Today’s guest is Ron Carucci, Cofounder and Managing Partner at Navalent, a company that works with CEOs and Executives who are pursuing transformational change. His Harvard Business Review article “Executives Fail to Execute Strategy Because They’re Too Internally Focused” put him our radar and led us to his fantastic book, Rising to Power.

We tackle both the book and the HBR article in this interview.

The crux of the episode--to borrow Ron’s phrase--is the ‘altitude sickness’ that all "rising" executives come across.

Examples of this altitude sickness are: ineffective use of power, effective and ineffective communication and organization design, as well as how effectively they are looking at the competitive landscape to leverage that information and make their organizations more profitable, successful spaces.

In This Episode 

• Ron’s professional background and his current work with Navalent.
• Managing the competitive context for executives.
• The dizzying dynamics of managing and leveraging portfolios.
• Organizational ‘compression’ and strategic thinking.
• Why saying no is so important.
• A few words on Millennials and intergenerational connection.
• Why an executive should link their strategy to their company’s budget.
• Telling executives the truths they don’t want to hear but need to hear.
• Organization design as a system.
• A breakdown of power and its dangers.