The Evolving Leader

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Adam Bulley. Adam is a postdoctoral fellow at the Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, and the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. In his research, Adam uses the tools of cognitive science to study the mind and human behaviour, with a focus on the evolution, development, and psychological mechanisms of imagination, foresight, decision-making, and emotion.  Adam Bulley’s first book ‘The Invention of Tomorrow’ which he co-wrote with Thomas Suddendorf and Jon Redshaw was published in 2022.During the conversation, Adam also references the following books:The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age (Bina Venkataraman, Riverhead 2020)The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time (Richard Fisher, Wildfire 2023) 0.00 Introduction2.58 Can you start by telling us about yourself and what led you into your research and career?4.21 Let’s dive into your book ‘The Invention of Tomorrow. Can you give us your pitch for the book, who is this book for and what will your audience gain from reading it?6.02 We take our ability to think about the future for granted, but how and why do you think this remarkable capability evolved? 8.56 What would have happened to our species had we not evolved this human foresight capability? 10.33 What role does memory play in foresight?13.27 So let’s skip back to how foresight and innovation are intwined with one another. Can you bring to light some of the research and how you’ve come to understand how that relationship works?15.32 What have you learned about how this ability impacts our morality?17.27 As children we have amazing imaginations from an early age but our ability to envisage our responsibility takes longer to develop. So how do things like metacognition (our ability to imagine what that looks like from somebody else’s perspective) sit alongside foresight?  19.35 What have you learnt about our capacity to harness this and improve it? Is this a muscle that can be improved? 22.35 You mention short termism and our ability to ignore our foresight. What has your research uncovered about the profound mistakes that we can make when choosing to ignore foresight?27.02 One of our former guests, futurologist Monika Bieleskyte believes that the role of the futurologist should be to try and create positive optimistic scenarios that we can get behind. How do you feel that our capacity for foresight works with that?30.23 How much of our brain’s foresight is routed in our own subjective biased view of reality?34.01 What have you learnt about foresight and wellbeing and what can we take forward from that?36.33 How can we get more effective and efficient at testing our assumptions about the future and our ideas?40.16 What are you working on at the moment? What’s next for you?Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_LeaderThe Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and .Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Dr Tim Palmer. Tim is a Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics, he is a senior fellow at the Oxford Martin Institute Programme on Modelling and Predicting Climate and a professorial fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. Tim is a major contributor to improving climate models and is among the researchers who won the 2007 Nobel Prize for authoring the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. In October 2022 Tim Palmer's book ‘The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand our Chaotic World’ was published.   0.00 Introduction3.46 In your work we see what appears to be an intuitive approach to embracing uncertainty. Can we start there?6.52 Is it true to say that our economic systems are experiencing more uncertainty and non-linear occurrences recently?9.19 Can we talk about some of the most fundamental scientific concepts of uncertainty that you explore in the book, and how we might take some of that thinking to the challenges that we might be facing in running organisations? 12.46 If we recognise that there will always be uncertainties, but also imagine a world in the future where there might be unlimited computing power where we have the singularity and an abundance of senses, does this increase in knowledge take us closer to a world with no uncertainty? 18.44 Can you help us understand Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle?21.48 If you could go back in time to the 2008 financial crisis, could you use some of what you know and have learnt about uncertainty to moderate that somehow? 33.26 How widespread has the adoption of ensemble methods been?35.13 Can we talk about ensemble methods, specifically focussing in on climate change? How has your work helped us to develop our current understanding of the world’s greatest challenge?43.24 How do you see the science of uncertainty developing over the next decade?47.34 Where do you see uncertainty sitting in the educational curriculum because currently it feels like it hasn’t been adopted into secondary education or across other fields?51.04 Can you bring to life what a typical day looks like to you? Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_LeaderYouTube.           EvolvingLeader 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 Marianne Lewis. Marianne is dean and professor of management at the Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati having previously served as dean of Cass (now Bayes) Business School at City University, London, and as a Fulbright scholar. A thought leader in organizational paradoxes, she explores tensions and competing demands surrounding leadership and innovation. Marianne has been recognized among the world’s most-cited researchers in her field (Web of Science) and received the Paper of the Year award (2000) and Decade Award (2021) from the Academy of Management Review.Marianne Lewis’s book (co-author with Wendy K Smith) ‘Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems’ was published in 2022.  0.00 Introduction4.36 Can you give us an overview of your work?5.22 How do you distinguish between tensions, dilemmas, and the paradoxes in our lives?7.16 Why is it so important to be working on paradox right now for leaders?9.13 Can you walk us through the four types of paradox that you identify and how we experience them?14.01 How does either/or thinking cause issues for leaders and can you give us some examples of how that sets us up to fail?19.10 The trench warfare, or the war of defences seems to be prevalent in politics right now. What do you think is causing that either/or thinking?21.26 You describe a pros and cons list as being one of the mechanisms that encourages either/or thinking. What other mental shortcuts are leaders and others taking that encourages either/or thinking?26.05 How do we enable both/and thinking?34.58 You mention that it’s not easy to look at the assumptions that we should consider if we want to build this paradox mindset. Why is that and how have you helped leaders find a different way forward?39.48 Knowing that people want to move away from negatively experienced emotions, what other tactics or approaches do you take with leaders to arrive at this alternative approach without moving away from those negative emotions?46.20 Organisations are designed primarily to align resources with their goals and minimise risk. Can you tell us about how your research and ideas can help leaders think about structures to stabilise the organisation in the face of uncertainty?50.33 Can you tell us about the research you’re doing into how individuals manage building a paradox mindset?54.19 Did you find a difference in motivations behind various people’s experience with either/or thinking?  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 Dr Joe Barnby. Joe is a computational neuroscientist, assistant professor at Royal Holloway in London where he leads the social computation and cognitive representation (SoCCR) lab, and the founder of Senscapes. Through his research, Joe is working to develop better theories of the brain and behavioural basis of social interaction, and how these might be used to explain and treat psychiatric and neurological  disorders. https://www.senscapes.com 0.00 Introduction2.49 Can you give us an overview of your work?7.28 Can you explain how these mathematical models are built?10.28 What are you learning from this about people with an open mindset versus a fixed mindset?14.36 In some of your recent work you mention that there’s been a shift in how neuroscientists and psychologists look at social cognition and how it operates. Can you take us through some of the underlying ideas in this shift of thinking?17.42 What do we do with the output of this work?21.14 What are the moral implications?23.58 In the past you have described the possibility of being able to analyse the nature of an individual’s social threat from others enabling us to build healthier teams. Can you tell us about that?26.15 When we think about how an individual makes sense of the world, they are triangulating between their physical, emotional and all the other senses that are creating this map of the world plus the predictive element of it. How do you start to make sense of that huge amount of complexity and where are we on the journey of being able to capture that complexity?34.49 In your recent research, have you had any ah-ha moments in terms of making progress with those building blocks?39.34 What are the key pieces of insight that someone listening could take from with them from this conversation?41.42 Tell us about Senscapes.46.29 Where will your research go in 2023?49.35 Through the work that you’ve carried out, what have you learnt about yourself and how have you put those learnings into practice? 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 are in conversation with Richard Firth-Godbehere. Richard is one of the world's leading experts on disgust and emotions, he is an independent researcher and consultant in the history, language, science and philosophy of emotions, and author of ‘A Human History of Human Emotion – How the Way We Feel Built the World We Know’. A Human History of Human Emotion (Fourth Estate, 2023)0.00 Introduction3.29 As a historian, why did you start to focus on emotions as a way of making sense of the past?5.11 You suggest that emotions are a modern construct. Can you tell us about that?7.37 How do you describe what an emotion is?9.04 How do you study the history of emotions?11.40 In your book you talk about how certain emotions have been a driving force of change throughout history whereas we generally think of ideas as being the thing that propels history. Can you elaborate on that a little please?13.54 Can you take us back to Ancient Greece and Plato where you begin your story about understanding emotion’s evolution?17.06 What have you learnt about our relationship with desire?22.07 Your main field of study has been disgust, an emotion that many of us might think is a universal experience. However you’re not so sure…25.03 What does your research reveal about love?31.40 Your research into witch crazes is particularly revealing and relevant to today’s polarising world. 35.50 What does history tell us about the effect of the more optimistic feelings associated with things such as progress and freedom?39.08 You mention several people who have had a profound influence on our modern understanding of emotion. Where was the turning point at which that shifted our understanding of human nature?45.18 In all the things you are currently doing, what’s the area you are wrestling most with in terms of your own uncertainty about what you’ve learnt around emotion?46.40 How can a leader who is listening to this podcast make use of your research findings?49.30 Solastalgia, the emotion that is expressed across the world by people who have had their homes destroyed by climate change.51.57 Do you think there was a highly characteristic and shared emotion around Covid? Social:Instagram    @evolvingleaderLinkedIn        The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter          @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-host Jean Gomes welcomes back former guest Will Page. Will is the former chief economist at both Spotify and PRS for Music, visiting fellow at London School of Economics and his widely acclaimed book ‘Tarzan Economics’ has just been published in paperback under the slightly different title ‘Pivot: Eight Principles for Transforming Your Business In A Time Of Disruption’.Pivot: Eight Principles For Transforming Your Business In a Time of DisruptionJo Caulfield ‘Supermarket loyalty card’  0.00 Introduction2.14 Why has the title of the book changed for the paperback?3.04 A quick summary of the eight principles.5.39 You say in the book that these principles give us cause for optimism and even confidence. Can you talk about why that it?11.38 Which is the principles would be most salient for our audience? 1. Big data, big mistakes.17.27 How can we stop ourselves making a snap judgement or challenge the contradictions around data, and how do you hold that in your head in other forms of decision making?19.42 2. The growing gig economy23.57 Given the Tarzan Economics predictions, what do you think are the most likely few things that will change this year? 27.20 How are these principles changing your life and mindset? How is it shaping your world? Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @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 take some time to discuss and reflect on a new definition of mindset. Scott also gets Jean to road test a new set of questions that (in future episodes) our two co-hosts will be asking guests about how they think, feel and see the world. ‘Leading In a Non-Linear World’ by Jean Gomes 0’00 Introduction3’27 We’re going to be questioning our guests on how they make sense of the world by building intentional mindsets to confront challenges that they face5’22 Remind us what you mean by feel, think and see10’16 How can people build the connective tissue between all of these things?14’29 Testing the new questions on Jean : Q1. What have you learnt about your mindset as you have developed as a leader?18’11 Q2. When and where have you seen others or yourself hold up the wrong lens to a situation? 21’44 Q3. Can you recall any situations in your career where you and others made significant breakthroughs by challenging fundamental assumptions about what was possible, feasible or desirable? 26’03 Q4. What is the primary way that you tune into you body to determine what’s happening?30’37 Q5. Of all the mindsets that we build and need, what is the single biggest mindset challenge that you personally struggle with the most? 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, we’re pleased to welcome back our occasional host and friend of the podcast, Emma Sinclair. This week Emma is in conversation with consultant neuroscientist and researcher Oscar Hutton. Oscar is also part of the Greater Human community, with whom in 2022 he explored (and made sense of) the neuroscience research designed to answer the question “Does listening to your body help you become more empathetic?”. Part of the findings from this research paint a picture that challenge our understanding around how we understand others and how we build empathy as human beings. This is an important listen.0.00 Introduction4.04 Introducing Oscar and his research.5.21 Let’s think about the concept of empathy.10.56 Why do we need empathy? 13.02 What evolutionary benefits has empathy brought us as human beings?19.04 Where do we start with this, in terms of how we build empathy?21.10 How does interoception help us to more empathetic? 23.08 So this is literally raising our awareness of what’s going on inside?26.42 Is this a part of what helps us identify what we’re feeling?  28.12 So rather than trying to ignore what the body is telling us, we should all learn to identify how we’re feeling and then work with it?29.00 How new is interoception as an area of study and what have you started to find during your research?32.49 Where have you started to go with your findings?35.49 So when we are around people who we are very close to, you’re saying that there is a good chance that we could be experiencing what they are experiencing if we raise our awareness to it. 37.33 Is this suggesting that the more we know someone, the greater the likelihood is that our bodies will feel the same as a result of an external stimulus?40.32 Is it possible for anyone to switch on interoception accuracy?41.52 Is it also something that can get lost if you don’t keep using it?42.34 So where is the connection between interoception and empathy?45.48 So how can we can begin to start to use this awareness?52.37 Considering the amount of time we all spend interacting with others on the screen, is there anything that could be built to help us in that environment with those social cues? 55.06 Is there anything else related to teamwork that you are starting to draw connections on?57.53 How can someone who might not have heard of interoception before today begin to work on this new super skill?64.09 So what have you done in this area for yourself?67.30 So if more people were aware of this, could we avoid those difficult encounters?69.48 Is there more that you can share from your research?79.09 What can we leave the listener with?  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 are joined by entrepreneur, venture capital investor and author William Kilmer. A product and innovation strategist at heart, William has spent his career working with hundreds of companies as a start-up leader, coach, investor and board member. He has been founder and CEO of several cybersecurity and data analytics companies, formed a wireless operator in the UK, and has served on the board of over twenty five technology companies and other organizations. He was previously the managing director of Intel Capital, a corporate venture capital fund where he managed worldwide investments and formed a targeted venture fund to invest in the Middle East and North Africa. Transformative: Build a Game Changing Strategy, Retool Your Organisation and Innovate to Win 0.00 Introduction3.10 Can you tell us a little about how you got to where you are today?4.28 What attracted you into working in technology and leadership?5.18 Can we talk about innovation and the challenge that it poses for many organisations? 7.37 Some organisations may sometimes lose perspective on why they are innovating. Why might that be?9.53 In many organisations, innovation sits on the periphery rather than being central to the core business. Is that what you’re seeing?12.09 What’s the difference between innovation and transformation?16.50 If you were sitting with a CEO who wasn’t successfully transforming their organisation, what high level advice would you give to that individual?22.59 Can you tell us about the ‘confidence bubble’?27.57 Why do you think primary business model innovation isn’t happening at the same level as the technological innovation?31.03 When was the last time you witnessed a pitch where you thought, ‘yeah that idea could really be transformative’?33.33 Are there any currently under represented emerging technologies that you think might come to the fore in the future?37.42 How have you evolved as a leader?42.17 What mindset shift is required for an individual who is prone to defending ideas as opposed to challenging them?43.34 If we fast forward three years, what are the things that we should be looking at in terms of combining new technologies and business models in order to solve some of the big challenges facing organisations?47.08 Is there anything else that we should ask 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, Jean and Scott hand the mic to Emma Sinclair who talks to cognitive neuroscientist Emily Clements. As part of her PhD at Kings College, London Emily is currently leading one of the world’s first studies into the neuroscience of entrepreneurship. She aims to uncover what might be different within entrepreneur’s brains and how we might develop our mindsets to become more entrepreneurial?Sit back and listen to this fascinating conversation during which Emma and Emily explore a key foundation for tomorrow’s leaders, building mindsets to navigate uncertainty and improve their capacity for disruptive thinking.  0.00 Introduction2.47 Emily, could you please begin by introducing yourself and what you are currently working on?5.53 What is disruptive thinking?8.00 What brain mechanisms are coming in to play when we go against the grain? 8.35 Could you give us a quick summary of what you mean when you refer to brain networks? 11.26 So are we focussing in on networks when we refer to disruptive thinking?12.58 How often are we using our multiple demand network?14.31 What would you define as being a hard task?17.08 What’s the flipside to this?20.05 I’d love to understand more about self-referential thought. 24.20 If you were in deep meditation, which network are you operating in?26.14 What have these brain networks got to do with disruptive thinking, why are they important?29.30 Is it true to say that highly creative individuals are actually changing how their brain is operating? Is it possible to make your brain more creative? 32.02 How can we consciously build a mindset that enables us to be more creative?39.52 How can we all be more disruptive?44.49 How important is environment for us to recognise that we might be in the wrong state to address a particular problem solving task?49.43 We’ve talked about the constant demand on people. Is this current demand for our attention meaning that it’s harder to stay in either mode?54.09 What can leaders take away from this?  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