Thought Sparks

"Let's take it yard by yard." This philosophy, shared by my Guest entrepreneur and Bartesian CEO Ryan Close is one reason his company is poised to triumph in a  market in which far larger and better-funded competitors have stumbled. Drop in on this clip from our longer conversation to see how true entrepreneurs build things worth building!   Rita McGrath is a best-selling author, sought-...

In 2018, Goldman Sachs reported that Google paid Apple $9 billion to be the default search engine on the iPhone; by 2022 that number is reportedly $20 billion. Why is a position that a user could easily change with just a few clicks so valuable? The answer, according to my Friday Fireside Chat guest, Eric J. Johnson, has to do with choice architecture. How choices are presented to us affect our de...

My guest this week is Pulitzer prize-winning author and journalist Matt Richtel.  His work has focused on science, technology, business and narrative-driven story telling around these issues, including cancer immunotherapy, electronic cigarettes, and the impact of heavy technology use on behavior and the brain.  His latest book (one of many!) is "Inspired: Understanding Creativity: A Jou...

It isn't just anyone who can run an organization that has an impact on tens of thousands of leaders in over 100 countries, but ExecOnLine co-founder Stephen Bailey is that person. Prompted by a sense that access to high-quality online education could unleash career breakthroughs for diverse talents, the fast-growing company is a leader in its category. Stephen has also won recognition as the New Y...

Want to be successful? Well connected? Richer? Maybe even happier? Well, join me in a front-row seat for a man who has decoded a great deal of not only why to do these things but how.  Meet Keith Ferrazzi, author of the best-selling "Never Eat Alone" join and listen. Rita McGrath is a best-selling author, sought-after speaker, and longtime professor at Columbia Business School. As one of the...

Sharon Price John, the CEO of Build-a-Bear workshop, has had a fabled career that includes losing (even though you won), taking big risks and having them pay off, the mom thing and more recently the turnaround and transformation of the beloved brand. She's written about her experiences in a great book called "Stories & Heart" which offers not only lessons learned from her own experiences but g...

Michael Bungay Stanier (or "MBS" as those who know him affectionately call him has written books that have sold over a million copies, rebelled against a traditional path that would have been his fate after his Rhodes scholarship and developed an approach to coaching that "un-weirds" it. His latest book is "The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious and Change the Way You Lead Forever." I'm looking...

Sure, we're all Olympic athletes and Nobel prize winners in our own minds, but have you ever wondered what makes them different than you and I? My guest has a great new book out that encapsulates the answer, synthesized from hundreds of hours of interviews with hugely successful people. "The Success Factor," Ruth Gotian's new book, describes how intrinsic motivation, perseverance, a strong foundat...

We all think that we are rational decision-makers who determine what stuff we'll buy and how we will spend our time on the basis of rational calculation. But, as my Friday Fireside Guest and top-ranked thinker Roger Martin observes, our minds are like an iceberg - the stuff that we can access consciously is a fraction of what is actually there. Instead, our minds seek convenience, comfort and fami...

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.   Get in Touch, Keep in Touch! h...

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.

Christopher Mims is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and writes Keywords, a weekly column on technology. He has a fascinating new book out called "Arriving Today" that is particularly relevant to our pandemic-related supply chain disruptions. It's really eye opening! Before joining the Journal in 2014, he was the lead technology reporter for Quartz and has written on science and tech for p...

Anne-Marie Slaughter burst into the public eye with her 2012 article in the Atlantic "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." Since then, she's gone on to run New America Foundation as its CEO (among many other things, including her highly acclaimed book "Unfinished Business"). She has a new book out, "Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics" in which she reflects on th...

Marcus Eriksen made a huge impression on me when I first met him. He is an environmental scientist, educator and author as part of his day job. On the side, he's built rafts out of junk, floated down the Mississippi river for days on said raft, writes books about his adventures and advocates for the environment. He has been an outspoken and forthright advocate for the environment, particularly the...

Ron Adner and I have been intellectual sparring partners and friends for a very long time. He's just come out with a terrific new book, "Winning the Right Game" which tackles head on the strategic challenge executives confront when the ecosystems they compete in are disrupted. The problems start, as Adner explains, when strategists choose the wrong "game" to begin with, meaning that even if they s...

Are you a regular contributor or what Liz Wiseman calls an "impact player?" You might think you're doing just fine, doodling along doing your job, but what you might actually be doing is adding to people's burdens at work, taking up headspace with unnecessary detours and generally being a drag on everyone around you. A new book from the celebrated author of "Multipliers" sheds another gleaming lig...

I promised Harvard Professor and expert on equality and inclusion Robert Livingston that I would read his book "The Conversation" before he joined me for a Friday Fireside Chat. I did, and am ever so glad. He takes us through a journey centered on three questions: What is racism? Why should everyone care? What can we do to eradicate it? Professor Livingston de-mystifies many misconceptions about r...

Everybody Wants To Rule the World. When R "Ray" Wang says it, he isn't just channeling a popular musical line, he really means it. In his view, digital giants are pulling further and further ahead of the rest of us and will eventually reshape our economic future into one of extreme capitalism. He anticipates we will have huge data-driven networks, extreme consolidation, extreme investing and extre...

If you could pick someone to lead you through an intelligent conversation about the new world of work, you couldn't do better than to consult with Jennifer Moss. Author of the forthcoming HBR Press book "The Burnout Epidemic," Jennifer has written a best business book of the year, won awards for her success as an entrepreneur and spoken to audiences all over the world. It was exciting to get to kn...

Work - what's work anyway? Where does it get done? How are people supposed to "manage" it? These are questions of the hour and who better to think them through than my colleague, former professor and mentor Peter Cappelli. Capelli is one of the foremost thinkers on the topic of people and work I have ever met. We'll be chatting about his new book, "The Future of the Office - Work from Home, Remote...

My Friday Fireside chat guest, John Hagel, was looking around corners before I even stumbled across the concept.  In this short clip from our longer conversation, John explains how, in the early days of the Internet, he saw massive opportunities in creating virtual communities on-line and also to create “infomediaries” who would guarantee a fair exchange of value in return for access to peopl...

We think of unusual events as rare - but as my Friday Fireside Chat guest, Jonathan Brill, points out, they may be rare individually, but when they accumulate, the chance of their creating a catastrophic inflection point increases. Indeed, his research finds that most firms in the US have faced four significant calamities every year! These are what he calls "rogue waves" or events in business that...

Zoe Chance graduated from a massively successful corporate career to doing groundbreaking research to teaching a hugely popular elective at Yale called Mastering Influence and Persuasion, aka "Doing Uncomfortable Things That Make You a Better Person.” She's a TED speaker, consults with major companies and has a new book coming out in 2022, "Influence for Nice People: The New Science of Making More...

I first met Zachary Karabell when he was enrolled in my Columbia Executive Education program "Leading Strategic Growth and Change" and he made a big impression on me all those years ago. I'm delighted to catch up with him to talk about his rich collection of activities - he has a brand new book out about Brown Brothers Harriman and the way capitalism used to work. He is an author and columnist, th...

All digital, all the time - that's what we hear among the chattering business classes.  My guest begs to differ.  Instead, Robert E. Siegel points out, the competitors who will triumph combine both "Brains" (digital, smarts) with "Brawn" (operations and execution). Just one or the other won't cut it. Indeed, incumbents have shown that they can win by leveraging traditional strengths even...