Join us in our latest podcast episode as we delve into the world of design with Dr. Christian Bason, CEO of the Danish Design Center. We explore the crucial role of how we think - the “thinking” part of design thinking - in addressing global challenges.

Drawing from one of his latest books "Expand: Stretching the Future By Design", co-authored with Jens Martin Skibsted, Christian introduces the concept of six expansions: time, proximity, life, value, dimensions, and sectors. These expansions encourage designers to break free from traditional boundaries and tackle complex issues. We also discuss the dynamic nature of design modes and methods, highlighting the importance of agency and adaptability in diverse contexts.

Dr. Christian Bason brings his expertise in innovation, design, policy and leadership to enrich our conversation. Before becoming CEO of the Danish Design Center, Christian gathered a wealth of experience leading organizations such as MindLab, the Danish government’s innovation team, and Ramboll Management Consulting. He has published in amongst other Harvard Business Review and Stanford Social Innovation Review and has taught executives at Oxford Saïd Business School, Henley MBA, the European School of Administration and Copenhagen Business School. 

With Christian, we dive deep into the ethical considerations surrounding technological innovation and the responsibilities of designers and developers in the digital space. Our conversation examines the impact of technology on society and emphasizes the need for governance mechanisms to keep up with rapid advancements.

We look into the transformative power of unlocking individual creativity and cultivating innovative cultures within organizations.

Lastly, we confront the current state of the world. Christian proposes that we have agency to create more sustainable and human-centered organizational forms that can effectively navigate complexity and build alternative futures.

Key Highlights 

👉 We need to expand our thinking about the future in six areas: time, proximity, life, value, dimensions, sectors.
👉 By adopting a designer's mindset, we should embrace agency to shape our future.
👉 Human imagination and ideas around what is good need to dominate no matter what technology we have at our disposal.
👉 Designers in the digital space have incredible power today because of their ability to scale.
👉 Many organizations are stuck in 19th or 20th century ways of thinking.
👉 Technologies allowing for large-scale distributed coordination exist, but many corporates prefer to exert top-down control.
👉 To enable technology as a catalyst for leadership, we must design organizations that prioritize our beliefs about people rather than solely focusing on technology.
👉 Groups of people together deciding to make a change is the only thing that's ever changed the world.

Topics /chapters

(00:00) Do organization layers inevitably have to grow as an organization expands?
(01:01) Christian Bason’s introduction
(02:08) Expand: Stretching the Future By Design - Exploring the Boundaries of Design Thinking
(14:33) Human Agency in the Age of Technological Advancement
(23:37) The Need for a Designer’s Perspective in Technology and Innovation
(32:41) Balancing Technological Awareness and Leadership in the Digital Age
(42:42) Imagining a Better Future: The Crisis of Imagination and Design
(49:51) Christian Bason's breadcrumbs

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://boundaryless.io/podcast/christian-bason

Recorded on May 2nd 2023.

Get in touch with Boundaryless:

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_
Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts
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Music

Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: blss.io/Podcast-Music

The Boundaryless Conversations

S04 Ep. 18 Christian Bason - Design in the 2020s: More Agency, Less Control

In this episode, we explore what a product centric organization looks like, with our guest Craig Strong. Sharing his experience from being a Global Practice Leader at AWS (Amazon Web Services), a seasoned Chief Technology & Product Officer, he helps us dive deeper into the nuances of adopting organizational designs, cultures, and practices that cater to product-customer centricity. 

A true product operating model specialist, he has helped countless startups and enterprises to modernize and evolve to become more customer-centric. From bio-mimicry to hands-on experience, learn what inspires him everyday, to design some of the most robust and adopted organization structures in the world. This podcast is just not one to miss!

In this insightful episode, Craig Strong, co-author of The Lean Product Lifecycle, explores the future of product-centric organizations. With over 18 years in the tech industry, Craig has worked with startups, SMEs, and global enterprises, guiding them through growth and transformation.

Craig shares profound insights on this podcast, emphasizing the importance of life cycles in product development and the dangers of prescribing defined frameworks. We dive into the significance of asking timely questions, what questions to ask, and the necessity of flexible frameworks that cater to the emergent needs of complex organizations. He touches upon his infamous concept of viewing taxonomies and ontologies as products, and so much more. 

As a Forbes Technology Council member and co-author of “The Lean Product Lifecycle”, Craig provides a blend of theoretical and practical insights on this podcast. This episode is a must-listen for those seeking clarity and inspiration in product operations and organizational design. Tune in for a highly engaging discussion with Craig Strong! 

Key Highlights

👉 Importance of timely contextualization, innovation, and autonomy in ideas.
👉 Relevance of incremental governance
👉 Removal of “Rigidity of Frameworks”
👉 Creating a balance between heuristics and cultural tenets of an organization
👉 Complete break-down of product taxonomies - its necessity, importance, design structure etc.
👉 How to build collective intelligence in organizations
👉 How to use visualization tools for imagining and executing dynamic organization design


Topics /chapters
(00:00) Intro - Product-Centric Organizations (Portfolios, Taxonomies)
(00:57) Introducing Craig Strong
(07:12) Key Tenets and Artifacts of Product Centric Organizations
(12:31) Incremental Governance
(15:51) All about Product Taxonomies
(19:17) Patterns in Taxonomies
(21:06) Dynamism and Complexity in Organizations
(23:17) Scalability of Taxonomy
(26:55) Alternatives to P&L in Product Development Cycle
(29:11) Objectivity and Removing Bias in Development
(32:18) Innovation Theatre and Operationalizing Product Innovation
(36:20) Skin in the Game
(38:54) Hierarchy of Taxonomies
(43:03) Building a Taxonomy and Ontology that is Convenient
(50:49) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions by Craig
(53:38) Closing Points

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website:  https://boundaryless.io/podcast/craig-strong 

Episode recorded on September 18, 2023.

Get in touch with Boundaryless:

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_  
Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts 
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo 

Music

Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: blss.io/Podcast-Music

The Boundaryless Conversation Podcast: Season 5

#85 Product-Centric Organizations (Portfolios, Taxonomies) with Craig Strong

In today’s episode, we are joined by João Rosa and Trond Hjorteland, two organizational consultants with a unique point of view, who take us through the depth of Open Systems Theory, and what it means to be socio-technical practitioners, passionate about transitioning democratic organizations to fast-flowing operational models. 

With many years of experience in large and complex contexts, they delve into what it means to create a collaborative and democratic organization, and how to balance mission, business outcomes, and cognitive load.

Join us on this episode, as we debate the role of “purpose”, entrepreneurship, and autonomy and learn how to avoid the creation of agile bureaucracies.

Tune in, and get inspired.
In the conversation with Rosa and Hjorteland we started from an original question that Simone threw out at a small conference recently: how do we avoid building Agile Bureaucracies? 

What does it mean to develop a business that achieves agility without having to exert total control on flows and processes?

With increasingly complex and dynamic environments, it becomes pivotal for organizations to recognize and adapt to change, if not stay ahead of it and rigidities are more than dangerous - even the cultural ones.

Emphasizing learnings from different methodologies like Open Systems Theory, Domain Driven Design, and Team Topologies; our guests advocate a team-centered, and democratic approach over industrial and hierarchical practices. 
A unique episode to look out for. 
Tune in.

Key Highlights

👉 Evolving socio-technical systems to enhance organizational resilience against complexity and unpredictability.
👉 Integrating agile practices, Open System Theory, and collaborative sense-making to navigate complex organizational challenges.
👉 Participatory culture for enabling team autonomy and fostering ownership practices.
👉 Balancing strategic focus with adaptability, by leveraging external technologies for organizational evolution.
👉 The role of Team Topologies in creating effective communication and collaboration structures within organizations.
👉 Encouraging the shift towards a micro-entrepreneurial mindset within teams to promote innovation and autonomy.

Topics /chapters

(00:00)	Intro - Avoiding the Agile Bureaucracy with Rosa and Hjorteland
(00:59)	Guests Introduction
(02:37) Status Quo: Socio-Technical Systems
(10:38)	Aligning organizational design and business outcomes
(20:52) Enabling entrepreneurship and building optionality
(39:25)	Disruptions in Industrial Organization Thinking
(50:28)	Theory of Organizations for a Complex World
(58:40) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://boundaryless.io/podcast/Rosa-Hjorteland/

Episode recorded on February 6, 2024

Get in touch with Boundaryless:

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_
Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo

Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music

#95 - Avoiding the Agile Bureaucracy with Rosa and Hjorteland

Explore the full episode here: https://hr.theoneminute.media/p/episode-27
Welcome to the 27th episode of "The One Minute HR" newsletter. Today, we will discuss:  
- Chapter 1: Think Hybrid Work Doesn’t Work? The Data Disagrees
- Chapter 2: 6 different modes of collaboration
- Chapter 3: Let's Practice - Creating a Thriving Hybrid Workplace Culture

#EPISODE 27: Hybrid Work Demo

Episode 27, Chapter 1: Think Hybrid Work Doesn’t Work? The Data Disagrees

Indy Johar, Mission Steward of Dark Matter Labs, joins the podcast to help us rethink how we organize ourselves and our systems, addressing inadequacies of traditional business models that are no longer sufficient for managing complexities.

Bringing light to how “risk management should be localized, with decision-making power and accountability being as close to the problem as possible,” Indy argues for an organization that encourages participants to be citizens rather than employees and fosters continuous and accountable learning among individuals.

Tune into this episode and learn from Indy, a veteran in building mission-driven organizations, who has always stayed ahead of the curve.

Indy - who joins the podcast for the 3rd time - besides stewarding the mission at Dark has also recently joined RMIT University, teaching no less than “Planetary Civics”, a testament to his influence in the space of social innovation.

As always, Indy comes with a profound understanding of designing complex organizations for the 21st century, from his hands-on experience in creating radical innovations in governance, architecture, and social systems, particularly in sustainability and collaborative economy. 

He starts the podcast with philosophical considerations about the nature of complex organizations and then highlights the need for a radical shift toward a learning-centered organization.

In the conversation, we question the traditional metrics of productivity and value, and further advocate for new metrics that account for collective intelligence and systemic contributions rather than individual output. 

There was no better way to celebrate our 100th episode because this one is a landmark. Grab a notepad and pick a pen, because there’s much to pin down.


Key Highlights
👉 Organizational structures in a complex world, and a shift from command-and-control to systemic learning and adaptability.
👉 Decentralized risk management and the need to localize decision-making to enhance responsiveness and effectiveness.
👉 Dark Matter Labs' mission-driven approach, emphasizing partnerships over traditional consultancy to enable sustainable change.
👉 Need for a paradigm shift in how value is defined and measured within organizations, moving towards incorporating multi-dimensional success indicators.
👉Redefining organizational roles to encourage craft and citizenship, where individuals contribute to the organization's decision-making processes. 
👉 Rethinking legal structures governing organizations, moving towards frameworks that support distributed risk and empower collective action.


Topics /chapters

(00:00) Learning Centered Organizations for the 21st Century with Indy Johar - Intro
(01:40) Introducing Indy Johar
(10:31) Value of Learning as a Strategic Advantage
(14:41) Accelerating Learning and Modifying Organizational Agendas
(19:23) Structure in a post-managerial economy
(24:46) The Design of Dark Matter Labs
(34:50) Citizenship inside Organizations
(42:25) Citizen or Employee?
(47:56) Money making machine to avenues of value 
(55:47) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions


Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://www.boundaryless.io/podcast/indy-johar-2/


Episode recorded on March 19, 2024

Get in touch with Boundaryless:

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_
Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo

Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music

#100 - Learning Centered Organizations for the 21st Century with Indy Johar

In this session, we explore the vital aspects of decision-making and organizational design. Managers make decisions that can determine a business's success or failure, impacting employees and the community. We'll discuss the six steps of managerial decision-making, which help avoid biases and poor actions, increasing the chances of success.

We'll also examine how a manager's success is influenced by their fit with a company's structure and strategy. Understanding your management style and evaluating organizational design are crucial for career success. Join us to uncover the keys to effective decision-making and organizational alignment for a thriving business and career.

Mastering Managerial Decisions

In a world where products and organizational design often take centre stage, Helge Tennø —a long-time strategist and innovation advisor focused on customer-centric transformations— makes the case for redefining and delivering customer value.
In this episode, he challenges the conventional reliance on engagement and sales metrics and highlights the importance of measuring real customer value, driving behavioural and strategic change - thus linking customer impact directly to business success.
Using a customer-centric four-stack framework that aligns Experience, Data, Strategy, and Culture, he offers a wealth of insights on rethinking organizational design and navigating the future of AI-driven customer experiences.

As a prolific writer and practitioner voicing customer-centricity for over two decades, Helge has guided several organizations worldwide in creating meaningful value for customers.
In this conversation, he helps us visualize what it means to step out of purely product-centric perspectives, outdated measurement systems, and rigid internal structures. 
Taking real-world examples, he explores how organizations can build a clear chain of measurement, tracking the real impact of engagement, behavioural shifts, and ultimately, business value. 
This episode is not missing, as we also touch upon the future of customer centricity, which breaks free from traditional customer journeys –  and captures the complexity, helping organizations become intuitive and human-centred.
Join us as we refocus on what truly matters: placing customers at the heart of every organization.

Key Highlights
👉 Customer-centricity is not just a mindset shift but a structural transformation, requiring organizations to embed customer needs into strategy, measurement, and ways of working.
👉 Traditional customer journeys often fail to capture complexity—organizations can instead explore designs that suit their specific requirements and aid their decision-making.
👉 Ownership in a customer-centric organization must evolve—teams should focus on owning customer outcomes rather than just products to drive meaningful impact.
👉 Rethinking measurement is crucial—organizations must stop assuming that more engagement equals success and start tracking behavioural change and long-term value creation.
👉 AI and modularization will redefine customer interactions, potentially enabling customers to self-configure their own experiences—but most businesses lack the right data to support this shift.
👉 Innovation should be embedded within daily operations, rather than being treated as a separate function or ceremonial event, to drive continuous transformation at scale.


Topics /chapters
(00:00) Bringing Customers Back to the Heart of Business
(00:56) Introducing Helge
(03:41) The importance of being a customer-centric organization
(06:37) Key Elements of a Customer Centric Transformation
(09:54) Line of Sight between Employees and Value
(13:57) Evaluating True Value
(17:15) Orchestrating Business Value in Complexity
(21:59) Driving Ownership in a Customer-Centric Organization
(26:44) Enabling Customer Based Metric System
(30:44) Technology and Modern Tool Integrations for Data Analysis
(34:57) AI and customers self-designing their experiences
(44:50) What’s the space for simplicity, aesthetics, and design?
(49:15) What’s the rebundling that’s going to put customers in the center?
(53:19) Keeping Leaders Grounded in the Chaos
(57:32) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions

Episode recorded on Jan 21, 2025

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast

Get in touch with Boundaryless:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_
Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo

Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music

#114 - Bringing Customers Back to the Heart of Business - with Helge Tennø

Pete Flint, General Partner at NFX and founder of Trulia, joins us for an expansive conversation on how AI is reshaping the foundations of entrepreneurship, platform economies, network effects, and defensibility strategies.
Drawing from his deep experience as both a founder and an investor, Pete breaks down what it means to build in a world where CAC is difficult to change and requires expanding LTV by designing invisible, agent-powered experiences and adopting “stackable” approaches to product development.

Speaking on the low barriers to entry for startups, he highlights why speed now trumps precision, saying, “There is no prize for being right, but there is one for being fast.”
This conversation is a must for anyone navigating the fast-moving world of AI, platform innovation, and startup strategy.
What does it mean to build a startup in a world of frictionless tools and unpredictable technological shifts?

In this episode, Pete, one of the world’s most prominent internet entrepreneurs, helps us unpack how the dynamics of company-building are being transformed - not just by AI, but by new patterns of behaviour, demand, and value creation. 
We explore consumers’ hyper-personalised requirements and what that means for founders navigating shifting entry points and stackable business models. 
He also speaks on cultural foundations and how an organisation’s ecosystem affects outcomes.

For anyone grappling with how to lead or build in this dynamic landscape, this episode offers a take on what truly matters.


Key Highlights
👉 AI-native startups demand a new mindset - where building fast and embracing imperfection is often more strategic than over-optimising from the start.
👉 “Stackability” is emerging as a core design principle: founders should think in terms of layers and expansions, starting with a powerful wedge into the market.
👉 In an age of low switching costs and high user expectations, designing invisible, agent-driven experiences is becoming critical for product stickiness and defensibility.
👉 Founders must be hyper-intentional about their initial entry point - the “killer wedge” - which creates unfair economic or experiential advantages and unlocks further growth.
👉 In a world where CAC is hard to move, the focus is shifting towards expanding LTV by designing invisible, agent-powered experiences and adopting “stackable” approaches to product development.
👉 Large organisations struggle with speed due to risk aversion and fear of failure, highlighting how startup culture can remain a competitive edge if properly nurtured.
👉 The importance of geography and culture: proximity to dense information and strong execution cultures compounds the advantage of high-velocity teams.


Topics /chapters
(00:00) Stackable Business Models: Startup Strategy in the AI-Native Era
(01:40) Introducing Pete Flint
(03:38) AI and Platforms - Industry Overview
(09:48) Is Stackability the next step of Super Apps?
(11:55) What is the future of Marketplaces with AI?
(17:28) Revamping UX with Agent Marketplaces
(21:15) Changes in Network Effects for the Future
(24:54) Changes for a user
(30:57) How can a Founder Be Future-Proof?
(34:22) Do Future Predictions Matter?
(40:31) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: ⁠https://www.boundaryless.io/podcast/flint-pete⁠

Episode recorded on Apr 04, 2025


Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at ⁠https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast⁠

Get in touch with Boundaryless:
Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/boundaryless_⁠
Website: ⁠https://boundaryless.io/contacts⁠LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo⁠

Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: ⁠https://blss.io/Podcast-Music


#120 - Stackable Business Models: Startup Strategy in the AI-Native Era with Pete Flint

Sangeet Paul Choudary, globally recognised Platform Strategist and author, joins back on the Boundaryless Conversations Podcast for the 4th time. In this episode, the closing one for Season 6, we unpack how AI radically transforms the system of work.
Together, we explore how organisations can stay relevant as value is being redefined (intrinsic, economic, contextual), and how systemic design choices shape who benefits in a rapidly fragmenting economy. 
Drawing a powerful parallel to the shipping container revolution, Sangeet shows how AI’s impact operates at multiple levels, from simple task automation up to systemic change, urging us to think bigger than just isolated productivity gains.
He challenges the Techno-Optimist and Luddite narratives for assuming that competition rules and value distribution remain static in an AI world. Instead, Sangeet urges us to think about how the “pie” gets sliced.

Sangeet is a globally renowned author and has an upcoming book, “Reshuffle”. He is known for his deep systems thinking and sharp analysis of digital ecosystems.
In this episode, he explored how organisations must fundamentally rethink value (and their role) in an AI-transformed world and unpacks the often-overlooked link between constraints and value. 
He helps us distinguish local and systemic effects, urging leaders to stop optimising for short-term efficiencies, and challenges the outdated assumption that markets are uniform and competition is static.
If you’re curious to learn how your perception of innovation needs to shift, tune in.


Key Highlights
👉 In an AI-driven economy, organisations must redefine value in context, not just by markets, but by their unique purpose, position, and impact.
👉 Both techno-optimists and Luddites fall into the same trap: they assume the rules of competition stay the same. But as AI reshapes how the “pie” is sliced
👉 Traditional frameworks fall short - leaders must now navigate systems thinking, modularity, and multi-dimensional trade-offs.
👉 Strategic advantage lies in judgment, where decision-makers are directly impacted by their choices.
👉 Organisations must shift from task-level automation to system-level redesign.
👉 The future of leadership demands a long-term appetite for long-term planning - helping us thrive through uncertainty and systemic adaptation.
 
Topics /chapters
(00:00) How AI Restacks the System of Work - Intro 
(01:38) Introducing Sangeet Paul Choudary
(03:34) New Framing for assessing the impact of AI
(11:03) Deeper Impacts of AI on the System
(16:52) AI affecting Value Economics
(22:16) How is Value Impacted in the System of Work
(31:08) Shift of Role Requirements in Organiations
(35:13) Individual responsibility in defining value
(50:09) Pace of Technology
(56:49) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions
(01:01:05) Closing of Season 6

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://www.boundaryless.io/podcast/sangeet-choudary-4/

Episode recorded on May 15, 2025

To pre-order Sangeet's Book: "Reshuffle: Who wins when AI restacks the knowledge economy" check out this link https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTKW6NQV?ref_=pe_93986420_775043100

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast/

Get in touch with Boundaryless:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_
Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo

Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music

#124 – How AI Restacks the System of Work with Sangeet Paul Choudary | Closing of Season 6

Boundaryless helps global customers with Business Strategy and Organization Design for the age of Ecosystems.
We do it by creating openly accessible frameworks and by supporting a community of organizations, institutions, and individuals through workshops, training, and consulting services. 

In this space we host all our audio recordings, including the Boundaryless Conversations podcast, a show focused on exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous. 

We used to be online at platformdesigntoolkit.com... now find us on our new website: www.boundaryless.io!

Email: hello@boundaryless.io

The Dr. Claude Kershner Show empowers students, professionals, and scholars by offering practical examples of Strategic Entrepreneurship. In a series of teachings, interviews, and stories, we confidently provide evidence-based tactics to take teams and organizations through life cycle transitions.

New tracks tagged #OrganizationalDesign