#35—Julian Birkinshaw: Harnessing the Power of Innovation in Incumbent Organizations

Julian Birkinshaw is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Strategic Management Society, and the (American) Academy of Management.

Julian is a recognized thought leader on the impact of digital technology on the strategy and organization of established companies, for example such topics as digital disruption, agile working, corporate entrepreneurship, business model innovation and management innovation. He is the author of fifteen books, including Mindtools for Managers, Reinventing Management, and Fast/Forward: Make Your Company Fit for the Future among others, as well as over one hundred articles.

He is currently ranked as one of the Thinkers 50 top thought leaders in the field of Management, and is regularly quoted in international media outlets, including CNN, BBC, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, and The Times. He is a regular keynote speaker and a consultant to many large companies, such as BP, Dell Technologies, among others.

In this podcast he shares:

• Why digital disruption is overrated
• How incumbent organizations should be thinking about react to disruptive attackers
• What this tells us about the future of Tesla and the electric vehicle industry

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" Traditional hierarchical, top-down methods work ok as long as what you're trying to do is just deliver a standard product a million times...as we move away from efficiency and quality as the narrow definition of performance to innovation and agility and purpose, we need people to take more initiative. We need to find ways of liberating and harnessing their talents."

-Julian Birkinshaw

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Julian + The topic of today’s episode

2:10—If you really know me, you know that....

2:28—What is your definition of strategy?

3:53—What got you interested in strategy?

5:53—Could you talk a bit about your work on ambidextrous organizations and management innovation?

7:44—How was the framework of how we manage ourselves changed over time?

9:45—How has your research supported the idea that corporations or incumbent organizations can become agile?

11:22—Could you talk to us about the survival rate of S&P 500s?

13:30—What should strategy officers in an incumbent organization be aware of?

16:23—For a company that was ahead of the game, like Tesla, what are the potential moves they could take next to not be surpassed?

17:52—What are you working on now, and how can people find you and follow you?

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Additional Resources:

Personal page: https://julianbirkinshaw.com/index.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JBirkinshaw

LinkedIn:

Thank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.

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