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Best-selling author and regular on the Thinkers50 ranking of the world's most influential management thinkers, Daniel Pink discusses why timing is everything. He describes the bi-modal pattern that we all experience each day; the effects of these 'peaks' and 'troughs' on an organization; and why beginnings, mid-points and ends are so important to us. He then provides some practical advice for leaders that incorporates these lessons.

The amount of value in any given product will always lie in the eye of the beholder. Yet universal building blocks of value do exist. Two senior Bain & Company experts describe the 'elements of value' for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business products. They explain how they have organized these elements (30 for B2C and 40 for B2B) into a hierarchical pyramid inspired by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs-with basic value offerings at the bottom and aspirational offerings at the top. Apple's iPhone, for instance, covers 11 of the 30 possible elements of value for consumers. The challenge for leaders today, they argue, is to compare their value offerings to their competitors; seek to close value gaps; and come up with innovative new combinations of value.

Widely considered the founder of the modern strategy field, Michael Porter discusses his current work on the Social Progress Imperative and its accompanying Social Progress Index. He explains why social progress must be on the radar of every business executive. He also describes why Denmark (among countries) and America's largest bank, J.P. Morgan Chase (among corporations) lead the world in terms of their commitment to social progress. In the end, he makes it clear that the most powerful way for any company to affect society is through its business model.

In a wide-ranging interview, the CEO of Estée Lauder Companies explains how he took the company from a market cap of $6 billion to $35 billion. He describes how he created new 'engines of growth' for the company through the diversification of its brands, categories, geographies and channels; the pros of working for a family-owned firm; why the company chooses to focus on its most discerning customers; and how he has engaged Millennials in creating company's forward-looking strategy.

Behavioral Economics pioneer Richard Thaler, the co-author of the best-seller Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, talks about the origins of the field, his key findings over a 40-year career and the importance of 'nudging for good.'

Every solution you come up with-no matter how perfect it first appears-carries with it assumptions, leaps of faith and implicit conditions for success. If these are not recognized and attended to, they can turn out to be the Achilles heel in your great idea. So says the former creative advisor to Toyota, in a wide-ranging interview about his latest book, Winning the Brain Game. He presents and describes what he calls 'the seven fatal flaws of thinking': leaping, fixation, over-thinking, satisficing, downgrading, not-invented-here and self-censoring. Using a wide range of real-life examples-from Procter & Gamble to Xerox to Apple-he also shows how to avoid these common thinking flaws.

Most leaders recognize that innovation entails optimizing their existing business while at the same time, innovating to create new value for the future. Professor and author Vijay Govindarajan argues that an important third step must be added: proactively letting go of yesterday's beliefs. In this wide-ranging interview, he describes his Three Box Solution, which addresses all three required steps. The problem, he says, is that most of today's leaders focus on Box 1 and ignore the other two boxes. He also explains the difference between linear and non-linear innovation, the role of 'weak signals' in the environment, and the concept of 'reverse innovation'.

One of the world's most influential management thinkers discusses a new model for tackling the world's 'wicked problems'-issues such as poverty, inequality and climate change: Global Solution Networks (GSNs). Collaboration among nation states-while still necessary-is now insufficient to deal with these issues, he says, describing how GSNs operate. He also discusses his latest work on the opportunities presented by blockchain technology. What if there were a next generation of the Internet, he asks, where we could conduct peer-to-peer transactions-not just to exchange information, but to exchange value and money? We can't do that yet without a powerful intermediary-like a credit card company or PayPal; but before long, the Blockchain will make it-and much more-possible. In the end, he says, the first era of the digital age has not fully delivered on its promises. Through GSNs and the Blockchain, we will have another opportunity to rewrite the economic order of things-and dramatically improve the state of the world.

Three current and former C-suite executives of thriving global companies (Magna International, Research in Motion and Manulife Financial) discuss the challenges faced by their companies in establishing global operations and key lessons learned. They also discuss current opportunities, and look to what lies around the corner for companies seeking to expand beyond their national boundaries. In the end, they agree that the biggest risk of globalization is simple: not doing it.

Peter Drucker once said that healthcare organizations "are the most complex form of organization that we have ever attempted to manage." In this wide-ranging interview, an American health-sector strategy expert working in Canada explains why Drucker's statement is true. He goes on to describe the need for patient-centric care and the importance of focusing on the social determinants of health. He also compares the Canadian and U.S. systems, the pros and cons of each, and what a truly sustainable healthcare system would look like. In the end, he shows the power of markets in the quest for population health.

A renowned cardiologist and healthcare leader explains how technology is making diagnosis and treatment faster and more accurate-and why we are in the midst of a 'Gutenberg moment' in healthcare. He also describes the dawn of 'the era of informed consent'; the ongoing power of the 'Angelina [Jolie] effect'; how wireless technology is changing healthcare, and how 'Consumer Genomics' will turn Medicine on its head. In the end, he shows that "The movement towards self-generated data by smart, hyper-connected patients represents a serious challenge to medical paternalism.

When Google famously allowed its engineers to spend 20 per cent of their time pursuing a passion, Chade-Meng Tan decided to spend his time on a cause dear to his heart: creating the conditions for world peace within his lifetime. After much research and consultation with scientists, monks, academics and more, he concluded that the road to peace was paved with compassion-the happiest brain state ever recorded by neurologists. His initiative now had a focus, and soon, his Search Inside Yourself program was being delivered at Google and other forward-thinking organizations. He describes his journey and what he believes lies ahead if we are able to scale compassion.

In this wide-ranging interview, one of the world's leading business psychologists describes the value of becoming a 'first-class Noticer'. Doing so, he argues, enables one to avoid the perils of 'inattentional blindness', 'motivated blindness' and 'bounded awareness'-all of which are pervasive in modern organizations, he says. He also defines 'leadership-driven noticing', why it is such a vital skill, and the ways in which it is absent on many corporate boards and in the auditing industry.

In this wide-ranging interview, Unilever CEO Paul Polman describes how his company is putting the world's biggest problems-from sanitation issues to poverty to youth self esteem-at the very core of its business model. He describes the company's Sustainable Living Plan, which aims to reduce environmental impact, improve health and well-being and enhance livelihoods around the world. He shows that this approach not only makes enormous sense for shareholders and brings costs down, it drives up employee engagement levels and enables a company to embrace new business opportunities.

Senior executives from Novo Nordisk, Virgin Group, Johnson & Johnson and Tim Hortons provide dispatches from the front lines of the corporate sustainability challenge, describing their companies' varied approaches to tackling sustainability in arenas including aviation, investing, consumer products and health care.

Good news out of MIT: labour market expert Paul Osterman does not believe that we are going to become a nation of brain surgeons and hamburger flippers. However, inequality does indeed exist within the labour market, and in this wide-ranging interview he describes how leaders must step forward to address the realities of the changing workforce through better job design. The bottom line, he says, is that low wages and high levels of inequality are corrosive to democracy. Moral outrage doesn't provide a strategy for moving forward, he says, but at the end of the day, the moral case for creating good, fair-wage jobs seems pretty compelling.

The former senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada and new Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto discusses the ongoing quest for a balanced economy, why service exports should be the next big thing, and the personal challenge that lies ahead for him at the Rotman School.

In a wide-ranging interview, the Managing Director for McKinsey and Company Worldwide, Dominic Barton, discusses his firm's work on the global problem of water scarcity, what type of talent his firm seeks out and why workplace flexibility is so important today.

Three veterans of the C-suite discuss the current business landscape and some of their key challenges past, present and future. Mark Barrenechea, CEO of OpenText, explains why "Big Data is a bit over-hyped"; Former MasterCard CMO (now Sotheby's CMO) Alfredo Gangotena describes his greatest challenge ever: marketing EuroDisney to Parisians; and Mountain Equipment Co-Op CEO Mark Labistour explains his affinity for Design Thinking, and the importance of working towards a "desired future state" for your customer.

In this interview the renowned psychologist and Emotional Intelligence (EI) pioneer describes the importance of focus for leadership excellence. He explains in detail the three types of focus that leaders must possess to perform optimally: self-awareness, awareness of others and outer focus. Focus, he argues, is a pre-requisite for Emotional Intelligence.