Michael E. Raynor is a Director at Deloitte Services LP and leads the firm’s Theme Program within Deloitte’s Brand & Eminence division. Raynor’s work explores the challenges of performance, innovation and growth. Raynor shares his research and findings with executives and management teams through keynote lectures, workshops, and consulting projects in a wide range of industries and around the world. Raynor’s most recent book, The Three Rules: How Exceptional Companies Think (Portfolio), is an investigation into the drivers of long-term superior corporate performance. On the topic of innovation, Raynor was co-author with Professor Clayton M. Christensen of The Innovator’s Solution (2003), which was on The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times bestseller lists, and sole author of the best-selling The Innovator’s Manifesto, released in 2011. On growth, Raynor’s The Strategy Paradox (2007) was named by Strategy + Business as one of its top five picks in strategy, and BusinessWeek named it one of that year’s 10 Best Business Books. In addition, Michael has taught in the MBA and Executive Education programs at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario (Ivey) in London, Canada and at the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. Michael has a doctorate from the Harvard Business School, a master’s degree in business administration from Ivey and an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Harvard University. He lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

In his July appearance, Michael and Dave discussed the debate on disruption theory. Michael discussed how the theory has evolved and gave examples of products that are called disruptive, but really aren’t. For example, Uber is not actually disruptive because they target the same customers that other car services are already using. He also explained that the iPod was not disruptive, because customers were already in the market for portable music players. The product was transformative, but not disruptive in the sense of the theory.

In his September appearance Raynor talked about his new book: The Three Rules. It’s an in-depth look at how successful companies innovate, boiled down into three simple rules. He spoke about how the rules are such that they apply in nearly all situations, and there are many other strategies to innovation, but these additional strategies are situation-dependent. Professor Robertson noted a special value of this book during the segment – it’s unique blend of rigor and applicability is truly rare, and make it a must-read for practitioners, consultants, and academics alike.