Mark Greeven | China’s 4 Types of Innovators & Building Resiliency Through Organizational Structure

In this episode of The Negotiation, we speak with an old friend of Todd’s, Mark Greeven. Mark is a Chinese-speaking Dutch Professor of Innovation and Strategy at the Institute of Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, however, Mark has a long and storied career in China the predates his recent move to Europe. He is also the author of 2 books both published by MIT Sloan, the first in 2017 Business Ecosystems in China: Alibaba and Competing Baidu, Tencent, Xiaomi and LeEco, and his second published in 2019, Pioneers, Hidden Campions, Changemakers, and Underdogs: Lesson from China’s Innovators, as well as several very good articles that I also recommend you go find and read. Needless to say, we spend a good amount of time asking Mark about his books and explaining what he means using terms like hidden champions as a class of innovators, or what he means by swarm innovation and rapid centralized decision making when referring to the 6 typical was Chinese entrepreneurs innovate. We close out the conversation discussing a famous Chinese manufacturing giant who has set the bar for surviving the pandemic, economically speaking, deep-diving into how the structure of their organization has allowed them to set the high watermark for enterprise resiliency during these difficult times due to COVID-19. Enjoy!