Thought Sparks

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Sangeet Paul Choudary– expert on platform economics and network effects, and the recipient of the 2025 Thinkers50 Strategy Award – to discuss his new book Reshuffle. 

0:00 - Intro & Teaser  
0:31 - Welcome & Guest Introduction (Sangeet Choudary, author of "Reshuffle")  
1:49 - The Maginot Line Analogy: Why We're Solving the Wrong Problem with AI  
4:07 - AI's Automation Lens vs. the Coordination Lens  
5:02 - AI's Real Impact: Changing How the Economy Connects  
7:15 - What Inspired the Book "Reshuffle"  
9:40 - The Shipping Container Analogy: Lessons for AI  
11:21 - From Port Automation to Systemic Transformation  
13:04 - How AI Makes Tacit & Unstructured Knowledge Usable  
15:35 - AI's Impact on Jobs & Roles: What Really Disappears  
17:51 - Coordination as AI's Magical Property  
18:27 - What AI Means for Strategy  
19:08 - From Operational Uncertainty to Structural Uncertainty  
19:51 - Industry Boundaries Are Collapsing  
21:46 - The New Way to Win: Reshaping the Playing Field  
26:51 - The TikTok Example: Intelligence-First vs. Social Graph  
29:34 - Shein & AI-Driven Fast Fashion  
33:45 - Sephora: AI as a Consumer Decision-Making Assistant  
36:13 - Solution Providers vs. Tool Providers (Two Strategic Roles)  
41:55 - What Will Happen to Consulting?  
44:22 - New Business Models: Rentable, Recombinable & Scalable (Mr. Beast Burgers)  
48:30 - Sangeet's Next Book: "Unfair Advantage"  
51:01 - The Dynamics of Transition: From Petroleum Age to Digital  
53:00 - Apple's Masterclass in Value Migration (iPod → iPhone)  
57:37 - Closing Remarks & Farewell 

New episodes of the Thought Sparks Podcast are released every Tuesday at 11am Eastern.  
 
Want to learn more about Rita’s ideas and hear more of her conversations with business leaders and innovators?  
Listen to more Thought Sparks Podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts  and Spotify. 
Watch Thought Sparks episodes on YouTube. 
Follow Rita on LinkedIn, Instagram, X and Blue Sky. 
Connect with Rita on TikTok. 
Sign up for her Thought Sparks Newsletter on Substack.  
Learn more about Rita, her books and ideas at RitaMcGrath.com

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Christian Marcolli, a performance psychologist who works with elite athletes and executives on how to achieve and sustain high performance, and the author of “Winning Match: Leadership for Game Changers”  
00:27 Introductions and Novartis’ Culture Leadership Advisory Board 
2:19: From Professional Soccer Player to Psychology PhD Candidate 
8:37: Working with Roger Federer 
10:05: Creating Frameworks that Nurture Talent 
12:55: The 4 Traits of a Potential Game Changer 
14:32: The Role of Generosity in Leadership 
17:03: Leadership Sparring: How Leaders Get Feedback as Organizations Flatten 
23:35: The Five Practices for Performance Improvement 
29:42: Examples from NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang and Airbnb’s Brian Cheskey 
33:36: Case Study in Performance Improvement 
36:59: How Leaders Foster the Development of Potential 
38:49: The Hidden Talents That Leaders Miss 
42:20: Examples from Elite Athletes: How Mindset Boosts Performance 
47:33: How to Find a Leadership Sparring Partner 
48:59: Why Peer-to-Peer Leadership Support is Indispensable 
52:03: Takeaways to Implement Right Away 
 
 
 
Thought Sparks are the brainchild of Rita McGrath. They are insightful actions, strategic ideas, actionable suggestions and innovative approaches that help organizations and leaders master the future with less fear and more confidence.  
 
New episodes of the Thought Sparks Podcast are released every Tuesday at 11am Eastern.  
 
Want to learn more about Rita’s ideas and hear more of her conversations with business leaders and innovators?  
Listen to more Thought Sparks Podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts  and Spotify. 
Watch Thought Sparks episodes on YouTube. 
Follow Rita on LinkedIn, Instagram, X and Blue Sky. 
Connect with Rita on TikTok. 
Sign up for her Thought Sparks Newsletter on Substack.  
Learn more about Rita, her books and ideas at RitaMcGrath.com

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at University College London and an adjunct professor at Columbia University,  and the author of Don't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead). 
 
00:00 Introductions 
01:06 Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? 
02:54"Don't Be Yourself”: Why This Book, Now 
05:21 Authenticity Versus Leadership, and Being the Leader the Situation Calls For 
06:59 The Visibility of Authenticity  
09:18 Power and Self Censorship from Jeff Pfeffer 
11:04: The Four Mantras of Authenticity 
11:30: Mantra 1: “Honesty” 
14:18 Mantra 2: “Don’t Worry About What People Think” 
15:45 Skill Building and Self Awareness, from Matt Beane 
18:27 Mantra 3: “Always be True to Your Values” 
21:42 The Overton Window and How Norms Shift 
24:03: Herminia Ibarra’s Critique of the Authenticity Paradox 
26:44 Mantra 4: “Bring Your Whole Self to Work” 
27:57 Diversity and Belonging at Work 
30:22 How Employee Engagement Fits Into the Authenticity Picture 
32:27 How DEI Interventions Utilize Authenticity  
34:36 The Return to Office: Why Senior Leadership Might Prefer In-Person Work 
35:38: Chip Conley’s Learning to Love Midlife 
36:37: Tech Bros, Solopreneurs, and Authenticity to an Extreme 
38:27 Practical Alternatives: Your Right For Self Expression Versus Your Obligation to Others 
41:22 The Self Complexity Framework and Office Politics 
44:41 How to Interview: Honesty versus Employability 
48:32 Gen Z: Developing Grit and Learning from Feedback 
55:28 AI Paranoia and Adaptation 
58:42: Gen AI as “Intellectual Fast Food” 
 
 
Thought Sparks are the brainchild of Rita McGrath. They are insightful actions, strategic ideas, actionable suggestions and innovative approaches that help organizations and leaders master the future with less fear and more confidence.  
 
New episodes of the Thought Sparks Podcast are released every other Tuesday at 11am Eastern.  
 
Want to learn more about Rita’s ideas and hear more of her conversations with business leaders and innovators?  
Listen to more Thought Sparks Podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts  and Spotify. 

Watch Thought Sparks episodes on YouTube. 

Follow Rita on LinkedIn, Instagram, X and Blue Sky. 

Connect with Rita on TikTok. 

Sign up for her Thought Sparks Newsletter on Substack.  

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

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes José Marcilla, President of Latin America and Canada (LACan) Region at Novartis, and author of “Unlimited Leadership”.  
 
00:46: Why this Book, and The Crisis of Good Leadership 
3:04: Jose’s Journey and Career Path 
5:16: Burnout, and the Need for Leaders to Focus on What They Can Control 
8:06: Humanism in Leadership: The “Hardware” and “Software” that Leaders Need 
10:38: Explaining Tough Decisions to Your People 
13:42: Novartis’ Transformation Strategy: The Intersection of Technological and Biomedical Revolutions 
16:00: Building an Inspired, Curious, and Unbossed Culture at Novartis 
18:01: Clarity and Simplicity in Corporate Strategy 
19:50: The Next Best You: Are You Changing as Fast As The World Is? 
22:59: Staying Grounded as a Senior Leader 
25:40: Setting the Tone Around Innovation and Failure 
28:16: How Leaders Can Repair Eroded Trust in 3 Ways 
32:37: Amy Edmondson’s 3 Types of Failures 
34:59: Leaders as Coaches: How Coaching Training Changed Jose’s Leadership 
37:40: The Delayering Question: Bureaucracy Eats Culture for Breakfast  
43:19: What Leaders Need to Unlearn 
45:15: Advice for Gen Z: Going from a “Tetris” Mindset to a “Roblox” Mindset 
50:27: The Importance of Mentorship 
 
 
Thought Sparks are the brainchild of Rita McGrath. They are insightful actions, strategic ideas, actionable suggestions and innovative approaches that help organizations and leaders master the future with less fear and more confidence.  
 
New episodes of the Thought Sparks Podcast are released every other Tuesday at 11am Eastern.  
 
Want to learn more about Rita’s ideas and hear more of her conversations with business leaders and innovators?  
Listen to more Thought Sparks Podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts  and Spotify. 

Watch Thought Sparks episodes on YouTube. 

Follow Rita on LinkedIn, Instagram, X and Blue Sky. 

Connect with Rita on TikTok. 

Sign up for her Thought Sparks Newsletter on Substack.  

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

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Steven Goldbach and Geoff Tuff, authors of Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift. They explore how leaders can align their organizations amid the “drift” that can accompany large transformations and other contexts of uncertainty.  
 
8:52: Early Research: Beyond the “70-20-10" Innovation Portfolio 
13:32: Strategy, Budgeting, Governance, and Career Advancement: Forces in Opposition 
16:05: Detonate, Provoke, Hone: From Blowing Up the Playbook to Operationalizing a New One 
20:46: The Difference Between Honing and Sharpening, from Chef Flannery Colton 
25:41: Treat Change as the Normal Thing, Not the Weird Thing 
27:36: What are Management Systems?: The Critical Fifth Box of the Choice Cascade 
35:03: The Role of Visionary CEOs 
38:00: A Guide to Human Behavioral Change, and Patience 
42:40: Transformation and Innovation at Deloitte 
48:00: Case Studies in Collaboration from Sony and the Mayo Clinic 
51:49: Diseconomies of Scale, and the Risks of Being Too Big to Hone 
59:00: Single-Person-Unicorns, and How Units of Value Creation Change 
1:01:05: “We Don’t Have Eight Planets to Burn”: The Sustainability Question 
 
 
 
Thought Sparks are the brainchild of Rita McGrath. They are insightful actions, strategic ideas, actionable suggestions and innovative approaches that help organizations and leaders master the future with less fear and more confidence.  
 
New episodes of the Thought Sparks Podcast are released every other Tuesday at 11am Eastern.  
 
Want to learn more about Rita’s ideas and hear more of her conversations with business leaders and innovators?  
Listen to more Thought Sparks Podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts  and Spotify. 

Watch Thought Sparks episodes on YouTube. 

Follow Rita on LinkedIn, Instagram, X and Blue Sky. 

Connect with Rita on TikTok. 

Sign up for her Thought Sparks Newsletter on Substack.  

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