Oct 6, 2026 · 1 hr 19 min · 11 segments
We are joined on CSI Chat by Professor Ron Adner to talk about "Disruption". Ron is a Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and the author of…
Ron AdnerGuestScottHostSo if we talk a little bit about the book, Winning the Right Game, that's the title of the book.
What does it mean to win the right game? Before we kind of dig into the individual principles, why did you title the book Winning the Right Game?
Well, so, you know, Winning the Right Game is supposed to activate a couple of things simultaneously in your mind.
Yep.
And the, the guy who ran GE, Jack Welch, um, was regarded as the best CEO of the 20th century.
So he, you know, every- when he retired, everyone was like, "Oh, Jack Welch, teach us.
How do you be great like you?" Um, and he wrote a book, and the title of the book was Winning.
I've read it.
Yeah.
It was like, how do I become successful? It's like, all right, I'm gonna tell you the secret.
And but the reason it mattered so much when he wrote this book, which was really kind of looking at GE in, you know, the, the '80s and, and '90s, was because the way GE succeeded under him was every business unit was charged with being number one or number two in their industry, and they really needed to win.
And so there's a, a tremendous execution challenge of how do you drive costs down? How do you increase differentiation? So winning in that regard was not easy.
Today, in some sectors, right, in some initiatives, the clean boundary between what used to be regarded as industries is breaking down, and what we find is that there are multiple people playing on the same game board as you, right? And we were talking bef- you know, bef- before the recording.
So if we talk a little bit about the book, Winning the Right Game, that's the title of the book.
What does it mean to win the right game? Before we kind of dig into the individual principles, why did you title the book Winning the Right Game?
Well, so, you know, Winning the Right Game is supposed to activate a couple of things simultaneously in your mind.
Yep.
And the, the guy who ran GE, Jack Welch, um, was regarded as the best CEO of the 20th century.
So he, you know, every- when he retired, everyone was like, "Oh, Jack Welch, teach us.
How do you be great like you?" Um, and he wrote a book, and the title of the book was Winning.
I've read it.
Yeah.
It was like, how do I become successful? It's like, all right, I'm gonna tell you the secret.
And but the reason it mattered so much when he wrote this book, which was really kind of looking at GE in, you know, the, the '80s and, and '90s, was because the way GE succeeded under him was every business unit was charged with being number one or number two in their industry, and they really needed to win.
And so there's a, a tremendous execution challenge of how do you drive costs down? How do you increase differentiation? So winning in that regard was not easy.
Today, in some sectors, right, in some initiatives, the clean boundary between what used to be regarded as industries is breaking down, and what we find is that there are multiple people playing on the same game board as you, right? And we were talking bef- you know, bef- before the recording.
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