Thought Sparks

Zoe Chance graduated from a massively successful corporate career to doing groundbreaking research to teaching a hugely popular elective at Yale called Mastering Influence and Persuasion, aka "Doing Uncomfortable Things That Make You a Better Person.” She's a TED speaker, consults with major companies and has a new book coming out in 2022, "Influence for Nice People: The New Science of Making More Friends, Money, Impact—and Joy." We talk about the practical implications of her research and how it can be used to help people do some good in the world. As she says, "we cannot change people's minds, but we can influence their behavior when we learn how the mind works."

I first met Zachary Karabell when he was enrolled in my Columbia Executive Education program "Leading Strategic Growth and Change" and he made a big impression on me all those years ago. I'm delighted to catch up with him to talk about his rich collection of activities - he has a brand new book out about Brown Brothers Harriman and the way capitalism used to work. He is an author and columnist, the founder of the Progress Network at New America, and president of River Twice Research and River Twice Capital. He's written many other books and is a regular columnist and commentator. An all around fascinating person I'm looking forward to chatting with.

All digital, all the time - that's what we hear among the chattering business classes.  My guest begs to differ.  Instead, Robert E. Siegel points out, the competitors who will triumph combine both "Brains" (digital, smarts) with "Brawn" (operations and execution). Just one or the other won't cut it. Indeed, incumbents have shown that they can win by leveraging traditional strengths even as they bring on new capabilities. This should be fascinating.  Come join us!

Jayshree Seth, Ph.D., is a corporate scientist and chief science advocate for 3M Company, where she has worked for over 27 years to advance science and develop new technologies and environmentally sustainable industrial products. She has over 70 patents to her name (with more on the way), received the incredibly prestigious Society for Women Engineers Achievement Award and is one of the few top performing scientists to be inducted into the 3M Carlton Society. We're going to be talking about her book "The Heart of Science," what its like to be among the pioneering women in STEM and whatever else she'd like to discuss!

Carter Copeland is the President of Melius Research, where he is also the lead research analyst covering the global aerospace and defense sector. He is consistently ranked in Institutional Investor’s annual survey of top analysts, and was named the number one aerospace and defense analyst by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine. His recent co-authored book, "Lessons From the Titans" takes us on an analysts' journey to understand the inner workings of the corporate giants that are so critical to our everyday lives. With CEO's blaming the pressure of Wall Street for an excessive short-term focus and failure to appropriately balance the needs of multiple stakeholders, I'm really interested to hear the other side of the story.

My good friend Dorie Clark is a master of personal and professional reinvention. After starting out as a journalist and political operative (what careers could have brighter prospects?) she has transformed her career multiple times. She’s written three great books on how to be your own entrepreneur, is an accomplished and sought after speaker, and been at the leading edge of many career trends. While there is a lot we can talk about, I’m particularly interested in her take on how we are all going to be approaching what I call the “tour of duty” career, now and as we get to wherever we’re going to be post-pandemic. I suspect a lot of wisdom will come from her book “Entrepreneurial You.” And if we’re lucky, we’ll get a chance to check out her individualistic cats!

Some of the most magical things that happen at work aren't expensive, hard or risky. Simple human connections, treating each other with dignity and kindness and leveraging the power of appreciation are things anyone at any level can do. My Friday Fireside guests this week are Chester Elton, the "Apostle of Appreciation" and his co-author and co-conspirator Adrian Gostick. Author of several best-selling books about corporate culture, teamwork, and leadership skills, they'll be joining me to leverage their perspective on what we can do to build better organizations now, and whenever we come out of whatever this is.

In the inflection point that is a public health crisis, an economic crisis, a crisis of social justice and an environmental crisis, few people have more smart things to say than Physicist, biotech entrepreneur, author and consultant Safi Bahcall. His most recent book "Loonshots," was an instant Wall Street Journal bestseller. He previously co-founded a company developing drugs for cancer which went through an IPO. We'll be talking about smart ideas, innovation, science and discovery.

One of the biggest barriers to growth and innovation is the overhang of the corporate budgeting process. Bjarte Bogsnes, Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Institute and implementation head at Equinor, Scandinavia's largest company, has a better idea. Get beyond rote, mind-numbing budgeting processes and create flexible, changeable structures that allow your company to actually use the new strategy playbook.

Judy Samuelson is the founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, a high-impact initiative to uproot some of the more damaging beliefs that have led to income inequality, the lack of consideration of all stakeholders in corporate governance and skyrocketing executive pay that has no basis in value creation. She’ll be joining me to discuss these ideas as well as those in her forthcoming book, “Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World.” What a great perspective to share as we begin a new year.