The Evolving Leader

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

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 Introduction1.25 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.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 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 Introduction2.23 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

Martin Reeves, MD and senior partner at BCG, discusses how organizations can revitalize imagination. He highlights the lack of creativity in large companies and shares insights from neuroscience about imagination as a process requiring cultural shifts. Reeves proposes a six-step method to foster innovation and stresses leadership's role in inspiring curiosity. He also examines how crises can spur transformative opportunities. By blending human creativity with technology, he advocates for a dynamic approach to navigating today’s fast-paced business challenges.

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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction2.26 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 surroundings29.47 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

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 Introduction2.33 Please start by giving us a sense of your research into creativity and areas that currently most excite you5.18 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 tool26.29 Do you have a view on the best ideation techniques29.15 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.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, Jean and Scott talk to author, educator, and consultant Jeffrey Hull PhD. In addition to his writing and consultancy, Jeffrey is a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and an adjunct professor of leadership at New York University.Flex, The Art and Science of Leadership in a Changing World 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

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to entrepreneur, investor, and the creator of highly-regarded newsletter ‘Exponential View’ Azeem Azhar. Much of the world is witnessing radical societal change driven by exponential technologies that are transforming how we live and interact with one another and disrupting our economic and social norms in highly unpredictable ways. In his recent book ‘Exponential: How to Bridge the Gap Between Technology and Society’, Azeem Azhar describes the widening gap between technology and society and its ramifications.  Reading suggestion -'Exponential: How to Bridge the Gap Between Technology and Society’, (Random House, 2021) 0.00 Introduction2.30 Tell us about your journey and how that influenced your views regarding how new technologies are accelerating change and as a result creating an exponential gap between the impact they have on the world and the scope of our institutions and policies.11.33 What is the central message in your book from a leadership perspective? What could business leaders learn from the book?17.06 How do you start the conversation with a CEO who hasn’t started to consider the use of exponential technologies within their organisation?20.17 At a time when mankind’s biggest challenge is tackling climate change, can you share what you’re seeing in terms of the conflict of technology, political will and capability.  24,45 Another huge risk to our future is AI enhanced warfare where (for example) humans could be excluded from making decisions which could lead to catastrophic escalations. Could you give us your view on how this is developing?30.47 In your view, how is remote working transforming the world?37.57 If we pause to think about the future Metaverse (with Facebook having recently rebranded to Meta), how do we prevent it from deepening the problems with mental health and wellbeing that are dogging social media at the moment? 43.39 Thinking about some of the other major players in the techspace (including Apple, Amazon and Microsoft), what do you think their evolution is going to look like in the next ten years?46.57 As leaders, how are we going to manage the exponential gap?  53.52 What has excited you during the last 6-12 months? 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