I am so excited to share my conversation with my friend and mentor, Roger Martin with you. Roger is the former Dean of the Rotman School of Management, which is the business school at the University of Toronto. He has also been named the world’s number one management thinker by Thinkers50.

My coauthor András Tilscik, who also teaches at Rotman, introduced us. Over the years, Roger has been a real guide for me as I build my own practice and thinking around systems.

-NOTE FOR CLAIRE: or… “I got to know Roger through my coauthor…”

Roger has written 11 books, a lot of which are about systems thinking and unpacking very hard problems into palatable and digestible and, frankly, actionable pieces. They’re all great. 

Two highlights are Creating Great Choices (with Jennifer Riel) and Playing to Win. If you listen to my conversation with David Burkus, you’ll hear us talk about Roger’s playing to win philosophy as applied to our own businesses.  

In this episode, we discuss his most recent book, When More is Not Better, Overcoming America’s Obsession with Economic Efficiency. It’s basically a way of thinking about the broader economic-political system in terms of systems.

I hope you enjoy our conversation.