The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

Jesper Rangvid, professor of finance at Copenhagen Business School, explores what leaders should understand about interest rates, inflation, the cost of capital, prioritization, and AI.
Rangvid explains why the roughly 40-year decline in interest rates was "a completely unique historical period" and why executives should not assume borrowing will continue to get cheaper. Falling inflation and demographic changes helped drive rates lower, while low rates also contributed to rising house prices and increased borrowing. As he puts it, "lower and lower interest rates are not always good."
He discusses the post-pandemic shift toward higher inflation and interest rates, including the growing financing needs of governments and major AI companies. For executives, the key question is how changing financing costs affect investment and strategic decisions.
The conversation also explores prioritization and reflection. Rangvid describes scaling back his media commitments because "it simply takes too much time" and using running as "a time of reflection" to think through difficult problems from different angles.
Finally, Rangvid shares a cautiously optimistic perspective on AI and argues that technology does not eliminate the value of human judgment. Even when AI can produce an answer in seconds, "facilitating a discussion among executives is still unbelievably useful" because different perspectives help people challenge assumptions and think more deeply.
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For this episode, let's revisit a strategy skills classic interview with the author of The Illusion of Innovation: Escape "Efficiency" and Unleash Radical Progress, Elliott Parker. The Illusion of Innovation tackles the problem with innovation inside big companies, having activities that feel like innovation but lead to value destruction, not progress. This book explains why meaningful innovation naturally emerges from deliberate inefficiency and how large corporations can harness the power of small teams—startups—to drive radical change through systematic experimentation.
Elliott Parker is the founder and CEO of High Alpha Innovation, a venture builder that partners with corporations, universities, and entrepreneurs to co-create startups that solve compelling problems. He built his career in strategy consulting at Innosight, the firm founded by Clayton Christensen, in corporate venturing, and as an entrepreneur bringing new ideas to market. To date, he has launched over 40 venture-backed startups. Originally from California, Elliott currently resides with his family in Indiana. He earned a B.S. in Finance from BYU and an M.B.A. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
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The Illusion of Innovation: Escape "Efficiency" and Unleash Radical Progress
 
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Cornelia Choe explains why being right is no longer enough for leaders operating in environments of constant change. She calls the problem "perspective blindness": we may be correct about what we see while still seeing only part of the picture.
Drawing on experiences across private equity, government, nonprofits, and leadership advisory, Cornelia argues that information has become increasingly commoditized while context and judgment have become more valuable. AI can broaden our understanding and challenge our thinking, but it can also become "a very easy substitute for judgment" when leaders accept its answers without questioning them.
The discussion examines two forms of perspective blindness. Reality blindness occurs when leaders fail to get close enough to different people, ideas, and situations. Projection blindness occurs when they assume others see the world as they do. Both become increasingly consequential when different members of an organization are responding to rapidly changing realities.
Cornelia encourages leaders to move "from being an expert to the chief investigator of their company": continually seeking perspectives that challenge their assumptions, listening closely to customers and stakeholders, and questioning whether the value they have historically created still meets what people need today. Her advice for customer conversations is deliberately simple: "just zip it and listen."
AI can support the same discipline. Cornelia uses AI personas representing people who see an issue differently from her to expose blind spots and expand the range of possibilities, while continuing to triangulate those perspectives with human judgment.
Before an important decision, she recommends asking: "Who sees this differently? Why do they see this differently? What do they see? And which of my assumptions would they change?"
The goal, she argues, "is not to eliminate uncertainty," but to take a wider view before making consequential decisions.
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Glenn Hutchinson, a psychotherapist who developed the personality science behind the assessments used by Match.com, explores one of the most misunderstood aspects of infidelity: why people sometimes violate their own values without fully understanding how they arrived there.
The conversation begins with a broader look at human behavior. Glenn explains that much of what drives our decisions happens outside conscious awareness. Using the familiar experience of driving on "autopilot," he argues that our unconscious mind is constantly shaping our judgments, emotions, and interactions long before we recognize it. As he puts it, "subjective experience is very deceiving," and "our behavior is more complicated. It comes from a deeper place than we realize."
A central theme is how people interpret situations through mental categories rather than objective reality. Someone may believe they are "just being friendly" instead of crossing emotional boundaries, or see an affair as "a unique situation" rather than recognizing it for what it is. Glenn explains that these unconscious mental frameworks can influence behavior in powerful ways, even for people who genuinely see themselves as honest and faithful.
The discussion also challenges the tendency to blame oneself after betrayal. Glenn explains that there is "no evidence" that a partner's infidelity means the betrayed person was lacking. He discusses several research-backed risk factors, including growing up aware of parental infidelity, having many sexual partners before marriage, and an anxious attachment style, while emphasizing that these are risk factors—not predictions—and that greater self-awareness and healthy boundaries matter far more.
The conversation concludes with practical guidance for both preventing and recovering from infidelity. Glenn argues that no one is completely immune to temptation, making honest communication and emotional openness essential in long-term relationships. For those healing after betrayal, he advises avoiding rash decisions, finding a trusted person to talk to, and recognizing that recovery takes time. As he says, "The first thing you got to do is become aware of it." Lasting change begins by recognizing the unconscious assumptions that shape behavior and gradually aligning actions with personal values.
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Amos Winter, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center at MIT, explains how innovators can create high-performance, affordable products for resource-constrained communities and adapt them for global markets. Drawing on Global by Design, co-authored with Vijay Govindarajan, he brings together product design, engineering science, market knowledge, and business strategy.
Amos traces this work to a study of wheelchair use in Tanzania. People in rural areas needed a wheelchair that could travel long distances over rough terrain while remaining compact enough for indoor use. Products developed for wealthier countries were often too expensive or insufficiently robust. The resulting Leveraged Freedom Chair later provided the foundation for the Grit Freedom Chair in the United States.
The conversation examines three forms of merit that help innovators choose worthwhile problems. Problem merit asks whether solving a challenge would meaningfully benefit a substantial population and support a business opportunity. Innovation merit determines whether the problem genuinely requires innovation rather than adaptation, charity, or another mechanism. Value merit aligns the interests of customers and producers so that adoption can occur at scale.
This evaluation should precede the technology. Amos cautions against "creating a hammer and then going and finding a nail." A stronger approach begins by identifying the full set of requirements, then combining market insight with technical analysis. Market knowledge reveals what users and operating environments demand; engineering science explains the limitations of existing products and suggests how a better solution might work.
The Leveraged Freedom Chair illustrates how this approach supports expansion across markets. In developing countries, bicycle parts made the chair affordable and locally repairable. American users valued the same lever-powered drivetrain but needed a collapsible frame that could fit inside a car. The core value remained consistent, while selected features changed with local requirements.
Amos contrasts the Honda Super Cub with the Tata Nano to show why excellent engineering does not guarantee adoption. Honda combined low cost and reliability with an accessible, aspirational identity. The Nano was an impressive engineering achievement, but positioning it as the world's cheapest car weakened its appeal. Concerns about status and perceived safety further influenced how customers judged it.
The discussion also considers AI's role in product development. Amos uses AI to gather and summarize information, generate concepts, write code, and accelerate routine work. Its limitations become more significant when innovation depends on knowledge that has never been recorded, direct interaction with materials and manufacturing processes, an understanding of technical readiness, or rapport with stakeholders. He expects people to remain particularly valuable in work requiring dexterity, perception, ingenuity, interdisciplinary synthesis, and interpersonal understanding.
Amos closes with a principle central to the book: "Perspective is the most powerful tool an innovator has because what it does is show you requirements." Innovators must learn to see a problem through other people's eyes while remaining realistic about their own knowledge, capabilities, and resources. He calls this being a "tempered dreamer": pursuing consequential problems with ambition, but applying one's strengths where they can contribute most effectively.
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