Magician Turns HBS Upside Down
QUITE SOME TRICK: Randal rendering an HBS classroom speechless, at least momentarily.
Photo by Evgenia Eliseeva
Innovation and magic are kindred activities: Both can amaze and upend reality while introducing something new or totally unexpected, as if from nowhere, as if from thin air. So when HBS professor Stefan Thomke saw a performance by Jason Randal, one of the world’s greatest magicians, he knew he had to get Randal to speak to students in his Managing Innovation elective course. “One theme of the course is the role of individual innovators and the principles they use and the motivations that drive innovation,” explained Thomke. “I invited Jason to class to help students understand how people at the top of their profession innovate in an extremely competitive environment.” It was a class that few of Thomke’s students will ever forget.
Randal, who describes himself as a “magician-mentalist,” is also an executive coach who has garnered plaudits from numerous corporate leaders and from celebrities such as Larry King, Woody Allen, and David Letterman (“he’s as good as Houdini”). With a Ph.D. in social psychology, Randal is a singer-songwriter who plays five instruments. He is also a movie and TV actor and a stuntman. He holds a seventh-degree black belt in karate and is a board-certified hypnotherapist, as well as a scuba instructor, special-effects pyrotechnics operator, licensed building contractor, and flight instructor for airplanes and helicopters.
In class, Randal discussed the long hours of research and development that go into developing tricks. He personally creates technology and builds devices in his own machine shop to achieve illusions and make magic. As Alyssa Martin (MBA ’09) explained later, “He told us that he often focuses on updating and streamlining traditional tricks. He thereby mitigates his chances of failure, makes the trick more impressive, and develops new techniques that can be applied to new tricks. This focus on simplification to offer a better product reminded me of Apple’s innovative process.”
Randal also shared insights on how to please the customer. He showed how an audience is impressed and won over if the magician “goofs” the first time (e.g., guessing the three of clubs rather than the seven of spades) only to recover through humorous and seemingly Herculean mental effort to get it “right” the second time. “Reading emotions and leveraging insights to execute a more compelling product or service is a best practice we’ve studied in cases about certain companies, and it is definitely one of Randal’s strengths,” Martin said.
Thomke described what he calls Randal’s “3Ms of innovation”: Methodology (Since innovation is often improving an existing process or product, what else can I do with this? Test and experiment widely and often. Create buy-in.). Management (Innovation is often at the firm’s margins, so how do I get it into the core? Innovation is more likely to happen if it’s part of a job description.). Motivation (Dissatisfaction drives innovation. Persist — most people give up too soon. Love many things, so you’ll want to master them or make them better.).
After Thomke’s class, Randal performed to an overflow crowd of HBS students and staff. It was just another day in Aldrich Hall: spoons bent by telepathy; a dollar bill, ripped into small pieces, reappearing whole inside a lemon; one word, selected by an audience member from a book, guessed correctly by Randal; and other astounding masterstrokes involving playing cards and people’s rings, upclose interactions during which Randal relieved oblivious audience members of their wristwatches.
“Randal’s energetic ease in his own skin, his masterful storytelling, and his ability to recall everyone’s name also electrified and mystified the crowd,” said Scott Spencer (MBA ’09). “That ability to connect with people often differentiates great leaders from good ones.” As a day full of wonderment drew to a close, Spencer wondered aloud, “Would it be unreasonable for me to nominate Jason Randal for a position on the HBS faculty?”
