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Is it time for organizations to start hiring chief collaboration officers? In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean and Scott talk to Rob Cross, Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, author of ‘Beyond Collaboration Overload’ and consultant. Rob explains that while collaboration can be the answer to many business challenges, leaders must learn to recognize, promote, and efficiently distribute the right kinds of collaborative work, or their teams and top talent will bear the costs of too much demand for too little supply.    Beyond Collaboration Overload (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021)  0.00 Introduction 3.02 Can you give us some background to your work and approaches, particularly in network analysis that led you to the ideas you write about in Beyond Collaboration Overload? 5.35 Can you give us an overview of the two parts of the book and tell us what the payoff is for those who read it? 8.20 What do you mean by identity triggers?  10.40 How can someone identify their particular identity trigger, that gets them stuck in patterns of behaviours and responsiveness that are counterproductive for them?   11.49 Can you give us a snapshot of what a day in the life of ‘Scott’ (a character in your book) might be? 15.59 How are the command and control fanatics that still exist in some organisations coping with collaboration overload? 18.26 When you go into a C-suite, how do you help them better understand this strategically?  20.03 What have you observed about the different types of collaboration? 25.44 Can you share some of your other ideas around how we might avoid other forms of overload and/or other recurring microstressers that impact on us?  32.41 Is all of this reliant on your getting to grips with your identity trigger first? 34.22 What have you learnt about how high performers are now spending their time, especially those who might get back 18-24% of their time by incorporating these tactics? 39.44 Can you talk to us about the cumulative effects of microstressers? 45.43 The point you made earlier about understanding your needs requires a certain type of self-awareness because as we get busier, we run the risk of being cut off from what we’re feeling. What have you learnt about high performers and their ability to tune into those needs? 49.08 What happened to the character ‘Scott’ who we mentioned earlier in the interview? 52.26 In ten years time, what could an organisation that embraces more of this understanding look like?   Recommended listening from the Evolving Leader archive: The Science of Seeing Differently with Dr Beau Lotto   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean and Scott talk to Amy Herman. Amy is a lawyer, art historian, author and founder and president of The Art of Perception Inc. a New York-based organization that conducts professional development courses for leaders around the world, from Secret Service agents to prison wardens. By showing people how to look closely at paintings, sculpture, and photography, she helps them hone their visual intelligence to recognize the most pertinent and useful information as well as recognise biases that impede decision making.  Fixed.: How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem Solving smART, Use Your Eyes to Boost Your Brain   0.00 Introduction 2.59 Tell us how you combined your skill as a lawyer with your passion for art to form what is a pretty unique job. 5.21 Where does the term visual intelligence originate? 8.59 What’s the take away for people who attend your course?  10.56 Can you give us a deeper explanation as to what visual intelligence is?  13.18 So how do you learn to see what’s not there? Can you talk us through your process? 16.36 Many people coming on to your course will be out of their comfort zone. Can you tell us what they’re going through? 19.09 Tell us about their emotional response to this situation.  20.49 Can you give a bit more about distinguishing between objective and subjective conclusions? 23.02 How do these experiences with art help to confront and maybe even resolve some biases?   26.05 You have the opportunity to be quite provocative with people in some of the things that you do. What does that create in people? 29.36 How do you help people come to terms with making the distinction between thinking and seeing? 32.23 Is important to also ask ‘what are we not seeing’? 36.05 Towards the end of Fixed, you suggest that you may have reached the limits of what you could achieve using art and open ended questions. However, talking to you today it sounds like you’ve overcome that.  40.45 Tell us about your new book smART. 42.45 As we draw to a close, what’s the biggest take away here?   Recommended listening from the Evolving Leader archive: Distinguishing Risk and Uncertainty with Sir John Kay   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

During this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Caroline Williams, whose latest book ‘Move’ explores the emerging science of how movement opens up ‘a hotline to our minds’. Caroline is also a public speaker (including her 2014 TedX titled ‘Pimp My Brain’), consultant and writer for New Scientist and is the editor of two of New Scientist’s Instant Expert Guides, How Your Brain Works: Inside the most complicated object in the known universe (John Murray, 2017) and Your Conscious Mind: Unravelling the greatest mystery of the human brain (John Murray, 2017). Move: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind Free  0.00 Introduction 2.33 What drew you into studying movement? 4.50 What are the implications of living a sedentary life? 7.26 In your book you write about the evolutionary internalisation of movement. Can you elaborate on that?  11.35 You write about how breathing and related exercises aid decision making, and also cite a 2016 study that shows that we can synchronise our breathing with our brainwaves. Can you talk to us about that?  14.17 What have you learnt for yourself through this work, what have you taken on board? 15.55 What advice would you give to leaders about how to ensure that their team are adopting movement practices in order to get the most out of them? 18.19 Was there anything that surprised you whilst researching the book?  20.18 You mention (in particular) one study about First Responders and 9/11. Can you talk to us about that? 23.31 What are we learning about elderly physical movement?   25.36 What are your favourite movements? 27.10 What else is catching your attention right now?  32.24 What did you learn about osteocalcin? 36.01 What’s the ideal amount of exercise and how should people be approaching that with intentionality? 39.43 What’s your next project?   Recommended listening from the Evolving Leader archive: The Next 15 Years with Kevin Kelly   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This episode of the Evolving Leader podcast features a conversation between co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender and future of work thought leader Professor Lynda Gratton. As professor of management practice at London Business School, Lynda Gratton designed the human resource strategy and transforming companies programme, which she has since led for over 20 years. She is founder of the global research advisory practice HSM Advisory and has written ten books exploring the changing relationship between people strategy and business performance. Lynda Gratton is also a fellow of the World Economic Forum. Redesigning Work: How to Transform Your Organisation and Make Hybrid Work for Everyone   0.00 Introduction 1.48 Can you give us a pen portrait of your career and the key areas of your focus? 3.37 What’s your assessment of what’s currently going on in the workplace? 7.10 Can you take us through the four steps that you believe organisations need to make in order to make the most of the global shift? 11.54 Who are you seeing getting this right? 18.07 Seeing as this was the first time that so many people around the world went through the same experience, our value sets and world view may have changed. What are you observing on that front? 23.39 Is the doubling of the number of meetings because we’ve lost the ability to pop in on each other and have the ‘water cooler’ conversations? 27.05 Going back to your ‘Hybrid Working’ article in HBR, what do we take forward from what we’ve learnt through this intense experiment and what do we let go of do you think?  32.12 So as organisation’s experiment, and employees are looking at the realities of working longer and the added complexities of their lives, what should companies be doing to support the wellbeing of their teams? 37.13 Do you think organisations should reconsider freezing again and what do you think are the most dangerous assumptions that we might be making right now to leave untested?   39.41 I love what you’re saying about baking in agility. 41.12 If you could guess, what do you think the world of work is going to look like in 20 or 30 years time? 46.50 How can people get in touch with you? 47.53 Can we plant a question in our audience’s mind about how to think about the future of work?   Recommended listening from the Evolving Leader archive: Heritage and Innovation at Wimbledon with CEO Sally Bolton   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

In this episode of the Evolving Leader, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to author and former Guardian journalist Oliver Burkeman. For more than 10 years, Oliver Burkeman wrote the weekly ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’ column in the Guardian newspaper providing readers with ideas for a better life. In his latest book 4000 weeks, he rejects the obsession with 'getting everything done,' and introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing rather than denying their limitations. Four Thousand Weeks (Vintage, 2022) This Column Will Change Your Life ‘the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life’. Oliver Burkeman's final weekly column in the Guarding (pubished 4 September, 2020)  0.00 Introduction 2.40 Could we have a brief tour of your world and how you became a chronicler of ideas about living a good life. 5.20 When you look back at your Guardian column, what were some of the ideas and people that most stood out to you? 8.11 Tell us why you wrote 4000 weeks.  10.41 How has our concept of time changed through the ages? 15.43 Can you tell us about the paradox of limitation? 18.09 You describe how the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger argued that our finite existence is bound with time and that most of us spend our time denying this fact either through distraction or denial – what can we take from his thinking by flipping the constraints of mortality? 23.24 How are we using distraction as avoidance, and how could positive distraction be useful? 28.30 Let’s turn to the benefits of procrastination. 32.34 In the context of organisational life, how should leaders think about the idea of inevitable limitations? 37.45  How can the mindset shift that underlies 4000 weeks be applied in an organisation? As a leader, what steps can be taken to normalise a change in philosophy whilst at the same time preventing it from being misused as an invitation to stop making plans for the future? 42.25 This is where we hobbies and family life makes such a difference to our lives – how we’re almost embarrassed to confess we have such a thing as a hobby. Can you talk about paying yourself first?  Recommended listening from the Evolving Leader archive:How Emotions Are Made with Lisa Feldman Barrett Part 1 / Part 2 Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

“Meet a stressed young manager, Mae B, whose teams are being led by an authoritarian CEO. We join her on her mission to overhaul the outdated leadership systems obsessed by power, profit and process and fight for central leadership that prioritises people, purpose and principles.” Talking to Evolving Leader hosts Scott and Jean, Tony O’Driscoll (professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and a Research Fellow at Duke Corporate Education) and Gary Zamchick (illustrator, innovation strategy consultant and co-founder of start-up Words-Eye) explain their novel approach to writing ‘Everyday Superhero – How You Can Inspire Everyone And Create Real Change At Work’, a book that one reviewer refers to as ‘an entertaining tale with a serious message’.  ‘Everyday Superhero – How You Can Inspire Everyone And Create Real Change At Work’ (Penguin Business, 2022)   0.00 Introduction 2.46 What’s the single most purpose driven aspect of your work?  4.42 Why did you decide to move away from writing a traditional business book? 8.28 Give us your pitch for the book. 11.23 What was it for you personally that led you realise that ‘the human piece is really missing’? 14.14 If businesses move to competing based on imagination, what’s the environment that would give them a competitive edge? 16.28 Talk us through the story behind the book.   22.34 How did you meet? 26.00 How does your creative partnership work? 29.41 Can we focus a little deeper on the issue of change?  35.41 Who is getting this right? Where are you seeing evidence of the kind of change that you’re talking about? 39.27 As markets and communities are coming together to drive change (as opposed to organisations), how does that influence your thinking?  45.06 In your book, the character Mae B is trapped in a bureaucratic system and is the person we all end up wanting to associate with. Tell us a little about this character.   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are joined by Dr Nate Zinsser. Dr Zinsser is an expert in the psychology of human performance and has worked at the forefront of applied sports psychology for over 30 years. His research has been published in several journals and in the widely used textbook ‘Applied Sport Psychology: Personal Growth to Peak Performance’. Dr Zinsser is the director of the performance psychology programme at West Point (The United States Military Academy) where he has been the lead performance psychologist since 1992, personally conducting over seventeen thousand individual training sessions and seven hundred team training sessions for cadets seeking the mental edge for athletic, academic, and military performance. Nate Zinsser’s book ‘The Confident Mind, a Battle-Tested Guide to Unshakable Performance’ was published in 2022.    0.00 Introduction 2.29 Could you give us a picture of what West Point is?  5.46 How has the field of performance psychology evolved during your 30 years as director at West Point? 11.15 Can you take us through some of the building blocks of the skills that you have brought from the world of sports psychology into the military? 13.49 Can you give us an example of something that you did that would have been quite counterintuitive to the culture at West point at the time? 16.15 Have the values and culture at West Point changed as a result of the work you’ve been doing? 19.18 How do you help somebody who feels that they don’t belong here?  24.03 What do you mean by confidence, and what can we do to help ourselves and others become more confident? 27.45 From a practical perspective, what do you do to help people who are at an inflection point in their career to build confidence? 31.35 During your time at West Point, have you seen a change in the self-awareness and the knowledge around psychology and performance science in the cadets who come into the college? 34.40 Tell us about your new book ‘The Confident Mind’ 39.19 What would you say to a leader who is struggling to help someone on their team increase their confidence? 42.02 How do we bring up confident children? 46.32 What is exciting you right now? Where is your attention at the moment?     Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production. 

"My purpose is simple; I want to create a world where everybody in every workplace feels they genuinely have the choice to put up their hand and ask for help when they are suffering from mental ill health" (Geoff McDonald, LinkedIn Profile). This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, host Scott Allender talks to Geoff McDonald. Former Global VP of HR at Unilever, Geoff is now a speaker and a business transformation consultant who inspires leaders to embrace mental health and empower organisations to put purpose at their core and play their positive role in the world. Listen as Geoff shares his very personal inspiring journey. https://geoffmcdonald.co.uk/ https://www.mindsatworkmovement.com/ The acronym that Geoff describes: CAN DO Connection Active Being Nice to somebody every day Discover Observe    0.00 Introduction 1.25 Could you start by telling us about the event that changed the course of your life? 5.50 I’d like to understand more about your first anxiety fuelled panic attack, and the support that you received. 14.17 What can leaders do with their teams to normalise the mental health conversation? 26.25 Could you tell us about your charity Minds At Work? 31.23 What are your thoughts on the accountability and responsibility that social networks are taking around the mental health of their users? 36.33 How can parents help their children with regard to their mental health and the external pressures that they face?  39.07 How can people who are listening to this podcast get more connected with their inner experience before their bodies sound the alarm?     Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Are you clear as to what your personal or organisation’s purpose is? In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Harvard Business School Professor Ranjay Gulati. Professor Gulati’s research around purpose focusses on why it has become increasingly important for organisations. In his book ‘Purpose, the heart and soul of high performance companies’, Ranjay Gulati argues that a deeper engagement with purpose can serve as a radically new operating system, enhancing performance while also delivering meaningful benefits to society. ‘Deep Purpose, the Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies’ (Ranjay Gulati, Penguin, 2022)   0.00 Introduction 2.17 Could you start by giving us a brief tour of your career and tell us what sparks your curiosity? 5.43 Why do you think purpose has become such a key focus for organisations in the last decade?  8.26 How do you define purpose and how might some people be misconstruing what purpose is?  12.31 You’ve said that pursuing a purposeful course means maintaining a difficult balance between meeting the expectations of old and new stakeholders, something that you refer to as walking the razor’s edge. Can you describe what that entails?  16.32 How might organisations that do not have an embodied sense of purpose start to build that? 19.16 Can you talk us through the ‘four levers that you need to pull’ in order to align purpose with performance?  24.58 You talk about purpose being rooted in organisational history. How does having this connection with the past give people more clarity about the future, especially in a world that is changing so quickly? 27.50 How can purpose help an organisation face quite considerable disruption more ethically? 33.39 When you start talking in these terms, you are inviting greater scrutiny on your organisation, and that can be really helpful can’t it? 36.32 Have there been any companies that you’ve spoken to that have left you deeply inspired? 38.15 Do you see (in your students particularly) a shift in interest towards this area? How has the values of the generations you are working with influenced the future in this respect? 40.07 You also say that purpose is fragile…. 43.16 What impact has this work had on you personally, how has it changed your sense of purpose? 46.47 What’s next for you?     Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Can you measure and track how successfully your organisation is innovating? This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to Dan Toma, co-author of ‘Innovation Accounting‘, who says that the traditional management tools available to leaders wanting to understand investments in innovation are lacking, instead proposing a new set of frameworks and tools that go beyond just financial indicators.  Innovation Accounting – A Practical Guide for Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem’s Performance (BIS, 2021)   0.00 Introduction 2.05 Could you start by sharing your journey? 4.55 Could you tell us why it’s important for an organisation to develop its own innovation ecosystem?  7.24 Is that approach being adopted by organisations or are many sticking with the traditional ‘small innovation team’ approach?  9.23 What are the biggest pitfalls for corporates when they start to adopt this? 13.40 Could you give us a working definition of innovation accounting and also some of your ideas around the different types of innovation and what they look like? 16.34 Can you take us through an example of how an innovation accounting system could be built using the tools and frameworks you provide in your book?  19.42 What mindset shifts does an organisation need to make in order to embrace innovation accounting?  24.30 What is the most useful starting point in order to establish the common ground between finance and innovation teams? 27.09 How do people who are prone to big picture large innovation thinking take those ideas forwards in pragmatic, not over romanticised ways? 30.45 When you go into an organisation that might be lacking creativity and imagination (where the focus is on maintaining past success), what can you do to start them valuing that from an innovation accounting perspective? 33.43 What single piece of advice can you give to our listeners, whether or not they are in formal innovation roles? 35.37 What’s next for you, what are you working on now? 37.25 If an organisation adopts innovation accounting, what looks different and what’s happening in the organisation that’s not happening today? 38.24 How did Covid impact innovation in organisations?   Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This week on the Evolving Leader, co-hosts Jean and Scott talk to Professor Stephen Fleming, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists whose life’s work is the study of metacognition (the ability to think about thinking).  How does this influence our self-awareness and our ability to make good judgements? Find out in this fascinating episode.  Know Thyself - The New Science of Self-Awareness (Hachette, 2021)  0.00 Introduction 2.35 Could you start by giving us a definition of metacognition? 4.38 What’s the difference between conscious and unconscious metacognition?  7.11 In your book Know Thyself, you write about how our brains are constantly trying to solve inverse problems, trying to understand the root causes of things. Can you help us understand this concept? 11.08 How might we sense metacognition? 15.46 What kinds of experiments are you looking at that help to see when unconscious awareness and explicit awareness are at odds? 19.14 Can you talk to us about how metacognition (as an attribute) can be developed? 21.50 You’ve said that recognising people with low metacognition can be one of the best predictors in identifying people who are more dogmatic. Can you tell us about some of the work that you’ve done around this and what you’ve learnt?  28.52 How can metacognition help us to understand other people more? 32.51 What are the breakthroughs that you are making and how might they inform artificial intelligence? 36.32 When we start to embrace more embedded technology in human beings, how does metacognition work when it’s directly integrated into our bodies?  40.20 What’s really exciting you right now? What are the standout things that you are working on? 44.17 Can you paint a picture for us as to what it’s like to work in your lab. What’s going on? 49.06 What are the important take-aways from your work for leaders to consider?     Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Ron Carucci, experienced strategy, organization and leadership transformation expert, co-founder and managing partner at leadership consultancy Navalent and author of eight bestselling books. To Be Honest: Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice and Purpose (Kogan Page, 2021)   0.00 Introduction 3.04 Can you give us an overview of your approach to helping grow and develop leaders? 4.47 You talk about the language you use at Navalent, specifically within, between and among. Can you give us some context or an example of what it looks like to go in and raise awareness around those three components?  7.39 In a situation where people are deeply embedded, but when forced to change both the individual and organisation find themselves facing a crisis as they are out of step with the market reality, what’s your learning from that situation? 12.56 What’s the biggest trap that you find yourself in that might actually reinforce the problem? 14.58 In your 2014 book ‘Rising To Power’, you state that 50% of leaders rising up to new formal levels of influence within the organisation fail within 18 months. From your perspective, why is this and what can someone do to avoid becoming part of that statistic? 21.31 In your latest book ‘To be honest’, you identify four factors that have a profound impact on honesty, justice and purpose within an organisation. However if these factors are missing or are dysfunctional, the organisational conditions compel employees to choose dishonesty and self-interest. Can you unpack that for us? 28.41 What’s the delta between organisations that think they have these attributes and are living them versus organisations that actually do have them? 33.55 You’ve referenced your research in neuroscience, and both Scott and I are particularly interested in the science of mindset and self-awareness. What have you learnt that’s changed your thinking in recent years? 36.47 What’s your next big project? 40.19 Who has inspired you as a leader or organisation?      Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to one of the world’s leading moral philosophers Professor Susan Neiman. Professor Neiman is currently the director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, and the former professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv Universities. Her books include ‘Moral Clarity, A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists’ and ‘Why Grow Up, Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age’.  0.00 Introduction 2.02 Can you start by sharing some of the experience that shaped your world view, and the role that they played in forming the central ideas that sit at the heart of your work. 6.16 Can we turn to ‘Moral Clarity’, which centres on the failure of our culture to meet our moral needs and the problems that this creates in society. Can you take us through some of the central arguments. 15.08 I’m really interested in this loss of moral language in the progressive parts of society. Is there something else that was going on with relativism etc that started to make it hard for that group of people to talk about it? 23.58 Since you wrote moral clarity we’ve had a number of shock points including the Trump Presidency, Brexit and the growing influence of social media. How have these moments evolved your thinking? 37.19 In your book ‘Why Group Up’ you address the widespread infantilism that you feel pervades so much of society. Why do you think that’s happened?   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to business anthropologist Simon Roberts. In addition to being a co-founder of Stripe Partners, Simon founded the UKs first dedicated ethnographic research company in 2001, he’s run an innovation lab at Intel and is currently board president of the EPIC community. In 2020 his book The Power of Not Thinking: How Our Bodies Learn and Why We Should Trust Them was published.  The Power of Not Thinking: How Our Bodies Learn and Why We Should Trust Them  0.00 Introduction 2.27 How are you feeling? 3.22 Can you start by telling us about your background? 5.59 Can you explain what an anthropologist involved in ethnographic research does and how you do it?  8.29 Can you give us some of the practical techniques that you might use to actually uncover what’s going on?   12.17 In your book you break down the idea of embodied knowledge. Can you give us an overview of what that is and why we should trust our bodies more?  14.05 How do we delineate between the brain’s ability to create habit vs the body knowledge? 18.34 Could you talk us through the context for your book? 26.07 In your book you list five features of embodied knowledge. Could you give us a high level overview of what those are? 32.27 How would somebody get more connected to the embodied sense of an empathetic experience in their daily lives? 36.39 An increasing number of industries are relying more and more on proxies because data is so attractive, but you talk about the dangers of building businesses in that way. What are we missing when we do that?  41.09 Which organisations have you seen that are best at maintaining that continuous connection with the world in the way that you are describing?  44.15 Can you share your thoughts on embodied knowledge for policy makers? 47.50 How do you enhance your own ability to trust and apply embodied knowledge? 52.04 You’ve talked about discomfort. What’s the experience that created the most discomfort in you?   Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, Jean Gomes talks to Monika Bielskyte. Monika previously appeared on the podcast back in season 3, episode 10 and we invited her back to get a picture beyond the news feed about Ukraine. In this very special episode, Monika provides a visceral picture of what’s currently happening to the country and its people and why.     0.00 Introduction 1.25 What are your connections to Ukraine? 11.12 What are we (in the West) missing regarding the situation in Ukraine? 23.43 What’s the shared hope held by many of the generation who have never grown up under an authoritarian regime?  34.08 What’s your take on President Zelenskiy and his leadership?    Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are joined by Professor Marcus du Sautoy. Marcus is Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford, author of multiple popular science and mathematics books and he is a regular contributor on television, radio and to both The Times and The Guardian. He is also passionate about public engagement on topics that include creativity and artificial intelligence.      0.00 Introduction 2.23 Where does your love of mathematics originate? 6.11 What is mathematics really about for you? 8.35 Can you explain what zeta functions are, and why symmetry and the function of groups is important to learn more about. 12.24 What did you draw from the moment that DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol? 16.12 What are your thoughts around the possibility that AI can be creative, so taking us down a path where consciousness may not be the thing that actually happens, but we might actually get something totally new that doesn’t exist in our minds or reckoning at the moment?  18.35 How do we prevent ourselves from having something that we don’t understand governing our lives?  20.44 In your book ‘What We Cannot Know’, you explored if there are questions that we may never have the answer to, and therefore our living with the unknown. Could you elaborate on that idea for us?   25.52 You’ve written about the conflict between physics and mathematics, and also your idea that mathematics exists outside of humans so it’s not a human construction and would exist without us. Could you elaborate on those two points? 33.13 Tell us about your latest book ‘Thinking Better’ where you search for short cuts, not just in mathematics but also other fields. 36.14 A lot of people think of maths as being hard. However, you can use maths, the concepts and frameworks without being an expert mathematician. Can you bring that to life for us? 43.09 Tell us about the work you’ve been doing to bring Douglas Hofstadter’s life story to the Barbican in London.  48.28 You’ve said that we can’t fully know something when we’re stuck in a system whether consciously or unconsciously. What is the leadership lesson or opportunity that we can take from that? 53.06 When was the last time you had a real ‘aha’ moment, and what’s the biggest challenge that you are working on at the moment?   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Kicking off season 4 of the Evolving Leader podcast is a discussion that co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes had with BCG Henderson Institute chairman and author Martin Reeves. The Henderson Institute is BCG’s think tank dedicated to exploring and developing new insights from business, technology, economics and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. Sit back and listen as Martin unpacks how imagination works and how organisations can keep it alive and harness it in a systematic way. ‘The Imagination Machine – How to Spark New Ideas and Create Your Company’s Future’ (Jack Fuller and Martin Reeves, 2021, Harvard Business Review Press) Please complete the Evolving Leader listener survey. Thank you. 0.00 Introduction 2.22 Can we start with your background, and what inspired you to write ‘The Imagination Machine’ 4.01 Why do you think there appears to be an absence of imagination in so many large organisations?  5.55 It’s easy to think about imagination as being solely a psychological process, but your research has revealed something else. What have you found and what does it mean in terms of how that notion should be challenged? 8.23 Can we delve into some of the neuroscience and research that you have uncovered that underpins your thinking. 15.50  Are organisations set up (almost) as surprise mitigation machines, so repressing new mindsets that would potentially unlock new business models? 17.55 Can you outline the six step process that you describe in your book around harnessing and scaling imagination and creativity in a systemised way? 24.41 How can we get better at this? What could a listener do in their organisation to adopt some of these strategies?  30.43 You talk about play as being de-risked accelerated learning. Talk to us about the importance of play and where you are seeing it being adopted. 37.27 You have mentioned that crisis can be an inflection point for reimagination. What have you observed during the pandemic? 42.34 Is there a link between capacity for imagination and sense making? 45.56 What role will/does technology play in organisations that are reimagining themselves?  52.11 What should leaders be prioritising? What are the specific things that they should be doing more of that they’re not to imbue their organisations with a greater sense of imagination at both a cultural and capability level?   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

As we close season 3 of the Evolving Leader podcast, it’s time to reflect on some of our highlights from the last 18 episodes. We continue to learn so much from our incredible guests who not only give us their valuable time, but are also so willing to share their expertise and current thinking which in turn helps us to develop our own thinking around what being an evolving leader really means.  The Evolving Leader podcast will return in March with the start of season 4, but in the mean time sit back and listen as we talk to Rita Gunther McGrath, Kevin Kelly, Tim Lomas, Will Page, Todd Kashdan, Steve Ingham, Leanne Infante, Monika Bielskyte, Anil Seth, Rob Murray, Steve Killelea, Azeem Azhar and Annie Murphy Paul.   0.00     Introduction2.01     Rita Gunther McGrath5.03     Kevin Kelly 7.05     Tim Lomas9.49     Will Page14.16     Todd Kashdan17.46     Steve Ingham18.47     Leanne Infante21.43     Monika Bielskyte24.25     Anil Seth26.23     Rob Murray27.58     Steve Killelea29.24     Azeem Azhar32.57     Annie Murphy Paul   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

When you face a difficult situation, how often have you heard someone say, ‘just use your head’? This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, Jean and Scott talk to acclaimed science writer Annie Murphy Paul who turns that around and says that in fact we ‘think outside the brain’, suggesting that the people, things and space around us have a profound effect on how we think, feel and develop.  Published in 2021, her book ‘The Extended Mind, The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain’ has been awarded the New York Times Editors Choice and Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of 2021.   0.00 Introduction 2.26 Can we start with your background, and how you became interested in the biological and social sciences. 4.46 Can we look at what the components are of the extended mind and could you give us some examples of the research that you have uncovered when talking to neuroscientists and psychologists that bring this to life. 10.17 Can you tell us a little about how ‘the body knows before the mind’. 13.35 What other thoughts and ideas could you share about how we could build greater awareness of our interoceptive processes? 15.49  Could you talk to us about emotional reappraisal? 19.30 What happens to our thinking when we are moving and what is the ideal amount of movement? 24.02 How do gestures impact our thinking? 27.14 Can we move to thinking about how extending the intelligence out of the mind to our surroundings 29.47 What has been most surprising in all of this for you?   31.47 How has it changed you? 33.36 Thinking about the challenges that are facing leaders, particularly around Covid and the decision to bring people back, when to work at home and when to work in a collaborative physical space. What are your insights there? 35.50 What’s next for you? 37.34 Is there anything else that you would leave us with today?   Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, Jean and Scott talk to Gerard Puccio, author, creativity researcher, TEDx presenter and Chair and Professor at the International Center for Studies in Creativity, Buffalo State. Gerard helps individuals, teams, and organizations reach their greatest potential by tapping into and expanding their capacity to imagine new possibilities and to creatively address complex problems. He states that in a world defined by complexity and change, creative thinking has become the number one survival skill and on the back of that his mission is to help individuals, teams and organizations ignite and fully maximize their creative potential – not just to survive, but to thrive.   0.00 Introduction 2.33 Please start by giving us a sense of your research into creativity and areas that currently most excite you 5.18 In a much cited piece of research published by IBM as far back as 2010, creativity was selected as the most crucial factor for future success. In 2022, why are so many businesses still prioritising what they have now with a focus on ways to prevent risk and deviation? 14.48 In an organisation where there are a lot of good ideas at the top, but they repeatedly fail to become commercial realities (in other words creativity breaks down), what needs be developed in the team so they are able to take the ideas through to becoming a reality.  18.45 Tell us a little about the FourSight tool 26.29 Do you have a view on the best ideation techniques 29.15 What have you learnt about yourself in terms of being in a social environment and generating ideas? 34.38 How do you prevent yourself from falling in love with an idea and potentially stalling when in fact you should be detaching yourself from that originally idea allowing yourself to create more and more alternatives? 38.49 Who is doing well in the creativity space? 42.01 Do you share the view that there is a problem nurturing creativity in education?   Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader   The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.