Roger L. MartinRoger L. Martin about why we need to rethink management completely. We discuss competition, data, culture, knowledge work, talent, M&A and the fundamentals of how strategy is originated and executed

Thought Economics

Negotiation is stressful. It can bring out the worst in people. Wouldn’t it be better if there were a principled way to negotiate? Wouldn’t it be even better if there were a way to treat people fairly and get treated fairly in a negotiation? Barry Nalebuff is the Milton Steinbach Professor at the Yale School of Management. Nalebuff applies game theory to business strategy and is the co-founder of one of America’s fastest-growing companies, Honest Tea. In his new book, SPLIT THE PIE: A Radical New Way to Negotiate he outlines his tried and tested practical negotiation methods that reveal the true power of the players and what they bring to the table. From years of real-world negotiation, and deep research on game theory, Nalebuff identifies what’s really at stake in a negotiation: the “pie.” In his model, the negotiation pie is the additional value created through an agreement to work together. Seeing the relevant pie will change how you think about fairness and power in negotiation. You’ll learn how to get half the value you create, no matter your size.  In this interview I speak to Professor Barry Nalebuff about how we can apply his negotiation model to understand and reframe everything from every-day to high-stakes negotiations. We delve into the psychology of the negotiation and how deploying empathy can help reach great solutions.

Thought Economics

Robert Greene is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law, and Mastery. In addition to having a strong following within the business world and a deep following in Washington, DC, Greene’s books are hailed by everyone from war historians to the biggest musicians in the industry (including Jay-Z, Drake, and 50 Cent). In this interview, I speak to Robert Greene on power, mastery, success & understanding human nature.

Thought Economics

Mr Noor ul Owase Jeelani is a world-renowned neurosurgeon, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. With a surgical career spanning 20 years, he is currently Consultant Paediatric Neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), world leader in craniopagus twin separation, and Founder of Gemini Untwined. In this interview, I speak to Owase Jeelani about what we can learn from the mindset of surgery, how to make decisions in life and death situations, and how to overcome our biases to enable better strategic thinking.

Thought Economics

In 2009, a St. Louis glassblowing artist and recovering computer scientist named Jim McKelvey lost a sale because he couldn’t accept American Express cards. Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a start-up that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their mobile phones. With no expertise or experience in the world of payments, they approached the problem of credit cards with a new perspective, questioning the industry’s assumptions, experimenting and innovating their way through early challenges, and achieving widespread adoption from merchants small and large. But just as Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product, marketed it aggressively, and undercut Square on price. For most ordinary start-ups, this would have spelled the end. Instead, less than a year later, Amazon was in retreat and soon discontinued its service. How did Square beat the most dangerous company on the planet? Was it just luck? These questions motivated McKelvey to study what Square had done differently from all the other companies Amazon had killed. He eventually found the key: a strategy he calls the Innovation Stack. In this interview I speak to Jim McKelvey, Co-Founder of Square and author of The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time. We talk about how to build a pattern of ground-breaking, competition-proof entrepreneurship that is rare but repeatable. And how we can find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems–one crazy idea at a time.

Thought Economics

My first business was a very successful digital agency and consultancy, it gave me almost a decade-long adventure, taking me around the world and enjoying the thrill of being on top of my game, it was my life. The .com crash however, slaughtered this business in spectacular fashion- and once…

Thought Economics

Forming a board or similarly high-level leadership team is an inevitable part of your entrepreneurship journey. Often it can happen organically, as part of the normal growth of your business- or sometimes, particularly in the case of businesses attracting external investment, it can be something which is done early- before…

Thought Economics

In entrepreneurship, delegation is often seen as perhaps something akin to a four-letter-word. I have met countless founders over the years who have been nothing short of insistent that they should know every last detail about every part of the business. We’ve all met the sort before, the archetypal ‘micro manager.’ The problem remains however, that as businesses scale… the want to know everything may not leave you, the ability surely will. A key part of every entrepreneur’s toolkit therefore has to be the ability to delegate.

Thought Economics

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