Joe Pine is the co-author of The Experience Economy—and one of the thinkers who gave leaders a language for why “services” weren’t the end of the story. In this episode, Joe returns with his next major thesis: we’ve entered the Transformation Economy, where the customer is no longer buying inputs (features, service hours, or even memorable moments), but paying for outcomes—lasting change.

We unpack what makes a transformation fundamentally different from an experience, why experiences are increasingly commoditized, and why the biggest opportunities now sit in helping people (and organizations) become who they want to become. Joe also shares the practical implications: how leaders can ladder up from “jobs to be done” into deeper aspirations, why identity change sits at the center of transformation, and how pricing shifts when your business is accountable for outcomes.

In this episode we cover:
•Why transformations are “sustained through time,” not just memorable moments
•The idea that all transformation is identity change (and what that means for strategy)
•“You are what you charge for”: shifting from time-based pricing to outcome-based pricing
•Why the Transformation Economy is already here (and why it’s accelerating now)
•The four spheres of transformation—and why they all point toward human flourishing

00:00 — Welcome + Episode Setup

01:36 — “If you really know me…” (Anti-social introvert)

03:10 — Strategy = the decisions you actually make

04:18 — Defining “Transformation” (guiding outcomes that last)

06:06 — Experience vs Transformation (customer becomes the product)

08:28 — Why the Transformation Economy is already here

10:00 — Why now: experiences are commoditizing (Starbucks + COVID shift)

13:16 — Identity change at the center of transformation

17:46 — From “cobbling” to integrated transformation programs (GLP-1 / Calibrate)

21:54 — Pricing in the Transformation Economy (outcomes + human flourishing)

34:22 — Where to start + resources (encapsulation, purpose, Substack/toolkit)

Additional Resources:

Joe Pine’s Transformation Economy Substack: https://transformationsbook.substack.com/
Strategic Horizons: https://strategichorizons.com/
Strategic Horizons “Integration” page + Transformation Toolkit: https://strategichorizons.com/integration
Joe Pine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joepine/

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast

Linda Hill is a Harvard Business School professor and one of the world’s leading thinkers on leadership and innovation. Jason Wild is the CEO and founder of WISE (Wild Innovation and Strategy Excellence) and a long-time innovation and strategy leader inside global incumbents. Together (with co-author Emily Tadards), they’ve spent more than a decade studying how established organizations actually turn innovation into something that scales—and distilled the lessons into their new book, Genius at Scale.

The core idea is simple, but uncomfortable: in a world shaped by AI, complexity, and accelerating change, innovation rarely succeeds as a solo act. The winners don’t just build better products—they build better ecosystems, with leaders who can co-create across boundaries (inside the enterprise and far beyond it).

In this conversation, Linda and Jason explain why ecosystems are becoming the true unit of innovation, why culture is an unfair advantage competitors can’t copy, and why the most essential innovation leaders are often the least visible. They walk through their ABC framework—leaders as Architects, Bridgers, and Catalysts—and what breaks when any one of those roles is missing.

If you’re trying to move faster, partner smarter, and scale what works, this episode gives you a practical lens for leading through uncertainty, building the social fabric for innovation, and creating the kind of movement others choose to join.

In this episode we cover:

• Why ecosystems (not firms) are becoming the unit of innovation—and what that changes for leaders
• The ABC framework: Architect, Bridger, Catalyst (and how these roles show up in real organizations)
• Why “culture” is a competitive advantage—and how leaders accidentally undermine it
• The underappreciated “bridger” role—and why org design and incentives often punish it
• Practical starting points: clarity of purpose, surfacing constraints, and creating faster learning loops

Episode timeline:

00:00 — Cold open: why no company can go it alone

00:30 — Sponsor: LHH

02:00 — “If you really know me…” (Linda + Jason)

03:35 — Definitions of strategy (optionality, choices, and adaptability)

08:40 — Why they wrote Genius at Scale

12:30 — Why ecosystems are rising (speed, capability gaps, AI)

17:00 — Can incumbents adopt an ecosystem approach?

22:30 — ABC framework: Architect, Bridger, Catalyst

28:40 — The most underappreciated role: the Bridger

33:30 — Why bridging is a career risk (and how to fix incentives)

41:45 — A practical tool: a “constraints dashboard” + radical transparency

45:30 — Where leaders should start

54:50 — How to keep learning from Linda + Jason

59:20 — Closing + thanks

Additional Resources:

Linda Hill: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda-hill-hbs/

Jason Wild: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonwild/

Book: Genius at Scale — https://geniusatscale.com/

Sponsor: LHH Executive Solutions — https://www.lhh.com

Thank you to our sponsor, LHH

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast

Neil Hoyne is Chief Strategist at Google and one of the sharpest voices on how companies actually make decisions when data, intuition, and organizational politics collide. He works at the intersection of strategy, analytics, and customer value, helping leaders think more clearly about what metrics mean, how to use them, and where they can quietly mislead. He is also the author of Converted and is currently working on a new book exploring how strategy frameworks can be applied to careers and life decisions.

Most leaders say they want to be data-driven. But in practice, many organizations still use data to confirm what they already believe, delay hard choices, or create the appearance of rigor without real clarity. At the same time, teams are drowning in more information than ever, while AI is making data gathering and analysis faster, cheaper, and easier to commoditize. The harder challenge now is not collecting data — it’s creating the conditions for better decisions.

In this episode, we explore how strategy should be defined in an uncertain world, why customer-centric thinking changes the role of marketing, and how leaders can avoid mistaking metrics for truth. Neil also unpacks customer lifetime value (CLV), the hidden ways metrics get manipulated, and why many companies ask the wrong question when they say they want more data. We also discuss what strategists should focus on as AI changes the work, and why the future advantage may come from decision frameworks, not dashboards.

In this episode we cover:
•Neil’s practical definition of strategy: using resources to stay alive today while improving your position for tomorrow
•Two definitions of marketing — product-centric vs customer-centric — and how the marketer’s role changes in each
•What CLV actually is, why it matters, and how short time horizons distort strategic choices
•Why common metrics (like conversions and engagement) often aren’t comparable across platforms
•The two questions leaders should ask about every KPI: how it’s calculated and how it could be manipulated
•Why smart leaders still ignore data, and how human psychology shapes decision-making
•How to define “how much data is enough” before a decision
•What chief strategy officers can do beyond the annual planning ritual
•Why AI strategy should start with your company’s core strategy — not the other way around

Chapters:

00:01 — Intro + Neil Hoyne

03:10 — The “Last Supper” question

08:10 — Misreading people’s career stories

10:10 — Strategy definition

16:40 — What marketing is

21:05 — Customer-centric thinking

24:10 — CLV basics

30:10 — Why metrics mislead

35:10 — How teams game KPIs

39:20 — Why leaders ignore data

52:00 — How much data is enough?

1:01:20 — Risk, speed, and decisions

1:07:20 — What strategy leaders should do

1:18:10 — New book on careers

1:25:10 — AI noise vs core strategy

1:30:20 — Closing

Additional Resources:

•Neil Hoyne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilhoyne/
•Neil Hoyne website: https://neilhoyne.com/
•Converted (Neil Hoyne’s book): https://www.converted.us/
•Intro (booking 1:1 time; proceeds to charity): https://intro.co/ (search Neil Hoyne on Intro)

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast

John Fallon is the former CEO of Pearson, where he led one of the most challenging digital transformations of any publicly traded company—shifting a legacy publishing giant from selling ~20 million US college textbooks per year to a subscription-driven, digital platform business. This episode was recorded live at LHH’s Executive Exchange Conference in London, and John joins us to share hard-won leadership lessons from the front lines of disruption.

For years we’ve been told only nimble startups survive disruption. But that story misses a quieter truth: most of the Fortune 500 was founded long before the internet—and many incumbents have adapted through multiple platform shifts. In his new book, Resurgent, John (with Julian Birkinshaw of London Business School) makes a contrarian case: established organizations can fight back—and even thrive—if they get clear on their enduring value, redesign for transformation, and lead change like the human “contact sport” it is.

In this conversation, John breaks down why disruption often unfolds over decades (not months), how to separate a temporary headwind from a structural shift, and why identifying your company’s true “job to be done” matters more than clinging to any one product. He also shares practical leadership tools for navigating politics, building alignment, empowering middle managers, and sustaining people through prolonged upheaval.

What you’ll learn in this episode
•Why incumbents are often more resilient than we assume—and what the data says
•How to spot the difference between “secular vs structural” change (and why timing is so hard)
•The “job to be done” lens: how Pearson moved from textbooks to learning outcomes
•Why digital transformation is less about tech and more about people, culture, and organizational design
•How to reduce “the meeting after the meeting” and create real disagree-and-commit execution

Episode Timeline

00:00 Welcome to Outthinkers + Live Special Episode Setup

01:22 Why Incumbents Can Win: Pearson’s Transformation & the Book ‘Resurgent’

05:30 Elephants Can Dance: Fortune 500 Resilience and the Myth of Instant Disruption

09:10 Pearson’s Textbook Collapse: Secular vs Structural (and Recency Bias)

11:33 From Textbooks to ‘Job to Be Done’: Purpose, Pricing, and the Access Model

13:45 Crisis Clarifies Identity: Cancer, Core Value, and Avoiding ‘Netflix of X’ Thinking

16:56 Making Purpose Real in Transformation: Profit, Restructuring, and Middle Managers as Shock Absorbers

21:23 Why Digital Transformation Gets Political: Twin-Speed Orgs, Uncertain Disruption, and Staying ‘Busy Being Born’

24:42 Why AI Transformation Is a Human Problem (Linear vs Exponential Change)

26:05 CEO Time: Thinking Space, Contrarian Views & “Disagree and Commit”

28:14 Avoiding the “Meeting After the Meeting”: How to Build Real Alignment

30:17 Audience Q: Leading with Humility—Saying “I Don’t Know” & Showing Humanity

34:08 Should You Take the CEO Job? Confidence, Humility, and Resilience Reserves

36:49 Beyond the Burning Platform: Replatforming, Timing, and Centralize vs Decentralize

41:18 CEO Sounding Boards: CFO/CHRO Partnerships, Board Support, and Staying Grounded

43:35 Culture vs Strategy: The “False Dichotomy” and Building a Learning Organization

45:47 Wrap-Up, Thanks, and Subscribe

Additional Resources
•Resurgent (book): https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/resurgent-9781399422000/
John Fallon on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/johnfallonpearson

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast

Dr. Brent Ridge is the co-founder of Beekman 1802, a skin health brand that began with goat milk soap made at a dining room table and scaled into a nationally recognized business with a devoted community. Brent trained in medicine (geriatrics), built his career in New York City, and even helped launch Martha Stewart’s Healthy Living division—before a recession, a rundown farm, and a herd of goats rewrote his path. He’s also the co-author of G.O.A.T. Wisdom, a new book that distills Beekman’s hard-won lessons into practical principles for entrepreneurs who want to build something that lasts.

In this conversation, you’ll learn how to spot real trends before they’re named, build a brand identity customers can feel in seconds, and turn a purpose like kindness into a measurable operating system—not just marketing.

In this episode we cover:

• Why “the true measure of authenticity is longevity” (and how brands lose trust chasing viral moments)
• The Beekman origin story: layoffs, a farm, goats—and turning constraints into a strategy advantage
• A simple but powerful strategic question: “Where does this not exist?” (and how it opened the luxury door)
• Trend sensing without getting trapped by algorithms: building your own daily “signal system”
• How defining your company as “skin health” (not “beauty”) changes everything—from product to positioning
• Turning kindness into culture, community, and commercial momentum (inside the company and out)

00:00 Introduction to Out Thinkers Podcast

00:30 Defining Authenticity in Business

01:23 Meet Dr. Brent Ridge: From Medicine to Entrepreneurship

02:01 The Birth of Beekman 1802

02:36 Building a Brand with Kindness

04:56 Early Life and Career of Dr. Brent Ridge

07:02 Strategic Moves: From Medicine to Martha Stewart

08:26 Launching the Martha Stewart Center for Living

18:08 The Power of Personal Branding and Sales

21:22 Navigating Trends and Building Legacy

25:01 Seeing Trends in Unlikely Places

26:30 The Birth of Beekman 1802

28:26 The Science Behind Goat Milk

30:32 Rebranding as a Skin Health Company

31:35 The Power of Brand Identity

37:57 Building a Culture of Kindness

40:43 The Kindness Ecosystem

48:22 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Additional Resources

• Book: G.O.A.T. Wisdom (Brent Ridge)
• Beekman 1802: https://beekman1802.com/
• Brent Ridge on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brent-ridge-md-0641791/
• Kindness Research Foundation: https://www.kindness.org

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast

Jana Werner is a global executive advisor and Executive in Residence at Amazon Web Services, where she works with Fortune 500 leadership teams on organizational transformation and enterprise strategy. She holds a PhD in uncertainty dynamics in projects and has contributed to academic research and teaching at institutions including Oxford and the London School of Economics.

Phil Le-Brun spent 31 years at McDonald’s, serving as International CIO and leading technology delivery across more than 120 countries. He is now an Executive in Residence at AWS, serving as an enterprise strategist and evangelist, with advanced degrees in systems thinking.

Together, they are the authors of The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation.

Most large companies still operate like machines. Rigid hierarchies, tight controls, and permission-based decision making may deliver predictability, but they quietly kill ownership, learning, and innovation.

By contrast, the most adaptive organizations operate more like living systems, distributing intelligence, empowering teams, and enabling continuous transformation. Companies like Amazon demonstrate how decentralization, clarity, and ownership can create alignment rather than chaos.

This episode explores how leaders can replace command-and-control structures with environments where innovation becomes everyone’s job.

In this episode we cover

• Why the “organization as a machine” model is breaking down
• The Octopus Organization metaphor and distributed intelligence in action
• How clarity and context enable decentralized decision-making
• Ownership vs permission and the pigs-and-chickens lesson
• Why real innovation must be embedded across every layer of the organization
• How curiosity and intelligent failure drive continuous transformation

Episode Timeline

00:00 Highlight and introduction to the Octopus Organization

02:00 Guest introductions and background

04:30 If you really know me… personal stories from Jana and Phil

07:40 Defining strategy as choice and what not to do

10:00 Tin Man vs Octopus organizations

13:30 How decentralization increases alignment

16:00 Ownership, permission, and single-threaded leadership

20:00 Amazon leadership principles and disagree-and-commit

22:30 Creating organizational clarity at scale

26:00 Focus, subtraction, and the mountaineering story

28:30 Durable needs and strategy at Amazon

30:30 Complicated vs complex systems in transformation

33:00 Curiosity, experimentation, and intelligent failure

36:00 The monkey-on-a-pedestal lesson

38:00 Centralized vs decentralized innovation

41:00 Lighting a thousand fires and continuous transformation

44:00 Why this model outperforms traditional change programs

45:30 Where to learn more and connect with the authors

Additional Resources

Book: The Octopus Organization

Website: https://www.theoctopusorganization.com

Jana Werner LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janawerner1/

Phil LeBrun LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phillebrun/

Watch now on Youtube: https://youtu.be/qcD2GmX5uUI

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast

Mark Thompson is a CEO coach and author of CEO Ready. Born and raised in Silicon Valley and now working across emerging tech hubs, Mark prepares leaders for the leap from elite operator to enterprise chief. He’s worked with CEOs ranging from Richard Branson and Evan Sharp (co-founder of Pinterest) to Dr. Jim Yong Kim (former president of the World Bank) and Dave Chang (founder of Momofuku).

Most executives assume the CEO seat is the natural “next step” for the highest performer. But Mark argues you earn readiness twice: first by delivering results, and then by winning belief outside your swim lane. In other words, performance gets you shortlisted—but it doesn’t get you selected.

In this episode, Mark lays out the seven stakeholders who decide your fate as a CEO candidate (the board, investors/owners, peers, employees, customers, the current CEO, and you). We talk about what each group actually wants, how to build trust across the enterprise, and why the best CEO candidates develop “conversational fluency” across functions so they can lead beyond their lane.

In this episode we cover:
•Why “elite performance” only gets you halfway to CEO—and what earns belief the second time
•The seven stakeholders who decide CEO readiness (and how to build a plan for each one)
•How to show up to the board as more than a functional expert
•Turning peers into partners (before the role forces the shift)
•Building fluency across functions so you can lead the whole enterprise—not just your function

Episode Timeline:
00:00 Introduction to Outthinkers Podcast

01:23 Meet Mark Thompson: CEO Coach and Author

02:06 The Seven Stakeholders of CEO Success

02:42 Mark's Unique Coaching Methods

04:10 Personal Insights and Strategy Definition

06:30 The Reality of Becoming a CEO

08:58 Navigating Board Dynamics

20:57 Interacting with the Board: Key Strategies for Aspiring CEOs

21:28 Listening and Broadening Your Perspective

22:44 Understanding the Role of Strategy Officers

26:36 Navigating Peer Dynamics and Leadership Transition

33:03 Building Relationships with the CEO

35:44 Engaging with Investors and Owners

39:56 The Importance of Customer Influence

44:17 Final Thoughts and Resources for Aspiring CEOs

Additional Resources:
•Mark Thompson: Chief Executive Alliance — https://chieexecutivealliance.com

Watch now on Youtube: https://youtu.be/wuh4Rn7erxU

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast

Bill George is one of the most influential leadership thinkers of our time. A former CEO of Medtronic and long-time Harvard Business School professor, he’s served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, and the Mayo Clinic. His books including True North and True North: Emerging Leader Edition—have shaped how thousands of leaders approach purpose, values, and character.

When performance pressure rises, it’s easy for leaders to drift from their values chasing quarterly metrics, external validation, and “style” over substance. Bill argues the opposite: sustainable performance springs from purpose, self-awareness, and a culture people believe in. We explore how to stay grounded as expectations, visibility, and success scale.

You’ll learn how authentic leaders make the hard calls without becoming “nice at the expense of necessary,” choose metrics that drive meaning (not gaming), and build teams that keep you honest, learning, and aligned.

In this episode we cover:
•Authentic leadership: what it is and isn’t
•Purpose-first strategy
•The Medtronic metric: measuring outcomes people feel, not just inputs
•Making tough people & portfolio decisions without losing your values
•Building your leadership circle for honest feedback & growth
•Short-term vs. long-term: preventing KPI gaming and hollow wins

Episode Timeline

00:00 Introduction to Outthinkers Podcast
00:35 Bill George on Medtronic's Impact
01:40 Bill George's Leadership Journey
05:00 Defining Strategy and Purpose
10:32 Authentic Leadership Explained
12:45 Challenges and Examples of Leadership
16:04 Personal Growth and Leadership
20:53 Developing Self-Awareness as a Leader
22:15 Facing Crucibles: Overcoming Tough Times
23:47 Exercises for Self-Discovery
25:33 The Power of Small Groups
27:32 Long-Standing Support Systems
29:28 Assessing Leadership Values
33:01 Effective Metrics for Leadership
39:56 Engaging with Bill George

Additional Resources
•Bill George — Website: https://www.billgeorge.org
•LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamwgeorge/
•Book: True North: Emerging Leader Edition
•Book: True North
•Kaihan Krippendorff: https://www.outthinker.com

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast