Applying Porter’s Five Forces to Fix U.S. Politics | HBR IdeaCast

2 Feb 2023

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Katherine Gehl, a former CEO and the founder of the Institute for Political Innovation, and Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, apply his Five Forces framework to explain why U.S. politics are dysfunctional. They argue that the Republican and Democratic parties make up an industry duopoly with high barriers to entry and low consumer power, and that the resulting lack of competition incentivizes these two dominant players to avoid compromises with majority support. Gehl and Porter provide specific innovations on how to enhance competition and better serve the public, including nonpartisan primary elections and ranked-choice voting. Gehl and Porter are coauthors of the new book The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy and the HBR article “Fixing U.S. Politics.” This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast on June 23, 2020. Listen to more HBR IdeaCast episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzAU8TPKsJuaxff5Cp0P2DKE_tFyaWOOa You can also listen to this episode on HBR.org, and wherever you listen to podcasts: - HBR.org (transcript available here): https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/06/applying-porters-five-forces-to-fix-u-s-politics - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/applying-porters-five-forces-to-fix-u-s-politics/id152022135?i=1000479254443 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5L9hmD68fRT92GSeXCPzHj?si=0484f40ff097400c - Stitcher: https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/?af_dp=stitcher://episode/72136571&af_web_dp=https://www.stitcher.com/episode/72136571&deep_link_value=stitcher://episode/72136571 - Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLmhhcnZhcmRidXNpbmVzcy5vcmcvaGFydmFyZGJ1c2luZXNzL2lkZWFjYXN0/episode/dGFnOmF1ZGlvLmhici5vcmcsMjAwNi0wNS0wODppZGVhY2FzdC4wNzQ2?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwjQuv3W4vD8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQLA Series Description: A weekly podcast featuring the leading thinkers in business and management. About Harvard Business Review: Harvard Business Review is the leading destination for smart management thinking. Through its flagship magazine, books, and digital content and tools published on HBR.org, Harvard Business Review aims to provide professionals around the world with rigorous insights and best practices to help lead themselves and their organizations more effectively and to make a positive impact. Learn more at www.hbr.org. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro 1:53 – Porter's Five Forces in Politics 7:58 – Innovations to Fix the Party Primary System... 16:00 – … and Implementing those Innovations 18:13 – Make Politics About People – Not Parties 21:47 - Outro Follow Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/harv... https://www.facebook.com/HBR/ https://twitter.com/HarvardBiz https://www.instagram.com/harvard_bus... Sign up for Newsletters: https://hbr.org/email-newsletters #HarvardBusinessReview #business #management Copyright © 2022 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved.

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