Stay ConnectedInspiring and thought-provoking conversations with leading thinkers about influential ideas on business, technology, economics, and science. Hosted by Nikolaus Lang and Adam Job.
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Copyright: © Copyright 2023 BCG Henderson Institute
In How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage, Ranjay Gulati argues that being bold is something you can learn—not a trait you have to be born with.
Gulati, a professor at Harvard Business School, is a leading organizational sociologist and management scholar. In his new book, he explores the science and psychology of courage—showing that bravery is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.
In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the difference between uncertainty and risk, strategies for building courage at the individual and corporate level, and why we shouldn’t be worried about boldness leading to excessive risk-taking.
Key topics discussed:
00:58 | The definition of courage
05:11 | Boldness and excessive risk-taking
06:34 | Strategies for building courage as an individual
14:51 | The power of sense-making
18:16 | Risk management systems
21:13 | How to build a culture of courage
31:40 | One thing executives should do differently
Additional inspirations from Ranjay Gulati:
In The Land Trap: A New History of the World’s Oldest Asset, Mike Bird shows why land remains the ultimate currency of power.
Bird is the Wall Street editor at The Economist, where he leads coverage across the American financial industry and cohosts the magazine’s flagship podcast Money Talks. In his new book, he presents a bold new framework explaining how land exerts influence over the modern world, shaping housing, banking, and geopolitics.
In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, Bird discusses the history of land usage and ownership, how land is related to modern economic crises, and different governance models for land.
Key topics discussed:
01:01 | What makes land unique, and why is it a trap?
04:58 | The history of land ownership
11:38 | The relation between land and economic crises
16:00 | The role of “superstar cities”
19:08 | How land could be governed
23:36 | Business implications of land
In SuperAdaptability: How to Transcend in an Age of Overwhelm, Max McKeown argues that the key to thriving under uncertainty is adaptability—being able to change with your environment, again and again, getting better each time.
McKeown is a leading strategy thinker, coach to Fortune 100 companies, and an award-winning author. In his new book, he reveals how figures as different as Frida Kahlo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Simone Biles all relied on the same pattern of thinking to adapt to radically changing circumstances.
In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the difference between adaptability and resilience, and how to scale adaptability from one person to a team to an entire organization.
Key topics discussed:
01:14 | The power of adaptive intelligence
03:03 | Adaptability vs. resilience
05:15 | The RUN loop: Recognize, understand, necessary action
09:08 | How to help others become more adaptable
11:57 | How to make your company more adaptable
16:19 | Applying the loop logic to innovation
23:56 | Real life stories of adaptability
29:23 | Bringing adaptability to life with illustrations
Additional inspirations from Max McKeown:
In Capitalism and Its Critics: A Battle of Ideas in the Modern World, John Cassidy offers a multi-century history of global capitalism, told through the eyes of its dissenters.
Cassidy is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His new book blends biography, history, and economic analysis to reveal the roots of urgent debates the business world and society face today, as AI, climate change, and inequality are forcing us to reexamine the economic system.
In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, Cassidy discusses the main historical themes of capitalism critique, why the system continues to endure, how it is being, and what its future may be in the current context of assaults on the system from both the political left and right.
Key topics discussed:
01:44 | The main themes of capitalism critique
04:17 | Why capitalism endures
09:15 | The paradox of state capitalism
14:21 | The misunderstood Luddites
19:09 | Trade tensions and global economic asymmetry
24:45 | The role of unpaid domestic labor in driving the capitalist system
28:50 | The most surprising insights in writing the book
31:33 | The future of capitalism
Additional inspirations from John Cassidy:
In Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain, Nicholas Wright argues that war and competition are rooted in human biology—in our drives for survival, fairness, territory, and belonging.
Wright is a neuroscientist who researches the brain, technology, and security at University College London; Georgetown University; and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, where he also advises the Pentagon. In his new book, he explores how each region of the brain is linked to a certain dimension of conflict—explaining why war seems inevitable, yet also why peace is possible.
In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why neuroscience is a powerful lens to understand conflict, how it helps military leaders make decisions, and why we need to give AI a prefrontal cortex to ensure it makes wise decisions in conflict situations.
Key topics discussed:
01:27 | Neuroscience as a lens to understand conflict
04:10 | The role of prediction error in the psychology of war
07:29 | The clash between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex
12:46 | How AI and its interaction with humans may influence the future of conflict
18:55 | How neuroscience insights help military leaders make decisions
22:13 | Training political and business leaders based on neuroscience insights
In After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People, Dean Spears and Michael Geruso argue that the defining demographic risk of this century is global depopulation.
Spears and Geruso are both professors at the University of Texas at Austin, focusing on economic demography and development economics. In their new book, they explore the trend of falling birth rates, how it threatens human progress, and what actions may reverse this trend.
In their conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss projections for global depopulation, why advances in AI and robotics will not replace humans, why fewer people may not be good for the planet, and what the implications of all this are for business leaders.
Key topics discussed:
01:06 | Projected global population levels
06:11 | The impact of depopulation
11:00 | The potential for AI and robotics to replace humans
17:00 | The environmental implications of depopulation
21:24 | Potential solutions to falling birth rates
26:02 | Implications for business leaders
28:26 | Reasons to remain hopeful
Additional inspirations from Dean Spears:
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations, Carl Benedikt Frey argues that progress, throughout history, has not just depended on technological innovations but also on the flexibility of our institutions.
Frey is the associate professor of AI & Work at the University of Oxford, where he directs the Future of Work program. In his new book, he explores how technological progress has unfolded throughout history, from the Qin Dynasty to Silicon Valley. He argues that progress is always fragile, resting on achieving a delicate balance between decentralized innovation and centralized scaling of new technologies.
In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses how to achieve institutional flexibility, the hurdles we must overcome to turn AI into progress, and what lessons history holds for business leaders looking to navigate the conundrum of innovating versus scaling.
Key topics discussed:
01:15 | The fragility of progress
05:35 | The role of decentralization and centralization
11:24 | How to achieve institutional flexibility
17:29 | The hurdles to overcome for turning AI into progress
21:04 | How business leaders can navigate the conundrum of innovating vs. scaling
25:00 | Why progress might not yet end
Additional inspirations from Carl Benedikt Frey:
In Anointed: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in A Winner-Take-Most World, Toby Stuart dives deeply into the power that social status holds over us.
Stuart is the Leo Helzel Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. In his new book, he explores how social status shapes everything—from who we trust and what we value, to which ideas and innovations change the world and who gets credit for their success.
In his conversation with Adam Job, Senior Director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the cumulative effects of social status, whereby small initial differences can snowball into outsize effects. He also outlines why the social status system persists despite a prevailing distrust in elites—and how AI may yet be poised to change the system.
Key topics discussed:
01:44 | The importance of social status
05:15 | The role of anointment in modern times
13:23 | The cumulative effects of social status
19:18 | Why the social status system persists
21:23 | How AI may change the role of social status
24:45 | The downsides of high social status, and how to deal with them
In Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy, Sangeet Paul Choudary explores common misconceptions about how AI will change work, organizations, and business ecosystems.
Choudary is the founder and CEO of Platformation Labs and a senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. An expert on AI, platforms, and the economics of big tech, he has sold more than half a million books on these topics. In his latest work, he explores how new forms of coordination—rather than automation and augmentation—are the true superpower of AI.
In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses how AI will supercharge coordination, move us towards a more modular, on-demand economy, and how companies can account for all of this in their strategies.
Key topics discussed:
01:31 | How AI will impact jobs
04:38 | Assessing the value of jobs
09:25 | AI’s power to supercharge coordination
14:23 | Unlocking “coordination without consensus”
19:00 | Moving towards a modular, on-demand economy
25:56 | Crafting a strategy for the age of AI
Additional inspirations from Sangeet Choudary:
In The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World, Hal Brands illuminates the historical patterns we must understand in order to better navigate the geopolitical rivalries of the present.
Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. In his new book, he traces the arc from World War I to today’s rivalries between the United States and China, and between NATO and Russia.
In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why the 20th and 21st centuries are the Eurasian (rather than the American) Era, how today’s rivalries among great powers differ from those of the past, and what global business must pay attention to in navigating current geopolitical tensions.
Key topics discussed:
01:28 | The 20th and 21st centuries as the Eurasian era
05:32 | The “historic achievement” of the Cold War
08:34 | How today’s rivalries among great powers are different
13:14 | The future of Eurasia
15:59 | How global businesses can operate in a polarized geopolitical world
20:13 | Reasons to be optimistic vs. pessimistic about the future
Additional inspirations from Hal Brands:
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