The Evolving Leader

For years explaining exactly how our brains conjure subjective conscious experience has been described by cognitive scientists as ‘the hard problem’. In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Professor Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex whose book (Being You, Faber 2021) continues this exploration, proposing an idea of the human mind as a “highly evolved prediction machine”, rooted in the functions of the body and “constantly hallucinating the world and the self” to create reality. 0.00 Introduction2.11 Let’s start with what consciousness is, and how your approach is about getting to the subjective experience3.49 Until recently consciousness studies were held outside of science and more in the realms of philosophy. What’s changed to allow you to break down the unfathomable nature of the topic. 7.00 What drew you into this as a field of study?8.30 Having read ‘Being You’, it’s clear that you take a multi-disciplinary approach to your studies. As a team, how are you successfully approaching this in terms of moving outside of the individual silos of thought.10.15 You provide a really helpful picture of neuroscience and how it’s shifted as the metaphor of the brain as a computer to a prediction machine. Can you give our listeners a sense of how this helps to construct our sense of reality.13.57 In ‘Being You’, you also provide an introduction to Bayesian inference and how our brain is performing this form of abductive reasoning unconsciously. Can we start with some basic definitions of the different types of reasoning and why Bayes has been such an influence in your work.22.33  Can you tell us about your experience of LSD micro dosing, what was it like and why were you doing it?25.36 What were you trying to discover with your hallucination machine?28.26 You talk about consciousness as a construct, and that psychedelic experience gives evidence to that. Could it be argued that the psychedelic experience is actually a disruption to what’s going on?30.58 Could you help me understand the free energy principle.36.26 How are you seeing your work influencing our thinking on the development of AI?45.04 Given everything that you have discovered and that you are continuing to work on, what does all of this tell us about being human that the people taking leadership roles in the world need to know about themselves?48.51 What are the next frontiers for your research?53.22 As exponential computing power and imaging continues to evolve over the next decade, what do you think you might be able to do then that you can’t now?57.55 Do you think we need more multi-disciplinary approaches to exploring consciousness, or is that happening?60.25 Who is most inspiring you as a thinker?  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, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to Monika Bielskyte. Monika is a futurist, VR and AR expert, internationally renowned public speaker and founder of the bleeding edge edutainment platform Protopia Futures, designed to explore visions of radically hopeful & inclusive futures centering Queerness, Indigeneity, Disability & previously marginalized cultural perspectives.Protopia Futures Framework0.00 Introduction2.14 Tell us about your life11.11  In one of your works you say that mainstream futurist thinking tends to extrapolate from the status quo. Can you lead us through this problem and into a better understanding of futurist thinking.19.55 You’ve been speaking about how some people can be dismissive or even work to destroy the thing that runs contrary to the view that they hold and the ideal that they want. Do you see that at all, has it been a response that you’ve seen from some people during the pandemic?31.01 What is Protopia and how does it help us think about the future differently?42.56 Referring back to the Protopia Futures framework, as you say that was a collaborative effort and collaborations between a large group of clever people with strong opinions can be difficult. So how does that work in your world and how do you get this group of people to arrive at a form of words that they can back?     Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @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

“It’s clear that we have a massive problem in the way that we run our biggest and most powerful organisations.”Listen as co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Philip Clarke, founder and CEO of strategic innovation consultancy Hunch, podcast host and author, about the eight pioneer principles needed to change the world.Pioneers Wanted: ' A manifesto for radically ambitious leadership '0.00 Introduction1.56 How do you help leaders move away from incremental thinking?7.28 What are the costs and implications from maintaining the status quo?14.26 How do people make the leap from incremental thinking to being a pioneer who drives real growth?22.07 Can you give us a summary of the eight pioneer principles that you describe in your book?32.15 Two of the pioneering principles seem connected more to one’s mindset. Can you tell us a little more about resilience and what an appropriate level of expectation might be as a leader?41.09 Do you think the next generations are inherently more pioneering?49.26 What has been the most impressive or unexpected shift from pioneers during the Covid pandemic?52.39 Which of your podcast episodes would you recommend to a new listener?  Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @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

New for season 3, we’re excited to release this first Under the Hood episode. Our intention is that these monthly discussions (which we’ll release alongside our regular weekly Evolving Leader episodes) will allow co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender additional airtime to dive a little deeper into many of the fascinating topics that they have explored with our guests since launching the podcast way back in September 2020.During this episode, Jean and Scott focus on discussions that they enjoyed with guests from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and explore the emerging understanding of emotion and how that understanding can help leaders evolve.  Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @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

This week on the Evolving Leader, Jean talks to English rugby international Leanne Infante (née Riley) about what she’s learnt as a leader during her career both on and off the pitch. Leanne’s debut in the England squad was against South Africa in 2013 and she has since been central to England’s success including winning the Six Nations Grand Slam in 2019.0.00 Introduction0.41 How has the profile of women’s rugby developed during your career to date?3.47 Give us some background to your career and career highlights5.36 How has the game changed?9.08 Tell us a little bit about the mindset of dealing with the setbacks, refusals, and uncertainty that you have faced.12.33 How do you deal with the emotion (in the moment) that could be triggered when facing a setback? What’s your process for reframing those events?14.58 What’s the mental process that allows you to view an individual as an opponent on the club rugby pitch and then switch to that same person being an ally in the international squad?17.41 As scrum half, part of your role on the pitch is to co-ordinate the backs and the forwards. Talk a little bit about your role as a leader when co-ordinating those two elements within the team.20.40 In addition to your technical excellence on the pitch and your obvious high levels of fitness and resilience, you also display a real ability to sense what’s happening in the game and as a result you often adapt your role taking it beyond what could be described as the text book scrum half. Is this ability to lean into the detail one minute and then pull back and make sense of what’s going on a natural thing or have you developed that? 24.32 Who has inspired you from a leadership perspective?27.07 Both your profile and the profile of women’s rugby are growing and alongside that you have to deal with the ever-present social media that comments when things go well and also not so well. How does that play out in your life?30.37 What does the future hold for the sport of woman’s rugby and also what part would you like to play in that?34.15 Tell us about the challenges that you’re facing having recently moved from Saracens to the ambitious but potentially less high profile Bristol Bears.38.04 Let’s talk about 2022 and the world cup. What are you most looking forward to and what are going to be the biggest challenges?Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @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

Talking to Jean and Scott this week is Steve Ingham, one of the world’s most successful performance scientists. Steve has worked with over one thousand elite athletes, and over 200 of those (including Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent) have gone on to achieve World or Olympic medal success.Steve is author of the bestselling book ‘How to Support a Champion: The art of applying science to the elite athlete’. 0’00 Introduction3.06 Background, career to date.7.27 Can you tell us how you turned around the fortune of the British Olympic rowing team in a period of just 18 months.14.08 What led you to focus on rest and renewal when working with those athletes?18.49 Talk a little about what you’ve had to do in the past when faced with a coach who might not appreciate the value that your renewal approach brings.22.37 Can you give us your thoughts around how the cumulative effect of making marginal gains over time can result in very significant advantages.29.29 Often your work involves a deep dive in to the human needs and motivations of people in an organisation, and this in turn challenges businesses to think differently about how they deliver personal and organisational performance. What does this look like in an organisational setting?34.07 When working with teams, your work will often include a focus on how members of the team engage with each other, as well as the importance of how you turn up, the trust, empathy and collective accountability. What impact has that had on you personally in terms of self-awareness and the way in which you have to think about setting your intent when working with others?40.51 What practical advice would you give to a leader around prioritising their own recovery?47.11 What are your thoughts about the future? What are we going to be hearing about in the area of performance development in the coming years?  Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @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

This week on the Evolving Leader, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to RJ Cordes. RJ is a research fellow at (American think tank) the Atlantic Council, and his research includes work around the fields of sensemaking and knowledge management. However, it feels like we may have just scratched the surface during our hour with polymath RJ Cordes - if you’d like a broader picture of RJ’s extensive research interests, you’ll find that on his personal website.  'Making sense of sensemaking' (Atlantic Council, 2020)0’00 Introduction2.36 Could you start by giving us some insight into your background, and also how you define sense making.10.15 Your recently published paper ‘Making sense of sense making’ is full of useful insights that extend beyond Covid. What compelled you to write that paper, and could you talk us through some of the central take-aways.20’04  Could you expand on what happens cognitively in your observation when people are no longer able to make sense of something.28’03 What advice would you give someone trying to navigate division and uncertainty?34’31 In a world where so many of us get information from highly curated feeds, what are the implications for leaders (thinking specifically about the future of work and knowledge transfer between teams)?40’50 Could you share some of your findings from your research into the relationship between government funding and innovation.42’42 In your opinion, what does the next decade hold in terms of the socio economic outlook? Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @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

This week, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are in conversation with Dr Todd Kashdan, one of the world’s leading experts in the psychology of well-being, curiosity, mental flexibility and social relationships. In addition to having written more than 200 published scientific articles, Todd has also written three books, the most recent being ‘The Art Of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively’ (Bantam), a book described as being ‘a research-based toolbox for anyone who wants to create a world with more justice, creativity, and courage.’ 0’00 Introduction3.41 You describe your personal mantra as being a life devoted to the scientific exploration of unchartered human behaviour and its practical application to improve lives. What was it that set you on that course?5.25 What are you trying to discover through your well-being lab?8.50  How can we take care of our own sense of psychological well-being when in a situation surrounded by social divisiveness?12.33 When you go into a situation where you have a strong belief that someone is wrong, how do you avoid going into that situation emotionally as non-curious? 16.40 Tell us the story of your children, the knife and the watermelon.20.43 Is there any advice that you can give in a practical way of adopting the mindset of curiosity?25.26 Tell us about your new book ‘The Art Of Insubordination’29.25 From your perspective, what role do emotions play in the certainty that people have around their beliefs? 33.24 While you are at the top of the intellectual ladder in terms of development, do you still find that there are areas where you are not allowed to talk, is political correctness dominating your environment?39.29 If we focus on identity’s role in certainty and the threat that people experience, from a psychological perspective is it people with a really strong identity that feel most threatened?43.25 What would you say are the top three things that leaders need to think about in terms of evolving their mindset, that you think would help them most? Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @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 bonus episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, host Scott Allender addresses the idea of knowability, or to put it another way being known. What does it mean as a leader to be knowable? Does it matter, and if so why? Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_LeaderSend a message to The Evolving Leader team

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-host Jean Gomes talks to Will Page, former chief economist at both Spotify and PRS for Music, visiting fellow at London School of Economics and author of the recently published ‘Tarzan Economics: Eight principles for pivoting through disruption’.  0’00 Introduction0.43 Background to your career and what you are working on at the moment.6.32 Tell us the story of how your father introduced you to the core principles of economics.11.45  How many large organisations have a chief economist?13.59 What is your book Tarzan Economics all about? Give us the pitch.16.22 What advice are your giving to leaders in terms of shifting their mindset to work with disruption rather than to fight it? 19.24 When we think about how consumer’s consumption of music has shifted to a non linear model, how applicable is that shift to other markets, and how do you think like that when you are used to thinking in a linear abstraction from the past?22.18 Talk to us a little bit about how you spot when to pivot (which is a key part of knowing when to jump from vine to vine).29.24 How do economists within an organisation need to shift, what’s the agenda that they need to set for the next decade?34.30 How do you hold the tension between preserving the value of the business and its growth and innovation for the future?42.09  Can you talk to us about the OfCom framework and how that influenced some of your thinking?48.45 Let’s talk about Tower Records and the notion of the long tail.53.23 What’s your take on the short/medium/long-term outlook for the global economy?61.15 So what’s your focus now?Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @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