Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova.

This week’s guest is Roger Martin. Roger is the former Dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, has been named “The Most Influential Business Thinker” by Thinkers50, and he advises CEOs worldwide. Roger is the author of ten books, including Creating Great Choices, a follow-up to his 2007 best-seller The Opposable Mind.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… someone with a different style of thinking.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… is the play between strategy and making choices.

Roger’s unique perspective combines strategy and making choices. Roger believes the two ideas are interconnected because, simply put, you cannot make choices if you don’t have a strategy. And you can’t have a strategy without making choices.

Roger opines that strategy is what you do, whereas choices put you in the position to behave. Just like every organization has a strategy, so does every person, and strategy comes with a choice.

Roger believes that execution happens because of choices made somewhere in the hierarchy.  Roger says the “gap between strategy and execution [is] the setting of the direction.” Past guests have said time and again that everything starts at the top— and Roger is no different. 

WHAT I LOVE MOST… integrative thinking. Creating solutions is about taking what’s not good enough and creating something better, rather than compromising.

IF YOU WANT TO APPROACH THINGS DIFFERENTLY…. follow Gandhi. This may not be what you were expecting, but the adage “Be the change” could not be more appropriate.  Don’t tell people what you’re going to do.  You actually have to do it.  Roger advises, “Don’t be a smarty pants.”  I couldn’t agree more.

 

Running time: 29:43

 

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