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The Innovation Show

The Innovation Show

By: The Innovation Show
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A Global weekly show interviewing authors to inspire, educate and inform the business world and the curious. Presented by the author of "Undisruptable", this Global show speaks of something greater beyond innovation, disruption and technology. It speaks to the human need to learn: how to adapt to and love a changing world. It embraces the spirit of constant change, of staying receptive, of always learning.The Innovation Show Economics
Episodes
  • Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez — Powered by Projects and the Project-Driven Organization

    Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez — Powered by Projects and the Project-Driven Organization
    Aug 7 2026
    "If you launch more projects than you finish, you're a bad leader. Your role is not about launching projects — it's about finishing them." Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, creator of the project economy concept and author of Powered by Projects, joins Aidan McCullen to explain why agile — a 20-year-old idea — is no longer enough, and why the next evolution is the project-driven organization (PDO): a company rearchitected around dynamic, empowered, cross-functional project teams. In this conversation, Antonio reveals: Why EY's Project Everest collapsed despite a perfect plan — and what it says about ego at the topThe structural blind spot that undermined Nike's digital transformationThe robot hairdresser that shocked a luxury company's C-suite — and why "safe" jobs aren'tWhy COVID briefly turned every surviving company into a project-driven organizationHow Bill Anderson is dismantling hierarchy and approval steps at BayerThe insurance company that ring-fenced €50 million for crazy ideas — and why employees only asked for €2 millionThe bank that had Revolut's idea first, then killed it in the budgeting cycleWhy "are you crazy?" is the best compliment an idea can receiveThe Toyota-style kill switch every transformation needs — and why 90% done is doneHow Alan Mulally's all-green KPIs at Ford exposed a culture that couldn't ask for help Chapters: 00:00 Lead Through Transformation 01:13 Sponsor Message Kyndryl 01:40 Why Projects Really Fail 02:03 Meet Antonio And Project Economy 07:04 Projects As Your Future 08:33 Case Study EY Project Everest 10:29 Case Study Nike Structure Fails 13:09 Rethinking Org Structure For AI 15:02 AI And Robots Disrupt Work 17:29 From Agile To Project Driven 21:57 Change Fatigue Too Many Projects 26:02 Co Creation And Leadership Focus 27:37 Great Resignation And PDO Shift 29:09 Burnout After Covid 30:12 Bayer And Haier Blueprint 34:09 Empower Teams To Stop 36:09 From Projects To PDO 39:19 Finish Early Kill Fast 42:42 Exponential Crazy Bets 50:40 Transparency And Town Halls 56:09 Final Advice And Wrap Find Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez at https://antonionietorodriguez.com and on LinkedIn. This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com. Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Powered by Projects, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership. Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen
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    1 hr
  • Rita McGrath & Sangeet Paul Choudary — Rule Makers, Rule Takers and Structural Uncertainty

    Rita McGrath & Sangeet Paul Choudary — Rule Makers, Rule Takers and Structural Uncertainty
    Jul 29 2026
    "Structural uncertainty is simple. The game itself is in question. The playing field is in question. You're no longer playing with uncertainty inside the rules — the rules are the thing that's moving." Rita McGrath wrote The End of Competitive Advantage and gave us transient advantage. Sangeet Paul Choudary wrote Reshuffle and won the 2025 Thinkers50 Strategy Award. Aidan McCullen puts them in the same room to ask a question neither can answer alone: in an age of AI, is advantage getting shorter, or are a small number of firms locking in something far more durable by making the rules everyone else has to play by? In this conversation, Rita and Sangeet reveal: Why the two founding assumptions of strategy — that industries have boundaries, and that equilibrium is normal — are now absurdWhat Carlota Perez's turning point framework says about where we are, and why data and intelligence are the new oilThe investor who always bet against Netflix, and the one thing he never believed the film studios would be stupid enough to doHow Netflix beat Blockbuster before streaming existed, by serving local demand with national supplyWhy Tesla went vertically integrated in the decade everyone else preached opennessHow Reliance Jio commoditised its own cash cow, took 400 million users, and collapsed an industry from 17 players to threeThe difference between a rule maker and a rule taker, and why rule takers are condemned to run from one transient advantage to the nextWhy roughly 93% of corporate assets were tangible in 1975 and almost exactly the reverse is true todayHow Binah.ai deleted the blood draw, the lab, the chemicals and the actuary from life insurance pricingSangeet's test for anyone using AI at work: are you working for the model, or is the model working for you?Why translators are now paid half as much to do the harder half of the jobRita's SDSS times two: stop doing stupid stuff, then start doing smart stuff 00:00 Sponsor Message 00:25 Strategy Rules Rewritten 01:26 Meet Rita and Sangeet 03:22 Strategy Origins and Transience 05:25 Turning Point in Capitalism 07:25 Capabilities and Competitive Insulation 10:38 Platforms and Network Effects 16:09 Seeing Hidden Advantages 21:14 No Silver Bullets in Strategy 27:38 Policy and Regulation in Transition 32:33 Social Unrest Warning Signs 34:35 Outsourcing Strategic Lens 36:40 Structural Uncertainty Era 38:41 Reliance Jio Rulemaking 42:17 Challenging Strategy Frameworks 44:04 Beyond Five Forces Today 48:26 First Principles Over Models 54:07 Learning Discipline In AI 58:15 Make AI Work For You 01:03:16 Wrap Up And Resources About Rita McGrath Rita McGrath is a longtime professor at Columbia Business School, a Thinkers50 top-ten management thinker and winner of their number one award for strategy. She is the author of The End of Competitive Advantage, Seeing Around Corners, Discovery-Driven Growth, MarketBusters and The Entrepreneurial Mindset, and she hosts the Thought Sparks podcast. https://www.ritamcgrath.com About Sangeet Paul Choudary Sangeet Paul Choudary is the founder of Platformation Labs and the author of Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy, winner of the 2025 Thinkers50 Strategy Award. He co-authored Platform Revolution and wrote Platform Scale, and his work on platforms has been named by Harvard Business Review as one of the top ten ideas in strategy. https://reshufflebook.com and https://platforms.substack.com About the Host Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation, and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com. Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Reshuffle, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership. Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Keith McCandless — The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures

    Keith McCandless — The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures
    Jul 24 2026
    "You don't have to be a methodological genius. These are patterns — 43 simple patterns that anyone can use to include every voice in shaping what happens next." Keith McCandless, co-developer of Liberating Structures and co-author of The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures, joins Aidan McCullen to explain why most meetings are either over-controlled or under-controlled — and how simple shifts in everyday interaction can unleash a culture of innovation from the frontline to the C-suite. In this conversation, Keith reveals: Why the first field test of Liberating Structures happened in hospitals fighting superbugs — with fifteen languages spoken on a single unitThe Big Five conventional structures (presentation, managed discussion, status report, brainstorm, open discussion) — and why every one of them quietly failsHow one father went from a year of monosyllabic answers to an hour-long conversation with his teenage daughter using Creative DestructionWhy 1-2-4-All fixed a two-year meeting nightmare for twenty project managers in Paris in half an hourWhy repetition is a source of innovation — and how thinking alone first defeats anchoring biasThe Ecocycle map a healthcare group crumpled, covered in Post-its, and reused every quarter for a yearThe VA hospital leader who declared mid-session, "All the decisions we just made are final"Why influencing culture beats changing culture — and what the adjacent possible has to do with itHow Liberating Structures moved online with nothing more than a tech host and breakout roomsThe lesson from Dee Hock, the chaordic organisation, and the war language that limits our world 00:00 Sponsor Message 00:27 Liberating Structures Intro 01:27 Messy Work Environments 02:21 Superbugs Field Test 03:35 What Are They 05:02 Complexity Lens 07:52 Influencing Culture 12:31 Adjacent Possible Innovation 14:18 Personal Life Applications 15:59 Creative Destruction TRIZ 19:28 Neurodiversity Inclusion 22:58 Big Five Meeting Traps 30:27 Microstructures Online 32:26 Online Facilitation Tips 36:50 1-2-4-All In Action 42:25 Eco Cycle Strategy Map 47:39 Liberating Leadership 52:45 Wrap Up And Resources 53:54 Sponsor Thanks Outro Find Keith McCandless at https://www.liberatingstructures.com — the full repertoire, the app (with at least 33 structures on your phone), and the new Liberating Structures Fieldbook, co-authored with Nancy White. Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership. About the Host: Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation, and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen
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    55 mins
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