Edgy Ideas

In this episode, Liz Hall draws on her experience of editing 'Coaching at Work' journal to reflect on the state of coaching today. Liz shares how she believes coaching is thriving for two key reasons First, the demand on managers increasingly means they need a reflective space, and support to help them navigate the emotional and relational people side of the work, and the intensity of work demands upon them.  Second, Liz blurs the boundaries between coaching and therapy and believes that coaching provides important support to people who would not necessarily go to therapy.  Liz shares her own practices of utilising mindfulness and somatics in her work, sharing how important this is in her own life, and how the bodywork is gaining increasing prominence in coaching more generally. Her initiative 'Coaching for Covid and Beyond' was established with colleagues and offered free coaching during the pandemic, and Liz shares her experience of this project.  Enjoy this exploration of coaching! Bio Liz Hall is a leadership coach and mindfulness teacher. An award-winning journalist, she’s the editor of Coaching at Work magazine, and the author of publications including Mindful Coaching (Kogan Page), Coach your team (Penguin Business), and author/editor of Coaching in times of crisis and transformation (Kogan Page), and numerous chapters in other books. As a co-founder of the award-winning Coaching through Covid and Beyond, offering pro-bono coaching to NHS workers impacted by the pandemic, she helped create a trail-blazing organizational culture shaped by compassion, relational mindfulness, psychological safety, agility and openness to emergence. The initiative is to be the subject of a study by a leading university exploring coaching in crisis. Through Coaching at Work, Liz has launched initiatives including the pioneering Roundtable towards Race Equity in the Coaching Profession which has seen professional coaching bodies agree to collaborate around a charter for change, and Climate Coaching Action Day, an annual event in March to celebrate and encourage climate coaching. Liz is also a co-founder of the International Summit for Mindfulness and Compassion at Work and speaks regularly on mindfulness and coaching at conferences. She is a member of the Academy of Executive coaching’s faculty, teaching on mindfulness in coaching. She’s currently working on a book on relational mindfulness with Dr Emma Donaldson-Feilder. Follow Liz Website: https://lizhallcoaching.com Coaching at Work Magazine: www.coaching-at-work.com Coaching through Covid and Beyond www.coachingthroughcovid.org Article on Coaching Through Covid Initiative: https://www.coaching-at-work.com/2021/03/01/covid-a-year-in-coaching/

Shermin Voshmgir is a leading thinker in the world of Web 3. This podcast explores the intersections between human dynamics and Web 3 developments. Shermin discusses the new possibilities of more democratic and decentralised ways of being and organising, and shares her growing concerns about how old politics, ego-driven behaviours, and simply the lack of awareness around potential dangers. There are tensions around transparency and privacy, algorithmic bias, and lack of participation in decentralised systems which leaves a few people making decisions. Power dynamics and biases become embedded in new DAOs and networks, making them difficult to influence and change. Shermin shares her new adventures in the domain of agriculture as she works with her partner to bring together Web 3 technologies, such as tokenization, that will support more sustainable farming. We are all entering the new world of Web 3, and Shermin Voshmgir is a brilliant translator who brings that space to life for those of us struggling to understand it - a must-listen episode!  Bio  Shermin is the author of the best-selling book “Token Economy“, the founder of Token Kitchen and BlockchainHub Berlin. In the past, she was the director of the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics which she also co-founded and a curator of the infamous project TheDAO back in 2016. She is currently setting up a data-driven farm in Portugal with her Partner where they investigate how to tokenize agricultural assets and sustainable ecosystem services such as soil quality or CO2 capture with the support of hardware wallets and sensor technology. Shermin studied Information Systems Management at the Vienna University of Economics and film-making in Madrid. Under her alter ego KAMIKAT.SE she has also created a series of audio-visual works. She is Austrian, with Iranian roots, and now lives in Portugal where she works on the intersection of technology, agriculture, art & social science. Her biggest strength is to make complex issues easily understandable to a wide audience without losing the depth or scope of the issues she writes or talks about. Shermin has a long track record of public speaking about Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, the Web3 and the future of technologies in general – from prestigious community conferences such as TedX, The Next Web or Re:publica, to private events for companies and institutions such as Vodafone, Audi, IMF and the Wordbank. She has a multidisciplinary perspective of how Web3 will impact different areas of society. She believes that Web3 and its tokenized applications can shift the dynamics of our socio-economic systems. Her focus is to make technology accessible to a non-tech audience so that all those who use technology can also take part in the decision-making process of the technology they use. Buy Token Economy, Shermin's fantastic Web3 explainer: https://www.bookdepository.com/Token-Economy/9783982103853 Follow Shermin Website: https://shermin.net Twitter: https://twitter.com/sherminvo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherminvoshmgir

Daniel Matalon is on a mission. Dan asserts that humanity’s biggest existential threat is not climate change, tribalism, or inequality but our inability to make agreements with each other at the level we require to address our challenges.  In this podcast Simon explores both the mission and what's behind it, making interesting connections to how the personal and the project come together.  The question "is there enough?" is like a yeast starter, once you ask the question it expands. Dan aims to meet everyday folk in a place where they can reflect on their identities and their worldviews, opening a space for new collaborations. Enjoy this podcast!  Bio Daniel Matalon is the founder of #IsThereEnough, a provocative new conversation about the intersection of survival economics and social justice. He is also the co-founder of Impact Launchpad, a UK-based venture studio for social impact incubation and development. His upcoming title, The First Agreement, is a historical and future-leaning look at economics, scarcity, and survival, that suggests that our drivers of incentive can be measurably built around human beings at the center of our economies, rather than the assets and resources we measure them by today. Visit Dan's website: https://www.isthereenough.org

Giles Hutchins shares his work and thinks about how to lead organizations following nature's flow rather than using nature as an external resource.  Since the industrial revolution, we have been an extractive society, taking from the environment, without understanding or considering our interconnectivity and interdependence with the environment.  We are now paying heavily for this way of thinking, and Giles works in organizations to change worldviews and create regenerative leadership. He calls for a shift from the machine mindset to a living-systems mindset; from a world that is made of separate parts, to a world that is interconnected and interdependent.  If you want to be part of creating more humane and sustainable workplaces, this is an important podcast to listen to!  Bio Giles is a pioneering practitioner, keynote speaker and executive coach at the fore-front of this necessary revolution. He applies advanced consciousness raising techniques, deep-dive nature immersions, embodiment work, ancient wisdom tradition insights, and cutting edge research on leadership consciousness.  Giles has over 20 years business experience in helping all shapes and sizes of organisations transform.  Formerly, over a decade as management consultant, programme manager and business practice lead at KPMG, and more recently Global Head of Sustainability for the global technology provider Atos.  He is currently Chairman of the Future Fit Leadership Academy, Lead Partner of The Natural Business Partnership, co-founder of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation, co-founder of Regenerators.co and partner/associate with a number of pioneering organisations, such as The Global Leaders Academy and The Laszlo New Paradigm

Hetty explores how transpersonal coaching takes us ‘beyond the person’ and into the wider ecosystems in which we live and work, including the spiritual realm. Hetty and Simon share their own faith journeys that have shaped how they engage with this work. They discuss how spirituality is either ignored in the workplace because it is not relevant to a high-performance ‘modern’ work culture and belongs in the private realm, or how it can be instrumentalised i.e. take this mindfulness course and your productivity will increase by 30% (which immediately turns a transpersonal opportunity into a secular, goal-focused activity. To work with a transpersonal frame is therefore challenging yet Hetty claims they are vitally important. She describes how this work needs to be embodied and how her yoga practice has helped her with this over the years. Hetty also shares how women’s experiences have been marginalised, and the part they play in developing a transpersonal frame. We are facing very challenging times, and the answers will not come from more of the same. It is only by de-centering the human and recovering a sense of belonging to the whole that will bring hope and change to our current state of being. Hetty believes that focusing on the transpersonal is an essential part of this journey. Bio Hetty brings 25 years of psychology and executive coaching experience to global leadership development. A best-selling author, her career has spanned the arts, journalism, media, health, and policy development in the private, public and voluntary sectors. She designs and delivers leader-coach and global culture change programs. Key focuses are women’s leadership, Transpersonal Coaching, and the regenerative contributions approach. She works ecosystemically and holistically founded on transpersonal psychology and informed by psychoanalysis and embodiment approaches. She teaches at the Irish Management Institute, is a Senior Associate Director with Common Purpose, and she coaches, teaches, and facilitates in French. Hetty is Director of Publications Strategy for the Association for Coaching and Executive Editor of the AC global magazine, Coaching Perspectives, now a leading publication in the field. Hetty holds a Masters in Psychoanalytic and Systemic Approaches to Organisational Consulting from the Tavistock Centre (UEL), a Certificate in Coaching Supervision from Oxford Brookes, a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute (UL), and a BA in languages from Cambridge University. She is married with two millennial daughters. Recent publications: The Future of Coaching: Vision, Leadership and Responsibility in a Transforming World published by Routledge. Her long-form essay on Radical hope: a dimension of the soul rooted will be published in the Autumn by PCCS Books in the collection of essays, Holding the Hope: Essays exploring psychological and spiritual responses and practices to climate change and extreme biodiversity loss. For more information on Transpersonal Coaching programmes For more information on Ecosystems Supervision programmes with Martin Vogel Contact: einzig@hettyeinzig.co.uk http://www.hettyeinzig.com

Our guest this week is Dr Eliat Aram, CEO of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR).  Dr Eliat Aram has been the CEO of TIHR for over 13 years. The TIHR, a not-for-profit outfit operating in the UK and abroad is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2022 and is a world-leading research, evaluation, consultancy, and professional development organisation. Believing in the abundant potential of human relationships and love for people are the drivers in the way she shapes the direction of the institute, the multitude of its activities as well as her praxis.   TIHR was established in 1947, dedicated to the study of human relations for the bettering of working life. Eliat discusses some of the TIHR developments over the years and shares new directions they are pioneering, particularly in the areas of how aesthetics, art, and place inform our working lives today.     TIHR developed many experiential learning methodologies, drawing on systemic thinking, anthropology, psychoanalysis, and other social sciences, the most well-known are the Group Relations Conferences. Eliat reflects on the importance of this innovative learning methodology and its continued relevance in today's disruptive world. This podcast will be of great interest to all of us indebted to the Tavistock Institute and its positive influence on work, organisations, and society.  Bio Dr Eliat Aram is a Chartered Scientist Psychologist (BPS), a UKCP registered Gestalt Psychotherapist, and has been one of the pioneering members of the CMC (Complexity & Management Centre) of Hertfordshire University. Her theoretical grounding is in complexity theory, organisational studies, Gestalt psychotherapy theory, and systems psychodynamics. She is a keen practitioner of Group Relations, the Tavistock enterprise’s core ‘learning through experience’ practice. She has directed many Group Relations Conferences internationally including the Tavistock Institute’s flagship GRC known as the ‘Leicester’ conference. She has been one of the two directors of the TIHR’s certified courses Coaching for Leadership and Professional Development (2014-2017) and co-founder of the Supervision for Coaching and Consultancy course, now in its seventh cohort. She has contributed to all TIHR Professional Development activities and program design. Someone told her recently that perhaps work-life balance is found when one finds their love at, and for, work and life. Working with the dynamic of shame as an integral part of any potentially transformative learning process has been her quest and the tenet of her evolving thinking over the decades of her practice. Someone told her recently that perhaps work-life balance is found when one finds their love at, and for, work and life. She unashamedly thinks this might just be so. 

Susan Long has studied and practiced working with the unconscious for many years. She brings fresh thinking to help us understand the unconscious in its many forms. Susan discusses the pre-Freudian unconscious drawing on the romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling’s work who thought of the unconscious as a source of creativity. Susan reflects on the ‘repressed unconscious’ of Freud, and how he developed a treatment method (psychoanalysis) based on using free association to access the unconscious. Freud also pioneered group psychology, and Susan explores the group unconscious and how this manifests in society today.  The 'associative unconscious' is a more contemporary exploration of the unconscious and Susan shares how we might draw on it to discover individual and group thoughts that are not yet accessed, what Christopher Bollas called the 'unthought known'.  Simon shares his experiences of using a 'free-association matrix' method in a work setting The conversation finishes by exploring a new wave of thinking about the unconscious, such as neuro-scientific insights and a more generative eco-unconscious, taking the unconscious beyond the human mind. This is a fascinating discussion, enjoy! Bio Susan Long is a Melbourne based organisational consultant and executive coach. Previously Professor of Creative and Sustainable Organisation at RMIT University, she is now a Professor and Director of Research and Scholarship at the National Institute for Organisation Dynamics Australia (NIODA) and a coach and consultant in private practice. Susan has been in a leadership position in many professional organisations and has published ten books and many articles in books and scholarly journals, is General Editor of the journal Socioanalysis and an Associate Editor with Organisational and Social Dynamics. Susan is a distinguished member of ISPSO. Simon Western is the host of Edgy Ideas Podcast, founder of the Eco-Leadership Institute www.ecoleadershipinstitute.org, and CEO of Analytic-Network Coaching- an advanced coach training company. He is the author of internationally acclaimed leadership and coaching books, and blogs on wider social-political issues. Previously a past president of ISPSO,  a family psychotherapist, general and psychiatric nurse, and a factory worker.  Simon works with senior leaders in global companies as a leadership consultant with the aim of delivering new eco-leadership cultures that support system-change, and to coach ‘leaders to act in good faith to create the good society’.

In this episode, Simon Western is joined by organisational consultant, certified Analytic Network coach, and Emerita Professor of Psychoanalysis and Culture Caroline Bainbridge to reflect on what is happening in Ukraine, drawing on psychosocial thinking. Their aim is not to provide answers but to stimulate thinking and insights. This horrific, shocking, and unnecessary war is about the Putin regime deepening its own power base, and imagining themselves as Tsarist heroes ‘making Russia great again’ to borrow from their ‘Trumpist’ friends. At the heart of this project is repression; the war can be thought of as a ‘return of the repressed'. Fukuyama proclaimed the End of History when the Soviet Union collapsed, and many swallowed the kool-aid and repressed the clear signs that totalitarianism was returning within China and Russia, while authoritarianism was resurfacing through populist and nationalist politics in the west. The war can also be thought-about as part of the Putin regime's desire to impose a new repressive regime across the old Soviet empire. Simon and Caro reflect on these and other thoughts, hoping to create thinking space for those listening to engage in their own reflections, in order not to fall into the traps of repression.           Bios Simon Western is the host of Edgy Ideas Podcast, founder of the Eco-Leadership Institute www.ecoleadershipinstitute.org, and CEO of Analytic-Network Coaching- an advanced coach training company. He is the author of internationally acclaimed leadership and coaching books, and blogs on wider social-political issues. Previously a past president of ISPSO,  a family psychotherapist, general and psychiatric nurse, and a factory worker.  Simon works with senior leaders in global companies as a leadership consultant with the aim of delivering new eco-leadership cultures that support system-change, and to coach ‘leaders to act in good faith to create the good society’. Caroline Bainbridge is an organizational consultant, accredited Analytic-Network coach, and Emerita Professor of Psychoanalysis and Culture. She specializes in inclusion-focused leadership work and organizational change, and executive coaching that centers on complex experience. After more than 25 years as a university lecturer, published writer, and researcher, Caroline has been recognized as Emerita Professor of Culture and Psychoanalysis. She is fascinated with how our networked and mediated milieu shapes experience and behavior. Caroline trained at the Tavistock in London and at the Eco-Leadership Institute. Find out more here. 

In this podcast Dr Vamik Volkan shares his fascinating personal journey, and some of the theories that have gained him an international recognition.   Born in 1932, Vamik a Turkish Cypriot lived in Cyprus under British rule, with the second world war and Nazi’s in the shadows as he grew up.  His journey took him to study medicine in Turkey, and psychiatry and psychoanalysis in the USA.  Experiencing the loss of a dear friend through a Greek terrorist attack back in Cyprus, Vamik in the USA found himself separated from mourning his friend. He went on to study mourning and later trauma, drawing also on his experiences of racism in the USA during the 1950s/60s.  His insights led him to work with traumatised countries and nations/peoples in conflict.  He has met and worked with former President Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachov, Desmond Tutu and Yasser Arafat.  Vamik shares some of his key ideas,  such as how large group identities form around ‘chosen trauma’s’ and ‘chosen glories’ and how these are mobilised by leaders. Vamik shows how leaders personal experiences are played out in large group dynamics, and he addresses what drives Vladimir Putin and reflects on the current the war Ukraine.  We will be hosting a Clubhouse Discussion Friday 4th 6pm GMT on this podcast content click link to join - a recording of the discussion will be available  Bio Dr Vamık Volkan is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia: Emeritus President of the International Dialogue Initiative, he holds Professorships across the world and has many other honorary positions.  Dr. Volkan was a member of the International Negotiation Network under the directorship of former President Jimmy Carter.  His work on trauma and understanding large groups is internationally renowned and he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times Dr. Volkan is the author, coauthor of psychoanalytic and psychopolitical books. His book, Large-Group psychology: Racism, Societal Divisions, Narcissistic Leaders and Who We Are Now, received the Gradiva 2021 Best Book Award.

Father David McCallum is at the heart of a very interesting change process taking place in the Catholic Church.  Pope Francis has called for a 2 year process to advance a synodal church.  David discusses how a synodal church embraces leadership from the edges, engaging the laity and being less hierarchical and clerical in its approach.   Simon and David share thoughts on how this process might happen, and how synodal leadership symbolises how the Catholic church is responding to our disruptive age.  Inspired by early church practices of discernment, accompaniment and spiritual friendship, David is working with others to develop new ways of organising, leading and being in this emergent space that is opening.  Enjoy this podcast!  Bio  Father David McCallum, S.J., Ed.D is a Jesuit priest and leadership educator. He serves as the founding Executive Director of the Program for Discerning Leadership. The Program provides leadership formation for senior Vatican officials and major superiors of religious orders in Rome, Italy, as well as internationally.  Born in Buffalo, NY (1968), and raised in Rochester, Fr. McCallum is a proud Upstate New Yorker.  He serves as a facilitator for mission driven, personal and organizational development programs, provides developmentally informed executive coaching, and delivers leadership development programs and spiritual retreats internationally. He co-founded the Contemplative Leaders in Action program (CLA), an initiative of the Office for Ignatian Spirituality (USA East Coast Province) Currently, Fr. McCallum lives in Rome and serves as a member of the Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops Commission on Methodology, supporting the Synodal process initiative by Pope Francis.