Strategic Doing”: Ten Skills for Agile Leadership

In this episode of Off The Shelf John Metselaar talks with Bruce Vojak and Walter Herbst to review their recently published “No-Excuses Innovation: Strategies For Small- and Medium-Sized Mature Enterprises”.  The book’s premise starts with a quote by Andy Grove: “Success breeds complacency.  Complacency breeds failure.  Only the paranoid survive”.   This should be the wakeup call for business and innovation leaders from medium-sized mature enterprises, but frankly pretty much everyone.  And it provides the basis for Bruce and Walter to offer a tangible, actionable recipe - covering process, people, and strategy perspectives - that, together, sets you up to generate the new value your innovation should deliver.

In this episode of Off The Shelf John Metselaar invites Ron Adner to discuss his recent, acclaimed book “Winning the Right Game: How to Disrupt, Defend, and Deliver in a Changing World”.  The conversation uncovers insights on how to thrive in today’s reality of ecosystem innovation.  In this environment, “Winning” takes on a very different meaning.  It’s about taking an expansive view of your industry breaking through historical boundaries and then creating integrated solutions and value propositions for your customers, in partnership with others.  You win by building ecosystems (and not ego-systems) through alignment, relationships, collaboration, and trust.

In this new podcast, Ataman Ozyildirim, Senior Director of Economic Research at The Conference Board, sits down with John Guerard, Director of Quantitative Research at McKinley Capital, to discuss his new book, "The Leading Economic Indicators and Business Cycles in the United States: 100 Years of Empirical Evidence and the Opportunities for the Future." 

The past two decades have witnesses sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Listen in as our guest Stian Westlake gives us some key insights from the book he co-authored with Jonathan Haskel, Restarting the Future-How to fix the intangible economy. In the podcast we discuss how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge.

John Metselaar sits down with author, Hortense le Gentil for a conversation about her recently published book, Aligned: Connecting Your True Self with the Leader You’re Meant to Be.  Together, they explore why today’s leaders should above all cultivate the human touch, what’s holding them back, and how can they overcome this. An inspiring, human conversation on Leadership!

Listen in as they cover lessons from her life which she documented in her book. How she combined passion and purpose to develop a vision, turned into reality through commitment and perseverance.  How, in the process she faced her doubts and fears, confronted them (rather than run away), and rose above them.  And how her fundamental curiosity and keenness to learn had her break through every challenge.  Facing a problem, you don't give up, you dig in emphasizing "Well, what CAN we do".

Evert Bleijenberg joins John Metselaar from The Conference Board exploring a novel way to organize work in the future. Evert talks enthusiastically from his “Swarm Organization: Designing Work for a Resilient Future".  Listen to this podcast as we cover three main aspects: the concept of swarms, how to generate the mindshift required and how to learn to use "structure" as a verb (agile, situational) rather than a (rigid) noun. Inspiration for a more human culture and organization of happier, more fulfilled employees doing better work producing stronger results.

As anxiety about the crisis in the Ukraine and lingering burnout as a result of two years of the pandemic continue to increase, a lack of empathy is exacerbating tensions in the workplace.

In this podcast, Rob Volpe discusses his new book, Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time. His book demystifies empathy and presents five steps that anyone can use to get to empathy when they are interacting with others.

Ed Morrison introduces how to do strategy in today’s world turned upside down, and how to connect it to innovation.  He lays the foundation on why and how to design ecosystems supported by collaboration, conversations, and (double-loop) learning.  He then goes to introduce his 2x2 questioning approach to lead forward and the 10 skills to apply throughout the journey of discovery.   A real, and uniquely applicable gem in today’s complex, networked world!

Register Here for The Conference Board’s Women Lead 2032 Festival on September 29-30,2022| Westin New York at Times Square | New York, NY: https://www.conference-board.org/events/women

In this episode of Off the Shelf, Cindy Cisneros, Vice President, Education Programs, Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board (CED), interviews Jennifer Barrett, Head of Content at Fidelity Investments on her latest book, Think Like a Breadwinner: A Wealth-Building Manifesto for Women Who Want to Earn More (and Worry Less). 

Nearly half of working women in the U.S. are their household’s main breadwinner. Yet most women still aren’t being brought up to think like breadwinners. In fact, women are discouraged by institutional bias and cultural conditioning–from building their own wealth, pursuing their full earning potential, and providing for themselves and others financially. In this podcast, financial expert Jennifer Barrett reframes what it means to be a breadwinner and will answer questions on how she got to where she is today.