My guest for this episode is Laurence Lehmann-Ortega. Laurence is one of the world’s leading experts on how existing firms can create innovative new business models. In this episode we discuss the newest edition of her book, Re(Inventing) your Business Model: The Odyssey 3.14 Approach, co-authored with Helene Musikas and Jean March Schoettl. The book has also been adapted into a MOOC by Coursera.

Like many of the best business schoolteachers, Laurence started her career in the consulting world before transitioning to academia, first at GSCM Montpellier and from 2010 at HEC Paris. At HEC she teaches strategy and business model innovation in the masters programs, the MBA, EMBA and in customised executive education programs. She has won multiple teaching awards at HEC. Laurence is also the Academic Director of the Masters in Strategic Management and our very own TRIUM EMBA program. In addition, she is the academic director on a number of large and complex programs in HEC’s custom executive education portfolio.

In this episode we discuss the problems of alignment between business models’ value propositions and the existing firm’s value architecture; the challenge of trade offs across different values – profit, people and planet – when evaluating the contribution new business models will make to the firm’s goals; how to tell if a firm has a healthy innovation culture; the need for proper, scientific testing of innovation, and; the problem of applying ROI to innovation spending.

We finish the discussion with a short conversation about the executive education industry. Laurence and I are both in the ‘supply side’ of this business. Here, we put ourselves on the ‘buy side’ and discuss what we would look for if we were making the decision to spend time and money on learning and development – both for the individual consumer and the corporate client.

Laurence is one of the most talented teachers and academic directors I have ever met. I always look forward to our conversations because I walk away feeling like I’ve learned something. This conversation is no exception. I hope you enjoy!

Citations

Laurence Lehmann-Ortega, Hélène Musikas & Jean- Marc Schoettl (2023) (Ré)inventez votre Business Model - 3e éd.: Avec l'approche Odyssée 3.14. English version to be available in June 2024.

Gawande, Atul (2010) The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. Picador Paper.

Cylien Gibert & Sihem BenMahmoud-Jouini (2020) Créez le prochain Uber et soyez rentables d’ici la fin de l’année : Les managers de labs d’innovation face aux contradictions entre mandat et gouvernance. Revue Française de Gestion.

Breaking Boundaries : The Science of Our Planet (2021) Netflix Series. Directed by Jonathan Clay.

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I am delighted to be joined by Suzy Welch for this episode. Suzy has had an amazing career! After graduating from Harvard, she became a crime beat reporter for the Miami Herald but after a short time was re-assigned to the business section – a change which would set the stage for the rest of her career. She then left journalism and went back to Harvard for her MBA. After graduating with honours, Suzy launched into a successful stint at Bain and Company as a consultant working with heavy manufacturing clients in the Midwest of the USA. 

Suzy left a successful career in consulting to return to journalism with a job at the Harvard Business Review, where she was eventually named editor-in-chief in 2001. At HBR she conceptualised and edited articles on topics as diverse as strategy, operations and organisational behaviour and penned her own on leadership, change and crisis management, the role of boards, the proper functioning of HR and career dynamics. 

With her late husband, Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, Suzy co-authored two international best-selling books – Winning published in 2005 and The Real-Life MBA in 2015. An interesting little fact, during the promo tour for Winning, I interviewed Jack at the LSE at a TRIUM event! Suzy is also the sole author of the New York Times and Wallstreet Journal bestseller, 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea – which we discuss during this episode. Suzy has also been a regular contributor to the US television network CNBC and the popular program, the Today Show.

In addition to her writing and media work, amongst other projects, Suzy serves on the board of ANGI as well as being a senior advisor at the Brunswick Group.

And last, but not least, Suzy is currently a professor at NYU Stern School of Business, creating and teaching one of its most popular and impactful classes – ‘Becoming You: Crafting the Authentic Life You Want and Need.’ In this episode I talk to Suzy about the reasons she put this course together and the secrets to its success. 

Suzy Welch is a kind of force of nature with some important things to share which she has learned from a lifetime in leadership and around other leaders. I was delighted when she agreed to be on the show and I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Citations

Welch, S. (2009) 10-10-10: 10 Minutes, 10 Months, 10 Years: A Life-Transforming Idea. Scribner.

Welch, J. with Welch, S. (2005) Winning: The Ultimate Business How-To Book. HarperCollins.

Welch, J. & Welch, S. (2018) The Real-Life MBA: The No-Nonsense Guide to Winning the Game, Building a Team and Growing your Career. Harper Thorsons.

Cunk on Earth (2022) Television Show starring Diane Morgon and produced by Charlie Brooker.

Succession (2018-2013) Television show produced by HBO Entertainment.

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Occasionally you read a book that changes the way you think about a topic or a place. The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism by Keyu Jin is just such a book and it was great to have her join me on TRIUM Connects. We discuss the consequences (both intended an unintended) of the one child policy, the combination of strong political centralisation and economic decentralisation, the ‘mayor economy’ and the combination of a super powerful yet agile state, able to act much more quickly than more democratically constrained actors. 

Jin argues that to understand all of this, you need to read China in the original – that is, as much as possible, not through the lens of Western, capitalistic assumptions about economic development but to see it for what it does, within its own terms. 

Jin is a great guide for this journey – she was born in China, educated in the USA (BA, Masters and PHD from Harvard) and now lives in London.  She is an associate professor of economics at the LSE where her research focusses on global trade imbalances, global asset prices and China's economic growth model.  Jin has also advised and consulted for the World Bank, the IMF and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

The book ends with a discussion of the current challenges facing China. Jin argues that the reforms and policies which created the tremendous economic development over such a comparative short time must now change if China is to avoid its own version of the middle income trap. Whether China is able to do so will, in no small measure, shape the kind of world we will all live in.

 Jin’s background, insight and deep knowledge shine through in the book and in our conversation. I hope you enjoy the conversation!

Citations

Keyu Jin (2023) The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism. Viking Press.

Swerling J. and Burrows A. Guys and Dolls – First performed in 1950.

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