Demystifying Organizations

Sandra Sucher is a Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. Sucher is the author of over 100 business cases, technical notes, video interviews, and teaching notes cases on leadership and the ethical dilemmas of businesses and their managers, and two books: The Moral Leader: Challenges, Insights and Tools, and Teaching The Moral Leader: A Literature-based Leadership Course, A Guide For Instructors.

Tom Davenport is a professor of information technology and management at Babson College, the co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics, a Fellow of the MIT Initiative for the Digital Economy, and a Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics. He has written or edited twenty books including The AI Advantage and over 250 print or digital articles for Harvard Business Review (HBR), Sloan Management Review, the Financial Times, and many other publications. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University and has taught at the Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago.

Will Dudley is the president of Washington and Lee University.  He was previously the provost and professor of philosophy at Williams College.  He is the author of two books, "Understanding German Idealism" (2007) and "Hegel, Nietzsche and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom" (2002). He is the editor of volumes on Kant and Hegel and has published numerous scholarly articles.

Tricia Griffith is the CEO and president of Progressive Insurance, the 3rd largest auto insurance company in The United States.  In 2018, Tricia became the first women to be named Fortune’s Businessperson of the year.  She leads Progressive’s 33,000 employees. We discuss a range of issues including culture, managing executives, diversity, technology and leadership. 

Peter Singer has been dubbed by many as the “world’s most influential living philosopher.”  Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University.  He has written co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, untold number of articles and his writings have appeared in more than 25 languages. Singer is the founder and board chair of The Life You Can Save, a nonprofit that fights extreme poverty.

Stephen P. Willams and Jeff Schatten discuss the promise of blockchain, some of the attributes and challenges inherent in cryptocurrencies and the ways in which blockchain might change the world.   Stephen P. Williams is a writer, journalist, and author, with over a dozen published books. Author of Blockchain: The Next Everything, from Scribner publishers.

Barry Schwartz and Jeff Schatten discuss why we work, what motives excellence, the and role that money plays in performance.          Barry Schwartz is an emeritus professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and a visiting professor at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley. He has spent forty years thinking and writing about the interaction between economics and morality.  He has written several books that address aspects of this interaction, including The Battle for Human Nature, The Costs of Living, The Paradox of Choice, Practical Wisdom, and most recently, Why We Work. The Paradox of Choice was named one of the top business books of the year by both Business Week and Forbes Magazine, and has been translated into twenty-five languages. Schwartz has been interviewed on Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN), the PBS News Hour, The Colbert Report, and CBS Sunday Morning. Schwartz has spoken three times at the TED conference, and his TED talks have been viewed by more than 16 million people.

Nicolaj Siggelkow is a business Professor at the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a Ph.D. in Business Economics the Harvard Business School. His research on how firms create and sustain competitive advantage has been published in the leading management journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, and Organization Science. Professor Siggelkow is one of the most sought-after professors in Wharton’s MBA program, having been the recipient of more than 20 teaching awards. He also has extensive experience in executive education, teaching in a range of open enrollment and custom programs. His most recent book “connected strategies” explores how to create tighter connections between firms and customers.

Roger Martin was named the world’s #1 management thinker by Thinkers50, a biannual ranking of the most influential global business thinkers. Roger serves as the Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship at the Rotman School of Management. From 1998 to 2013, he served as Dean. In 2013, he was named global Dean of the Year by the leading business school website, Poets & Quants.  He has published 11 books the most recent of which are Creating Great Choices, Getting Beyond Better  and Playing to Win  which won the award for Best Book of 2012-13 by the Thinkers50. He has written 25 Harvard Business Review articles. Roger is a trusted strategy advisor to the CEOs of companies worldwide including Procter & Gamble, Lego and Verizon.

Celeste Headlee is an award-winning journalist, professional speaker and author of Heard Mentality and We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter. In her 20-year career in public radio, she has been the Executive Producer of On Second Thought at Georgia Public Radio and anchored programs including Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. She also served as co-host of the national morning news show, The Takeaway, from PRI and WNYC, and anchored presidential coverage in 2012 for PBS World Channel. Celeste’s TEDx Talk sharing 10 ways to have a better conversation has over 19 million total views to date.

Marty Latz is an author, international speaker, and the founder of LATZ Negotiation. Since 1995, Latz has taught more than 100,000 lawyers and business professionals around the world how to negotiate more effectively. Mr. Latz received his law and negotiation training at Harvard Law School, and was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where one of his students was former President Barack Obama.  Latz also negotiated for The White House on the White House Advance Teams. Marty is the author of Gain the Edge! Negotiating to Get What You Want and The Real Trump Deal: An Eye-Opening Look at How He Really Negotiates.  

Renée Mauborgne is a professor of strategy at INSEAD.  She is also Co-Director of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute. Mauborgne is ranked in the top 5 management gurus in the world in the Thinkers50 listing of the World’s Top Management Gurus, a title she has held for ten straight years. She is the highest placed woman ever on Thinkers50. Mauborgne served on President Barack Obama’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for the President’s two terms. Mauborgne is the co-author of the 3.6 million global bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy and the follow-up, Blue Ocean Shift.  Blue Ocean Shift is a New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller. Only a year out, and Blue Ocean Shift is already being published in 30 languages. The Financial Times called it “one of the bestselling business books of the century” and The Economist called it “the most successful book on business master-planning”.

Adam Grant and Jeff Schatten discuss Grant’s recent article “The Surprising Value of Obvious Insights” and the challenge that many managers have in adopting “best practices.”  They also discuss how to give constructive feedback. Adam Grant has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for seven straight years. He is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as one of the world's 10 most influential management thinkers and Fortune's 40 under 40. He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books that have sold over two million copies and been translated into 35 languages: Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. His books have been named among the year's best by Amazon, Apple, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Adam is the host of WorkLife, a chart-topping TED original podcast. His TED talks on original thinkers and givers and takers have been viewed more than 17 million times. Adam was tenured

Nancy Koehn and Jeff Schatten discuss why some leaders are able to excel in crisis situations.  They address key leadership issues such as whether leaders are born or created and the ways in which leaders navigate between values and strategy.  They also discuss the leadership legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Nancy Koehn is a historian at the Harvard Business School. Koehn's research focuses on how leaders, past and present, craft lives of purpose, worth, and impact. Her book, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times, is an enthralling historical narrative filled with critical leadership insights.  Koehn is the author of numerous books, articles, and Harvard Business School cases. She writes frequently for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Harvard Business Review Online. She is also a weekly commentator on National Public Radio and has appeared on PBS’s “NewsHour,” ABC’s “Good Morning America,” A&E’s “Biography,” and on CNN and MSNBC, among other TV outlets. She has

Edgar Schein, Peter Schein and Jeff Schatten discuss the benefits and potential challenges of “humble leadership,” when leaders establish a personal relationship model with subordinates instead of basing interactions on a quid pro quo mindset.  They discuss a wide range of issues relating to leadership, culture and professional relationships in a high-tech world.    Edgar is a Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  He is considered one of the foremost experts on organizational culture.  Edgar has a masters in social psychology from Stanford University, and a PhD in social psychology from Harvard University.  Peter Schein is also an expert in organizational culture.  His the Co-founder and COO for the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute.  Peter has worked in a variety of management roles in a diverse set of companies in silicon valley.  You can check out their new book "Humble Leadership" here

Eugene Soltes and Jeff Schatten have a wide ranging discussion about white-collar crime and the complex motivations and factors that underlie corporate criminal behavior.    Eugene Soltes is the Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.  Eugene has has been widely quoted by the media including in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Bloomberg.  He has fascinating work on corporate misconduct and fraud, which culminated in the book Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal, which is an in-depth look on white-collar criminality.

Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, and Jeff Schatten discuss globalization, artificial intelligence, the relationship between employment and well-being, and the future of work.  Bremmer has authored several books, including the national bestsellers, Every Nation for Itself and The End of the Free Market. Bremmer has published articles in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsweek, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Affairs. He appears regularly on CNBC, Fox News Channel, National Public Radio, and other networks. Bremmer has a PhD in political science from Stanford University and was the youngest-ever national fellow at the Hoover Institution. He presently teaches at Columbia University. Bremmer has a new book out "Us vs Them: The Failure of Globalization."   

Susan Cain and Jeff Schatten discuss the introversion and the ways in which workplaces can better reflect and respect the dynamic range of personalities that makeup the population. Susan Cain is the Chief Revolutionary of Quiet Revolution and the author of the bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, which has been translated into 40 languages, is in its seventh year on the New York Times best seller list, and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company magazine, which also named Cain one of its Most Creative People in Business. LinkedIn named her the 6th Top Influencer in the world. Her writing has appeared in the The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her record-smashing TED talk has been viewed over 20 million times and was named by Bill Gates one of his all-time favorite talks. Cain was named one of the world’s top 50 Leadership and Management Experts by Inc. Magazine.  

Henry Mintzberg, one of the world’s most influential thinkers in management, and Jeff Schatten discuss a wide range of issues that include leadership as a bottom-up process, the problem of relying on data, and how to stop short-term thinking. Henry Mintzberg is currently a professor at McGill University in Montreal.  Mintzberg earned his PhD in management from MIT in 1968. Henry Mintzberg writes prolifically on the topics of management and business strategy, with more than 150 articles and fifteen books to his name. His seminal book, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (Mintzberg 1994), criticizes some of the practices of strategic planning today.  His new book is “Bedtime Stories for Managers.” 

Ritz-Carlton co-founder Horst Schulze and Jeff Schatten discuss the founding and growth of the Ritz-Carlton.  The conversation covers Horst’s creation of a people-centered corporate culture based on integrity and trust that he applied to employees and customers. During his tenure at The Ritz Carlton, Mr. Schulze served as President and COO responsible for $2 billion in annual operations worldwide.  Today, Mr. Schulze serves on various boards and acts as a consultant across industries.  He recently published a new book “Excellence Wins.”