Arkaro Insights: adapt and thrive in complexity

Mark Blackwell
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Management
  • Updated Weekly

Arkaro Insights: adapt and thrive in complexity brings together practitioners and researchers for honest, practical conversations on leadership, change and innovation in a complex, adaptive world. Each episode gives B2B executives the thinking and tools to lead transformation, not just manage it — whether in agriculture, food, chemicals or any industry where complexity is the daily reality. We explore four interconnected themes: The AI Implementation Blueprint — how leaders cut through the hype and embed AI as a genuine organisational capability The Human Edge — the neuroscience and psychology of change, creativity and decision-making under uncertainty Outside-In Innovation — customer needs, market signals and the disciplines that turn insight into growth Strategy for Complex Adaptive Systems — emergent strategy, integrated business planning and leading organisations that learn and adapt Hosted by Mark Blackwell, founder of Arkaro, a B2B consultancy that works alongside clients in a collaborative 'do it with you' approach, leaving behind sustainable solutions, not just a slide deck. "We don't just coach — we get on the pitch with you." Connect With Us 💬 We'd love to hear from you! What topics would you like us to explore in future podcast episodes? Drop us a message or connect with us to learn more about Arkaro's approach. 🔗 Visit us at www.arkaro.com 👥 Follow our updates: Arkaro on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro/ 📧 Email us at: mark@arkaro.com

  1. Fusion Strategy: The $75 Trillion Industrial AI Opportunity | Venkat Venkatraman

    5d ago

    Fusion Strategy: The $75 Trillion Industrial AI Opportunity | Venkat Venkatraman

    What if the companies that think AI is someone else's problem are about to lose their most valuable competitive ground? Professor Venkat Venkatraman from Boston University's Questrom School of Business is the co-author of Fusion Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press) and one of the world's leading authorities on how legacy industrial firms use real-time data networks and AI to reinvent their business models. In this episode, Mark and Venkat explore: Why roughly $75 trillion of the global economy has yet to be systematically digitised — and why that is the most significant business opportunity of the next decadeThe difference between digital paint and digital structure: how to know whether your organisation is adding AI at the periphery or redesigning around intelligence at the coreWhat datagraphs are, why they matter more than systems of record, and how industrial companies can unlock the same network effects that drove Netflix, Amazon and SpotifyWhy the Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to an AI researcher — and what that tells us about the fusion of traditional industries with data and intelligenceThe ecosystem shift from economies of scale to economies of expertise — and why a mid-sized chemicals or food ingredients company may be better placed than it thinksWhat a CEO should actually do in the next 90 days to prepare for the intelligence age without simply automating the pastConnect with Venkat Venkatraman: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/venkatraman/ Fusion Strategy: available now from Harvard Business Review Press Agentic Intelligence: Strategy at the Speed of Data — exploring how humans and machines can work together to create intelligence. Published 15 September 2026. Connect with Arkaro: 🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn: Arkaro Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro Mark Blackwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell/ Newsletter - Arkaro Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/arkaro-insights-6924308904973631488/ 🌐 Visit our website: www.arkaro.com 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@arkaro Audio Podcast: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com 📧 For business enquiries: mark@arkaro.com

    44 min
  2. The Hidden Power of Messy Teams with Johnathan Cromwell

    Jun 1

    The Hidden Power of Messy Teams with Johnathan Cromwell

    What if the teams that struggle to define their problem early are actually your best innovation bet? Dr Johnathan Cromwell, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of San Francisco, shares findings from a study of over 1,100 real innovation teams at a Fortune Global 500 company. The results overturn one of the most deeply held assumptions in innovation management: teams that started with low problem clarity but gained it by the midpoint achieved an implementation rate of over 80% — compared to approximately 50% for teams that defined their problem clearly from the outset. In this episode, Mark and Johnathan explore: Why problem and solution co-evolve rather than follow a linear sequence — and what that means for how you run innovation projectsThe critical midpoint transition: why the halfway point of any project is the moment that determines success or failureHow to manage a portfolio of front-end innovation projects when ambiguity is a feature, not a bugWhy Jobs to Be Done are not as stable over time as the framework assumes — and where the five whys technique changes the gameHow AI is not just solving existing problems faster but revealing entirely new problems companies did not know they hadThe three modes of AI adoption: exploiting existing problems (Instacart), expanding the problem (Khan Academy), and exploring new ones entirelyJohnathan also shares practical advice for the VP of Innovation under pressure to show return on investment — and why dismissing projects without a clear problem definition may mean dismissing your best future innovations. Published research referenced in this episode: Cromwell & Harvey (2026). The Hidden Power of Messy Teams. MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2026.Cromwell & Harvey (2025). A Problem Half-Solved Is a Problem Well-Stated. Research Policy, 54(3).Connect with Johnathan Cromwell: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johncromwell/ Connect with Mark Blackwell and Arkaro: Website: www.arkaro.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell 📺 YouTube: www.youtube.com/@arkaro 🎧 Audio: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com/ Connect with Arkaro: 🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn: Arkaro Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro Mark Blackwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell/ Newsletter - Arkaro Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/arkaro-insights-6924308904973631488/ 🌐 Visit our website: www.arkaro.com 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@arkaro Audio Podcast: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com 📧 For business enquiries: mark@arkaro.com

    36 min
  3. Incorruptible: Eric Ries on Mission, Purpose and the Fight Against Financial Gravity

    May 25

    Incorruptible: Eric Ries on Mission, Purpose and the Fight Against Financial Gravity

    Success is supposed to be the goal. So why does it so often destroy the very thing that made an organisation great? Eric Ries — author of The Lean Startup — returns with a new book and a sobering answer. What if the greatest threat to a successful organisation is not competition, disruption, or poor strategy — but success itself? Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, has spent the past decade studying a force more powerful than management: a financial gravity that pulls even the most values-driven organisations away from their founding missions as they grow. In his new book Incorruptible, he explains where this force comes from, which organisations have learned to resist it, and what leaders can do — starting on Monday — to protect what they are building. What we cover: The one-legged stool — How shareholder primacy became the default setting of modern capitalism, why the evidence for it is shockingly weak, and what the three-legged stool of purpose, stakeholders, and investors actually looks like in practice. The exceptions that prove nothing is inevitable — Grundfos, Bosch, Novo Nordisk, Costco, H-E-B. Why do these companies consistently outperform their conventionally governed peers — and what structural choices make the difference? The US healthcare anomaly — The Our World in Data chart that shows the US spending twice as much per capita as comparable countries and achieving lower life expectancy. Eric explains the mechanism behind it — and why it appears in transit, journalism, and sport too. Devoted Health — Former US CTO Todd Park's full-stack healthcare company, built on the principle that it can only profit by keeping patients healthy. A live demonstration that the alternative is commercially viable. Mary Parker Follett and the invisible leader — The management theorist written out of history who knew more about purpose-driven organisations than almost anyone since. Her concept of the invisible leader — the shared purpose that guides behaviour when no manager is present — is the foundation of everything Eric argues in the book. The culture bank — How H-E-B built the most trusted grocery brand in Texas not through marketing but through a hundred decisions to do the right thing, including sending customers home with full carts during a winter storm without taking payment. You are not stuck in traffic. You are the traffic. — Why individual agency matters more than most people think in an age of surveillance capitalism, and what founders, leaders, employees, and consumers can each do to resist financial gravity in their own sphere. 📊 Life Expectancy vs. Healthcare Spending (Our World in Data): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-healthcare-expenditure 📖 Incorruptible by Eric Ries: www.incorruptible.co — bonus chapter, implementation guides, and reader resources 🔗 Connect with Eric Ries: linkedin.com/in/eries About Eric Ries Eric Ries is the author of The Lean Startup (2011) and The Startup Way (2017), and the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE). His new book Incorruptible (2026) examines the structural forces that pull successful organisations away from their founding missions and provides a practical framework for resisting them. Connect with Arkaro: 🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn: Arkaro Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro Mark Blackwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell/ Newsletter - Arkaro Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/arkaro-insights-6924308904973631488/ 🌐 Visit our website: www.arkaro.com 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@arkaro Audio Podcast: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com 📧 For business enquiries: mark@arkaro.com

    48 min
  4. Why Playing Games at Work Isn't Childish — It's a Competitive Advantage | Scott Anthony

    May 18

    Why Playing Games at Work Isn't Childish — It's a Competitive Advantage | Scott Anthony

    Two thirds of business leaders face imminent disruption, yet most are reaching for AI as a forklift to move their intellectual weight for them. Scott Anthony returns to Arkaro Insights to argue this is exactly the wrong instinct. In this follow-up to our conversation on Epic Disruptions, Scott — Clinical Professor at the Tuck School of Business and former senior partner at Innosight — explores what it takes to develop the wisdom, not just the tools, to navigate the AI-era "great unfreezing." His thesis is uncomfortable but clear: the right way is the hard way, and the muscle gets built through experience that feels much more like play than punishment. Mark Blackwell and Scott unpack the four AI pathologies leaders need to recognise (idea bubbles, power persuasion, cognitive debt and brain fry), Ethan Mollick's cyborg-centaur-chauffeur framework for working with AI, and why dancing at the jagged frontier matters more than reading about it. They explore the difference between technical and adaptive challenges, what the US military and a few game-based pioneers like Chris Rangen already know about experiential learning, and what a "gym for the mind" might look like for a workforce no longer building cognitive muscle on the job. The episode closes with a concrete Monday-morning move any leader can make: pick a problem your team faces repeatedly, and design a low-stakes AI simulation around it. Scott's own example took fifteen minutes to build. About Scott D. Anthony Scott D. Anthony is Clinical Professor of Strategy at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He previously spent more than two decades at Innosight, the growth strategy consultancy founded by Clayton Christensen, including a period as senior partner. Thinkers50 named him the world's leading innovative thinker in 2017 and the ninth most influential management thinker in 2023. He is the author of Epic Disruptions and the forthcoming Epic Leadership. Related Arkaro Insights episodes Why Companies Miss Disruption: The 3 Ghosts — Scott Anthony's first Arkaro conversation: https://arkaro.com/why-companies-miss-disruption/The Steam Engine Mistake Companies Are Repeating with AI — Joseph Fuller, Harvard Business School: https://arkaro.com/joseph-fuller-ai-implementation-strategy-harvard/AI Governance: How to Use AI Without It Going Wrong — Ray Eitel-Porter: https://arkaro.com/ray-eitel-porter-on-ai-goveranceai-governance-ray-eitel-porter/The Neuroscience of Collaboration: The SPACES Model — Hilary Scarlett: https://arkaro.com/neuroscience-collaboration-spaces-model/Slow AI: Why Rushing to Solutions Kills Creativity — Dr Vlad Glaveanu: https://arkaro.com/slow-ai-creativity-incubation/AI and Jobs to Be Done: Where Human Judgement Wins — Scott Burleson: https://arkaro.com/ai-jobs-to-be-done-human-judgement/ Connect with Arkaro: 🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn: Arkaro Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro Mark Blackwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell/ Newsletter - Arkaro Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/arkaro-insights-6924308904973631488/ 🌐 Visit our website: www.arkaro.com 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@arkaro Audio Podcast: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com 📧 For business enquiries: mark@arkaro.com

    33 min
  5. The Brilliant but Limited Mind: Why Leadership Presence Starts in the Body with Linden Thorp

    May 12

    The Brilliant but Limited Mind: Why Leadership Presence Starts in the Body with Linden Thorp

    Most leadership failure is not a strategy problem. It is a presence problem. In this episode of Arkaro Insights, Mark Blackwell speaks with Linden Thorp, a Buddhist priest, somatic practitioner, communication specialist, and creator of the Lodestone Method. After more than four decades in academia, contemplative practice, and now executive boardrooms, Linden has watched leader after leader run on what she calls "the brilliant but limited mind", an intellectual firework display that captivates the room and then leaves a plume of smoke behind. This conversation explores what gets neglected underneath the slide deck and the strategy: the body, the breath, and the wider nervous system. The layer Linden argues is the actual seat of leadership presence. In this episode: Why most leadership failure is a presence problem, not a strategy problemThe brilliant but limited mind, and what intellectual firework displays cost teamsBurnout as a loss of nervous-system regulation, not just a psychological stateThe parable of the ruby in the hem of the coatWhat a tribal leader in Arnhem Land taught Linden about whole-body listeningWhy physiological safety is different from psychological safety, and why leaders need bothThe distinction between the leader who speaks and the leader who is presentThree Monday-morning practices any leader can try: breath gratitude, 3D visualisation, and diaphragmatic breathingA business case in a supermarket strikeAbout the guest Linden Thorp is a Buddhist priest, somatic practitioner, communication specialist, former professional musician, and creator of the Lodestone Method. Her work draws on decades of experience in education, voice, bodywork, contemplative practice, and embodied leadership. She is the author of Your Body is Your Business Plan and is based in Tokyo, Japan. Find Linden at lindenthorp.com and her Lodestone Inside programme at lindenthorp.com/lodestone-inside. She is most active on LinkedIn. Related episodes Hilary Scarlett on the SPACES model and the neuroscience of collaborationGarrett Forsythe on the transition from technical expert to leaderKeith Sawyer on group genius and the ten conditions for group flow#Leadership #Presence #SomaticLeadership #Burnout #NervousSystem #EmbodiedLeadership #ChangeManagement #B2BLeadership #ArkaroInsights Connect with Arkaro: 🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn: Arkaro Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro Mark Blackwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell/ Newsletter - Arkaro Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/arkaro-insights-6924308904973631488/ 🌐 Visit our website: www.arkaro.com 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@arkaro Audio Podcast: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com 📧 For business enquiries: mark@arkaro.com

    46 min
  6. The Steam Engine Mistake Companies Are Repeating with AI — Harvard Professor Joseph Fuller Explains

    May 4

    The Steam Engine Mistake Companies Are Repeating with AI — Harvard Professor Joseph Fuller Explains

    "There are no executives alive on the planet today that have ever overseen the implementation of a general purpose technology to their organisations." — Joseph Fuller, Harvard Business School Most companies are making the same mistake with AI that factory owners made when electricity arrived in the 1880s — bolting the new technology onto old processes and calling it transformation. Around 60% of companies are treating AI as a technology problem and handing it to the CTO. It is a management problem. In this episode, Joseph Fuller of Harvard Business School explains what to do instead — and why the companies that get this right may not be the ones you expect. About Joseph Fuller Joseph Fuller is Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School and co-head of the Managing the Future of Work project, which he founded. A former CEO of global strategy firm Monitor Group, he advises leading organisations on AI adoption, workforce transformation, and organisational design. Joseph Fuller LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephbfuller/ American Enterprise Institute: https://www.aei.org/profile/joseph-b-fuller/ HBS Managing the Future of Work: Project: https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Pages/default.aspx Newsletter: https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/newsletter/Pages/default.aspx Podcast: https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hbs-managing-the-future-of-work/id1395603706 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3zUxYNebA2rrEuH0IJcrJ2 Amazon Podcasts: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJJPGGPX LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/project-on-managing-the-future-of-work/ Related Arkaro Insights episodes: Stephen Wunker on AI and the Octopus Organisation: https://arkaro.com/ai-octopus-organization-stephen-wunker/ Charlene Li on Why AI Transformation Fails: https://arkaro.com/why-ai-transformation-fails-leaders-90-days-charlene-li/  Niels van Hove on AI and Decision-Centric Planning: https://arkaro.com/niels-van-hove-ai-sop-ibp-decision-centric-planning/  Marco Ryan on Rewire or Retire: https://arkaro.com/rewire-retire-ai-leadership-marco-ryan/ Connect with Arkaro: 🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn: Arkaro Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro Mark Blackwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell/ Newsletter - Arkaro Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/arkaro-insights-6924308904973631488/ 🌐 Visit our website: www.arkaro.com 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@arkaro Audio Podcast: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com 📧 For business enquiries: mark@arkaro.com

    35 min

  7. Apr 30

    Group Genius: The Science Behind High-Performing Teams with Keith Sawyer

    What separates a high-performing team from a group of talented individuals who consistently underperform? According to Dr Keith Sawyer, the answer lies in group flow — a state of peak collective experience that goes far beyond individual performance. Dr Sawyer is the Morgan Distinguished Professor of Educational Innovations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and one of the world’s leading researchers on creativity, collaboration, and innovation. A jazz pianist who has performed with Chicago improvisational theater groups, he has spent decades studying how peak creative performance emerges not inside a single mind, but between minds. In this episode, Mark Blackwell and Keith Sawyer explore the ten conditions for group flow, why improvisation is always a balance between structure and freedom, how problem-finding is fundamentally different from problem-solving and why that distinction matters for business teams, the Goldilocks quality that runs through every one of the ten conditions, why groupthink and group flow are two sides of the same coin, and what jazz and improv theater can teach organisations about building teams that consistently outperform. Building on previous Arkaro Insights conversations with Roni Reiter-Palmon on creative problem solving and Hilary Scarlett on the neuroscience of collaboration, this episode adds a compelling new layer: the social and improvisational dynamics that allow groups to achieve something greater than the sum of their parts. Keith’s book Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration is available at https://a.co/d/0aBHbJ0p. His podcast The Science of Creativity is at sawyerpodcast.com and his Substack newsletter at keithsawyer.substack.com. Connect with Arkaro: 🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn: Arkaro Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro Mark Blackwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell/ Newsletter - Arkaro Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/arkaro-insights-6924308904973631488/ 🌐 Visit our website: www.arkaro.com 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@arkaro Audio Podcast: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com 📧 For business enquiries: mark@arkaro.com

    39 min

  8. Apr 8

    Innovation Is Not a Light Bulb Moment — It’s an Engineering Discipline with David Cropley

    What if innovation were not a mysterious creative gift but a measurable engineering discipline? That is exactly the argument Professor David Cropley of the University of Adelaide makes — and he has the diagnostic framework to back it up. In this episode of Arkaro Insights, Mark Blackwell talks with David about why most organisations are failing at innovation, where precisely the failure occurs, and what leaders can do about it. David introduces the Innovation Phase Model, a 42-cell diagnostic matrix that maps seven stages of innovation against six psychosocial dimensions. Administered as a survey across teams and organisations, it pinpoints exactly where the roadblocks are — and consistently reveals the same pattern: most organisations are competent at implementation but struggle badly at the front end, where problems need to be identified and ideas generated before anything can be built. They also discuss why AI is being deployed the wrong way in most organisations — treated as a product innovation when it is fundamentally a process innovation — and David shares the mathematical proof that large language models are capped at roughly average human creativity. Useful, but not the innovation engine many believe it to be. The Smith Corona story brings it home: a world-class innovator that went bankrupt because it could only think incrementally when disruption arrived. In this episode: The Innovation Phase Model and the 42-cell diagnosticWhy structure determines behaviour, and most people are rewarded for exploiting not exploringAI as a process innovation being treated as a product — and why that mattersThe mathematical ceiling on large language model creativityThree things a new CEO or VP should do first to build a genuine innovation cultureGuest: Professor David Cropley, University of Adelaide Author of The Psychology of Innovation in Organizations (Cambridge University Press)  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidcropley Connect with Arkaro: 🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn: Arkaro Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro Mark Blackwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrblackwell/ Newsletter - Arkaro Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/arkaro-insights-6924308904973631488/ 🌐 Visit our website: www.arkaro.com 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@arkaro Audio Podcast: https://arkaroinsights.buzzsprout.com 📧 For business enquiries: mark@arkaro.com

    36 min
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Arkaro Insights: adapt and thrive in complexity brings together practitioners and researchers for honest, practical conversations on leadership, change and innovation in a complex, adaptive world. Each episode gives B2B executives the thinking and tools to lead transformation, not just manage it — whether in agriculture, food, chemicals or any industry where complexity is the daily reality. We explore four interconnected themes: The AI Implementation Blueprint — how leaders cut through the hype and embed AI as a genuine organisational capability The Human Edge — the neuroscience and psychology of change, creativity and decision-making under uncertainty Outside-In Innovation — customer needs, market signals and the disciplines that turn insight into growth Strategy for Complex Adaptive Systems — emergent strategy, integrated business planning and leading organisations that learn and adapt Hosted by Mark Blackwell, founder of Arkaro, a B2B consultancy that works alongside clients in a collaborative 'do it with you' approach, leaving behind sustainable solutions, not just a slide deck. "We don't just coach — we get on the pitch with you." Connect With Us 💬 We'd love to hear from you! What topics would you like us to explore in future podcast episodes? Drop us a message or connect with us to learn more about Arkaro's approach. 🔗 Visit us at www.arkaro.com 👥 Follow our updates: Arkaro on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkaro/ 📧 Email us at: mark@arkaro.com

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