79. The End Of An Era: A Conversation with Steve Kaufman

The Disruptive Voice

Back in 2003, Steve Kaufman was the first partner who Clay brought on to teach the BSSE course with him, and he has subsequently had a tremendous impact on generations of our students. At the end of June, Steve officially retired from the Harvard Business School. As such, we wanted to sit down with him to have him to reflect on his career and time working with Clay, his thoughts on the course and its cases, and his forecast for the future of management education. Hosted by Derek van Bever, the two also discuss a number of Steve’s “Kaufmanisms” (for instance, never try to teach a pig to sing; good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement; if you can’t hide it, feature it; and culture eats strategy for breakfast every morning!), along with his thoughts on the importance of mentorship, disruptive versus sustaining innovations, his favorite BSSE frameworks, whether incumbents have become better at warding off disruption, and so much more. Enjoy this lively conversation - and have a wonderful rest of your summer! The Disruptive Voice will be back in September with more conversations that we hope you’ll find inspiring and useful.