We talk with McKinsey partners and corporate executives on the challenges they face creating lasting strategies in a fast-changing world. We also examine the different ways these executives approach these challenges and the new and innovative ways they think of creating a vision for their enterprises.
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Management teams who engage positively with attackers may find activist campaigns bring ideas that create value and improve shareholder performance. We investigate the levers activists pull to improve the performance of target companies, activist investor trends globally, and how companies can respond positively when they are approached by activists. Read more > 
Listen to the podcast (duration: 9:34) >
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Innovation is critical to driving growth. Today we are talking about how large companies can take innovation plays from startups' play books to make them more competitive. We will hear from entrepreneurs and McKinsey experts about the techniques they use to go to market and scale quickly with limited resources. We'll see how larger companies can emulate some of that behaviour. And we will discuss how large companies can leverage what they already do very well and apply it to new growth initiatives. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 34:39) >
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Shiny new initiatives can distract you from paying attention to other good but mundane projects and investments. In this episode McKinsey partner Tim Koller, professor of business strategy at the University of Sydney Dan Lovallo, and Sean Brown, discuss why people underinvest in so-called unremarkable projects and how to remedy this bias to ensure all projects receive the resources and attention they deserve. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 14:03) >
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It’s common for companies to hang on too long to a number of projects or parts of the business that are underperforming but just won’t die. These projects and business units linger because of emotional or legacy attachments that executives have toward them. In this episode McKinsey partner Tim Koller, professor of business strategy at the University of Sydney Dan Lovallo, and Sean Brown, discuss two effective techniques for understanding when to hold on to an asset and when to let it go. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 15:13) >
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Anchoring bias can hold back the budgeting process and influence your targets despite your best efforts. Address it and refocus difficult conversations. In this episode McKinsey partner Tim Koller, professor of business strategy at the University of Sydney Dan Lovallo, and Sean Brown, discuss how to tackle anchoring bias and refocus difficult budget conversations. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 18:38) >
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Despite their best intentions, executives fall prey to cognitive and organizational biases that get in the way of good decision making. In our new Bias Busters series, McKinsey partner Tim Koller and Dan Lovallo, an alumnus of McKinsey’s San Francisco office and professor of business strategy at the University of Sydney, will highlight some of the biases that hold sway in the strategy room. They will also offer effective ways to respond. Our topic for this episode? Taking the “outside view.” Tim, Dan, and host Sean Brown discuss how it’s easier than executives might think to make better forecasts by using a set of reference cases to build the “outside view”. They also discuss how the “outside view” can inform everyday decisions and Dan shares a story about his venture to predict the likelihood of a Hollywood movie succeeding at the domestic box office based on little more than the movie’s promotional poster. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 22:05) >
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Companies that focus on the long-term outperform their shorter-term peers on a range of economic and financial metrics including revenue and earnings, market capitalization, and job creation. In this episode, Sean Brown is joined by Bruce Simpson, a senior partner in our Toronto office who recently co-authored a chapter in the book, Reimagining Capitalism. Also joining the conversation are Jonathan Godsall and Jack McGinn from our the New York office. We discuss how an important part of a successful long-term approach includes a focus on organizational health and culture resulting in higher employee engagement, lower attrition, greater customer loyalty, and trust across stakeholders - as well as superior economic returns. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 11:56) >
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Michael Bender is the global co-leader of McKinsey Digital and Analytics. He spoke with Sean Brown in London about the role CFOs can play in driving digital transformations, the nature of digital transformations more generally, how digital and analytics go hand in hand, and the challenges companies can face when working to adopt both. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 25:35) >
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Working capital is often an under-appreciated source of cash and value creation. Associate partner Matt Stone speaks with Sean Brown in London about how leading companies are unlocking value by implementing effective working capital strategies and world-class advanced analytics and machine learning solutions. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 10:41) >
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There is a wealth of research into how new CEOs should
successfully transition into the leading role. Less frequently studied is how top CEOs
outperform competitors during the second act of their tenures. Sean Brown talks with
sen
ior partner Rodney Zemmel and associate partner Matt Cuddihy about the five
themes that emerged from their research into how leading CEOs managed the middle
part of their tenures through years three, four, five and beyond. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 28:59) >
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Two simple R & D conversion metrics can help executives measure the value of innovation efforts. Senior partner Erik Roth, and associate partners Guttorm Aase and Sri Swaminathan speak
with Sean Brown about how companies can gain valuable insights into innovation performance from a pair of metrics that have been hiding seemingly
in plain sight. Their core components — gross margin, R&D, and sales from new products — are not new, but combining them can shed new light on the relative innovation performance of business units, within an organization and relative to external peers. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 24:25) >
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Senior partner Tamim Saleh cuts through the hype around AI in this interview and offers clear guidance for executives looking to make precise strategic decisions about where and how to employ AI in their business. Tamim shares insights on the impact of machine vision on AI, the future of voice recognition, and the latest developments in advanced analytics, virtual assistants, and robotics. He outlines the challenges companies face when adopting AI and the steps CEOs can take to overcome them. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 31:51) >
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Celia Huber, Senior Partner in our Silicon Valley office, on how companies can build and benefit from gender diversity on boards. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 13:54) >
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Most digital strategies don’t reflect how digital is changing economic fundamentals, industry dynamics, or what it means to compete. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 23:14) >
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Deanna Mulligan, president and CEO of Guardian Life Insurance, reflects on how she approaches strategy planning in an industry with strong headwinds. Read more >
Listen to the podcast (duration: 14:00) >
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