Today we’re joined by a true legend in the space of strategy, innovation and management: Rita Gunther McGrath. Rita is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. She is a best-selling author, speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School.

 

Rita has received the number one achievement award for strategy from the prestigious Thinkers50 and has been consistently named one of the world’s Top 10 management thinkers in its bi-annual ranking. 

 

Join our conversation as we explore the positive and negative impacts of inflection points for organizations and markets. We uncover discovery-driven leadership, irreversible versus reversible decisions, responsibility towards local communities as a key principle for organizing value creation, and much more.

 

This discussion testifies the true depth of the rabbit hole of the future of organizing!

 

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication: https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/Podcast-S2E10-RitaMcGrath

 

To find out more about Rita’s work:

 

> Website: https://www.ritamcgrath.com/

> Twitter: https://twitter.com/rgmcgrath

> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritamcgrath/

> YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rgmcgrath

> Medium: https://rgmcgrath.medium.com/

 

Other references and mentions:

 

> Boundaryless whitepaper (2020), New Foundations of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking — Designing Products and Organizations for a changing world, https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/DOWNLOAD-NF

 

> Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, Chris Yeh, The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, 2014: https://www.amazon.com/Alliance-Managing-Talent-Networked-Age/dp/1625275773

 

> Healthy San Francisco: https://healthysanfrancisco.org/

 

> Peter Turchin, “Intra-Elite Competition: A Key Concept for Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Societies”, 2016: http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/intra-elite-competition-a-key-concept-for-understanding-the-dynamics-of-complex-societies/ 

 

> Rita McGrath, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, 2019: https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Around-Corners-Inflection-Business/dp/0358022339/

 

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast

 

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music

 

Recorded on 12 January 2021.

Today we have a fabulous duo of Future of Work experts with us, Albert Canigueral and Laetitia Vitaud. We chat about some of the key evolutions in this space, and how platforms contribute to crystalize trends in the continued unbundling of jobs.   

 

Albert Canigueral is Ouishare Connector for Spain and Latin America. In 2011 he founded the blog Consumo Colaborativo, becoming a reference in the platform economy in the Spanish-speaking world. He recently published the book ‘El trabajo ya no es lo que era’ – ‘Work Is Not What It Used To Be’ – a book about the future of work and workers. In short, he works as an explorer, consultant and disseminator in the field of platform economics. He is currently mainly focused on the future of work, the impact of digital platforms in cities and regulatory innovations.

 

Laetitta Vitaud is a teacher-turned-entrepreneur and, like Albert, a key reference - both writer and speaker - about the future of work and consumption. She has her own newsletter about the future of work with a feminist perspective, Laetitia@work, is editor-in-chief of the HR media of Welcome to the Jungle and leads a media called Nouveau Départ with her partner and husband Nicolas Colin, who we previously had on the podcast. Laetitia is working with clients on how organizations, management, work space, and social protection are impacted by the unbundling of jobs and the empowerment of freelancers. 

 

In our conversations, we cover a lot of ground, where we focus on the apparent “innovation dilemma” that results from the gap in how the concept of work is evolving and the systems in place to protect a new age of independent workers with fragmented “careers”. 

 

We explore how worker tech and different scales of collective arrangements help platform workers gain agency and rebundle traditional worker benefits. 

 

While governments often seem helplessly stuck in the old paradigm, digital transformation is leading to new modes of organising at scale that depart from the industrial efficiency-based model, with workers starting to take matters in their own hands to organise collectively. 

 

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication: https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast-S2E9-Vitaud-Cañigueral

To find out more about their work:

> Albert’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlbertCanig 

 

> Laëtitia’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vitolae 

 

> Albert’s Website: https://www.albertcanigueral.com/ 

 

> Laëtitia’s Website: https://laetitiavitaud.com/ 

 

> Laëtitia’s Newsletter: https://laetitiaatwork.substack.com/ 

 

> Albert Cañigueral, El trabajo ya no es lo que era: Nuevas formas de trabajar, otras maneras de vivir, 2020 https://www.amazon.co.uk/El-trabajo-que-era-trabajar-ebook/dp/B08DT67CG8/  

 

Other references and mentions:

 

> Albert Cañigueral, The Digital Labour Market Under Debate, 2018: https://cotec.es/media/COTEC_PIA_Ouishare_WorkerTech_EN_ExecutiveSummary.pdf 

 

> Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain: https://iwgb.org.uk/

 

> Mastercard’s Digital Payments & Labs, Mastercard Labs for Financial Inclusion, and White Paper Media Consulting, The Gig Economy in East Africa, 2020: https://newsroom.mastercard.com/mea/files/2020/09/The-Gig-Economy-in-East-Africa-White-Paper.pdf 

 

> Happy Dev: https://happy-dev.fr/en/

 

> Cosme Collectif: https://collectif-cosme.com/projets/ 

 

> MyWay Spain: https://mywayspain.es/

 

> Hoxby: https://hoxby.com/

 

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast 

 

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music 

 

Recorded on 5 January 2021.

In this episode we are speaking Adrien Nussenbaum, co-founder and U.S. CEO of Mirakl, a global leader in online marketplace solutions. Since graduating from HEC in Paris in 2001, Adrien's career has been focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and disruption. His background in corporate finance and management consulting has allowed him to support top Fortune 1000 companies in their strategic growth and transformation initiatives, including creating and leading FNAC's marketplace from 2008 to 2011.

A serial digital entrepreneur, Adrien has always been driven by the desire to invent tomorrow's economy: All Instant, a NY-based Instant Messaging platform sold in 2003, and SplitGames, an online video games marketplace, sold to FNAC in 2008. Along with co-founder Philippe Corrot, Adrien has built and led winning teams across the globe, created hundreds of jobs, and generated billions in sales for customers.

In our boundaryless conversation, we cover the platform revolution from many angles, from how companies tackle digitalisation to how platforms contribute to breaking boundaries in space and time in an age of full information transparency. We also explore the necessary mindshifts, for example transcending the idea of competition, and realising that as a platform you need to "earn the right" to serve an ecosystem, turning competition into partnership.We also explore more generally what it means for brands to find a place in an API first, modularized economy, where suppliers and customers are aggregated and explain why the future of commerce may be in niches that require brands to meddle with the economy profoundly, leaving an opportunity space for incumbents that can transform as he cannot remotely shape everything directly from San Francisco.

Adrien talks about some exciting examples among Mirakl's own clients, including members of the "platform pioneer club", where peer learning, opportunities to "plug in" to the ecosystem, and creating a sense of belonging are key. As a platform player, you can essentially choose to be "anything in the value chain", and that's an exciting future outlook.

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication: https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast-S2E8-Adrien-Nussenbaum

To find out more about Adrien's work:

> Website: https://www.mirakl.com/ 

> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anussenbaum 

> Twitter: https://twitter.com/adriennus 

Other references and mentions:

> Mirakl Connect: https://www.mirakl.com/mirakl-connect/ 

> Stop Covid-19 Marketplace: https://stopcovid19.fr/ 

> Companies with platform businesses cases mentioned: AB InBev, Maison du Monde, 3M, Madewell

> Aurora James' 15% pledge: https://www.forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2020/12/21/aurora-james-is-helping-companies-invest-in-accountability-with-the-15-percent-pledge/?sh=2a56e3d78216 

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast 

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music 

Recorded on 11 December 2020.

Today we’re talking to Robyn Scott, co-founder and CEO of Apolitical, a global learning network for public servants. The Apolitical Academy, Apolitical’s non-profit arm, helps young and traditionally excluded people run for political office. 

 

Previously, Robyn co-founded OneLeap, an executive education company, and two southern African non-profits teaching coding and entrepreneurial skills to vulnerable youth, women, and prisoners. She has written a critically acclaimed memoir about growing up in Botswana. She has also worked for the Financial Times. She is an ambassador for the Access to Medicine Index, an advisor to the Responsible Mining Index, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She has a BSc in Bioinformatics from Auckland University and a Masters in Bioscience Enterprise from Cambridge University.

 

The team at Apolitical works passionately towards “fixing” the Democracy Flywheel on three levels: making politics a credible and trustworthy path, making the narrative around governments and civil servants one of talent and pride rather than “necessary evil”, and reviving interest among citizens in a democracy based on free-flowing and accurate information, where democracy is not “traded in” in return of quick fixes. 

 

In our conversation, we talk about how Apolitical is working to facilitate peer learning among civil servants, creating a go-to marketplace for new ideas and innovations. Beyond that, we also explore emerging aggregation possibilities in the space of government platforms such as the potential to aggregate private sector suppliers to let the best emerge across the space.

 

We also talk about current tensions between the imagined “global village”, a trend of fragmentation and localism, and the fact that we won’t find all solutions in any of these extremes. 

 

A very thought-worthy conversation about a sector that arguably has to yet reap all the benefits in a platforms and ecosystems world. 

 

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication: https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast-S2E7-Robyn-Scott 

 

To find out more about Robyn’s work:

 

> Website: https://apolitical.co/

 

> LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robynscott 

 

> Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobynScott 

Other references and mentions:

 

> McKinsey Center for Government (MCG), Government productivity: Unlocking the $3.5 trillion opportunity: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/the-opportunity-in-government-productivity# 

 

> Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us about the Relationship Between Parents and Children, 2016: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gardener-Carpenter-Development-Relationship-Children/dp/0374229708

 

> The Apolitical Academy https://www.apolitical.academy/

 

> Twitter: https://twitter.com/apoliticalco 

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast 

 

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music 

 

Recorded on 15 December 2020.

Today we have the great pleasure of speaking to Juho Makkonen, CEO and co-founder of Sharetribe – and a common friend from the heydays of the onset of the sharing economy.

Today we’re talking to Professor Dave Snowden, the founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Cognitive Edge and Director of the Cynefin Centre Wales.

Once businesses recognize that they are staging experiences, not delivering services, they can gain much more economic value by leveraging on the time and attention of their guests.

What we were curious to talk to Peter about was the concept of “platform talent” and what companies are looking for when it comes to recruiting leaders in platform strategy and development.

In this episode we have the pleasure of introducing a very interesting academic voice, Alicia Hennig, Associate Professor of Business Ethics.  

Her research focuses on Chinese philosophy and its application in organisations in the context of values, ethics and innovation. Working with Chinese as well as foreign companies in China, she continues to promote a better understanding of Chinese culture and thinking. 

This conversation with Alicia was very crucial to explore the embracing of  “embeddedness” (or entanglement). It’s about the critical need for organizations to see themselves as connected to the world they exist within. It turns out that Chinese philosophies, especially Daoism, are very much based on this concept of embeddedness. Daoism can provide Chinese management thinking with mindsets that seem to be rare in most of Western cultural traditions, and that may be more apt for a time of systemic shift.

We also talk about the paradox between globalisation, technological progress and contextual, indigenous approaches to management - in relation with embeddedness. Will China’s next generation of managers resist the universalising power of technology, considering how the country has leap-frogged in recent decades? 

By not striving for coherence like most Western philosophies, perhaps Chinese thinking really is more resilient to such forces and can more easily provide a platform for evolution in management, as stories like that of Haier seem to demonstrate. 

Alicia also talks passionately about the role of education everywhere in the world to showcase the richness of philosophies, wishing that more universities and business schools would diversify their curriculum to include Chinese, but also Indian, African and other philosophical traditions. It’s indeed a shared passion that we want to continue to explore with her in the coming months. 

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our  Medium publication: https://medium.com/@Boundaryless_/62cbb75fce0f?source=friends_link&sk=ed34750fd83cea1009ad319b41c8fd2d 

 

To find out more about Alicia’s work:

> Website: www.newvirtues.com

> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicia-hennig/ 

Other references and mentions:

> Alicia Henning, Daoism in Management, 2017: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40926-015-0024-4

> Laozi, Tao Te Ching: https://www.amazon.com/Lao-Tzu-Ching-about-Power/dp/1611807247 (here in Ursula K. Le Guin’s edition)

> Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zhuangzi-Essential-Translations-Traditional-Commentaries/dp/0872209113/   

> Explore novels by Yu Hua, Mo Yan, Yan Lianke, Liao Yiwu and Zhang Lijia. 

> Jia Zhangke’s “Ash is Purest White”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLab19dyAVA  

> Wang Xiaoshuai’s “So Long, My Son”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4I88xcwME8 

> Zhang Yimou’s  “Hero”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh-gwDRjKXA  

> Michael Schuman, Superpower Interrupted, 2020: https://www.amazon.com/Superpower-Interrupted-Chinese-History-World/dp/1541788346  

 

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast 

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music 

Recorded on 18 September 2020.

We’re excited to have a legend from the platform thinking space Sangeet Paul Choudary, where we explore his fascinating journey from the micro level to macro when analysing the platform economy.