Rita McGrath, The Future of Work, AI, and Leading Through Transformation [001]

Episode Description

Rita McGrath and I recorded this conversation at Columbia Business School at the end of a day teaching senior executives together, in a class she has run for some time now. That morning I asked 35 executives from around the world who knew what OpenClaw was. One hand went up. Rita explains why leaders get so buried in today's work that they stop making room to explore what's coming, and why that's how they get caught by surprise. We get into how Bayer broke its work into thousands of small teams on 90-day cycles, why the billable hour is dying, why cutting junior roles throws away the tacit knowledge companies run on, and what Teddy Roosevelt and the post-war economic bargain can teach us about a world reshaped by AI.

Rita is the daughter of two research scientists. She spent close to a decade in New York City government before a PhD at Wharton, and found her way into strategy through a study of why some of Citibank's ventures worked and others failed. We've worked together for years and we still agree to disagree on some things!  If you're leading through change and wondering what work will look like for the next generation, start here.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube