This year sees the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Jim Collins bestseller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't.

With over 4 million copies sold worldwide good to great became a management must-read. But what can we learn from it 20 years on?

Is it still relevant? Do its findings pan out in the 21st century?

The book addresses a single question: can a good company become a great company (stock market performance, 5 times the average) and if so, how? Based on a five-year research project comparing companies that made the leap to those that didn’t, Good to Great shows that greatness is not primarily a function of circumstance but largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline. ‘Good to Great’ discusses concepts like Level 5 Leadership; First Who, Then What (first get the right people on the bus, then figure out where to drive it); the Hedgehog Concept, and the Flywheel.

Helping Harley discuss Good to Great in his virtual studio are:

• Dr. Katrin Winkler, Leadership and organizational coach and Professor of Human Resources and Leadership at the University of Applied Sciences (UAS) Kempten, Germany
• Cor Loots, Business Strategist, former Vice-president in Business Improvement and Operations for Levi Strauss Europe and owner of Cobalo consultancy
• Philippe Van Haren, Business Consultant and former CEO of Unicon Solutions NV and member of a number of boards of directors
• Peter Ruymen, Partner of The Bayard Partnership. Peter has a degree in Enterprise Architecture from the University of Antwerp and is described as a no-nonsense guy that sees the bigger picture immediately.

Can the state of establishing diversity in your business guarantee you some kind of edge, and if so, what?

Coming from the Latin verb "divertere", meaning to turn aside, the classic dictionary definition of diversity is the containment of many very different elements practice of quality. In recent years however, probably the first definition you will find on the internet is the inclusion or involvement of people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations and abilities.

Helping Harley to discuss this topic:

• Nico De Cleen – CEO Passwerk
• Wivina Briers - Founder & CEO at X Kwadraat and Keynote speaker on gender equivalence
• Trees De Bruyne, Innovation manager and CEO of the company, Bark Today.

In this podcast, both Trees De Bruyne and Wivina Briers refer to Sustainable Development Goals SDG’s. More information can be found here: https://sdgs.un.org/goals.

Nassim Taleb’s book, The Black Swan, was published back in 2007 and yet today it’s observations are as poignant as ever. In this podcast Harley Lovegrove and his guest panel look at the implications of handling unexpected major events. They consider, among other questions, if one can anticipate the unexpected and if so, how can they as leaders keep their teams focused, motivated and aligned? They explore the process of inspiring managers into becoming leaders, and to embracing the fact that their teams needs are vastly different during periods of massive change and uncertainty.

Harley’s guests are:

Michèle Longpré, Executive Director at Gordian Management

Kamil Mroz, Director, Program Management Lead for strategic projects at UCB

Brian Thumwood, Director Global Billing - e-Billing and Online Payments at DHL

Saskia Van Dyck, Program Management advisor at Goodyear Dunlop

Bertrand Potier, Managing Director, Corporate Liquidity & Bank Treasury Professional Services Europe at FIS