The Evolving Leader

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to author, entrepreneur and former scientist Rob Ashton. Rob’s work encompasses cognitive and social neuroscience, cognitive and social psychology and behavioural and neuroeconomics, giving him a unique perspective on why so much of our written communication simply doesn’t work.  0.00 Introduction4.32 Given your background as a scientist, how did you become fascinated in how we communicate?9.51 Why is it that so much of our written communication doesn’t work?18.26 What are some of the things that we can do to overcome those limitations?24.36 If somebody wants or needs to communicate (perhaps with a large group) quickly, how can they reduce the chance that their message may be misinterpreted by individuals who receive the message?30.34 What’s the easiest way of getting people to open their minds to what they are about to read?36.45 if we switch to the reader or recipient of emails and texts, what can we do to avoid misunderstanding the written word?42.30 When you think about writing, how do you get into a more empathetic headspace?48.02 When we write something and then read it back we may sometimes find flaws in how our writing could be interpreted. From a neurological perspective, how do those different processes work? 53.50 Do younger generations read and write differently?56.20 How can our listeners get in touch with you? Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_LeaderYoutube               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

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to psychological safety expert Stephan Wiedner. Stephan’s work focusses on developing sustainable high performance leaders, teams and organisations. He is cofounder of Noomii.com, Skillsetter.com and most recently Zarango.com with a published mission to ‘unleash the collective potential of people with the power of psychological safety’.Here's a link to the free Psychological Safety Assessment mentioned by Stephan during this episode:   https://zarango.com/freepsi/0.00 Introduction04.08 Can you give us a working definition of Psychological Safety?05.08 In our experience, when leaders first encounter that, some may feel that making people feel ok isn’t always ok because there can be consequences. What’s your take on that?06.34 So in your experience, what happens when leaders make the mistake of being incredibly nice but don’t hold teams to account to deliver?07.16 Why psychological safety for you? What got you into this topic?09.03 What is your assessment process?10.30 So happens in those situations typically?12.18 What does psychological safety deliver in terms of performance?14.37 Amy Edmondson talks about creating the conditions so we’re able to have those conversations without the fear, so the desire outweighs the risk. Can we talk about the feeling of vulnerability that’s necessary in order to be able to do that?17.51 How do you raise an honest level of awareness in the leader who is well intentioned but may be just not getting it right?18.52 Can you tell us what the origins of ‘deliberate practice’ are and how it’s been applied in different fields?21.59 Let’s talk about conflict. How do leaders with high safety and accountability teams tend to mitigate conflict or even encourage healthy conflict when appropriate?24.24 How do you start to get leaders to recognise their part in perpetuating a culture where these things can’t really be aired?27.55 What kind of things do you see when psychological safety starts to take root in an organisation?29.38 What is the importance of safety combined with accountability in terms of unleashing exponential creativity?33.33 How do you see psychological safety playing out across different generations?38.07 Where do you think this field is going and what’s next in your work?43.10 In your analysis, do you see any trends in terms of things that are changing in people’s reactions to different types of situations? Are some situations becoming more or less problematic, how are we evolving?46.08 What deliberate practices are you engaging with at the moment?48.15 How can our audience get in touch with you?Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_LeaderYoutube               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

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to social entrepreneur Anna Anderson. Anna is the founder and CEO of Kindred, an independent members club in West London, and Cellar at Kindred, a public café, counter and bar; dedicated to bringing the ethos, spirit and values found in the members club to the wider community. 0.00 Introduction4.12 Can you give us your perspective on the power of business to achieve social change?6.35 You have a background as a social worker, working in child protection, domestic violence, children in gangs and more. How did this inform your concept of community and the role that business can and should play in the world?10.57 Tell us a little about Kindred and how does it work?14.00 You started two years pre pandemic. How did Covid impact the business model?16.05 A lot of people might have walked away. Where does your passion come from?18.55 Staying with the challenge of balancing the economics and the purpose. Tell me what you’ve learnt about the shared values that you have to create between your team, your audience, the community. What are the shared values that hold this together for you?23.13 Regardless of Covid, what value is most likely to be compromised when trying to pursue your commercial viability and sustainability? 25.37 How do you make people aware of your community?28.23 Do you have a vision for scaling beyond West London?30.51 What lessons have you been learning about yourself as a leader?34.19 How do you see how you create, capture and deliver value in your business model tying in to the problem you’re solving?39.17 What’s a word you might have for a listener who is nowhere near West London but is really compelled by what you’re saying and is acknowledging to themselves the idea of loneliness while they have no suitable space near them. What might they do?45.36 Your point about how somebody can be in a great relationship and have great colleagues but can still feel lonely. You gave some diagnostic questions, but is there anything else that would help people to come to terms with what they’re feeling?49.54 Is there anything else that we should be talking about or any messages that you would like to give to our audience? Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_LeaderYoutube               Evolving LeaderThe 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

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to human behaviour expert Ciela Hartanov. Ciela is a former Head of Innovation and Strategy at Google and is founder of Hum Collective where she consults with leaders who are overwhelmed by the pace of change and need help creating the time, tools, and innovation models to create a new paradigm of work.  0.00 Introduction4.05 A little more about Ciela’s background and work.5.46 How do you build a mindset to face uncertainty?9.07 How do you help individuals become cognisant of the kind of mindset that they’re currently holding?17.19 Can you give us an example of the sort of thing that you’ve done to move people who might have a more sceptical mind into a position of acceptance?21.46 What’s the starting point where you can try to bring more sense making when maybe you can’t find the component parts to start engaging with that story?24.44 How have you grown and developed through the work that you’ve done?26.42 This speaks to the need to embrace vulnerability in an uncertain situation where you as a leader are expected to be certain. Have you thought about that and what it means? 29.35 Talk to us about the importance of sensitivity as a leader.34.27 Can you tell us a little about the book?38.36 What can our listeners do to reclaim their sensitivity? What are some of the practices that you’ve found most helpful for yourself?41.14 Leaders are expected to know the answer and to know the truth.45.32 Which organisations are you seeing that are moving along down this path and adopting some of the things that you’re talking about? Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_LeaderYoutube              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

Join co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender as they close season 4 of the Evolving Leader podcast by sharing some of our favourite moments from the 20 incredible episodes as well as previously unheard bonus material from the Evolving Leader vulnerability interviews.The Evolving Leader podcast will return in September for the start of season 5, but in the meantime sit back and listen to conversations with Caroline Williams, Oliver Burkeman, Steve Fleming, Amy Herman, Susan Neiman, Ranjay Gulati, Dan Toma, Rob Cross, Annie Murphy Paul, Simon Roberts, Tony O’Driscoll, Azeem Ahzar, Rita McGrath and Todd Kashdan.  0.00   Introduction1.01   Caroline Williams3.52   Oliver Burkeman9.12   Vulnerability interview: What’s the biggest lie you’ve told at work?11.14   Vulnerability interview: What personal development topic do you most avoid confronting?13.09   Steve Fleming15.36   Amy Herman18.15   Susan Neiman21.45   Vulnerability interview: Where do you feel most vulnerable in your work?26.34   Ranjay GulatiSocial: 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

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to Professor Henry Shue, Professor Emeritus of Politics and International Relations at Merton College, Oxford and author of the book Basic Rights (Princeton 1980; 2nd edition, 1996; 40th anniversary edition with new chapter on climate change, 2020). Today, Henry’s focus is the moral responsibility that we have in slowing and reversing climate change, arguing that ‘we are the pivotal generation, the time is now’. 0.00 Introduction2.38 Can you take us on a quick tour of your life’s work and ideas?5.28 Which thought leaders and ideas have most informed your thinking?10.32 Why are we the pivotal generation?14.13 How can we be sure that we don’t underestimate the intelligence, foresight and determination of those who want to prevent the policy changes that need so desperately?19.29 Can you give us an insight into the kind of questions that you are putting to leaders of organisations who might be impacting the problem?25.03 The moral imperative is that we should be taking responsibility for the solution to this, so why aren’t governments forcing organisations to divert profits into developing new cleaner technologies?27.14 How could we educate more people to accept the realities before them and put more pressure on companies who exacerbate climate change?32.17 You’ve talked about the relationship that we have time and how it effects our sense of urgency. Can you talk to us a little about that?37.17 How do you think (particularly) younger generations who are feeling angry about poor leadership are feeling about it?41.23 Are there any tangible/practical pieces of advice that you can give to our listeners who are thinking that they want to do their part?47.28 How are we deceiving ourselves around climate change?54.36 What’s your next area of focus? Recommended listening from the Evolving Leader archive:Always Day One with Alex KantrowitzPart OnePart Two 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, host Jean Gomes talks to Dr Lucy Hone. Lucy is an adjunct senior fellow at the University of Canterbury (NZ) and author of Resilient Grieving: Finding Strength and Embracing Life After a Loss that Changes Everything. In 2020, she also delivered the TED talk 3 Secrets of Resilient People, which to date has over five million views and is one of the Top 20 TED talks of 2020.  0.00 Introduction1.20 Can we start with your story, and how the journey that you’ve been on has led you to discover new things about yourself and the ideas of resilience?6.48 Many people will have read about the Kübler-Ross model which describes the five common stages of grief. How does that model sit with you? 13.13 Can you run us through some of the highlights of the ideas that you shared during your TedX talk?21.31 You describe three stages which are all thought processes. Where does the meta emotional part play into this?26.41 What have we learnt about resilience through the pandemic? 28.47 Where do you think people fall into thinking traps around resilience, misinterpreting what it really is?31.41 What have you learnt about how parents can be best support children with grief while also allowing themselves the capacity to grieve?35.27 What are doing next?37.31 You mentioned earlier what some organisations might be getting wrong around resilience. Can we talk about the importance of psychological safety? Recommended listening from the Evolving Leader archive:What Makes a Pioneer with Philip Clarke?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 Dan Olsen. Based in Silicon Valley, Dan is a consultant, speaker, host of the monthly Lean Product & Lean UX Meetup and author of bestselling ‘The Lean Product Playbook’. The Lean Product Playbook 0.00 Introduction2.28 Tell us about your background and what fuels your passion for product development?3.50 Why do products fail and why do organisations keep on building things that we may not want? 5.14 Can you give us your definition or poor product fit? 6.45 Talk us through the layers of the product-market fit model.12.02 How do you build the awareness to recognise when you’re sliding into the solution before you have an understanding of the problem? 15.26 Can you tell us the story of the space pen?19.28 How do you help people to change their mindet around being able to avoid the immediate gratification?24.28 Tell us what you’ve learnt about the idea of the MVP.30.00 What’s the most extraordinary pivot that you’ve seen?32.24 Can you say more about when it’s time to listen to the customer as opposed to when it’s time to take an alternative approach?36.04 How should we be using data to better understand consumer behaviour?38.16 The other problematic part of this is pricing. What have you learnt about approaching that?43.20 What have you learnt about how to help leaders make better decisions and make good bets?51.54 Given everything that’s happened in the last two years, how do you think that’s going to play out in terms of how people think about creating great products in the future?  Recommended listening from the Evolving Leader archive:The Art of Insubordination with Todd KashdanSocial: 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

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 Introduction3.02 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

Amy Herman, a lawyer and art historian, teaches leaders how to improve their visual intelligence. She helps them recognize biases and make better decisions by analyzing paintings, sculpture, and photography. The podcast explores the concept of visual intelligence and its importance, stepping out of comfort zones, distinguishing thinking from seeing, and the power of the pertinent negative. Amy Herman also shares advice on finding beauty in repetition.