The Disruptive Voice (Harvard Business School)

In this episode, Amy Edmondson, sharing insights from her new book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, reminds listeners, "The most successful among us have not failed less often than the rest of us. They’ve failed more often – right kind of wrong failures." Hosted by Scott Anthony, the two engage in a fascinating conversation covering a myriad of topics, including the origin of the idea of psychological safety; the different types of failures, and why they matter; parallels between innovation and riding a bike; and the "Sliding Doors" moments in our lives. Amy also reflects on the distinction between environments where one is there to learn versus perform; the emotional challenges of innovation; right kind of wrong in the context of parenting; and the process that she undertook in writing the book, to cite but a few examples. We’re all going to get things wrong in our professional and personal lives, but resilience and learning through intelligent failures is an important part of the journey. Listen to learn more! 

Last June, Efosa Ojomo and Sandy Sanchez were on the podcast to discuss the process of market creation - discovery, distribution, and democratization - and specifically, as it applied to the creation of a market for solar energy in Nigeria. In this new episode, they return to the recording studio to share with us specific examples of four companies that are getting it right. SunFi, co-founded by HBS alumnus Tomiwa Igun, highlights successful employment of an emergent rather than deliberate strategy; Steamaco illustrates benefits drawn from a clear understanding of customers' Jobs To Be Done; Husk Power Systems exemplifies the strength of pull (as opposed to push) strategies in emerging markets; and Auxano is a company now firmly in the midst of the important distribution phase of the market creation process. There are lessons to be learned from all four of these examples, businesses that to-date have been successful in addressing barriers to market creation in the energy sector in Nigeria. In this conversation, Efosa and Sandy reflect on these learnings. Of further note is that, for listeners wanting to learn more, the duo have also recently published a paper entitled, Accelerating The Adoption of Solar Energy in Nigeria: A Market-Creation Strategy. As Efosa says, “People don’t want solar. People want progress.” With this in mind, real advancements can be made towards reaching the last stage of the market creation process - democratization, and in this case democratizing access to electricity in Nigeria and beyond.  

Christina Wallace wrote The Portfolio Life: How To Future-Proof Your Career, Avoid Burnout, and Build a Life Bigger Than Your Business Card, in part, to explain the zig zagging path of her own life, a trajectory that has been markedly different than the more linear and predefined paths often followed by those in earlier generations. The accelerating pace of change, along with one societal disruption after the next, has resulted in ever more uncertainty about what the future holds and translates into the need for an emergent strategy for one’s life. The beauty of the model presented in The Portfolio Life is that it provides readers with a practical guide on how to be more intentional and strategic about the actions we take, particularly during times of transition, and it allows us to rebalance allocations when our needs inevitably change. In this conversation, hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Christina reflects on parallels between The Portfolio Life and How Will You Measure Your Life; the importance of having an identity separate from your job title; our oftentimes flawed metrics of success; why she thinks of herself as a human Venn diagram, and the value that can be found at the intersection of those overlapping circles; the promise of diagonal thinking; and more. Listen to learn about how practitioners of The Portfolio Life model gain optionality, flexibility, and diversification in their lives, resulting in greater stability in the face of the many unknowns and changing circumstances that we all will face in navigating the waters – both personal and professional – of our lives.

"In our view, the crux of the problem is that investments in different types of innovation affect economies (and companies) in very different ways – but are evaluated using the same (flawed) metrics. Specifically, financial markets – and companies themselves – use assessment metrics that make innovations that eliminate jobs more attractive than those that create jobs.” This quote comes from the 2014 HBR article that Clayton Christensen and Derek van Bever co-authored, entitled The Capitalist’s Dilemma. As you’ll hear in this conversation, the article is as relevant today as it was when it was first published nearly a decade ago. In this episode – originally recorded as part of Aidan McCullen’s three month series on The Innovation Show dedicated to Clay’s life and work - Derek joins Aidan to discuss a number of topics related to the article's main theme, that being the assertion that “the tools we use to guide our investments are blind to the best opportunities for creating new jobs and new markets.” For instance, Derek considers how our behavior, in interacting with metrics, can often lead to unfortunate consequences; the pull of established markets; the different types of innovation (performance-improving, efficiency, and market-creating) and their respective impacts on growth; the scarcity of long-term investors; and the challenges faced by corporate innovators, to cite but a few examples. Also discussed are potential solutions to the capitalist's dilemma, along with the observation that if people understand the dilemma, they are then better equipped to respond to the challenges that it presents. 

In his book, Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organizations, and Life, Aidan McCullen writes about how, centuries ago, sailors would set out to sea with maps labelled with the Latin words hic sun dracones - here be dragons - which meant that they didn't know much - if anything - about the uncharted waters and unexplored lands that awaited them. In today's volatile and uncertain world, there are parallels to be drawn between the odysseys of past and present. There are also strategies that can be employed, both by corporations and by individuals, to thrive amidst challenging circumstances, and they center on the intentional development of a mindset of permanent reinvention. Aidan himself exemplifies this mindset, having built capabilities as a professional rugby player, a digital media specialist, an innovation and change consultant, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, and host of The Innovation Show podcast, where he's in the midst of a three month series dedicated to the life, work, and theories of Clayton Christensen. In this Disruptive Voice episode, he joins Katie Zandbergen to discuss the experience of putting the series together, including not only re-reading all of Clay's books but also having in-depth conversations with his co-authors; the necessity of building capabilities before we need them; lessons we can learn from immortal jellyfish; insights gleaned from making the time to read eclectically; finding assets in ashes; and, above all, the importance of facing the dragons in our lives and of always becoming - the concept of permanent reinvention.   

In this episode, Craig Mackintosh, Head of User Experience Research at LinkedIn, reflects on how the Jobs To Be Done framework has been used at the company to provide strategic focus. He joins David Duncan, co-author with Clayton Christensen on Competing Against Luck and author of The Secret Lives of Customers, to discuss how the team at LinkedIn has drawn on Jobs Theory to unlock innovation through a better understanding of the functional, social, and emotional Jobs had by its members and customers. In using the Jobs To Be Done framework, LinkedIn has been able to take steps towards the implementation of a common language across its many teams, has made more intentional choices around which Jobs they’re solving for and why, and has found increased success in both articulating LinkedIn’s value to its customers and in capturing opportunities for growth and innovation. Listen to learn more about the pilot studies that were undertaken; some of the Jobs that were uncovered in asking, “Why do people post on LinkedIn?”; how the team got buy-in from employees and incorporated Jobs into the company’s culture; and the challenges and opportunities that presented themselves along the way.

In the early days of venture capital, investors played a dual role as financiers and innovators, partnering with their portfolio companies to design and develop their operations from the ground up. Nowadays most VC firms don't generate and pursue innovations but rather source and grow start-ups that already exist. For established businesses seeking to self-disrupt with autonomous units, these circumstances pose a distinctive challenge that contemporary venture capitalists are generally ill-equipped to solve.  Elliott Parker, CEO of High Alpha Innovation, is using theory to guide him in rekindling an earlier, partnership model of venture capital in a new form: the venture studio. A former Innosight consultant whose work has spanned growth, strategy, and operations, Elliott is hosted by Anibha Singh, herself an Innosight alum and a current Research Associate at Harvard Business School. We hope you enjoy this fascinating conversation on the future of innovation and venture capital!

Angela Ruggiero, CEO and Co-Founder of the Sports Innovation Lab, talks to the Forum about the convergence of sports and technology. What are sports technologies? And how have they developed? Where are they heading? What does the fan of the future look like? What do they expect? Shaye Roseman asks Angela this and much more on the latest episode of The Disruptive Voice!

In her new role as CEO at Officinae Bio, Christina Nesheva is working to create an inherently innovative organization that pushes the boundaries of nature co-design. In doing so, she draws on her experience having led one of the pharmaceutical industry's first innovation labs, at ViiV Healthcare, along with her time driving innovation, change, and new product commercialization at the pharmaceutical giant, GSK. In this episode, Christina, who is also a startup mentor and author of The Entrepreneur's BattleBook, joins host Erika Meldrim to reflect on what it takes to advance innovation at both incumbent and startup organizations. Inspired by Clay’s research, they discuss the role of senior leadership in supporting innovation at large companies; the critical insights gained from maintaining a focus on customers’ Jobs To Be Done; the challenges and opportunities associated with operating on two tracks, having a strategy both for today and for what’s on the horizon; the entrepreneurial mindset; successfully capturing value during the scaling process, and more! With attention given to both sides of the innovation coin, this engaging conversation is a must-listen for anyone working to foster innovation within their organizations. 

Earlier this summer, members of the Innosight team attended The Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit 2022 in Dublin, Ireland, where they joined industry leaders and spoke on the topic of Dispelling The Myths of Customer-Centricity. In this Disruptive Voice episode, Scott Anthony is joined by his colleagues, Claudia Pardo and Pontus Siren, to further delve into these myths. Through the lenses of the Jobs To Be Done framework, and drawing on a number of real-world examples, they consider how the application of Jobs Theory fundamentally changes how one thinks about innovation, strategy, and how best to set an organization on a path to success. Creating a customer-centric organization grounded in the idea of a Job To Be Done, however, remains a remarkably elusive target, despite many knowing that it’s important and that it provides clear benefits. In other words, being customer-centric may seem like a relatively simple and straightforward idea – but customer-centricity is often difficult to implement in practice. Tune in for a fascinating discussion about the myths of customer-centricity, including why its practical application is so challenging and, crucially, actionable steps that organizations can take and tools that they can use to truly become more customer-centric, thereby increasing the odds of successfully building and sustaining a successful enterprise. 

One of the items you’ll find on Booster Co-Founder & CEO Frank Mycroft’s desk is a BSSE placemat, highlighting the frameworks that are covered in the course, which Frank took at Harvard Business School in 2012. Since its founding in 2015, Booster has built an energy-agnostic, modular, mobile network in which the company knows the energy demands of its customers, has the ability to procure the right energy products at the right time, and can leverage technology to ascertain the sustainability scores of these energy products – and all without needing to build complicated brick-and-mortar infrastructure that can make it impossible to get to the scale that alternative energy types and fuels need to be successful. In this episode, Frank joins Rose Park Advisors' Steve Geskos to discuss the story of Booster, from the struggling moments that were the seeds of its founding and innovative approach to energy delivery; to the transition to fleets; to today’s smart energy and data management initiatives; to Frank’s thoughts on Booster’s future upmarket moves and growth. Given that Frank has drawn on insights gleaned from the BSSE frameworks throughout his time building and scaling the business, Booster represents a great example of theory in action, in this case, as applied to the acceleration of adoption of greenhouse emissions-reducing products, such as renewable diesels, biofuels, electricity for EVs, and hydrogen. Listen to learn more about how Booster is helping its customers to navigate the mixed energy future!

This week on The Disruptive Voice, Derek van Bever is joined in the studio by venture capitalists Nate Redmond and Britt Danneman, of Alpha Edison, to discuss trust as a business model, as an asset, and as the foundation for new market innovation. Earlier this year, Nitin Nohria, Dean of Harvard Business School, wrote in the Financial Times that HBS and other business schools need to play a vital role in "molding leaders who deserve the world's trust." At The Forum for Growth & Innovation, we're responding to Dean Nohria's gauntlet by studying business models built on risk-shifting and by starting discussions about the role of trust and ethical leadership in business. We hope you'll enjoy this timely and thought-provoking conversation!

In this conversation, hosted by Michael Horn, Julia builds on her foundational statement, “Opportunity really sits at the intersection of what you know and who you know.” Together, they discuss the important distinctions between our strong tie and weak tie networks; innovation in education; the ed tech market and which tools are best suited for network building, and in which circumstances; the Cadillac versus the KIA of mentoring organizations and strategies; performance metrics; the rise of chat bots, and more! Julia also shines a light on the new playbook created by The Clayton Christensen Institute, designed to support K-12 and post-secondary leadership in the implementation and adaptation of strategies, tools, and metrics that build and strengthen their students’ networks. The disruption story here lies in the potential not of putting all relationships online but rather exploiting technology’s competitive advantage to diversify our weak tie networks, which are most helpful for creating opportunities that may otherwise be out of reach. Listen to learn more about steps we can take to help ensure that every student graduates with the networks needed to thrive! 

Harvard Business School Professors Clay Christensen and Chet Huber sit down to discuss frameworks taken from Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise and applied to HouseSetter, the company Chet formed and operates as Chairman. Hear how BSSE frameworks like Emergent Strategy, Disruptive Innovation, Jobs to Be Done, and Purpose Branding have helped Chet steer his new venture.

Prof Christensen weighs in, and asks for help from you, the alumni of BSSE, to help him and Chet construct new theories for processes of scaling and growing user base.

In this episode, we talk with HBS alum Levi Belnap, VP of Business Development at Wyzant, a leading tutoring online marketplace, to discuss how implementing the Jobs To Be Done theory helped Wyzant identify a major market opportunity with tremendous scaling potential. Hear how Levi led the charge to institutionalize Jobs To Be Done in ways that helped Wyzant reshape its business model.

One consequence of the coronavirus pandemic has been the acceleration of many industry trends that had already been underway in 2019. The ever-increasing pace of change in the restaurant industry is no exception, and one particular development of note has been the rise of dark kitchens, also known as cloud kitchens or ghost kitchens. A few months ago, Sam and Prashant (along with co-author Yury Adamov) published a paper entitled, “When Kitchens Go Dark: How Covid-19 Could Transform the Restaurant Industry.” In this episode, they join Steve Geskos to further elaborate on the topic, taking a deep dive into the world of dark kitchens. Both draw on Prof Christensen’s theories to reflect on the restaurant space, but Sam - Founder and CEO of Phinix Virtual Kitchens Group - considers industry change from the perspective of an entrepreneur who abandoned his brick-and-mortar restaurant in order to adopt a dark kitchen business model, while Prashant offers insights from his vantage point as a Partner at Innosight. This thought-provoking conversation touches on a myriad of topics, including the brutal competitiveness of the industry; the changing basis of competition and the incumbents who might be most prone to disruption as a result; the long-term viability of traditional restaurants' business models; and the opportunities created by big event disruptions to drive growth, including changing consumer expectations in a world slowly emerging from the pandemic and its implications for those looking to build and sustain successful enterprises in this space. 

The Business Model Framework draws an important distinction between a company's Priorities (that is, its Value Proposition and Profit Formula) and its Capabilities. Regarding the latter, which are more effective drivers of corporate innovation – Processes or Resources? The answer to this question, of course, depends on an organization's circumstances and strategic goals. Specifically, in circumstances where companies are pursuing growth via sustaining opportunities, a company's Processes are key. However, in circumstances where companies are pursuing potentially disruptive opportunities, their Resources - and particularly senior leadership - are crucial. In this episode, Robyn Bolton brings these concepts to life through the stories of two companies working to build disruptive growth engines, highlighting the actions of senior executives at each firm, one of which was ultimately successful while the other faltered and failed in these attempts. In conversation with host Katie Zandbergen, Robyn shares insights on several topics related to the role of senior leaders, including the necessity of standing astride the interfaces of mainstream and disruptive growth businesses; the ability to sense when circumstances are changing; the importance of adjusting metrics and incentives to create space for employees to spot disruptive opportunities; and the need (and challenge) to act when business is good rather than during difficult times. As Robyn points out, if you want different results, then you need to do things differently - and this often means tackling the difficult task of setting aside processes that drive sustaining innovation, at least in some parts of the business, and leaning more on a company's resources, including its senior leadership, to play a crucial role in the management of disruptive growth initiatives.  

After a shocking accident left Rebecca Fogg with a partially amputated hand, she found herself faced with the sudden and daunting challenge of recovering, both physically and psychologically, from the trauma. Though her background at the time was not in medicine, she hired – in the language of the Jobs To Be Done framework – the pursuit of scientific knowledge to help heal and to make progress in her life. That search for knowledge, intertwined with her personal experiences on the journey to recovery, inspired Becca to write Beautiful Trauma: An Explosion, An Obsession, And A New Lease on Life. Over the last decade, Becca has worked at the intersection of business innovation and healthcare delivery. In this conversation, hosted by Ann Somers Hogg, she shares the story of Beautiful Trauma and also delves into what can be learned from the ordeal, in terms of insights for healthcare innovators. The two discuss health as being the product of many drivers, therefore necessitating the implementation of collaborative initiatives across sectors, along with system engagement at both the level of communities and the individual. Becca provides a number of great examples of successful cross-sector integration initiatives, in both the United States and England, and also considers takeaways from these programs for the broader healthcare ecosystem. Drawing on her lived experience of trauma, this insightful conversation includes Becca’s reflections on opportunities for innovation in healthcare; the challenges of navigating the healthcare system when we have the least capacity to do so; our sometimes misguided perceptions of resilience; different coping mechanisms; the importance of formal and informal support systems; and so much more!

John de Souza is an entrepreneur and investor who, over the course of his career, has accumulated a great depth of experience in sectors of technology, automotive, health, and finance. In this episode, he joins Steve Geskos to discuss his current role as Co-Founder and President at Ample, a company whose mission is to accelerate the transition to electric mobility through the offering of an energy delivery solution that is as fast, as convenient, and as cheap as gas, while also being powered by 100% renewable energy. This is accomplished by delivering energy to electric vehicles through modular battery swapping, which resonates greatly with the Interdependence & Modularity framework taught in the Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise (BSSE) course developed by Prof Christensen at Harvard Business School. Ample’s swapping stations require no construction and take up only the space of two parking spots, the swapping process itself is fully automated, and their future-proof batteries adapt to any electric vehicle. Listen to learn more about this market-creating innovation, John’s vision for Ample, and the future of transportation!

In the introduction of The Innovator's Dilemma, first published in 1997, Clayton Christensen wrote that the book "is about well-managed companies that have their competitive antennae up, listen astutely to their customers, invest aggressively in new technologies, and yet still lose market dominance." Years later, the dilemma is as relevant and as challenging as ever. In this episode of The Disruptive Voice, host and guest take a fascinating and deep dive into the book - and they do so as the first in a series of episodes on The Innovation Show that are dedicated to the life, work, and theories of Clayton Christensen. Specifically, host of The Innovation Show, Aidan McCullen, has kindly supported the re-release of his inspiring conversation with Clay's son, CEO & Managing Partner at Rose Park Advisors, Matt Christensen. Drawing on insights from Disruption Theory, along with a number of other theories developed by Clay and his collaborators over the years, listen to learn more about how, in Aidan's words, executives can simultaneously do what's right for the near-term health of their established businesses while also focusing adequate resources on the innovations that could ultimately lead to their downfalls - The Innovator’s Dilemma! 

A few months ago, Professor Scott Kominers and Cliff Maxwell, former Chief of Staff to Clayton Christensen and an HBS alumnus, co-authored an HBR article entitled, What Makes An Online Marketplace Disruptive?  They pointed out that rather than digitize or make existing transactions more efficient, truly disruptive marketplaces create entirely new transactions, engaging non-consumers and/or non-producers.  In this episode, Scott joins Cliff to discuss a number of topics relevant to online marketplace disruption, including sources of market failure; entrepreneurial opportunities for marketplace design; trust as an enabler of market participation; the disruptive potential of platforms enabled by Web3 and blockchain technologies; market design as a tool for addressing inequality; and much more!  They draw on examples such as the experience of buying a used car, Airbnb’s disruptive business model, and the market for high-end art.  This is a must-listen conversation for those curious about marketplace design; what disruption in marketplaces looks like; and how entrepreneurs, investors, and others can spot future marketplace opportunities! 

Five years ago, Darius Shahida, a member of the HBS Class of 2019, joined us in the podcast studio to discuss how Butterfly Network, a disruptive startup where he was employed as Chief Growth Officer, was working to revolutionize the ultrasound industry. Now, as the company's Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Business Development Officer, he joins his former BSSE professor, Derek van Bever, to reflect on Butterfly Network's entrepreneurial journey over the last half decade. Since Darius was last on the podcast, the company has gone public; has successfully commercialized the world's first semiconductor-based, whole-body, single-probe digital ultrasound device; has introduced its second generation device, Butterfly iQ+, along with new advances on the AI and software side of the business; and Butterfly has significantly expanded its market of users, with a presence in over 100 countries through commercial sales or global health deployments. In this conversation, Darius highlights these developments and also reflects on how the BSSE frameworks have helped to inform the company's emergent strategy over the years. As a hybrid disruptor - both a low end and a new market disruption - Butterfly Network's growth is fascinating to observe. Listen to learn about the company's enabling technology and disruptive business model, the promise of artificial intelligence, the different types of Butterfly customers (and the ramifications of that for strategy, particularly when competing against non-consumption), the company's vision for the future of ultrasound, and more!

Michelle Weise is an expert in higher education and in the development of more innovative workforce and talent pipelines. A former Senior Research Fellow in Higher Education at The Christensen Institute, she joined us on The Disruptive Voice to reflect on her career over the last decade, which has concentrated on preparing working-age adults for the jobs of both today and tomorrow. Hosted by Katie Zandbergen, they discuss Michelle's experiences working with Clayton Christensen, her thoughts on the disruptive potential of online competency-based education, her time in the role of Chief Innovation Officer at Southern New Hampshire University (where she lived the innovator’s dilemma!) and, of course, her newly-published book, “Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet”. 

In that book, Michelle considers questions of huge consequence, including “Can a four year degree earned at the beginning of a 100 year career possibly prepare us for all that is to come in our professional lives?”, “Why is education overdue for momentous changes?”, and “How can the existing education system adapt in order to meet the needs of a new generation of workers?” She takes listeners on a journey from considerations of our current system of education and learners’ engagement with the labor market to designing and building a learning ecosystem that better meets the needs of all of us, the future’s working learners. This conversation is a fascinating listen for anyone interested in higher education, the labor market, and the future of work in an age of longevity.

Clayton Christensen, in a 2012 Tedx Talk, while drawing on insights from How Will You Measure Your Life, said, "The way we invest our time and energy and talents (sometimes) causes us to implement a strategy that we wouldn't at all plan to pursue." Now, his co-author on that book, Karen Dillon, has partnered with Rob Cross to write The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up And Create Big Problems - And What To Do About It, which she views as a sort of companion book to How Will You Measure Your Life. Specifically, while her work with Clay sets forth important frameworks for thinking about the decisions that we make in our lives, including the longer term consequences of our choices, The Microstress Effect helps readers to understand why and how we make those decisions, while also providing concrete tools for living intentionally. There is certainly a hidden but very real toll resulting from the accumulation of small moments of stress in our lives. However, if we recognize these microstresses - those that drain our capacity to manage work and life; those that deplete our emotional reserves; and those that challenge our identities - we can then take deliberate actions to navigate the obstacle course of those stresses, leading to increased resilience and overall happier lives. In this conversation, hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Rob and Karen not only delve into the concept of microstress but also discuss a number of antidotes, including finding purpose, the power of living a multidimensional life, the importance of authentic and diverse connections, and more that can be done to proactively foster resiliency and improve well-being.

Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon, co-authors with Clayton Christensen on The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty, discuss the story behind their newly-released book, what it’s like to collaborate with Clay, and the substance of The Prosperity Paradox, in which they address the question, “Where does true and lasting prosperity come from?” With an eye towards low income countries, the conversation touches on different types of innovation, non-consumption, push versus pull strategies, a new way of thinking about infrastructure, business model development, and their framework for economic growth based on market-creation innovation and entrepreneurship.

Twenty years ago, Mark W. Johnson and Clayton Christensen co-founded Innosight, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations to design and create the future, rather than be disrupted by it. This week on The Disruptive Voice, we’re pleased to welcome Mark for some reflections on his work and friendship with Clay; on a process of longer-term management called future-back thinking, which he and co-author Josh Suskewicz explore in their newly-released book, Lead From The Future: How To Turn Visionary Thinking Into Breakthrough Growth; and on ways in which senior leaders can apply these methods in organizations that struggle to look beyond the 3-5 year growth horizon. Hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Mark also shares insights about the distinction between vision and strategy, the story of Apple’s transformation from a computer company to a lifestyle company, and how we can think about applying the lessons from Lead From The Future in our current moment of crisis.

Radiology touches around 80% of all hospital and health system visits, impacting nearly every specialty in medicine. However, the incumbent radiology IT system infrastructure places the promise and power of AI out of reach for practitioners. Though radiology has historically been on the cutting edge of technological advancements in medicine, e.g. in terms of digitization, radiology is now stuck in a technological gridlock, a situation in which each modular component of the tech stack works well enough but where the system as a whole is failing to sufficiently support physicians, who are experiencing high levels of burnout, and their patients. Working to enhance both the quantity and quality of work that radiologists can deliver, Sirona Medical is driving the shift away from modular gridlock to an interdependent system, employing AI to amplify the value of radiology to downstream care. In this episode, Cameron Andrews, Founder & CEO of Sirona Medical, joins Spencer Christensen to discuss the cloud-native unified workflow software they're working to build, along with its applications. The two consider the history of radiology; the challenges and opportunities of both the present day and on the healthcare horizon; how Sirona Medical is reimagining the system’s underlying architecture; and more. Cameron believes that Modularity Theory is going to be the most important business framework in healthcare over the next decade. Listen to learn more about why and how he and his team at Sirona Medical are committed to elevating the field of radiology! 

Here at The Disruptive Voice, we've applied the theory of Jobs To Be Done to healthcare, education, poverty, and religion, among many other topics. This week we're considering the reasons that people hire and fire the arts. As COVID-19 continues to shape our communities and lives, we're excited to bring you this timely conversation with Pope Ward, Chief Research Officer at the Advisory Board for the Arts, to discuss the ways in which arts organizations can respond to this moment. The Advisory Board for the Arts (ABA) is the first global company to provide strategic advisory services to arts organizations worldwide, and Pope has conducted dozens of Jobs interviews during his tenure as CRO to better understand the reasons why people engage with the arts. Hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Community Manager at The Forum for Growth & Innovation, Pope discusses standout responses to COVID-19, for instance, at Tsuru Rising and the Geffen Playhouse; Jobs that have emerged or become increasingly significant during the pandemic, protests, and social unrest; and the prospects for arts organizations to meet the moment by cultivating a strategy for innovation centered on the changing needs of audiences.

The promise of artificial intelligence is immense and companies that view AI as an enabler of corporate transformation can reap potentially enormous benefits in terms of both value creation and growth. In this panel discussion, Freddy Solis hosts his Innosight colleague and co-leader in the company’s global AI practice, Shari Parvarandeh, along with renowned thought leaders in management and information systems, and co-authors of the forthcoming book, Fusion Strategy, Vijay Govindarajan and Venkat Venkatraman, for a wide-reaching discussion on artificial intelligence and its implications for companies. Their conversation spans the genesis and current state of AI in business; its transformative impact across industries; blockers and enablers of adoption; different types of models and use cases; and when to build, buy, or partner, to cite but a few examples. Companies that stand to benefit from the vast opportunities that AI presents in virtually every industry will be those that act boldly and ahead of the curve. Listen to learn more! 

Further information on Fusion Strategy can be found here: https://fusion.tuck.dartmouth.edu

Innosight’s e-book, Leading Into The Age Of AI, can be found here: https://www.innosight.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Innosight_Leading-into-the-Age-of-AI.pdf

This week, as the New York City public schools scramble to re-open and students across the country settle into routines that are anything but routine, we checked in with Michael Horn to hear his views on the state of education amidst the pandemic. Michael is a widely published researcher, strategist, and innovator who co-founded The Clayton Christensen Institute and currently serves as Senior Strategist at Guild Education. Hosted by Christopher Diak, Program Assistant at The Forum and an M.Div. candidate at Harvard Divinity School, Michael discusses the acceleration of disruption under the pandemic, the "educator's dilemma" of business model innovation with competing value propositions, and the ways he personally is adapting to the pandemic using a learning pod approach, among several other timely topics.

In 2015, when Matt Lerner jumped from Director at PayPal to early-stage VC and advisor, Clayton Christensen’s ideas flipped from being interesting theories to essential daily practices. Matt has now worked with over 100 startups, helping them to find product market fit and scale. He runs Startup Core Strengths and helps companies use Jobs interviews to speed growth, even with startup budgets. In this episode, Matt joins host Katie Zandbergen to discuss the five tactics that drove 90% of PayPal’s hyper-growth; failure rates and patterns from 500 Startups’ portfolio of 1,800 investments; the root causes of why most venture-backed startups fail; how two startups used their Jobs lessons to disrupt crowded markets and grow immensely; and the danger zone right after a fundraise when founders' overconfidence can bias crucial decisions, to name but a few examples. This episode is a master class for anyone looking to harness the power of the Jobs To Be Done framework to build and grow a young company! 

This week on The Disruptive Voice, we are delighted to bring you a conversation, recorded in early March, with Thomas Arnett. Thomas is a Senior Research Fellow - Education at the Clayton Christensen Institute, where he researches disruption in K-12 education, considers the role of educational technology in blended learning teaching models, and contributes to thought leadership on legislation and policies related to digital learning, teacher preparation, and teacher development. Previously, Thomas served as Board President at the Morgan Hill Unified School District, worked as an Education Pioneers Fellow with Achievement First, and was a middle school math teacher at Teach For America in Kansas City, Missouri.

Given the national experiment in online education that has begun in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, with schools across the country transitioning to online learning, this conversation has become even more timely. In this episode, Thomas shares insights on the limits of disruption within the K-12 ecosystem, discusses the Jobs that teachers hire educational technology to do, and reflects on his time as a teacher in Kansas City, among other things. He is hosted by Christopher Diak, Program Assistant at The Forum for Growth & Innovation and a candidate for the M.Div. at Harvard Divinity School.   

Back in 2003, Steve Kaufman was the first partner who Clay brought on to teach the BSSE course with him, and he has subsequently had a tremendous impact on generations of our students. At the end of June, Steve officially retired from the Harvard Business School. As such, we wanted to sit down with him to have him to reflect on his career and time working with Clay, his thoughts on the course and its cases, and his forecast for the future of management education. Hosted by Derek van Bever, the two also discuss a number of Steve’s “Kaufmanisms” (for instance, never try to teach a pig to sing; good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement; if you can’t hide it, feature it; and culture eats strategy for breakfast every morning!), along with his thoughts on the importance of mentorship, disruptive versus sustaining innovations, his favorite BSSE frameworks, whether incumbents have become better at warding off disruption, and so much more. Enjoy this lively conversation - and have a wonderful rest of your summer! The Disruptive Voice will be back in September with more conversations that we hope you’ll find inspiring and useful. 

This week on The Disruptive Voice we're delighted to bring you a timely conversation with Professor Luis Viceira and David Snider (MBA '13) on the state of the FinTech industry. Luis serves as the George E. Bates Professor in the Finance Unit and is also Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education at Harvard Business School, where he conducts research on long-term asset allocation, asset pricing, fixed income markets, and innovation and disruption in the money management industry, among many other topics of interest. He also serves as an advisor to Harness Wealth, a financial technology firm co-founded in 2018 by David Snider and Katie English (MBA '10) that connects individuals with a curated set of financial advisors for tax, estate and trust, and financial planning. Before founding Harness Wealth, David was a CFO/COO at Compass and an Executive-in-Residence at Bain Capital Ventures.

In this episode, David and Luis are hosted by Derek van Bever, Director of The Forum for Growth & Innovation, to discuss the current state of the art in FinTech, the changing role of trust in enabling disruptive technology, and why disruption is rarer in FinTech than in most other industries. We're confident that you'll enjoy this wide ranging conversation!

The Disruptive Voice hits the road, heading to BlackDuck by Synopsys headquarters in Burlington, MA. We sit down with Lou Shipley (CEO), Patrick Carey (Director of Product Marketing), and Tim Kenny (VP of Culture) to hear how Competing Against Luck became a company staple, and how BlackDuck created their own Jobs to Be Done culture -- complete with war room! 

When was the last time you heard your best friend's voice? This question is at the heart of this week's episode of The Disruptive Voice. We're now seven months into a global pandemic that has torn and kept friends and families apart. In the midst of all this distance and distress, many are searching for ways to deeply and authentically connect with those they love. That's why we reached out to Amelia Lin, an alumna of HBS and Harvard College who is in the early stages of developing a social media platform called Saga that enables a refreshingly personal form of connection. Saga is a personal family podcast app designed to facilitate and store family histories, and one that has recently transformed into a new kind of social network. In this episode, Amelia discusses the story behind the app, some of the ways that it is currently being used, and the power of intimate, shared spaces to reshape our social media futures. She is hosted by Chris Diak, Program Assistant at The Forum and an M.Div. candidate at Harvard Divinity School.

Announcement:

Saga has graciously created a group for us to share our memories of Clayton Christensen and create a personal podcast dedicated to him. You can join our channel now, Remembering Clay, to hear others' memories of Clay and share your own (iOS only). Invite code is QOLTHN.

We'd love to hear from you! If you have any questions, please reach out to fgi@hbs.edu. Thank you.

In this episode, The Christensen Institute’s Ann Somers Hogg joins host Ann Christensen to, through the lens of the business model framework, discuss the significance of drivers of health to the future of the health care industry. In her newly-released paper, You Are What You Treat: Transforming The Health Care Business Model So Companies And People Thrive, Ann Somers provides a compass to guide leaders as they develop transition plans to succeed in a value-based future. The paper – and this conversation – addresses questions surrounding why our health care industry is where it is when it comes to tackling drivers of health; why business model transformation in the health care space is particularly challenging; what organizations employing innovative business models are doing to improve people’s health and overall quality of life; and what health care leaders can learn from these examples. Truly, a sharper focus on foundational business model structures in the health care space can transform lives! Tune in to this thought-provoking conversation to learn more.

The best independent projects that BSSE students take on after completing the course have (at least) one thing in common: They are important—relevant to our students’ interests, as well as to the wider world.  On this podcast, Maria Creixell (MBA 2019) and Ari Medoff (MBA/MPP 2011) share the findings from Maria’s research into why home health caregivers hire—and fire—employers, and what employers can do about it.  To conduct this research, Maria learned how to conduct Jobs interviews at the feet of the master, Bob Moesta, and she selected Ari’s company, Arosa, as her research site because of a connection she and Ari struck up through the HBS alumni network.  In a business that is entirely dependent on human capital, lowering search costs and improving employee retention are critical differentiators.  For all of you seeking to improve your performance in hiring and retaining employees, listen and learn!

We sat down with Dr. Paul LeBlanc, President of Southern New Hampshire University, to discuss disruptive innovation in higher education. Our conversation touches on Paul’s own background, students’ jobs to be done, competency-based learning, SNHU’s work in refugee camps, and other innovative initiatives currently on Paul’s radar screen. Those of our listeners hoping for shining examples of Clay Christensen’s theories in action or wanting to learn more about the future of higher education won’t be disappointed!

Snigdha Sur is a Harvard Business School alumna and founder of The Juggernaut, a premium publication and community that publishes smart and well-reported stories about South Asia and South Asians. Hosted by Anibha Singh, Snigdha discusses developments and gaps in the news and media landscape, including how these impact South Asian diaspora communities; the story behind the founding of The Juggernaut, along with how the organization has evolved from conception, through its development, to its current form; and her vision for the platform going forward. In chronicling her experiences as Founder & CEO at The Juggernaut, Snigdha also reflects on the BSSE theories that have informed her path, shares insights on what the entrepreneurial journey has taught her about launching a venture as a minority female founder, considers the future of media, and offers advice to those looking to build and sustain successful enterprises of their own. 

Why are there no sales professors at the Harvard Business School or anywhere else, for that matter? Given that selling products and services is such a fundamental aspect of business, it may surprise you to learn that "most MBA programs offer no sales-related courses at all, and those that do offer only a single course in sales management." Enter Bob Moesta, President & CEO of the Re-Wired Group, and a well-known presence here at The Forum for Growth & Innovation. With his new book, Demand-Side Sales 101, Bob is on a mission to teach sales with the sophistication and rigor that you'd expect from a top MBA program, to help salespeople understand the real value of their work, and to help people who are not in sales to see how understanding their work as sales enables them to create progress in the lives of those they care about. Hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Community Manager at The Forum for Growth & Innovation, Bob discusses a range of topics, including the new Covid-context, and he ties his work in demand-side sales to the theory of Jobs To Be Done and the five skills of an innovator. This is a must-listen for students of the JTBD framework!

Southeast Asia is a vibrant, fast-growing, and diverse region of the world, home to vast opportunities, particularly for those supporting market-creating innovations. In this episode, Nick Ongkowijaya - an HBS and BSSE alumnus who also worked as an Associate at Innosight - joins host Katie Zandbergen to share the story of the new venture studio that he's building in Southeast Asia, called Gradient. Nick discusses the local context, including the drivers of non-consumption of entrepreneurial opportunities in the region; how he's building his venture studio to bring more would-be entrepreneurs into the startup ecosystem; the many BSSE frameworks that he regularly draws upon, both in building Gradient and in thinking about the venture studio's pipeline of companies; and the potential of market-creating innovations in Southeast Asia, particularly as they relate to solutions for the informal economy. Through the founding of Gradient - and drawing on the work being done there to foster entrepreneurship and innovation - Nick presents listeners with a number of great examples of theory in action out there in the world! 

As the coronavirus continues to reshape the world, we turned to Scott D. Anthony, Managing Director at Innosight, to discuss his friendship and collaboration with Clayton Christensen; innovating during big event disruptions; the important concept of dual transformation; the role of Jobs To Be Done in strategic innovation; and his forthcoming book, "Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your Organization". Co-authored with Paul Cobban, Natalie Painchaud, and Andy Parker, the book draws on behavioral science and management theory to construct a playbook for leaders working to navigate transformational events, making innovation a natural and habitual act within both their teams and organizations. Since 2010, Scott has been based in Innosight's Singapore office, leading the firm’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region, and along the way has authored numerous books and articles for such publications as the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. Scott is hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Community Manager at The Forum for Growth & Innovation.  

Founding Dean at Jefferson College of Population Health, Dr. David Nash, recently co-authored a book entitled "How Covid Crashed The System: A Guide To Fixing American Health Care", in which he and Charles Wohlforth draw parallels between flying a plane and delivering healthcare services. Leaning into the analogy, they liken the American healthcare system to an airplane crash – and they’re the post-crash investigators searching for the black box. The first half of the book describes to readers what was found in the black box of our healthcare system, while the second half presents the authors’ report about how we might fix this mess and get the plane back in the air. In this episode, David joins The Christensen Institute’s Ann Somers Hogg to discuss insights about the fault lines in American healthcare; how the pandemic shone a spotlight on the challenges that were already present long before March of 2020; and steps that we can take – including a more aggressive approach to tackling drivers of health, realigning incentives, and rethinking medical education – to address the multiple system failures in our current healthcare system. Listen to hear more about this opportunity to build a better, safer, and more equitable healthcare system in the United States.

Many students of Clayton Christensen’s will be familiar with the US Steel case that he wrote as a graduate student in the 1990s, one that is still used today in the BSSE curriculum at Harvard Business School. The case tells the story of the minimills’ low-end disruption of US Steel, entering the market with rebar and then steadily moving up-market to bars & rods, then on to structural steel, and finally to sheet steel at the high end of the market. The incumbent, US Steel, was caught in a classic example of what Clay called “the innovator’s dilemma”, losing its position of leadership precisely because management made logical and competent decisions along the way. In this episode, we highlight another great example of a low-end disruptor, Norsk Titanium. The company successfully entered the low end of the metal manufacturing market and now, like the minimills before it, is planning its disruptive march up-market. Hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Mike Canario, CEO of Norsk Titanium, tells the story of Norsk’s humble beginnings in Norway; how it came to build the largest 3D printing factory in the world; the many benefits of its innovative and enabling technology, Rapid Plasma Deposition; and how management is looking to the minimill playbook as it charts its course to higher levels of the market.  Mike offers lessons in management, innovation, and low-end disruption that we hope you’ll find inspiring and useful!

A not to be missed conversation. We sit down with Bob Moesta and Todd Rose, Harvard professor and author of The End of Average, for a deep-dive on the underpinnings of jobs theory and analysis. You'll learn when to average vs. when to aggregate data and why individuality is so important in product and service design. 

Many listeners will know that Clay had a homemade “Anomalies Wanted” sign in his office at Harvard Business School – it was the backbone of his approach to research and theory building, as he worked to strengthen and refine his frameworks over the years. Many past guests on this podcast, when asked about what made Clay such a powerful thinker and teacher, responded saying that he was humble, that he was open to learning from everyone, and that he was always on the lookout for anomalies. Specifically, Clay viewed anomalies not as threats to the viability or applicability of his work but – quite the opposite – as presenting opportunities to learn and to improve the frameworks. In this episode, you'll hear from a number of people who were near and dear to Clay, all of whom share their reflections and insights on the theme of "Anomalies Wanted."

Thank you to the following individuals for their participation in this 100th episode project: Derek van Bever, Tom Bartman, Cliff Maxwell, Jon Palmer, Karen Dillon, Bob Moesta, Michael Horn, Max Wessel, Scott Anthony, and Ann Christensen. Thank you also to Tracy Kim Horn for getting this podcast off the ground back in 2016; to Craig McDonald for his work behind the scenes, overseeing the recording sessions; to our many wonderful guests and hosts; to our listeners, for tuning in and for sharing The Disruptive Voice with others; and, of course, to Clay, who continues to inspire us. We look forward to the next 100 episodes and to the discovery of those anomalies that we'll undoubtedly uncover along the way. If you have anomalies to share with us, please do reach out! Anomalies Wanted.  

Professor Derek van Bever speaks with BSSE case protagonist BJ Hess, former Senior Vice President of Global Operations for Arrow Electronics, to discuss the difficulty of business mergers and integrations. Hear why "Acquisition" is a bad word, and how business leaders can lead humane, successful integrations. BJ is a wealth of practical, intelligent experience, and continues to be a huge draw and delight for BSSE students.

Currently, over 75% of American households don’t have access to high quality, affordable, and unbiased financial advice. Anders Jones co-founded Facet in order to make these financial planning services available to a large population of people who don't qualify to receive them under existing incumbent business models. In other words, Facet is a prime example of a new market disruption, with the company largely competing against the non-consumption of financial advice. Taking this approach, however, wasn’t how the Facet story began when it initially entered the market, which exemplifies the emergent strategy utilized by the company that allowed for Facet’s pivot to its current strategy. In this conversation, hosted by Chris Calder, Anders reflects on how he’s using the frameworks to build and scale his enterprise, including the enabling technology that, paired with Facet’s business model, allows the company to profitably serve customers who are uninteresting to incumbents in the space. The two also discuss where Anders intends to take Facet in the future, redefining financial planning and advice and working to more fully integrate wealth management into their customers’ daily lives. Listen to learn more about how Facet is creating a new market and also changing the discussion around what it means to work with a financial advisor - a great example of Clay's theories in action!

This week on The Disruptive Voice, Shaye Roseman, a former Research Associate at The Forum for Growth & Innovation and a current MBA candidate at Harvard Business School, is joined in the studio by Bob Moesta and Ryan Singer. Bob is a regular on the podcast and is a principal co-architect of the theory of "Jobs To Be Done". Ryan has worked at Basecamp for over 15 years and has been involved with projects spanning UI design, strategy, and product development. He is currently Head of Strategy at the company. Together, Bob, Ryan and Shaye discuss the ways Jobs Theory can be employed as a tool for consumer research, on the one hand, and product development, on the other. In particular, they focus on the trials and travails of software development.

When you receive a brochure in the mail from your local symphony or visit a website for your regional orchestra, what do you typically see? You’re very likely going to read flowery language about the beauty of the art and the skill of the artists, accompanied by photos of the conductor and the musicians on the stage. You probably won’t see the audience or how the experience might impact them. The arts sector, however, is in the midst of an audience crisis – and the time has come for arts organizations to stop ignoring their customers. In this episode, The Christensen Institute’s Ruth Hartt, who spent 17 years as an opera singer, joins host Katie Zandbergen to discuss how the Jobs To Be Done framework can be used as an effective tool by arts organizations, helping them to better engage with and grow their audiences. While many in the arts world have been operating under the comfortable assumption that they’ve nailed customer motivation, believing that “Help me to experience art performed at its highest level” is the primary motivator for ticket purchases, this approach fails to truly understand customers’ struggling moments and the reasons why they may hire an orchestral performance or an evening out at the opera. Armed with techniques and insights drawn from Jobs Theory, arts organizations can successfully shift from simply trying to push tickets to actually helping their customers and their communities through the arts-focused experiences that they provide. Listen to learn more about the opportunities for audience engagement and growth that await those arts administrators and marketers who recognize that the world revolves not around the performances they stage but rather around their customers and the progress they’re seeking to make in their lives.

Arthur Brooks teaches a popular course at Harvard Business School called “Leadership and Happiness.” One important underpinning of the course is that science can help us to better understand what will actually make us happier – and Arthur has worked hard to incorporate these concepts into his own life. Recently, he teamed up with Oprah Winfrey to write "Build The Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier." In those pages, they consider a number of thought-provoking questions, including “How can we mobilize our lives toward greater happiness? How do we translate ideas about happiness into action? And how do we take control of our present and our future?” In this episode, Arthur joins host Karen Dillon – co-author with Clayton Christensen of “How Will You Measure Your Life?” – to dive into these questions. Throughout this wide-ranging conversation, he considers common misconceptions about happiness, the importance of emotional self-management, and how we can all change our habits to truly become happier. Relatedly, they discuss strategies that can be employed to become more metacognitive, the four pillars of happiness, and the neurochemical cascade of falling in love, to name but a few of the many conversation highlights. Arthur also reflects on the fact that so much of the knowledge that is shared in “Build The Life You Want” is practical and yet relatively unknown. Listen to learn more about both the art and science of becoming happier!       

In the midst of this global coronavirus crisis, we at The Forum for Growth & Innovation are reflecting on how we can lend our hands and hearts to meet the needs of those in our community. Now, more than ever, we are mourning the loss of our friend and colleague, Clayton Christensen, who would have turned 68 this coming Monday, April 6th. This month also marks the release of our 50th podcast episode and, to celebrate this milestone, we’d like to share with you a conversation with Clay, Derek van Bever, and Joe Bower, Clay's doctoral thesis adviser and the Donald K. David Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School. They discuss the origins of Resource Allocation theory, including Joe's groundbreaking book, Managing the Resource Allocation Process: A Study of Corporate Planning and Investment, as Joe's work both sparked Clay's insights into Disruptive Innovation and continues to offer key insights to firms today. The three also speak about the future of management and offer tips for managers and entrepreneurs. We hope that, with this conversation, managers struggling in the depths of this emergency will find a beacon of hope and guidance.

In her book, The Long Game: How To Be A Long-Term Thinker In A Short-Term World, Dorie Clark both reflects on the importance of having a longer-term strategy for our personal and professional lives, and provides readers with practical steps that can be taken to optimize for the future. In this episode, she joins hosts Derek van Bever and Katie Zandbergen to discuss the book and, in doing so, draws a number of parallels between her work and How Will You Measure Your Life. Together, they discuss a range of topics, including the value of long-term thinking, and why it’s often so challenging; discovering one’s purpose; managing uncertainty; finding balance between personal and professional goals; different types of networking; reorienting to see the bigger picture, and more! Truly, the power of making small, strategic changes today can be enormous in terms of impact on future success – it’s all about playing the long game. 

Along with his work as a Managing Director at Innosight, the consulting firm co-founded by Clayton Christensen and Mark Johnson over two decades ago, David Duncan is also a co-author with Clay on Competing Against Luck and co-author with Scott Anthony, host of this episode, on Building A Growth Factory. Most recently, David - a leading authority on the Jobs To Be Done framework, and drawing on his wealth of experience conducting market investigations – has published The Secret Lives of Customers: A Detective Story About Solving the Mystery of Customer Behavior. David and Scott touch on a myriad of topics in this insightful and witty conversation. In one instance, David, reflecting on the experience of writing his page-turning mystery, tells listeners, "I've always thought that doing research on customers is kind of like detective work. You go out in the world, you do interviews, you try to gather clues and piece together patterns and make observations, and you draw out insights to crack the case - I took that metaphor to an extreme in this story and used that as a premise for the plot." The Secret Lives of Customers addresses the conundrum that though more data than ever before is widely available, most still find it challenging to understand who their customers really are, why they act as they do, and what they really want. Learning to think like a market detective can help to answer these questions!

2020 is nearly upon us and here at The Forum we’re delighted to welcome the new year with Jessica O. Matthews, Founder & CEO of Uncharted Power. Jessica, a member of the HBS Class of 2014 and a BSSE alumna, is working to transform the global energy system into a renewable, smart, and distributed network of clean energy technology. A prolific inventor and entrepreneur, she was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 and is listed on 11 patents and patents pending for technologies relating to energy generation, transmission, and storage. In this episode, Jessica discusses the challenges associated with our aging power grid infrastructure; the impact of her dual US/Nigerian citizenship on design strategies; viable options for energy generation, storage, and transmission; and the smart technologies that she and her team are working to develop at Uncharted Power.

She is hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Community Manager at The Forum for Growth & Innovation. Katie holds a DPhil in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford and is a regular host of The Disruptive Voice.

The challenges faced by senior leaders seeking to transform well-established organizations are well documented. What’s more, roadmaps for tackling these challenges are widely available. Still, incumbent organizations continue to fail at an ever-increasing rate and senior leaders struggle to take the steps they know they should take to keep their companies innovative and thriving. Why? In this episode, Alex Slawsby and Christian Stadler join host Katie Zandbergen to delve into this dilemma of senior leadership and, in doing so, also propose some rather unconventional solutions. Listen to learn more! 

Nigeria is home to the largest energy deficit in the world. What can be done to address the striking level of energy poverty in the country? Clayton Christensen used to say that good theory helps us to explain the world but that great theory helps us to transform it. With this in mind, co-author with Clay of The Prosperity Paradox, Efosa Ojomo, joins host Sandy Sanchez to consider the application of the frameworks to the energy sector in Nigeria, using them as lenses through which to assess the adoption – or lack thereof – of solar energy in the country. Solutions to many of the current energy sector challenges in Nigeria lie in the process of market creation, which Efosa outlines as discovery, distribution, and democratization. Currently, too many attempt to jump from the discovery phase directly to democratization, wanting to push modular energy solutions out to the population but without first understanding the process by which markets are created or the context in which the solutions may be absorbed. With a better grasp of Nigerians’ Jobs To Be Done (e.g. "How is this energy going to power your life?"), those in the energy sector can establish value-add solutions and business models that will work for the adoption of solar energy, such that people will want to pull the solutions into their lives, creating new energy markets along the way. The distribution phase is crucial to this process, as it is in this phase where infrastructure is built, where trust is established, where discoveries are made profitable, and where democratization becomes possible. In other words, theory can help us to better understand how to get crucial solar energy infrastructure to as many people as possible, building a stable bridge between discovery and democratization. Listen to learn more about the process and potential of market creating innovations and, in this instance, how it's applied to the acceleration of solar energy adoption in Nigeria.

Before returning to our Jobs to Be Done theme, we thought we'd share a little about how some of Clay's theories came to be. On the show today, hear Clay talk with one of his mentors, Joe Bower, the Donald K. David Professor Emeritus, about the origins of Resource Allocation theory. Joe's groundbreaking book, Managing the Resource Allocation Process: A Study of Corporate Planning and Investment, both helped spark Clay's insights into Disruptive Innovation and continues to offer key insights for firms. Joe and Clay also speak about the future of management, and offer tips for managers and entrepreneurs. 

And now for something completely different: What can we learn by looking at changes in religious affiliation through the lens of Jobs to Be Done? Why are rising generations “firing” organized religion in greater and greater numbers, and what are they “hiring” instead? And what do organizations such as Crossfit have to do with all this? Enjoy this conversation with our own Bob Moesta, co-founder of Jobs theory with Clay, and Casper ter Kuile, a Ministry Innovation Fellow with Harvard Divinity School and co-creator of the wildly popular podcast “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.”

In 2009, at a time when The Atlantic was a 152 year old publication known chiefly for its erudite monthly magazine, Bob Cohn joined as Editor of Atlantic Digital. A career journalist, he arrived at The Atlantic five years into a fifteen year wave of disruption that shuttered the doors of some 1,800 local newspapers across the United States. Under Bob’s leadership, digital publishing thrived at The Atlantic, and he was named Co-President & COO in 2013 and President in 2016.

Bob is hosted on this podcast episode by Derek van Bever, Director of The Forum for Growth & Innovation, and it was recorded in late November of 2019, while Bob was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he taught a semester long series called “Journalism and Politics in an Age of Disruption.”

Bob and Derek discuss the structure of the media industry and the fallout of disruption over the last 20 years, the circumstances which enabled The Atlantic to transition from a print monthly to a digital daily, and habits for responsible media consumption. Bob stepped down from his presidency at The Atlantic in 2019 and has just been named President/Managing Director of The Economist.

In the acknowledgments section of Competing Against Luck, co-author Taddy Hall wrote, “Twenty-four years ago, when I walked into the classroom for the first day of Clay’s class, I had no idea of the adventure that was about to begin. Over these many years, there has never been a conversation with Clay that didn’t leave me feeling a humbled sense of gratitude for his patience, wisdom, and kindness. Thank you, Clay.” In this episode of The Disruptive Voice, the adventure continues as Taddy joins host Shaye Roseman – formerly a Research Associate at The Forum for Growth & Innovation – to share stories from his time collaborating with Clay, how the Jobs To Be Done framework came to fruition, and the relationship between innovation and brands. In particular, Taddy recounts and reflects on a number of examples relating to how he, Shaye, and their fellow practitioners at Lippincott use Jobs Theory on a daily basis to not only design products and services but to actually build brands. This is a must-listen conversation for those interested in learning more about what successful brands do, how they do it, and the power of the Jobs To Be Done framework to build these brands! 

Clayton Christensen and Rita McGrath, one of the top management thinkers in the world, spent over two decades as both colleagues and friends. To this day, the concept of Discovery-Driven Planning, first widely introduced in a 1995 HBR article by Rita and Ian MacMillan, is taught in the Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise course at Harvard Business School. In this insightful conversation, Rita joins host Derek van Bever to discuss a number of topics highly relevant to management and strategy, including her work on inflection points and spotting the future before it arrives; the importance of testing fundamental assumptions (and why we so often fail to do so); barriers to innovation and growth; and Valize, the company that Rita founded to help organizations build lasting innovation capability as the basis for long-term shared prosperity. Listen to learn more!

In an earlier episode of The Disruptive Voice, Pontus Sirén discussed the Jobs methodology and how it relates to customer centricity. Companies exist to address customer problems, i.e. their Jobs To Be Done – and the first critical step for any innovator is to identify a good problem to solve. In this episode, Pontus’ Innosight colleague, Shari Parvarandeh, joins him to not only delve deeper into the importance of having a customer-centric approach but also to highlight that as Jobs arise in the lives of customers, they are compelled to make trade-off decisions. While the Jobs methodology enables companies to more deeply understand the progress that customers are trying to make, trade-off analysis enables them to systematically develop customer Jobs-centric solutions. Of further note is that, for companies, trade-offs are the linchpin of strategy, and they must constantly innovate to develop new and distinctive trade-off equations. Mastering this discipline is indispensable because, in the long run, companies succeed by continuously developing differentiated solutions with compelling trade-offs. Drawing on a number of real world examples to bring these ideas to life, this conversation sheds new light on how, through changing from a mindset of customer centricity to one of customers’ Jobs centricity, companies can innovate in more predictable and systematic ways.

This week on The Disruptive Voice, we're delighted to introduce you to Professor Rory McDonald, the Thai-Hi T. Lee Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.  Before his untimely passing, Clayton Christensen named Rory as the Course Head of Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise and also charged him with leading and transforming BSSE to fit the needs of its newest students.  In this episode, Rory discusses new cases and theories that have been added to BSSE, including "Parrot: Navigating the Nascent Drone Industry", "Marcus by Goldman Sachs", and a module note on purpose brands, to name just a few.  He is hosted by Anibha Singh, a Research Associate here at The Forum for Growth & Innovation who has worked extensively with Rory over the previous year.  Together, they also discuss how these changes to the course interface with Rory's latest research on pioneering nascent markets.  We hope you enjoy this timely and informative discussion! 

Talenia Phua Gajardo, an alumna of HBS Executive Education’s Disruptive Innovation course, is Founder & CEO of The Artling, an online gallery and arts consultancy featuring a curated collection of art and design pieces from a myriad of artists, galleries, and designers. Founded in 2013, the organization aims to both showcase stunning works of art and to make them more accessible to a broader, international audience. As you’ll hear more about in this episode, the pandemic has presented The Artling with both challenges and opportunities, but of particular note is how Covid-19 has forced the rapid digitization of art galleries. Hosted by Chris Diak, Talenia discusses steps she’s taken to steer The Artling through choppy coronavirus waters; her thoughts on why people hire art and design; the importance of trust in this age of increasing e-commerce; how she’s thinking about pursuing growth and scaling her organization; the experience of art in-person versus through online platforms; and the future of the arts industry. We hope you enjoy this artful conversation! 

When Ann-Somers Hogg, Director of Innovation at Atrium Health, came to Cambridge to teach about disruption in healthcare at the Harvard Macy Institute “Leading Innovations” program, we invited her to the podcast studio to hear a little more about how disruption is affecting her organization—and what they are doing about it.  Ann-Somers is a 2015 past participant of our Executive Education course now known as "Disruptive Innovation" and was recently named one of the “Top 40 Under 40” in Charlotte, North Carolina.  She is someone to watch, and her message is relevant to anyone who is trying to do that most difficult thing: Turn a big organization around to face off against a disruptive entrant.  She and Atrium are fully about the exercise, and we’re sure you’ll be as impressed with her as we have been.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year but for many high school seniors it means one thing: college application deadlines! This week on The Disruptive Voice, as millions of students hit “submit”, we’ve invited Bob Moesta and Michael Horn to The Forum to discuss why we go to college in the first place. They’ve recently released an excellent, highly-readable book called “Choosing College” that uses Jobs To Be Done-based research to examine why people hire education and how to choose it. You can further explore their findings at Choosing College.

Michael received his MBA from HBS in 2006 and, since then, has worked closely with Professor Christensen on disruption in education, including as Co-Founder of The Christensen Institute. He's currently the Head of Strategy & Senior Partner Entangled Group and is Chief Strategy Officer & Principal Consultant at Entangled Solutions. Bob is a Disruptive Voice podcast veteran and, along with Prof Christensen, is co-architect of the Jobs To Be Done theory. He is also President & CEO of the The ReWired Group and moonlights as a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, and the Kellogg School at Northwestern. Bob and Michael are hosted this week by Chris Diak, an M.Div. candidate at Harvard Divinity School and one of our newest members here at The Forum for Growth & Innovation.

The holidays are always a time of reflection and here at The Forum we’re looking inward to understand why people hire Harvard Business School to earn an MBA. Derek van Bever, Director of The Forum for Growth & Innovation, is joined in the studio by Community Manager, Katie Zandbergen, and Research Associate, Iulia Mogosanu, to discuss a research project they’ve undertaken using the Jobs To Be Done approach pioneered by Bob Moesta and Clayton Christensen. This research was carried out as part of a JTBD Toolbox initiative that The Forum team is working on for those interested in learning more about the practicalities of conducting Jobs-based consumer research. In this episode, we discuss the six steps outlined in the JTBD Toolbox, which will be released later this academic year; the process of conducting Jobs interviews; and three Jobs for which students and professionals hire Harvard Business School.

In The Capitalist's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen and Derek van Bever highlighted a persistent temptation for companies to increase profitability by driving down costs through "efficiency innovations." For many companies awash in capital, this increased profitability came at the expense of hundreds or thousands of jobs and often ignored the sources of long-term, sustainable growth: what Clay and Derek termed market-creating innovations. The trillion dollar exception to this rule is Amazon.

Today, we are thrilled to bring you a conversation with Andy Jassy, HBS Class of 1997 and CEO of Amazon Web Services, including a wide-ranging discussion of Amazon's solutions to the Capitalist's Dilemma. Hosted by Derek van Bever, Andy tells the origin story of AWS, discusses the process of innovation at Amazon, and presents a graduate-level seminar on how to apply Clay's theories to drive innovation and growth. This is a not-to-be-missed conversation! 

This week on The Disruptive Voice, we are joined in the studio by Hari Nair, a longtime member of Clay World and one of the original members of the Innosight Asia team. Hari’s career has been focused on overcoming the challenges to innovation, in organizations large and small. Among the many projects and ventures he has pursued, he was deeply involved in the design and rollout of the chotuKool, a market-creating innovation in India that we have profiled in a BSSE case study. Hari has much to teach on how to use Jobs theory to shape product innovation efforts, and on how to spot non-consumption. He offers some advice to entrepreneurs wishing to understand the cues and clues to next-generation products and services. Hari has been on campus for the past year as a member of the school’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, and it is a great pleasure to share what he has learned about innovation, and about targeting non-consumption, with all of you.

This week on The Disruptive Voice, Derek van Bever, Director of The Forum for Growth & Innovation and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, is joined in the studio by Bob Moesta and Andrew Glaser for an illuminating discussion of the “paradox of innovation” through the lens of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory. Andrew is Chief Strategy Officer at American Signature, Inc. and an outspoken evangelist for JTBD, which was co-architected by Bob Moesta, President and CEO of the Re-Wired Group. We’re delighted to bring you this conversation on the disjunct between innovator and consumer perceptions, leveraging Jobs Theory effectively in an organization, and the role of honesty and vulnerability in JTBD interviews.

We sat down with Bob Moesta, the President and CEO of The ReWired Group, and pioneer of the Jobs To Be Done Theory. The topic: spotting and strategizing around non-consumption. Through this lens companies can see where they can enter a market and compete against...nothing!

Through the lens of Jobs To Be Done, MBA graduates Jasmyn Beausejour and Nicolas Kernick consider the scale and complexity of the types of jobs for which clients hire the Big 3 consulting firms – McKinsey, BCG, and Bain. With the 2013 HBR article as the springboard for their research, their framework and analysis help to explain current trends in the consulting industry and, crucially, to consider where the industry may be heading in the future, both in terms of threats and opportunities. 

In this episode, Dr. William Hait, Global Head of Johnson & Johnson External Innovation, discusses how the 135 year old company is using the principles of disruption to improve the trajectory of healthcare across the globe. Dr. Hait, who leads a unit comprised of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the Lung Cancer Initiative at Johnson & Johnson, and the company's World Without Disease Accelerator, oversees the creation of transformational new growth platforms. Hosted by Innosight's Josh Suskewicz, they discuss The Innovator’s Prescription and how one of the keys to disruption in healthcare is the democratization of products and services enabled by the deskilling of complex medical procedures; eliminating disease through prevention, interception, and cure (including why a focus on prevention is so crucial and so challenging); redefining how we think about disease; the importance of anchor assets; and why the support of leadership at the highest levels is crucial to warding off disruption in incumbent organizations. Listen to learn more about how Johnson & Johnson has positioned itself to actively look for disruption on the horizon, leading to frequent investments in or partnerships with would-be disruptors, a strategy that has helped to turn perceived threats into tangible opportunities for the future of innovation in healthcare. 

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, many parents opted or were directed by their children’s schools to enroll students in online learning. However, for a number of reasons – including students feeling lonely, the online model often requiring heavy involvement by parents in the learning process, and the practicalities of caregivers needing to return to work – online learning hasn’t gained longer-term traction but is instead seen by many families as a short-term solution during challenging times. Observing these trends, and wanting also to help break the connection between geography and educational outcomes, Amar Kumar saw an opportunity to build a new company, KaiPod Learning. As Founder & CEO, Amar makes a distinction between “Zoom School”, which many students around the world experienced in one form or another over the past two years, and a true online learning experience. Hosted by The Christensen Institute’s Thomas Arnett, they discuss the Jobs To Be Done of different stakeholders in K-12 education; issues surrounding access to high-quality learning; the role that schools play in society; the new educational model that Amar and his team are building at KaiPod Learning; the future of online education, and more!

When Nikhil Agarwal and Chris Abkarians were admitted to the Harvard Business School MBA Class of 2020, neither of them could have guessed that their efforts to negotiate on the price of their student loans would be transformed into a viable new venture. However, before they had even set foot on campus, they had saved themselves and around 700 of their peers an average of $15,000 each on their student loans. Realizing the potential of their efforts, Nikhil and Chris co-founded LeverEdge to further develop their model, using group buying power to negotiate better student loan rates with lenders. In this episode of The Disruptive Voice, Anibha Singh hosts Nikhil and Chris for a discussion on the structure of the student loan industry, how LeverEdge fits into that space, the flow of information throughout the lending and borrowing process, and the costs and benefits of using government or private loans to finance an education. We encourage our listeners to reach out to Chris and Nikhil if you'd like to be involved with LeverEdge or are looking for an exciting career opportunity!

Over a year ago, The Forum for Growth & Innovation team ventured to North Carolina to learn about the ways in which a group of innovators had spread the gospel of disruption to the senior leadership of Atrium Health.  Regular listeners of the podcast may remember when we interviewed Atrium's Ann-Somers Hogg on her experience of studying the theories of Disruptive Innovation and Jobs To Be Done as an executive education participant at HBS, before bringing the learnings and language home to her team at Atrium Health and spreading it to senior leadership, including through enrollment in HBS Online's Disruptive Strategy course. 

This week, we are delighted to release, at long last, a conversation with the mind behind the mission: Jean Wright, MD/MBA, the former Chief Innovation Officer at Atrium Health. In her position, Jean was well aware of the challenges of disruption facing her industry and sought out ways to build a culture of innovation and learning at Atrium, for instance, by sending her employees to study at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT for executive education courses.

This podcast was originally research material that was used by The Forum for Growth & Innovation to develop a case study of disruption in the healthcare industry. However, we thought it so compelling that we knew we had to share it with you as well. Dr. Wright offers lessons by example and experience in leadership, management, and innovation that we know you'll find inspiring and useful.

Online grocery shopping isn't (really) catching on. While there has been real growth in the number of Americans who shop for groceries online in 2020, even in the midst of a global pandemic, the vast majority of customers choose to shop in person. Why? 

This week on The Disruptive Voice, we're delighted to bring you José Vicente Aguerrevere and Max Pedró, co-founders of Takeoff Technologies, for a look behind the scenes at their efforts to build and sustain a technology company aimed at eliminating a major barrier to online grocery retailing. After taking BSSE with Professor Christensen, Max and José graduated from HBS as Baker Scholars in 2002, pursued careers in blue chip banking, consulting, and retail firms, and fourteen years later felt called to co-found a technology firm. Based on the idea that finding the right trade-offs could make online grocery retailing cost effective to both the retailer and customer, Max and José have turned their start-up into a global company. Hosted by Anibha Singh, Max and José discuss the genesis of the business, their rapid scaling efforts, the evolution of the grocery industry during the coronavirus pandemic, and their vision of an ecosystem of efficient fulfillment across industries. We hope you enjoy this engaging and thought-provoking episode!

Do you remember having cable TV? Many of us do not. Over the last twenty years, the media landscape has been transformed amidst waves of disruption, technological innovation, and changing patterns of media consumption. Today on The Disruptive Voice, we bring you a timely conversation with Shilpa Bisaria, Senior Director of Growth Strategy and Operations at WarnerMedia, discussing how she has used management theory to guide her efforts in the media industry. Before taking on her current role, Shilpa worked for several years at Innosight, a consulting firm co-founded by Clayton Christensen and Mark Johnson that focuses on helping organizations to design and create the future, rather than be disrupted by it. During that time, she met Anibha Singh, now a Research Associate at The Forum for Growth & Innovation and your host for this episode. Together they discuss recent trends in the media industry, how Warner Media is targeting non-consumption, and Shilpa's work on a new social agency called Launchpad, developed within Warner Media. Given the ever-expanding role of media technology in our lives, we trust you'll find this an important and inspiring conversation!

In the Harvard Business Review article, Persuade Your Company To Change Before It's Too Late, Innosight's Scott Anthony, Pontus Siren, and Utsav Bhatt describe how to break the information-action paradox and gain conviction to act before industry change gets ahead of your organization. In doing so, they draw on the story of King & Wood Mallesons (KWM), a law firm whose management team had the conviction required to successfully respond to disruptive change, taking steps to manage it without ripping apart the fabric of their organization. In this discussion, the three touch on a number of related topics, including navigating disruption in a rapidly changing world, the careful balance that leaders must strike when making consequential decisions, breaking the information-action paradox, and so much more. As they make clear in this episode, "Heroes don’t act when they're on burning platforms – they avoid ending up on them in the first place!" Listen to learn more. 

In this episode, Efosa Ojomo returns to The Disruptive Voice to discuss his latest research at The Christensen Institute’s Global Prosperity group. He and his colleague, Lincoln Wilcox, recently published a report highlighting six innovative strategies for creating new markets in emerging economies. This conversation, hosted by Katie Zandbergen, focuses on the findings from their research, along with the implications for those looking to create prosperity around the globe. Efosa speaks not only about the tremendous opportunities surrounding market-creating innovations, helping would-be entrepreneurs to see prospects for building and sustaining successful enterprises where they might least expect them, but also about demystifying the process, debunking false narratives and empowering entrepreneurs to launch innovative and market-creating ventures in emerging markets. 

Over the course of the twentieth century, the growth of the consulting industry was fueled by a series of sustaining innovations that strongly influenced the practice of management and corporate strategy. As a result, leading consulting firms today have well-defined value propositions and business models, offering premium, high cost services to a relatively small pool of clients, while simultaneously creating the conditions for non-consumption across vast swaths of the business landscape. Put simply, most businesses that could potentially benefit from the expertise of leading consulting firms cannot afford their services, nor do these services and the underlying collaboration model necessarily align with the processes or priorities of the client’s organization. The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated these disparities, begging the question of whether new consulting models may be on the horizon. 

This week on The Disruptive Voice, we’re delighted to bring you a conversation with Erika J. Meldrim, Head of Business Development at Innosight, a strategy and innovation consulting firm founded by Clayton Christensen and Mark Johnson that focuses on helping organizations to design and create the future, rather than be disrupted by it. Hosted by Katie Zandbergen, they discuss how Innosight, looking inward and drawing on a strategy of dual transformation, is working on the development of a new initiative called Innosight Connect. This flexible engagement model is offered to clients across industries, enables an actionable understanding of Innosight’s intellectual property, embeds capabilities by teaching and upskilling teams, and emphasizes collaborative problem solving and co-creation.  This model also allows a wider breadth of organizations to take advantage of Innosight’s service offerings – different customers with different Jobs To Be Done than those served by the core Innosight offering. The conversation touches on a range of topics, including the discovery process that led to the genesis of Innosight Connect, features of the business model that differentiate it from other aspects of the Innosight portfolio, consulting industry trends, customer Jobs To Be Done, and Future-back thinking, to cite just a few examples.  Tune in for an interesting conversation focused on a great example of business model innovation theory in action!   

Here at Harvard Business School, we are mourning the recent passing of Professor Clayton Christensen. As many listeners will know, Clay died in late January following complications from leukemia. Our hearts go out to all who knew and were touched by him, and we feel that now, more than ever, we must press on, sharing his life’s work. Therefore, we are heartened to bring you this conversation with one of Clay’s brightest students: Horace Dediu. Horace is an analyst who studied disruption with Clay at The Christensen Institute. He's now leading a new revolution in how we transport ourselves: the micromobility revolution. He's the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at BOND Mobility, he co-founded a community-building and content-generating organization called Micromobility Industries, and he's an Analyst at Asymco. In his work, he draws on the theories of Disruption and Jobs To Be Done to target new and low-end markets. In fact, Horace contends that fully half of all driven miles in the United States will be substituted with micromobility-enabled options in the future! He is hosted in this fascinating and timely conversation by Katie Zandbergen, the Community Manager at The Forum for Growth & Innovation.

Jobs Theory, when correctly applied, has the potential to be a huge unlock for organizations that have yet to realize the full value from their agile transformations. In order to benefit from the full potential of the Jobs To Be Done framework, a systems lens is required in its application. In this episode, Innosight’s Alasdair Trotter joins host Katie Zandbergen to discuss the challenges and opportunities that arise when trying to build more customer-centric and agile organizations. The conversation covers many of the ways in which Jobs Theory can be used to strengthen different aspects of the enterprise operating model, from strategy development to modern product and portfolio management. The discussion also includes a variety of insights about how Jobs Theory can bring more focus to enterprise strategy, overcome solution bias when developing and managing products, and improve the prioritization of strategy goals, as well as specific features. In short, listen to this insightful conversation to learn more about Jobs Theory as a powerful tool for addressing many of the challenges faced by modern product organizations!

In the US, many go bankrupt due to the extraordinary high costs in our healthcare system.  On an annual basis, we spend around $3.6 trillion – or 18% of GDP – on healthcare, but what do we get in exchange?  In this engaging episode, Dr. Mahek Shah discusses several topics at the heart of creating a more affordable and accessible healthcare industry: pricing prescription drugs, creating a better patient experience, and unleashing innovation through the power of technology.  For instance, what if going to the doctor was akin to the experience of visiting an Apple store? 

Mahek has spent his career at the intersection of business, healthcare, and technology, working to help redesign, reimagine, and rehumanize healthcare. He's been at the frontier of advising organizations in moving to value-based care, understanding their Jobs To Be Done, and leveraging technology to deliver patient-centered care. 

Listen now to hear from Dr. Shah as Katie Zandbergen, Community Manager at The Forum for Growth & Innovation, hosts this timely and lively conversation.

After college, Kareem Farah became a high school math teacher, teaching in the traditional way that most of us experienced as students, with the instructor standing in front of the classroom and lecturing on the information that students were supposed to learn. Much to his frustration and dismay, however, he soon discovered that there were some things that were shockingly wrong about traditional teaching and learning, namely that the instructional model was largely broken and kids in his classroom were not being well-served by it. As such, Kareem, along with fellow teacher, Rob Barnett, co-founded The Modern Classrooms Project – addressing their personal Job To Be Done of “Help me to replace this broken instructional model so that I can better serve my students.” In this episode, and through the lenses of the Jobs To Be Done framework, Kareem joins The Christensen Institute’s Tom Arnett to discuss the unique instructional delivery professional development model that they’re building at Modern Classrooms Project, including features such as the model being opt-in only and both curriculum and grade level-agnostic, and also how it results in more student-centered classrooms, along with better outcomes for both teachers and students. The Modern Classrooms Project is a great example where the founders’ own struggling moments were indeed the seeds for innovation in the K-12 classrooms where teachers have adopted the Modern Classrooms instructional model. Listen to learn more! 

Tom Arnett is Senior Research Fellow – Education at The Clayton Christensen Institute, where he studies instructional models and demand for innovative resources and practices across the K-12 education system. In this episode, he joins host Michael Horn to dig into his latest research, sharing insights on what Clay’s frameworks can tell us about recent developments in online learning and also how the incorporation of new techniques in K-12 schooling models might evolve as we slowly emerge from the pandemic. For instance, can lessons learned on what not to do with online learning help to ignite its adoption going forward? How are teachers thinking about their instructional models in a world rocked by pandemic disruption? How have school systems' RPPs affected their response to the pandemic? And will schools work to reinvent their business models to accommodate changing stakeholder expectations or will K-12 schools remain largely unchanged in the longer term? Listen to this engaging conversation to hear Tom’s thoughts on these important questions and more! 

In this episode, Forum member and Research Associate Shaye Roseman is joined in the HBS studio by Darius Shahida, MBA class of 2019 and Chief of Staff at Butterfly Network. Through their conversation, we learn how Butterfly Network is aiming to disrupt and revolutionize the ultrasound industry. How is the new company approaching ultrasound imaging incumbents? What type of innovation lies behind their product, and how disruptive is it? And just how is Darius using theories from the BSSE course to guide Butterfly Network into the future? Tune in to find out and, as always, reach out to us with questions, comments, or suggestions on what you'd like to hear from The Disruptive Voice!

We're delighted to begin Season 4 of The Disruptive Voice with Anna Marie Wagner, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Ginkgo Bioworks. Hosted by Derek van Bever, Anna Marie discusses the transformative potential of bioengineering and the work her company is doing to help facilitate it. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar, Anna Marie worked as an investor with Bain Capital Private Equity for several years before diving into the world of biotechnology. In this rich discussion, she teaches Derek (and all of us!) about synthetic biology, and the barriers to more nimble forms of biotech development, as well as the platform solution that Ginkgo has devised to facilitate biological innovation. 

In honor of The Disruptive Voice's 80th episode, along with the start of the new academic year at Harvard Business School, we decided to re-release this recording from our archives. Originally released in September of 2016, Clay had invited some of his former Building & Sustaining a Successful Enterprise (BSSE) students back to campus to talk about the goals of the course, while also taking questions from the audience. In this episode, he discusses not only what the BSSE course has set out to achieve, but also the importance of having a common language and way to frame problems, and what theory has to say about competitive response, electric vehicles, mergers and acquisitions, RPPs (resources, processes, and priorities), anomalies, enabling technologies, measuring one's life, and more! Take yourself back five years in time and pull up a seat to this great session with Prof Clayton Christensen.  

Higher education has long been on an unsustainable trajectory, with rising costs - and subsequent debt passed on to students - hindering the ability of many to get ahead. In this episode of The Disruptive Voice, education author and researcher, Michael Horn, hosts fellow Harvard Business School alumnus Scott Pulsipher, President of Western Governors University (WGU). Among many topics, the two discuss how the accredited, non-profit university is disrupting traditional models of higher education through its online, competency-based model. A long-time friend of Clayton Christensen's, Scott shares how Clay’s frameworks have been instrumental to his thinking and also how Clay's work helped to inform WGU's unique model, even before Scott became President. With a strong focus on serving its students, the majority of whom haven’t been well served or served at all by traditional models of learning, along with an alumni base of over 340,000 graduates, Western Governors University is a prime example of Disruptive Innovation as a powerful force for democratizing access and opportunity.

Continuing our focus on Jobs to Be Done, Derek is joined by Intercom Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Des Traynor, to discuss how Intercom's model was built from the ground up with the framework. Be sure to take a look at Intercom's helpful JTBD resources. 

This week on The Disruptive Voice, we're delighted to introduce you to Euvin Naidoo and Efosa Ojomo, who join us for a conversation about innovation, prosperity, and development in Africa. Originally from KwaDukuza, South Africa, Euvin is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, where he studies risk management, performance controls, governance, and agile execution. In doing so, he regularly draws on his work in leading banking and financial institutions in Africa, including McKinsey, Standard Bank, and BCG. He is joined by Efosa Ojomo, Global Prosperity Lead and Senior Research Fellow at the Christensen Institute. A 2015 HBS MBA who took BSSE with Clayton Christensen, Efosa also worked with Clay and Karen Dillon on what would be Clay's last book: The Prosperity Paradox. Euvin and Efosa are hosted by Erin Wetzel, Clay's Faculty Support Specialist at Harvard Business School, and together they reflect on the impact of Clay's thinking, how it applies in a pan-African context, and the importance of market-creating innovations.

Many listeners will know Ann Christensen as President & CEO of The Clayton Christensen Institute. To Clay, however, she was his oldest daughter, Annie. How Will You Measure Your Life, published with co-authors James Allworth & Karen Dillon in 2012, is one of Clay’s most popular books, challenging each of us to think more deeply about our life and our purpose, including how we nurture our relationships to become enduring sources of happiness. In this episode, and through the lens of How Will You Measure Your Life, Ann reflects on what it was like to grow up in the Christensen house, sharing stories and memories of Clay as a father. Hosted by Katie Zandbergen, she also discusses her path from Duke University to Mongolia to Harvard Business School and beyond, along with the story of The Christensen Institute, both where it’s been and where Ann hopes to lead the organization in the future. At the helm of The Christensen Institute, and embodying Clay’s love of learning from “all kinds of kinds”, Ann is carrying on her father’s work, making the world a better place through Disruptive Innovation. 

Just what is the job of an investor? Forum member Curtis Arledge talks to Nate Redmond, Managing Partner at Alpha Edison, about adapting to changes within Venture Capital and the role of the investor. Nate explains his application of BSSE theories to locating and evaluating potential companies - unlocking opportunities in his terminology - as well as common mistakes investors make, their relationship to risk, and his vision of the power of entrepreneurship.

On this week's episode of The Disruptive Voice, we're delighted to bring you a conversation with Erin Wetzel and Emily Snyder about their life-changing experiences working with Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School.  Emily, currently Chief of Staff at Magnolia, served as Clay's Administrative Director for five years before attending Columbia Business School. Erin joined Clay's office in 2018, five years after meeting Clay and Emily in Oxford, and has worked as his Faculty Support Specialist at HBS while simultaneously pursuing a masters in social work at Boston University. The two reflect on their entry into Clay's world, share stories and reflections from their time with him, including his style as a manager, and discuss the applications of the theories taught in the Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise course to work and life. 

This week on The Disruptive Voice we bring you a conversation between Cliff Maxwell and Ned Calder on the electrification of the auto industry -- or, more broadly, the mobility industry -- using the theories of Disruption and Jobs To Be Done. As a partner at Innosight, where he has worked for over a decade, Ned has consciously applied these theories in his work in the high tech, automotive, aerospace, and defense sectors. His wealth of experience in the tech world also stems from his time with NASA and Atlas Scientific, where he worked prior to joining Innosight. Cliff Maxwell is a newly minted MBA candidate at Harvard Business School who most recently served as Clayton Christensen’s Chief of Staff and as a Product Manager at the Clayton Christensen Institute, where he worked on projects related to educational technology. We’re delighted to bring you this timely conversation on the push to electrify vehicles, the disruptive forces shaping the mobility industry, the prospects for autonomous vehicles, and the role of companies like Rivian.

This is a true story of one man, his four children, four mentors, and five skills. It began when Bob Moesta’s now-grown children moved out of the family home. Bob and his wife decided to clean things out a bit and during that process, in their attic, Bob came across eight hundred and forty-seven notebooks containing information on everything that he had worked on throughout his career! As he started to read through the notebooks it became clear that he had a great deal of information to share, wisdom gained over the years from his experiences working alongside his four mentors. Out of that attic discovery was born Bob's new book, "Learning To Build: The Five Bedrock Skills of Innovators and Entrepreneurs". The book is dedicated to his mentors as follows: "To my mentors: Drs. Clayton Christensen, Genichi Taguchi, W. Edwards Deming, and Willie Hobbs Moore, who shared their knowledge with me so that I could pay it forward." In this episode, Bob joins host Katie Zandbergen to discuss the five fundamental skills of innovators and entrepreneurs, gleaned from his decades working as an innovative builder, teacher, and entrepreneur. He also reflects on his friendship with Clay and the importance of mentors; the power of mindset change; projects that he's currently working on; and why people should "hire" his new book. Above all, Bob is focused on paying it forward and helping others to make progress in their lives. Listen to learn more!