Episode 1

Four Actionable Insights About Incremental  Innovations

Management literature has many insights about minor innovations. They are not only the bread and butter of the innovation landscape but can be a source of long-term survival of firms. This episode gives many actionable insights for this literature of a busy business manager.

Episode 2

Actionable Insights on Radical Innovations

Radical innovations are one the most important and challenging innovation types. This episode distils some key findings on radical innovations from management research. It also shares four actionable insights for busy managers.

Episode 3

Dominant Logic: How Top Managers Make Powerful Decisions

Dominant Logic is the secret sauce behind the effectiveness of senior managers. This episode explains the concept in detail and shows how you can use it to become a more effective business leader. It also contains many actionable insights.

Episode 4

The Art of Adaptation

This podcast episode asks and answers a central question for business leaders: can your business adapt to a changing environment? It brings research insights to respond to the question and also share many stories of survival and failure of firms. Finally, it offers a solution to this vexing problem.

Episode 5

Thinking Styles – How to Leverage Diversity To Build Better Organizations?

People use two different thinking styles – analytic and holistic. This podcast episode explores research on these two thinking styles to understand what these styles are and how they differ. It also brings some actionable steps from this research for managers to become more effective business leaders.

Episode 6 (Season Finale)

The Science of Framing Issues

How can you influence others with the sheer act of presenting data? In this episode of the innovation must podcast, we take you through the fascinating science of behavioral decision theory to answer this question. We explore the literature and research studied to understand decision-making behavior. We not only share research but also its implications on what you can do to become better decision makers and influencers.

Episode 1

The Essence of a strategist

What does a strategist do? What skills are needed to become a strategist and how can you become one? These are the questions we discuss in this episode of this podcast. It also brings an exciting story of a successful strategist in action.

Episode 2

Flawed Thinking Methods That Hold You Back

Research over the last 40 years has shown that humans are prone to many thinking traps. These traps make us flawed decision makers. This thinking is the biggest barriers for you to become a strategic thinker.

In this episode, we will understand some of these traps.

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Episode 3

Becoming a Strategic Thinker

How do you become a strategic thinker?

In our latest podcast, I share a four-step process to help you become a more effective strategic thinker.

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Episode 4

Attacking Problems Like a Strategist

In this episode, we go to the heart of the method used by strategic thinkers. Strategists use this method to identify significant levers around a core issue of a situation.

Episode 5

The Goals of the Strategist

This episode of the podcast explores the goals of the strategist. As the goals we set for ourselves make an immense difference in the output we produce, it is critical to understand the aims of the strategist. A deeper understanding of these goals can help you become a  better strategist.

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Episode 6

The Field of the Strategist (I)

This episode of the podcast explores the field of the strategist. It is the broader business context with powerful forces that affect the business. These forces can be so powerful to render many strategies useless. When a strategy is aligned with the field, it becomes powerful.

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Episode 7

The Field of the Strategist (II)

This episode of the podcast further explores the field of the strategist. Continuing our exploration into the field’s outermost circle, we discuss four major forces in the field.

Episode 8

Searching for Opportunities Like a Strategist

This episode reveals the five forces that determine how profitable an industry will be. This concept is a dominant concept in strategy area that all business school students know. It is a critical concept not to be missed by anyone.

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Episode 9

Competing Like a Strategist

Competition is a major force in the field of the strategist. It can render effective strategies ineffective over time. It sometimes makes you run faster to just stay in one place. This episode provides an opportunity to understand what is involved in competing like a strategist.

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Episode 10

A Key Weapon of the Strategist: Organizational Capabilities

No strategy is possible without the right organizational capabilities. In absence of the right capabilities, a strategy is just a pipe dream. Learn about organizational capabilities and how they help strategy.

Episode 11

Competitive Advantage: The Holy Grail of the Strategist

The single most important for a strategist is to build a sustained competitive advantage for the business. Without such an advantage the business finds it hard to survive. With a sustained competitive advantage, a business not only survives but also generates superior financial returns. This episode explains the sources of competitive advantage and how to build such an advantage for your firm.

Episode 12

The Strategy Process (Season Finale!)

The strategy process is a critical part of a firm’s strategy cycle. It is also one of the three key resources and capabilities that an effective strategist needs to be successful. In this last episode of the season “Becoming a Strategist” we discuss the strategy process. We go into details of many aspects of strategy design and execution process and explain how to make your strategy process more effective?

Episode 1

Debunking Disruption Myths

What is disruption? How is it related with disruptive innovations? Do all disruptive innovations lead to disruption? Is this a new phenomenon that became prevalent in the recent years?

Learn the answers to these questions and more.

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Episode 2

Disruption of Kodak

Did Kodak fail because it couldn’t innovate? Was it unable to develop digital imaging technology? Many people think so but that is not true.

The story of Kodak has several twists and turns and gives you a deep insight into the process of disruption. Learn more here.

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Episode 3

Disruption and Innovation

Why do firms get disrupted? What is the role of innovation and transformation in the disruption of firms? Where does transformation fit into this picture?

Learn the relation among disruption, innovation and transformation with an easy to understand analogy. Some cases of disruption are also discussed.

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Episode 4

Informative Barriers to Innovation

What prevents firms from innovating? This episode takes you behind the informative barriers to innovation that firms often struggle with. What makes them challenging and how to overcome those challenges?

Learn the answers to these questions and more.

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Episode 5

Normative Barriers to Innovation

Can norms become barriers to innovation? Yes they can and often do. This episode explains how that happens and how firms have failed by following the norms that prevent innovation. Learn more here.

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Episode 6

Cognitive Barriers to Innovation

Psychological traps can and often become barriers to innovation. The same psychological traps that make people fall prey to tricks makes firms fall prey to trick. As a result, firms fail to innovate and die. Learn fascinating details on cognitive barriers to innovation .

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Episode 7

The Dark Side of Innovation I

Listen to a summary of my book The Dark Side of Innovation in two episodes. I termed profit destroying changes as the Dark Side of Innovation in my book. It often leads to disruption of firms. This episode shares some hair raising tales of disruption due to profit destroying innovations.

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Episode 8

The Dark Side of Innovation II

Listen to a summary of my book The Dark Side of Innovation in two episodes. This is the second part of the audio summary. This episode shares how to deal with the dark side of innovation. How to not get disrupted?

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Episode 9

Disruptive Business Models

This episode will help you understand disruption by business model innovation. Why do some new business models disrupt whereas others do not? Can you predict which models will become disruptive and which won’t? These are the questions we discuss in this episode of the podcast.

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Episode 10

Winning Against Disruption

Not all firms that face disruption get disrupted. How do some firms win against disruption? Is there a method that you can follow to deal with disruptive threat? This episode shares a few examples of firms that won against disruption. Learn what was their secret.

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Episode 11

Predicting Disruption

In this age of disruption, you must build the capability of managing disruptive forces. To do that a key skill you will need is the ability to predict disruption. This episode shares a powerful cascading change model to predict disruption. Find out how to apply this model to any industry and predict disruption.

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Episode 12

Becoming a Successful Disruptor – Season Finale

How do successful disruptors succeed? Is there a method to their success? Learn from the stories of many disrupters in this episode. Also find out four paths of becoming a disruptor.

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