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 Introduction2.40 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 2Social: 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

“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 Introduction2.46 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction2.29 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. Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

"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 DOConnectionActiveBeing Nice to somebody every dayDiscoverObserve  0.00 Introduction1.25 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction2.17 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction2.05 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction2.35 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction3.04 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction2.02 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction2.27 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team