In Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World , Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence, along with their coauthors, Gordon Brown and Reid Lidow, consider how we’ve arrived at this state of constant instability and insecurity—and suggest concrete ways to break the cycle. Mohamed El-Erian , president of Queens’ College Cambridge University, was previously the chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council, a Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund, and CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO. Mic...
Dec 14, 2023•35 min
In The Worlds I See , Dr. Fei-Fei Li provides a personal and deeply insightful depiction of two convergent journeys. One describes her own life and career; Li immigrated to the U.S. from China at age 15, and within a few years had launched into research in computer vision and AI. The other is a history of AI, which has involved many breakthroughs over the past 70 years, culminating in a technology that is now changing life and business. Li is one of the world’s foremost experts on AI and was nam...
Dec 11, 2023•29 min
In his new book The Secret of Culture Change: How To Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization , Jay Bryan Barney discusses why changing company culture is sometimes necessary but always challenging—and how the power of stories can help leaders mobilize their employees around a new strategy. Jay Barney, a professor of strategic management and the Pierre Lassonde Chair of Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, is one of the world’s lead...
Nov 28, 2023•28 min
In The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results , Andrew McAfee describes how a new approach to corporate culture based on science, ownership, speed, and openness, is driving value creation in the 21st century. McAfee is an expert on how technological progress changes the world, being named to both the Thinkers50 list of top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics. In his new book, he outlines how the giants of Silicon Valley ...
Nov 14, 2023•27 min
In Head & Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership , Dr. Kirstin Ferguson provides a practical guide to balancing the rational and emotional components of leadership. Ferguson is an expert on leadership, an experienced leader in the private and public sectors, and a longtime advocate of gender equity. In her new book, she identifies the key attributes of a “head and heart” leader, providing people with the tools to reflect on and adapt their own approach to each situation. She combines vivid stor...
Nov 07, 2023•24 min
In How to Work with (Almost) Anyone , Michael Bungay Stanier outlines how to set up working relationships for the best chance of success—by following a process of thorough preparation, a keystone conversation, and regular maintenance. Bungay Stanier, founder of coaching firm Box of Crayons, is a world-renowned thought leader on coaching and author of the best-selling coaching book, The Coaching Habit . In his most recent book, he focuses on relationship-building, providing readers with processes...
Oct 24, 2023•29 min
In his new book, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens , Rajiv Shah , President of the Rockefeller Foundation recounts his experiences and lessons learned over decades of effecting large-scale social change. He shares how addressing humanity’s thorniest challenges requires a big bets mindset – pushing to solve, rather than merely improve, problems; and going for “big enough”, rather than settling for “good enough”. Prior to his current role, Shah was the Administrator of USAID and a Di...
Oct 10, 2023•29 min
In his new book, Mixed Signals: How Incentives Really Work , Uri Gneezy explains why leaders often create incentives that are misaligned with their organization’s goals. Gneezy, the Epstein/Atkinson Chair in Management Leadership at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management, is one of the world’s leading experts in behavioral economics, and his insights have become a staple in courses around the world. He teaches managers how to be incentive-smart—how to avoid mixed signals and design incentives ...
Sep 19, 2023•26 min
In his new book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and The Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma , Mustafa Suleyman discusses the new technologies that will transform society—chief among them AI and synthetic biology. Suleyman is a renowned thought leader on this topic, having co-founded Inflection AI and DeepMind, and having served as VP of AI product management and AI policy at Google. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Suleyman discusses the threats and oppo...
Sep 05, 2023•29 min
In her forthcoming book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well , Amy Edmondson offers a new framework to think about, discuss, and practice failure wisely, using human fallibility as a tool for making ourselves and our organizations smarter. Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School and the author of seven books, including The Fearless Organization , which has been translated into more than 15 languages. She was ranked number o...
Aug 29, 2023•24 min
In The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society , Mauro Guillén argues that the traditional, sequential model of life—childhood, education, career, and retirement—is being rendered obsolete. Guillén, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the world’s foremost experts on global megatrends. In his most recent book, he focuses on the combination of rapid technological progress, increasing life as well as health spans, and d...
Aug 22, 2023•21 min
In his new book Power and Progress , Simon Johnson , along with his co-author Daron Acemoglu, challenges the techno-optimistic narrative that technological progress will automatically lead to shared prosperity. Johnson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, takes us through a millennium of technological progress to show how the gains from advancements such as the agricultural and early industrial revolutions tended to benefit a narrow segment of interests. While technology can enabl...
Aug 01, 2023•34 min
In his new book, LOOK: How to Pay Attention in a Distracted World , Christian Madsbjerg explores the importance of observational skills. Drawing on various fields—science, philosophy, and the arts—as well as his personal experiences, Madsbjerg offers tools and insights to help us better pay attention and extract insights. Madsbjerg was co-founder and senior partner of consulting firm, ReD Associates and was previously a professor of applied humanities at the New School for Social Research in New...
Jul 18, 2023•27 min
In his latest book, Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way , Jonah Berger breaks down the science of language. The right words can influence actions and happiness, and reveal insights about those who say or write them. Berger, an associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School, is an expert on change, social influence, and word-of-mouth communication. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Berger discusses how we can use the language of agency and identity to ...
Jun 20, 2023•23 min
In her new book The Case for Good Jobs , Zeynep Ton explains why creating good jobs, particularly for frontline workers, will help companies thrive. Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and president and co-founder of the Good Jobs Institute, has long been an advocate of investing in employees. Traditional bad jobs systems—characterized by low pay, high turnover, and poor operational execution—harm customer satisfaction and undermine a company’s ability to differentiate, innova...
Jun 07, 2023•29 min
In this special episode of the Thinkers & Ideas podcast, we invited Sir Partha Dasgupta and Simon Levin – co-authors of the forthcoming report " Economic Factors Underlying Biodiversity Loss " – and Georg Kell to discuss a topic often overlooked in sustainability discussions: biodiversity. They discuss gaps in our current thinking, a potential path forward, how to measure our progress along it – and the role corporations must play in all this. Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professo...
May 25, 2023•34 min
Bent Flyvbjerg has a sobering statistic to share: 99.5% of major projects fail to deliver their targeted results on time and on budget. His new book How Big Things Get Done , coauthored with Dan Gardner , explores this phenomenon—from infrastructure projects to major sporting events to corporate transformations. Flyvbjerg, the first BT Professor of Major Programme Management at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and VKR Professor of Major Program Management at the IT University of Copenhagen, is the ...
May 16, 2023•29 min
In a new book with longtime collaborator W. Chan Kim, Beyond Disruption , Renée Mauborgne describes an alternative path to pursue innovation and growth. Non-disruptive creation taps into a new market outside or beyond the boundaries of existing industries, to not only drive economic growth but also have a positive impact on society by avoiding the negative aspects of disruption, like job displacement. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Mauborgne discusses the risin...
May 02, 2023•32 min
A “microstress,” as defined by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon in their new book of the same name, is a small amount pressure from our everyday interactions that is hardly perceived in the moment. But when many microstesses pile up, they become debilitating. Cross, the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., has studied the underlying networks of effective organizations and the collaborative practices of high performers for more than 20 years. Dillon is ...
Apr 18, 2023•35 min
In her book Think Bigger: How to Innovate , Sheena Iyengar dispels the notion that the best way of coming up with a good idea is to have a group brainstorm or to rely on the unpredictable intuitions of special gifted individuals. Iyengar is the S. T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and an expert on decision-making and choice. Drawing on advances in brain science, she argues that creativity is not mysterious, but is instead quite similar to analytical thinking. Together with...
Apr 11, 2023•33 min
In his new book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism , Financial Times ’ chief economics commentator Martin Wolf explores the causes of and solutions to today’s global democratic recession. Wolf, who in 2000 was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) “for services to financial journalism,” is the author of several earlier books on global economics. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss the fragile marriage of liberal democracy and market capita...
Mar 21, 2023•30 min
In their book Sustainability, Technology, and Finance: Rethinking How Markets Integrate ESG , Georg Kell and Andreas Rasche explore the swiftly emerging and crucially important nexus among sustainability, finance, and technology. Kell is Chairman of the tech company Arabesque, which uses AI and data to assess sustainability performance and guide investments. He is also founder of the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. Rasche is a professor of business in ...
Mar 13, 2023•27 min
This conversation was recorded on November 16th, 2022. In her book Direct: The Rise of the Middleman Economy and the Power of Going to the Source , law professor Kathryn Judge examines the changing role of intermediaries in the economy. Judge, an expert on banking, financial markets, and regulation, is the Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Intellectual Life at Columbia Law School. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Judge discusses both the pos...
Feb 27, 2023•28 min
This conversation was recorded on November 28th, 2022. Ram Charan is a business consultant, author, and CEO advisor who has had more than 40 years of experience advising executives and boards of top companies around the world. Ram has authored 30 books and sold over 4 million copies globally. In his latest book, Leading Through Inflation: And Recession and Stagflation , Ram provides hands-on guidance for business leaders to navigate inflation. He explains how leaders are challenged in doing and ...
Feb 10, 2023•26 min
In his latest book, How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms , psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer examines how humans need to adapt in order to make the best use of new technologies like AI. Gerd Gigerenzer is director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam and director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute and is an expert on human decision making. Together with Martin Reeves, Chair...
Jan 31, 2023•27 min
Adi Ignatius is the Editor in Chief of Harvard Business Review (HBR). Prior to joining HBR, Adi worked for many years at Wall Street Journal as the Moscow and Beijing bureau chief, and subsequently served as deputy managing director of Time . He has authored several books, including Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang and President Obama, the Path to the White House. In this special episode of Thinkers & Ideas, Adi discusses Harvard Business Review at 100 , which...
Jan 18, 2023•23 min
Stefan Larsson , MD, Ph.D. is a pioneer in the field of value-based health care. Dr. Larsson is an independent advisor to healthcare organizations, a BCG senior advisor, a co-founder and board member of the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) , a non-profit that works to create global standards for measuring health outcomes, and a distinguished fellow on the Health and Healthcare team of the World Economic Forum . Jennifer Clawson is a Partner and Director in BCG’s M...
Jan 05, 2023•25 min
Will Guidara made his name in the hospitality industry as the co-owner of Eleven Madison Park , transforming it from a "good" New York restaurant to a 3 Michelin star establishment that was ranked number one on "The World's 50 Best Restaurants" list in 2017. In his new book, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect , Will shares his personal memoir and manifesto, outlining his business management philosophy on the art of service. Together with Martin ...
Dec 15, 2022•29 min
Brian Elliott is an Executive Leader at Future Forum . He has spent the last three decades leading teams and building companies as a startup CEO, a product leader at Google, and Senior Vice President at Slack. In his book How the Future Works. Leading Flexible Teams to do the Best Work of Their Lives , co-authored by Sheela Subramanian and Helen Kupp, he points out that the way we worked in pre-pandemic times is no longer effective and the concept of nine-to-five, five-days-a-week, in-office wor...
Dec 13, 2022•29 min
George Serafeim is the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is one of the leading academics and voices on corporate purpose, sustainability, and the integration of ESG concerns into business strategy and investing. George is the co-founder of KKS Advisors, a leading sustainability strategy consulting firm, an academic partner at State Street Associates, a board member of Liberty Mutual, and has served on the inaugural Standards Council of the Su...
Dec 02, 2022•33 min
