstrom, Roper Technologies, and Okta. In our conversation Shellye explained that creating your luck is positioning yourself so that when an opportunity shows up, you can take advantage of it, and it is just as vital that you make sure you let people know what you're doing.  Tell them your job title and explain what you are responsible for in your job.   David Cote is the former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell and author of the bestselling book, Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term. During his time at Honeywell, David fixed a toxic work culture and grew the company's market capitalization from around 20 billion to 120 billion, delivering returns of 800%. Currently, David is Executive Chairman of Vertiv Holdings Co, a global data center products and services provider. He is a member of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group on Foreign Relations and the Conference of Montreal. David explains how he defines leadership and his advice on how to lead in tough times.  If we do the right things in the middle of a tough time, that will cause us to come out of a much stronger company than our competitors. And the advice that I give to people is don't panic and make sure that you keep thinking independently. Never forget to put your customer first, don't let customer service suffer in any way. Lastly, start thinking about the recovery, even while you're in the middle of the recession. A good leader finds a way to take at least a couple hours a week to put their head above the fray and look around and say, okay, all these short-term actions, I'm assuming, is it going to make a difference for where I'm trying to go for the long term? Is it consistent with what I'm trying to do, and if It's not, what do I do differently so that it will be? Those are the people who will do well going into the recovery and truly establish themselves. --------------------------- There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work! --------------------------- Rita McGrath is a professor at Columbia Business School and bestselling author of the book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. In 2020, she was ranked #5 on the Thinkers50 list for her work in strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship and for being a champion of harnessing disruptive influences for competitive advantage. She is widely recognized as a leading expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. Seeing Around Corners opens your mind to possibilities that are now made real because of a strategic inflection point. It's more about expanding the range of options that you're considering and then really being prepared to challenge your assumptions. And I think that's really where the seeing around corners part is so valuable. If you think about it, any business grows up with a set of assumptions about what's possible and what's not. And what an inflection point does is it changes the nature of those assumptions. Chris McCann is the CEO of 1-800-Flowers, a floral and gourmet food gift retailer, and distribution company with over 3000 employees. The company was started back in 1976 when Chris' older brother opened his first flower shop. In the 1980s, Chris joined his brother in the business, and they have been working together ever since. In our discussion, Chris talked about what he learned from other leaders he came to know, including CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, and the former CEO of AXA Financial, Ed Miller. He also talked about the crucial things he has learned about leading in turbulent times. Chris explains two of the most critical leadership skills in communication and visibility. The need to step up communication so that the people in your company know that you're on top of things and you're looking out for their best interest is critical. Also, a key component to leading in turbulent times is re-emphasizing the vision of your company, your values, your mission. By focusing and constantly reminding people of our job and our vision to inspire human expression, connection, and celebration. And tying everything we do back to the company vision gives employees a sense of normalcy. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE    How to lead with Trust, Transparency, and Simplicity How you can own your luck and create your own success How to Lead in Tough Times Leading Innovation and Growth during times of uncertainty --------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Facebook. Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com  Let's connect on social! Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8 Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8 Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova.  This week I am thrilled to bring you this episode of the What's Next! Podcast, an encore of my LinkedIn Live chat with my friend Rita McGrath. Rita is a bestselling author, sought-after speaker, and longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is also one of the world's top experts on innovation and growth and is regularly published in the Harvard Business Review. She's consistently ranked among the top ten management thinkers in the world and was ranked number one for strategy by Thinkers50. She is the author of the best-selling book, The End of Competitive Advantage, and her most recent book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. I am beyond excited to bring you this episode of the What's Next! Podcast with Rita McGrath!     THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone in business who experienced our most recent, shared inflection point, COVID-19.    TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… Building a culture that nourishes permissionless excellence and doesn't worry constantly about control can not only facilitate this kind of business, and subsequent customer satisfaction, but can also prepare you to spot strategic inflection points. If you can pick up on key signals when these events are still in their gradual phases, it is your opportunity to take your business to new heights. But, just important to know? Staying flat is not an option.    WHAT  I  LOVE  MOST… Rita's Monday Morning Huddle: How might you spend or use just one hour a week differently thinking about your future?    Running time: 28:59     Subscribe on iTunes     Find Tiffani on social:  Facebook  Twitter  LinkedIn     Find Rita online:  LinkedIn  Facebook  Twitter  Instagram  YouTube  Rita's Website 

As we kick off a new season, Jeff speaks with Rita McGrath, Professor of Management at the Columbia Business School and author of Seeing Around Corners, How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. Rita has received the #1 achievement award for strategy from the prestigious Thinkers50, and has been consistently named one of the world's Top 10 management thinkers. Rita shares her unique perspective on how to spot leading trends, what to do about them, and practical tips to align your organization to important change events. Rita credits a line in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises for inspiring her book. A character in Hemingway's novel answers a question about how he went bankrupt by saying, ‘two ways, gradually, then suddenly.' What a perfect metaphor for explaining how important change events impact organizations.  

In dieser Folge spricht Agnieszka mit gleich drei herausragenden Gästen, allesamt von der Raiffeisenbank International: Kamila Gospodarek, Strategie Development mit Fokus auf Innovation, Aleksandra Petkov-Georgieva, Corporate Punk und Innovation Manager sowie Nicole Stroj, Head of Organisational Innovation. In der großen Talkrunde geht es natürlich rund um das Thema Innovation und wie es im Kontext mit Banken zu verstehen ist, wie sich Kundenbedürfnisse im Finanzsektor entwickelt haben und wie darauf reagiert wird, wie die Rollenverteilung von Startups, Banken und BigTechs derzeit und in Zukunft aussieht, wie Unternehmen innovativ bleiben können und wie die Veränderung des Kundenverhaltens Auswirkungen auf ganzen Branchen haben kann. --- Die Themen im Überblick: --- • Was genau ist unter Innovation zu verstehen? • Unterschiedliche Länder, Sprachen und Kulturen: Was bedeutet das für Innovation? • Wie haben sich die Kundenbedürfnisse bei Financial Services verändert? • Startups oder BigTechs: Wo besteht größerer Konkurrenzdruck für Banken? • Welche Rolle soll eine Großbank in einem Ökosystem spielen? • Wie lassen sich Strategien in einem sich stark verändernden Umfeld entwickeln? • Arbeiten wie im Startup: Wie lässt sich Entrepreneurship im Bankenumfeld einbetten? • Wie sieht die Bankenwelt in zehn Jahren aus? --- Die Buchempfehlungen: --- Aleksandra: Reed Hastings: “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention” https://www.amazon.com/No-Rules-Netflix-Culture-Reinvention/dp/1984877860 --- Kamila: Daniel Suarez: “DAEMON: Die Welt ist nur ein Spiel“ https://www.amazon.de/DAEMON-Welt-Spiel-DAEMON-Romane-Band/dp/3499252457 --- Nicole: Rita McGrath: “Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen” https://www.amazon.de/Seeing-Around-Corners-Inflection-Business/dp/0358022339 --- Alle weiteren Folgen, Infos und Kontaktmöglichkeiten hier: www.femalefuturefinance.creativeconstruction.de --- Feedback, Fragen, Wünsche und Ideen bitte an: podcast@femalefuturefinance.de

We're excited today because we get the opportunity to bring you someone we’ve wanted to talk to for awhile. Rita McGrath is a best-selling author, renowned speaker, and longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty - which makes her very equipped to speak to the moment we’re in.Rita has received the #1 achievement award for strategy from the prestigious Thinkers50 and has been consistently named one of the world’s Top 10 management thinkers in its bi-annual ranking. She’s also the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage and Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen - and we’re going to use both as the topics of conversation today. As always, we welcome your feedback. Please make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play.

In this episode of The Outthinker Podcast, Kaihan welcomes Rita McGrath, a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. She received the number one Achievement Award for Strategy from the prestigious thinker's 50 and has been consistently named one of the world's top 10 management thinkers in its biannual ranking. As a consultant to CEOs, her work has had a lasting impact on the strategy and growth programs of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. She is the author of numerous books, including The End of Competitive Advantage, Discovery Driven Growth, and her latest book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen.In this episode, Rita talks about her discovery-driven planning approach, which has transformed the traditional strategic planning approaches companies used to design strategies and gave birth to the now popular agile and lean startup approaches. She's going to give us some practical tips to get smarter at predicting and preparing for the inflection points that will inevitably disrupt your industry.__________________________________________________________________________________________“I realized that I was falling victim to something I warn people about. Just because that's the future you prefer, does not mean that's the only future you should be preparing for.”-Rita McGrath__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline: 00:24 – Introducing Rita McGrath + The topic of today's episode02:22 – If you really know Rita, you know that…02:42 – Rita's definition of strategy04:08 – What initially got you interested in strategy?06:22 – Explaining levels of experimentation, trial, and learning as part of a strategy07:46 – Explaining the discovery-driven planning10:08 – Where would a strategist start?12:50 – Does the balance of portfolio change with greater or lower degrees of uncertainty?14:02 – Explaining the Use of the Term Arena instead of Industry16:06 – Talking about Her Book, Seeing Around Corners and Strategic Inflection Points19:12 – What is something that you've changed your mind about?20:05 – Opportunity of a New Social Contract, Applying Models and Seeing Your Corners__________________________________________________________________________________________Resources Mentioned:Article: What if you changed the world and nobody noticed: https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/when-you-change-the-world-and-no-one-notices/Find more of Rita's books: https://www.ritamcgrath.com/books/Connect with Rita McGrath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritamcgrath/

In this episode of The Outthinker Podcast, Kaihan welcomes Rita McGrath, a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. She received the number one Achievement Award for Strategy from the prestigious thinker's 50 and has been consistently named one of the world's top 10 management thinkers in its biannual ranking. As a consultant to CEOs, her work has had a lasting impact on the strategy and growth programs of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. She is the author of numerous books, including The End of Competitive Advantage, Discovery Driven Growth, and her latest book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen.In this episode, Rita talks about her discovery-driven planning approach, which has transformed the traditional strategic planning approaches companies used to design strategies and gave birth to the now popular agile and lean startup approaches. She's going to give us some practical tips to get smarter at predicting and preparing for the inflection points that will inevitably disrupt your industry.__________________________________________________________________________________________“I realized that I was falling victim to something I warn people about. Just because that's the future you prefer, does not mean that's the only future you should be preparing for.”-Rita McGrath__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline: 00:24 – Introducing Rita McGrath + The topic of today's episode02:22 – If you really know Rita, you know that…02:42 – Rita's definition of strategy04:08 – What initially got you interested in strategy?06:22 – Explaining levels of experimentation, trial, and learning as part of a strategy07:46 – Explaining the discovery-driven planning10:08 – Where would a strategist start?12:50 – Does the balance of portfolio change with greater or lower degrees of uncertainty?14:02 – Explaining the Use of the Term Arena instead of Industry16:06 – Talking about Her Book, Seeing Around Corners and Strategic Inflection Points19:12 – What is something that you've changed your mind about?20:05 – Opportunity of a New Social Contract, Applying Models and Seeing Your Corners__________________________________________________________________________________________Resources Mentioned:Article: What if you changed the world and nobody noticed: https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/when-you-change-the-world-and-no-one-notices/Find more of Rita's books: https://www.ritamcgrath.com/books/Connect with Rita McGrath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritamcgrath/

Episode Summary: In this episode Dr Sharon Tal and I discuss how the book she co-authored with Prof Marc Gruber, ‘Where to Play' complements the Lean Start Up movement and Design Thinking. She also explains how the Market Opportunity Navigator could benefit large organisations as well as start-ups.   Bio: Dr. Tal helps entrepreneurs and managers identify, evaluate and prioritize market opportunities for their business. Together with Prof Marc Gruber she wrote the book ‘Where to Play' to help companies choose a promising strategic focus and move forward with confidence. Dr. Tal is the co-founder and former Executive Director of the Entrepreneurship Center at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and a Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. She runs courses and workshops in accelerators and universities around the world, and serves as a mentor in many organizations that aim to help budding entrepreneurs. Sharon has vast experience in marketing, as she served as a marketing manager for firms in several industries, as well as extensive experience in strategic consulting. Her PhD research looked at market entry decisions of hundreds of startups and its consequences on firm performance and flexibility. Website/ social media: Where to Play website: https://wheretoplay.co/ Sharon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-tal-itzkovitch-a390414a/ Where to Play LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wheretoplay/ Twitter: @WhereToPlayCo   Books mentioned in this episode: [NOTE: We currently bear all costs for organising, producing and hosting the podcast series. To help us offset costs, would you consider purchasing the mentioned books via our Amazon affiliate links below? Doing this could give us a commission from Amazon at no extra cost to you. Thank you!] Where to Play: 3 Steps to Discovering Your Most Valuable Market Opportunities by Marc Gruber and Sharon Tal End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business by Rita Gunther McGrath Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen by Rita Gunther McGrath The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems by Tendai Viki, Dan Toma & Esther Gons Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win by Steve Blank The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur Building a Story Brand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller   Articles: Steve Blank's Blog on Where to Play https://steveblank.com/2019/05/07/how-to-stop-playing-target-market-roulette-a-new-addition-to-the-lean-toolset/ Steve Blank's 2nd blog on Where to Play: https://steveblank.com/2020/06/23/winners-rising-out-of-the-crisis-where-to-find-new-markets-and-customers/   Interview Transcript: Ula Ojiaku:  01:16 So, we have with us today, Sharon Ta1, who is the co-author of the book Where to Play. Sharon, thank you so much for making the time to be our guest on this podcast. Sharon Tal:  01:28 My pleasure - hi, Ula! Ula Ojiaku:  01:30 Hi! So, let's start! I did a bit of research, you know, just to find out a bit more about you before this conversation and I Googled (the name) Sharon Tal - it seems like it's a very popular name for famous people. So, I saw an actress who is famous and a notable TV producer who used to be with Amazon… What do you think about that? Sharon Tal:  01:53 Actually, that's a unique question Ula - original one. So it's true - Sharon is a very popular Israeli name. I come from Israel, and it's a very popular Israel name, especially for women around my age. The meaning of Sharon is actually a geographical area in Israel. And I've never been the only Sharon in class, university, work, wherever. And of course, there are many others with even the same surname. So, I'm used to some of these confusions by now. Ula Ojiaku:  02:26 Okay, I love the name. And I remember seeing the reference to it for the first time in the Bible, you know - the Rose of Sharon. It has a significant meaning to me as well. Sharon Tal: 02:36 Thank you. Ula Ojiaku:  02:38 You are a very accomplished person, having written the book, the significant work you did with your PhD that culminated in the co-authoring of the book, Where to Play with Professor Marc Gruber. And yet in my limited interaction with you, you come across as a very personable, down to earth person, very easy to communicate with.  Can you tell us a bit about your journey so far? How did you get to where you are currently? Sharon Tal:  03:05 Well, first of all, thank you for the warm words. And always nice to hear that other think you are well-accomplished. I started my journey as a Marketing Manager. But at some point, I wanted to go back to study masters thesis in Strategic Management. And I went back to where I did my first degree, which is the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and I kind of fell in love with the academic field and a great place to stay, especially when you have kids at home. So, after I finished my masters thesis,  I stayed in the university and I co-founded the Entrepreneurship Center there. So, then I was managing the Entrepreneurship Center at the Technion and that's where I got to learn so much about the entrepreneurial journey and meet and consult with hundreds of early-stage startups and entrepreneurs - especially technology entrepreneurs. And during that time, I noticed that there is a challenge that is very common to many of them and that was figuring out which market to pursue with their innovative idea. And given that I was coming from a marketing background, I wanted to help them find a structure for this decision, and we couldn't find a good tool. So eventually, I decided to do my PhD on this topic. And we looked at hundreds of early stage startups and how they managed this trade off, this question of where to focus, and how to focus properly. I'm telling you all this because it's just a step-by-step process in my career that at the end led me to have this deep know-how and expertise in figuring out how to focus properly for and find the best market. So, given all this academic and practical understanding, at the end, we decided to write this book and develop this methodology, the market opportunity navigator to bring this know-how, which is (the) theoretical and practical, together to the practitioners. At the end, that's my career story and today, I work mainly when training this methodology, either in academic institutes or early stage entrepreneurs' programs, for budding entrepreneurs, and also larger organizations and innovation managers. Ula Ojiaku:  05:25 Okay, so that means you are open to like consulting with either budding entrepreneurs or large or small organizations. Sharon Tal:  05:34 Correct. Only thing I want to refine here is it's not exactly consulting. As far as I said, it's more of a facilitation, so I facilitate the process with them. The difference is, as a consultant -  and I used to work as a consultant in the past - you don't only ask the questions, you also bring the answers. When you facilitate a process, you help the team ask the right questions, but they bring the answers to the table, and then you'll help them digest and make the right decisions out of that. So, that's what I mainly do today I think, facilitation rather than consulting. Ula Ojiaku:  06:13 I like the way you've differentiated the term, ‘consultants' and you've emphasized that you're more of a facilitator. That gives me the impression that it's more about you drawing out the information or the answers that they already know that's within them - because they know their context better than you ever could - having been there. But you are helping them to draw out the answers and helping them to use the tool adequately in their context. Sharon Tal:  06:41 Correct. Ula Ojiaku:  06:42 Ok, thanks for the clarification Sharon. What would you consider as the main challenge you've experienced in your career or personally? Sharon Tal:  06:51 Yeah. Okay. So, let me divide this into two. So professionally and personally. From a professional perspective, I think the most challenging part was to bridge the gap between academia and the practical world. In a way, I was blessed to have prior experience in both. And when we started to write the book, we also thought it's going to be quite easy to find a way to bridge this gap. But it took us much longer than we expected, because it's very challenging to find the middle ground between being thorough enough and simple enough. And that's the challenge of combining theories, and bringing them to - in a very simple, appealing way - to practitioners. So, from a professional perspective, I think that's the main challenge. From personal perspective. But that's not only me, I'm sure that many women in general, I think the main challenge always has been to balance life and career, especially having three kids at home and finding the way to be both a good professional and a good mother and wife. So that's always the thing for me. And almost every decision that I've made in my career was somehow made having this challenge in mind. Ula Ojiaku:  08:15 I totally empathize. I mean, you're a little bit ahead of me, because I have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old and… Sharon Tal: 08:23 They will grow. Ula Ojiaku:  08:25 They will and they are, I mean, things are much better than when they were in diapers, certainly. But I've found myself having to make decisions professionally, that take into consideration how it's going to affect them, especially at their age. Yes, so I've made sacrifices and compromises and I'll do it all over again. Sharon Tal:  08:48 So, would I. So, would I, so I am proud of my sacrifices. I think they were right. So, I would do it all over again. Ula Ojiaku:  08:56 They're not always young, like you said, and that gives me hope - they'll grow up and give us freer times. Now moving on to… so moving on to your book, Where to Play. I've already had a very good chat with your co-author, Professor Marc Gruber. And he gave us an overview of the work you'd done and what the market opportunity navigator is all about. For the audience members who are yet to listen to this and just as a recap, can you give us a recap of what this is (about) please? Sharon Tal:  09:26 Sure, so the book Where to Play presents a structured methodology or framework if you want that is called the market opportunity navigator. This process helps entrepreneurs and business managers to find or discover the best market opportunities for their innovation. Think about any almost any technological innovation or idea that you have or even existing business line of company, they can always apply it to create different offerings or address the needs of different types of customers. So, the process helps you with three steps. First, it's about identifying; discovering different market opportunities for this innovation. What type of applications, I can stem from your core abilities, and who may need it - in any combination of application and customer is a market opportunity for your company? The second step is the evaluation step. So, you need to be able to comprehensively assess the attractiveness of these different directions, or different opportunities, either if you're an early stage startup, or if you're looking for the growth engines for your venture for your company. So, the second step helps you to systematically evaluate the potential and the challenge of every market opportunity on your plate and compare them visually. And the third step is about prioritizing. How do you compile all this information that I'm learning to set a smart to design a smart strategy for your company, a strategy that can utilize this multiple market opportunities in your favour? So, if you are an early stage startup, you can utilize these multiple opportunities to set your backup and growth options and keep them open for the future. If you're a large organization, you can utilize these multiple opportunities, to design a portfolio of growth options - those that are a little bit more related and more far out from your existing business line - to create this balanced portfolio of growth or growing options. Just to summarize this three-step process, and very structured because every step has a dedicated worksheet to help you go through this decision making. So, it's very easy, in a way very easy to apply either as a sole manager, but also in a team. Probably one of the main benefits is that it creates a shared language or communication tool. You can now walk through this strategic design or strategic process in a very systematic way, involving different people, or employees or stakeholders. Ula Ojiaku:  12:09 Thanks a lot. That's a very good overview. Just tying to that, because you said it could be used by you know, both individuals and small and large enterprises. So, for large organizations, how could the market opportunity navigator benefit large organizations? Sharon Tal:  12:37 Yeah, it's interesting, because, you know, when we started developing this tool, we had startups in mind, and it was actually based on our deep, you know, research for how early stage startups make decisions. But very quickly, we figured out that large organizations also need a structured process to identify their next growth opportunities. And some of them, of course, already apply some processes, but they are not always  comprehensive and some of them are just doing this messy decision-making process with no systematic practices. And that creates a little bit too much emphasis on luck rather than systems. Ula Ojiaku:  13:09 And sometimes, it's really about the most senior person who is just, you know, pushing it (their agenda) or the loudest, right? Sharon Tal:  13:16 Correct. Definitely, right. Definitely, right. So, so I think the very first thing to keep in mind is if you have a structured tool that can involve different types of employees and managers and manager levels. In this process, it's very valuable. Now, the thing that we've found most beneficial for larger corporates when they use the market opportunity navigator is actually the identification phase. So, let me explain why. Many times, managers are bounded within their existing industry lines. And today, we know from different books and different studies, including a very good one by Rita McGrath that industry lines are quickly blurring, and competitive advantage is very temporary. And therefore, organizations need to find and identify opportunities, not necessarily within their existing industries. So, they actually need to learn how to break out from existing industries and think wider. And that's a challenging process. So, the first step of the Market Opportunity Navigator helps you to first characterize your core strengths or core abilities in their own right. And then think how you can combine or recombine them in different ways to create completely different offerings, for completely different market segments or market opportunities. That really helps you to think outside your limited industrial boundaries. And what we see happening many times is, these structured brainstorming sessions are very powerful. You can use them to analyze your core strength and think what else you can do with it. It's like an exercise in cognitive flexibility. But you can also use this to ask yourself, okay, now that I've listed this core strength, what if I had a new one? What if I developed another core element in here? For example, blockchain abilities, whatever, okay, and how would that open up different opportunities for my company? So, it's a semi-structured discovery process, which is very powerful to help companies discover their opportunity arena. So, an arena is a concept again coined by Rita McGrath that said, don't forget your industries, think about your larger opportunity spaces or arenas, and that discovery process is very valuable in this manner for this specific issue. Now, also, I think, larger organizations are looking for ways to bring in entrepreneurial mindsets and entrepreneurial imagination. So, using these tools which were originally tailored for startups and bring(ing) them into their meeting rooms is actually very nice. You can put this thing (the Market Opportunity Navigator template) on a wall, you can use sticky notes, you can run these brainstorming sessions. It's fun, it's enjoyable, it's engaging. And I think large corporates could definitely find the benefit in this approach as well. Now, another thing to keep in mind probably is that once you discover opportunities with this first step of the Navigator, the second one helps you to quickly distinguish or characterize them based on the potential that they bear for your company and the challenge in pursuing them. So, you can very quickly or you can characterize or distinguish between these ideas, and find your goldmine opportunities - those that are higher on potential and relatively low or manageable on challenge. You can also use this to find your quick wins, which are maybe modest on potential but relatively safe. And actually, quick wins have a good benefit in larger organizations because they help make the change. If you start your process with applying some or pursuing some quick wins, you get the buy in of stakeholders' entire management more easily. And you're on your way to a larger change in the future - for your moonshot's opportunities, for example, in the future. So, I think that's maybe another benefit to keep in mind. Ula Ojiaku:  17:48 So, Sharon, can you define what you mean by a moonshot? I mean, goldmine sounds like it's something that would be potentially highly profitable, with medium to minimal effort on the part of the organization. And there is the quick win, you know, the low hanging fruit, which is easy-to-get medium-sized opportunities, but it's easier to implement and get but what would be a moonshot? Sharon Tal:  18:12 So, you're definitely right with your interpretation. The moonshot opportunities are those with a high potential, but also extremely high challenge. Now many breakthrough innovations or if you think about large corporates, breaking beyond their existing business lines, beyond their existing customer segments is challenging, but you want to have those in your portfolio as well. Right? So, that's when we talk about the attractiveness of different opportunities. We categorize them based on these two dimensions: potential and challenge. And moonshot is one of these quadrants, you know, matrix. Ula Ojiaku:  18:47 Okay, you mentioned Rita McGrath's book, were you referring to The Competitive Advantage? Or is there any other book…? Sharon Tal:  18:54 Yeah, so she has actually two books that relates to this topic. One is The End of Competitive Advantage, exactly the one you mentioned, where she talks about the fact that competitive advantage is very temporary these days, and companies must be able to explore new opportunities all the time, and move quickly, or reconfigure their assets quickly to move from one opportunity to the other. And the Market Opportunity Navigator helps you to do just that. How do you leverage your existing abilities and core strengths to completely new opportunities? The other book that was recently published is Seeing Around Corners, where she provides some more guidelines on how to identify when disruption is coming into your industry, and then you need to quickly figure out what to do with that. Ula Ojiaku:  19:52 Okay, okay. That's great. You've beautifully explained why the Market Opportunity Navigator would be beneficial to large organizations as well, even though it was originally put together, synthesized for startups, for entrepreneurs. How does the Market Opportunity Navigator complement the Lean Startup cycle? Sharon Tal:  20:14 Yeah, yes, that's actually a great question. Because when we designed it, we didn't want to (re-)invent, you know, the wheel. We wanted to join the Lean Startup movement. But we felt that the tools of the Lean Startup customer development process, the Business Model Canvas, the Agile development - all of these tools are very good to quickly find your product-market fit within a market domain, or pivot quickly if you find out it's the wrong one. But what they don't tell you is where to actually start digging in, where to actually start your customer development process. And that's where the Market Opportunity Navigator comes in, and there was recently a blog published by Steve Blank, the father of Lean Startup, where he actually talks about the key addition of the Market Opportunity Navigator into the Lean Toolset. The idea is that the Market Opportunity Navigator helps you to figure out where to play, find out this market domains where you can dig in or you can have some businesses. And then the Lean Toolset helps you to zoom in and figure out how to play. And you can very quickly experiment and refine and figure out your business model within the market domain. So, it's the wide lens perspective to help you define the boundaries for your lean experimentation. Now, one thing to keep in mind that at the end of the day, this is a very iterative process, right? You zoom in and zoom out, you can do this wide lens analysis, figure out the domain, zoom in with the lean experimentation, use these great Lean Startup tools, learn and go up and reflect again, on what you've learned with this wider reflection tool, which is the market opportunity navigator. So, definitely complements these great tools in the title, interestingly, the title that Steve Blank gave to this post is ‘Stop Playing Target Market Roulette', so use this systematic process to define the boundaries of your lean experimentation. Ula Ojiaku:  22:26 Steve Blank actually mentioned your book as well, when I interviewed him, he had high praises for it in terms of how it helped with structuring…at least giving startups a targeted view of where to focus on. I also get the sense that the Navigator ties in quite well with Design Thinking, because it's not about being haphazard. It's really about adding some rigor and structure to how you determine where you play. So, can you tell me a bit more about how the Navigator complements Design Thinking? Sharon Tal:  23:01 Sure. So, first Design Thinking has very, some very, you know, common elements with the Lean Startup, especially when we talk about prototyping and experimenting, validating an idea early on in the market. The key issue for me in Design Thinking is the first steps of customer empathy. So, identifying new opportunities, by putting yourself in the shoes of different customer segments. Now, I think this is actually a great methodology to discover new opportunities for your company. And the reason it complements the market opportunity navigator is because the navigators actually don't start with empathy with customer, it starts with what are your core strengths or abilities, and how can you leverage them to create different or to address the needs of different types of customers. So, at the end of the day, to have a good opportunity, it has to have these two ends, it has to have a clear need from the market. But also, you should be able to address these needs with your core strengths and abilities. So, the discovery process can begin with putting yourselves in the shoes of different types of customer like Design Thinking. But it could also begin with figuring out what's your core abilities or technological elements, and how you can reconfigure them differently. At the end, you will need to tie both ends anyway together to have an opportunity. My main way of looking at this is that they are different perspectives for identifying new market opportunities for the company and both are excellent. And then you create this multiple set of opportunities and you move forward to evaluating and prioritizing them. Ula Ojiaku:  24:52 It gives me the impression that you could start using the Design Thinking and putting yourself in the customers shoes, but you could start from evaluating your strengths, and also understanding what the customer needs. And then finding that, you know, that happy place where what you have, can adequately meet customer's needs or demands. Sharon Tal:  25:12 Exactly. And now, this is a process that it's a discovery process, and it takes time to find and the great thing is, by having multiple opportunities or a large set of opportunities is a real asset for your company. Because at the end, it will help you to find those most promising fertile grounds. So, you can definitely use both methodologies to bring in as many ideas as possible and then start validating them, be able to make sure that you have some good options on your table. Ula Ojiaku:  25:48 So how would you balance this though, because you could go on analyzing, how do you prevent yourself from going into analysis paralysis versus acting and knowing when you've done enough? Sharon Tal:  25:56 Yeah, good, good question. Okay, so I think the first thing I would say I would recommend is, again, is to have a structured process - adopt a structured process. Understand, how do you plan to actually bring the data or the evidence in to make a choice, but you also need to understand that even if you have a systematic process, it doesn't give you a crystal ball to know the future. So, you also need to learn to live with uncertainty because the business world is unpredictable. Innovation is unpredictable. So, my suggestion would be, use a systematic evaluation process, clearly define your criteria and in line with the Lean Startup, start with your assumptions and prepare a clear action plan how you're going to bring evidence to support these assumptions. And at some point, just compile all the data that you have, and make a decision. And one thing that we have learned is that, it's often difficult to compiled all the data that you have to have to create a clear pattern out of this. So, you send your employees, you send your teams to gather information, to talk with potential customers, to do market research on the competitors on different landscapes of opportunities. But how do you then compile all these bits and bytes of information into one clear image or pattern? That's I think, one of the challenges where the market opportunity navigator comes in handy, because it helps you to first be very systematic about the consideration, the criteria, and also consolidate these different factors into one simple image that we call the Attractiveness Map. Ula Ojiaku:  27:53 It kind of brings to mind Alex Osterwalder book on Value Proposition Design and Testing Business Ideas So, there are concepts that I believe that could also help with a structured approach to processing the data collected to help with decision making. What's your view on that? Sharon Tal:  28:11 Oh, yeah, you're definitely right. Again, I think different tools help you to do different jobs. And the tools like the tools by Osterwalder and Pigneur, and his new book on how to test your ideas. They're all really great resources to help you validate these opportunities, make sure you have a scalable, repeatable business in there. And that's why I said it's a ‘zoom in and zoom out' type of process. And in the book, we actually also describe how these tools go together in a very complementing manner, especially because they not only help you to zoom in, but also to validate your initial potential and challenges. Ula Ojiaku:  28:58 So, let's move to the next part of this conversation. So, what books would you recommend to someone who wants to learn more about the topics we've discussed? Where to Play is the key one, but what other books would you recommend? Sharon Tal:  29:13 Yeah, okay. So, first of all, it's the trivial ones, those that are, you know, the, on the top of the list of the lean processes like the initial book by Steve Blank, and the books by Osterwalder and Pigneur, which described the Business Model/ Value Proposition Canvases, and of course, Eric Ries lean startup, these are the basic ones for the lean processes. I think it's challenging a bit to bring this startup methodologies into larger corporate settings. So, one book that I find that does it quite nicely is The Corporate Startup, by Tendai Viki and Dan Thomas. And they, they translate this process that comes from small organizations into processes, which are adequate for larger corporates and I think that's quite an interesting read. On a different perspective, I recently read a book called Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller, which talks about how to clearly phrase and define your messages within a specific market. So, I think, once you have done this search, validated it and decide to focus on pursuing a specific market opportunity, this is a very valuable next step read, because it really gives you a good perspective on how to simply explain your message and convey your message. Ula Ojiaku:  30:55 Well, thanks, Sharon. If any member of the audience wants to contact you, how can they reach you? Are you on social media? Do you have a website? Sharon Tal:  31:02 Yeah, sure. So, the natural first pass is our website. It's www.wheretoplay.co and then we have all the information about the Market Opportunity Navigator. You can download the worksheets and the Navigator for free. You can read all these posts and articles and examples and case studies and also about the book. So, there's a lot of information and resources out there. Actually, we also have free slide sets and materials for mentors, for consultants, for managers that want to run brainstorming sessions around this. So, there's a lot of materials out there and it's almost all for free except for the book of course. And then you can find me on LinkedIn, both my personal account, and its under Sharon Tal Itzkovitch and Where to Play, we also have a where to play account on LinkedIn. And I'm also active on Twitter under Where to Play, so you can find me on wheretoplay on Twitter. Ula Ojiaku:  32:05 Okay, I'll add all these links to the show notes. So, thanks a lot, Sharon. So, any final advice to the audience? Based on what we've discussed so far for someone or an organization starting off in their lean innovation journey? What would be your advice? Sharon Tal:  32:28 Oh, wow! Maybe the one key thing to keep in mind is that it's a continuous work. It's a continuous process, innovation and exploration never ends actually, for and doesn't matter if you're a startup or a large corporate. And given that it's a continuous effort. You need to make it a habit, and you need to make it iterative. And I think the more you're able to put systems and structured processes inside this, the easier it gets to make it iterative and to make it a habit. That's my advice. Ula Ojiaku:  33:08 That's a great advice. So, innovation and exploration never end. Make it a habit. Make it iterative. Yes. That's great. Fantastic. Thank you so much once more, Dr. Sharon for taking the time for this chat. It's been a great pleasure having you. Sharon Tal:  33:24 Thank you very much Ula for hosting me and it was my pleasure as well.

Paradigmatic shifts in the business landscape, known as inflection points, can either create new, entrepreneurial opportunities (see Amazon and Netflix) or they can lead to devastating consequences (e.g., Blockbuster and Toys R Us). Only those leaders who can “see around corners” - that is, spot the disruptive inflection points developing before they hit - are poised to succeed in this market. Columbia Business School Professor and corporate consultant Rita McGrath contends that inflection points, though they may seem sudden, are not random. Every seemingly overnight shift is the final stage of a process that has been subtly building for some time. Armed with the right strategies and tools, smart businesses can see these inflection points coming and use them to gain a competitive advantage. Seeing Around Corners is the first hands-on guide to anticipating, understanding, and capitalising on the inflection points shaping the marketplace. We welcome author of Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, Rita McGrath https://www.valize.com

 Even in the midst of ambiguity, it is possible  to “see around corners”  Find out more by listening to fan-favorite Episode 168. Scott and I speak with Professor Rita Gunther McGrath, a world-renowned thought leader and a professor at Columbia Business School, where she directs the popular Leading Strategic Growth and Change program. She is widelyRead More The post How to Spot Major Changes in Business Before They Happen — with guest Rita Gunther McGrath appeared first on Business Advancement.

In episode #1523, we give you the most important tips for avoiding problems in your business. Your business needs to become a self-sufficient entity that is not dependent on just one person. To this end, it is important to create processes for the things that work and to document the things that do not, so that it can be applied by anyone entering the organization. Tune in to hear how implementing an operating system will help you get a grip on your company!  TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:25] Today's topic: How to Prevent Problems in Your Business Before They Happen. [00:31] In the early days of business, it feels like you are constantly putting out fires. [00:42] When you only attend to the urgent, you neglect what is important.  [01:05] Create processes for the successful ways of scaling your marketing.  [01:18] For things that do not work, collect the data for why it didn't work.  [01:49] When your business starts growing, follow an operating system like Traction.  [02:24] An operating system will teach you how to set a cadence for your company each week.  [02:56] It is about identifying long-term issues and putting solutions in place.   [03:25] Ask yourself each quarter what you should stop, start, and keep doing.  [03:49] The importance of making your business defensible.  [04:08] Try to learn from the mistakes that others have made by reading business books.  [04:50] Learn from CEO interviews or by joining peer groups.  [05:24] That's it for today! [05:26] To stay updated with events and learn more about our mastermind, go to the Marketing School site for more information or call us on 310-349-3785!   Links Mentioned in Today's Episode:   Traction  Scaling Up  3HAG WAY Elon Musk YPO Vistage    Leave Some Feedback:   What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review.   Connect with Us:    Neilpatel.com Quick Sprout  Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel  Twitter @ericosiu

Honors and awards 2016 Theory to Practice award to Dr McGrath from the Vienna Strategy Forum 2013 Distinguished Achievement Award in Strategy from Thinkers50 In both 2011 and 2013, Dr McGrath was named one of the top 20 thinkers by Thinkers 50, one of the world's most prestigious rankings of management thinkers In 2017, Dr McGrath was ranked the #10 most influential leadership thinker in the world by Thinkers50 Dr Rita McGrath Globally recognized expert on strategy, innovation, and creating growth under uncertain conditions. Dr Rita McGrath graduated  Magna Cum Laude  from Barnard College in 1981; in '82 she earned a Masters of Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. In '93 she completed her Ph.D. at The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) with the dissertation, entitled Developing New Competence in Established Organizations consistent with her longstanding interest in corporate ventures and innovation. About Dr Rita Gunther McGrath is a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. Rita has received the #1 achievement award for strategy from the prestigious Thinkers50 and has been consistently named one of the world's Top 10 management thinkers in its bi-annual ranking. As a consultant to CEOs, her work has had a lasting impact on the strategy and growth programs of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. She is the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013).  She has written three other books, including Discovery Driven Growth, cited by Clayton Christensen as creating one of the most important management ideas ever developed. She is a highly sought-after speaker at exclusive corporate events around the globe, such as the Global Peter Drucker Forum. Rita is the founder of Techtonic a company focused on helping organizations go beyond innovation theater by developing tools to implement the Discovery Driven Growth approach. She received her Ph.D. from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and has degrees with honors from Barnard College and the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. Follow Rita on Twitter @rgmcgrath. For more information, visit RitaMcGrath.com

Rita McGrath, a distinguished professor at Columbia Business school and well-respected author, prides herself in being able to see around corners (her most recent book : *Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen.*) Similarly, we've long backcasted our way through the innovation space. So when we got together, for a Resonance Test chat, numerous future-facing remarks were dropped into the mix. “A lot of times the people that see an inflection point really early are not in the Strategy Group,” said McGrath, adding: “They could be out at the periphery. They could be on a loading dock somewhere.” In this conversation McGrath thinks it out with the perspicacious Toby Bottorf, Senior Director and Head of Client Engagement at EPAM Continuum. Listen closely—what you hear today might just prepare you for tomorrow. Host: Pete Chapin Editor: Kip Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

What does it take to “see around corners” and gain a strategic advantage? Find out by listening on-the-go to Episode 168.  Scott and I are speaking with Professor Rita Gunther McGrath. She is a world-

My guest today is Rita McGrath, a globally recognized expert on strategy, innovation, and growth with an emphasis on corporate entrepreneurship. A long-time member of the Columbia Business School faculty, she is recognized consistently as one of the top 10 management thinkers. McGrath's best-selling book The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business was recognized by Strategy+Business as the #1 business book of 2013. She is also a co-author of MarketBusters: 40 Strategic Moves that Drive Exceptional Business Growth (2005) and The Entrepreneurial Mindset (2000). The topic is her book Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss: The first prescriptive, innovative guide to seeing inflection points before they happen—and how to harness these disruptive influences to give your company a strategic advantage. Jump in! --- I'm MICHAEL COVEL, the host of TREND FOLLOWING RADIO, and I'm proud to have delivered 10+ million podcast listens since 2012. Investments, economics, psychology, politics, decision-making, human behavior, entrepreneurship and trend following are all passionately explored and debated on my show. To start? I'd like to give you a great piece of advice you can use in your life and trading journey… cut your losses! You will find much more about that philosophy here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/trend/ You can watch a free video here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/video/ Can't get enough of this episode? You can choose from my thousand plus episodes here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/podcast My social media platforms: Twitter: @covel Facebook: @trendfollowing LinkedIn: @covel Instagram: @mikecovel Hope you enjoy my never-ending podcast conversation!