Minds Worth Meeting

Can large companies successfully innovate? The popular narrative is the bigger firms become, the less nimble and dynamic they are. Small startups are the disruptors, while big companies are doomed to being static and inflexible. But according to Gary Pisano of Harvard Business School, this is a myth: large businesses can be just as innovative as startups. But to reach that point, you need to understand the four distinct types of innovation, how to devise a strategy for implementing transformation and, crucially, the importance of an innovative culture. In this episode, Minds Worth Meeting speaks with Pisano about his recent book, “Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation” (PublicAffairs, January 2019). In “Creative Construction,” Pisano criticizes both the fatalism about the ability of Big Business to innovate and the overly simplified notion that to be dynamic, companies need to “be like Uber.” Large, established firms are entirely different from those born as startups; they need to thi

Despite progress over the past few decades, women still face immense barriers to advancement in the workplace – both systemic and psychological. Women continue to command lower salaries and are under-represented in senior leadership roles across corporate America. How do women not only challenge their organizations to give them their due, but overcome their own uncertainties about being able to succeed in male-dominated companies and industries? In this episode, Minds Worth Meeting converses with Kimberly Ramalho, vice president of communications and public Affairs for Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS). As a high-ranking executive with the world’s largest defense contractor, Ramalho has more than 25 years of experience in navigating obstacles to climbing the corporate ladder within an industry that is – historically – overwhelmingly male. Women in business, says Ramalho, must ensure they bring their own expertise to the top table and are heard by their colleagues on the issues that matter. U

Neither poverty nor prosperity are permanent conditions for societies; poor countries have risen from hardship to wealth within decades. But, by and large, we lack an understanding of how that transformation takes place. In a recent, critically acclaimed book, “The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty” (HarperBusiness, January 2019), authors Clayton Christensen, Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon provide the missing framework. Prosperity, the authors argue, is generated by market-creating innovations – products and services that create consumers where none previously existed – and these which have the potential to not only uplift entire nations from poverty but allow innovative businesses to reap enormous returns on investment and dominate markets for years and even generations to come. In the latest episode of the Minds Worth Meeting podcast, co-author Efosa Ojomo, Senior Research Fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, reveals what constitutes mar

From declining rural villages to the inner cities of the world’s great metropolises, ruined buildings and abandoned spaces stand waiting to be repurposed and revived. Doing so not only restores function to these structures but can potentially reinvigorate entire communities. In this episode, Minds Worth Meeting sits down with Dan Barasch, leading expert on the future of architecture and design and co-founder and executive director of New York’s The Lowline, a technology-enabled underground park inside a long-unused Manhattan trolley terminal, the first of its kind in the world. Barasch’s insights can inspire not just designers, architects and urban planners but community leaders and real estate developers. Drawing on his experiences conceiving and directing the ongoing Lowline project, Barasch reveals how to reimagine and rebuild in abandoned spaces in a way that strengthens community bonds, honors the historic character of neighborhoods and towns and contributes to the aesthetic inheritance of humanity.

More people from lower-income backgrounds may be going to college, but they continue to drop out at higher rates than their higher-income peers. They also struggle to manage both work and academics and face enormous levels of student-loan debt whether they graduate or not. One problem is that educators and policymakers have been focused only on access – getting students into college – rather than on success, or what happens to them once they’re there. How can we ensure that more people, especially those from lower-income backgrounds and disadvantaged groups, not only get into college but thrive once they are there, and graduate with minimal (or no) debt? In this episode of Minds Worth Meeting, we speak with Melissa Fries, executive director of the College & Alumni Program (CAP) at the Making Waves Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports students of the Making Waves Academy charter school. Serving the underprivileged students of the Richmond, California area, Making Waves emphasizes long-term col

Minds Worth Meeting, a podcast produced by Stern Strategy Group®, connects you with experts and thought leaders at the forefront of today’s issues and tomorrow’s trends – from artificial intelligence to strategies for business growth. Featuring the broad Stern Strategy Group client roster of influential innovators, researchers, thinkers, doers and practitioners, Minds Worth Meeting illuminates the advancements in a wide range of topics, industries and disciplines.