About Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan
Every week, headlines scroll by. Smart leaders stop and ask: What does this mean for how we lead, compete, and grow?
Leapfrogging the Headlines takes one story from the week's news and reframes it through the lens of strategy, innovation, leadership, and business model thinking — in under 10 minutes.
Hosted by Soren Kaplan, Wall Street Journal bestselling author who has advised leaders at Disney, Medtronic, Cisco, Visa, and PepsiCo on innovation, AI, and strategy.
New episodes weekly. No ads. Subscribe wherever you listen.
Stanford researchers gave two groups the same crime statistics. One group heard crime described as a beast, the other as a virus. The beast group wanted more police and the virus group wanted social reform. Almost nobody noticed that a single word had driven their view.
In this episode, Soren Kaplan connects that research to a failed snack called McCrackin that became a culture-killing nickname at a Fortune 500 company, and to Satya Nadella's decision to replace Microsoft's know-it-all culture with a learn-it-all culture by changing the language leaders used.
Leaders will walk away with three moves: review the default labels your team already uses, name the mindset you want to build, and make sure the experience behind your words is real.
Further reading: Stanford metaphor study, https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/803162 (https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/803162)
View original on Inc. Magazine: https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/satya-nadella-transformed-microsofts-culture-by-changing-2-words-leaders-used/91408690 (https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/satya-nadella-transformed-microsofts-culture-by-changing-2-words-leaders-used/91408690)
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t)
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d (https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d)
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297)
Learn more about Soren's work at sorenkaplan.com.
2 Oct 2026
Ant Colonies Know The Secret to Great Teamwork. 80 Percent of Your Failed Projects Do the Opposite.
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science gave ants mazes of varying difficulty. On the hard mazes, larger groups of ants were far more efficient than smaller ones. Human teams usually do the opposite as they scale.
In this episode, Soren Kaplan breaks down why coordination, not headcount, explains the gap: ants operate on shared rules with information flowing freely through the colony, while human teams add competing scorecards and priorities with every new person. He connects it to AchieveIt's finding that 79 percent of failed strategic initiatives trace back to poor collaboration.
Leaders will walk away with three moves: align scorecards around one shared metric, create a single live source of truth for every team involved, and shrink thick process manuals down to a few usable principles.
Further reading: Popular Science, https://www.popsci.com/environment/ants-efficiency-group/ (https://www.popsci.com/environment/ants-efficiency-group/)
View original on Inc. Magazine: https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/ant-colonies-get-better-as-groups-grow-business-teams-can-too-with-3-changes/91407468 (https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/ant-colonies-get-better-as-groups-grow-business-teams-can-too-with-3-changes/91407468)
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t)
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d (https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d)
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297)
Learn more about Soren's work at sorenkaplan.com.
29 Sept 2026
Nearly 80 Percent of Dentists Are in Pain. Your Company May Have the Same Symptoms.
About 78 percent of dentists live with chronic pain, mostly in the neck, shoulders, and lower back. Dentistry has known how to fix it since the 1960s. The injury rate has barely moved anyway.
In this episode, Soren Kaplan breaks down why the fix requires three separate parties to say yes at once, the dentist, the patient, and the equipment dealer, and why real estate's $418 million commission settlement shows the exact same stalemate playing out in a completely different industry.
Leaders will walk away with three moves: identify every required yes before redesigning anything, change the channel's economics for whoever benefits from the status quo, and coordinate the switch instead of forcing it through.
View original on Inc. Magazine: https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/dentists-keep-getting-hurt-because-fixing-the-problem-requires-3-yeses/91405804 (https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/dentists-keep-getting-hurt-because-fixing-the-problem-requires-3-yeses/91405804)
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t)
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d (https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d)
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297)
Learn more about Soren's work at sorenkaplan.com.
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