In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, sits down with Roger Dennis, advisor on long term thinking and foresight and cultural transformation specialist.  

00:00 Introduction  

00:22 Welcome Roger Dennis  

01:03 How Roger became a futurist  

03:05 "Getting above strategy" explained  

05:18 Current geopolitical risks & top trends to watch  

07:13 Three things leaders need: capabilities, process, routines  

09:44 Historical precedents for today's volatility  

11:31 Example: tolls on the Strait of Hormuz/Malacca  

12:35 Reversion to the mean, or a new normal?  

14:19 The "Layer Player" framework  

18:28 Second-order consequences & policy paradoxes  

23:26 Acting under uncertainty: the Netflix story  

26:15 Why you need real experts, not guesswork  

28:03 The 2015 pandemic report nobody wanted  

29:53 New Zealand's COVID Tracer App success story  

33:08 The mindset of realistic optimism  

41:58 How the music industry refused to adapt 43:38 Industries still "hanging on" today  

45:02 Agentic AI and the ROI problem  

46:57 From mass production to personalization  

50:11 Where to learn more: The Paradox of Preparedness  

55:02 Key takeaway for leaders 
 

Listen to more Thought Sparks Podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts  and Spotify.  

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thought-sparks/id1546758719 

https://open.spotify.com/show/0xmTsYXMgTeielwZ0dGTSU 

Watch Thought Sparks episodes on YouTube.  

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcyXT8iJkTSciUMe0me3L7Q 

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Learn more about Rita, her books and ideas at RitaMcGrath.com.