About Time - with Chris Nichols

Edward Peck was Vice Chancellor of NTU for ten years, before standing down in July 2025 to become Chair of the office for Students. Edwards tenure saw NTU soar in the league tables, with the University winning many awards, including University of the Year.In this episode Edward, and GameShift’s Philippa Hardman, reflect on the participative approach to strategy making and action that formed the cornerstone of Edward’s approach. GameShift worked with NTU through two complete strategic cycles, and the relationship between Philippa and Edward was a crucial part of the work. This conversation explores the how and why of taking this approach, and draws out lessons that will be of value to others planning participative (or open) strategy work in their university or other organisations.

John Higgins has been a friend and colleague for many years, and we are blessed that he is our research partner at GameShift.  John has produced some of the most powerful and vital research to influence the organisational, leadership, HR and OD fields over the past few years.This conversation gave us the chance to go behind the content of his writing to explore the foundations - why this work matters to John, the influences that have shaped his work, and the experiences that make it possible.

In 2016, following a traumatic departure from work he loved, Chris Nichols took a long walk, covering the South West Coast Path as a solo silent walk during the season from May to September. In this closing episode of Series One,  Philippa Hardman leads Chris through a reflection of his reaction to the Raynor Winn book The Salt Path, and the new film of the same name, drawing out Chris’ reflections on his walk. The reflections draw together some of the themes of this first series of the About Time podcast.

Chris Nichols first met Steve Clark at Anthropy 25 - a gathering of social change-makers at the Eden Project organised by John O’Brien. Chris was blown away by Steve’s personal story around his stage four cancer diagnosis, and how he has harnessed his experience to lead social change through education, activism and patient participation. In this episode Steve and Chris explore this story, and take a deep dive into shifting the language around cancer care, palliative care and more. It’s a powerful, personal and positive episode.

Kai Peters was the CEO of Ashridge throughout much of Chris’ time there, and has since played a range of higher education leadership roles. In this episode,Chris and Kai reflect on the Ashridge story, on the challenges facing higher education today, and on the future of business schools. Kai also shares some of his reflections on the skills and attributes needed in top university leadership in a world of AI, shifting geopolitics and societal change.

Helena Clayton is a coach, facilitator, writer and podcaster, whose work will be well known to many people in the organisational development and learning fields. Chris and Helena have known each other for a long time, through a shared interest in love in organisational work. In  this episode Helena talks about how her work on love came into being, and Helena shares reflections on how her Love Lab experiments have developed. The episode also take a look at the notion of endings, and hospicing, and the place of love in handling “good enough” endings.

Minni Jain is a pioneer in participative work around river restoration and in the indigenous wisdom around living waters. In this episode Chris and Minni explore the roots of her work, and her connection to Satish Kumar, to Tagore, and to Schumacher College. Then they dive into the work of The Flow Partnership and its work worldwide, as well as the new award winning book Minni has written with Philip Frances, The Language of Water.

Phoebe Tickell describes herself as a renegade scientist, systems thinker and social entrepreneur. Chris describes her as a world shifting human dynamo! Chris and Phoebe first met at Schumacher College in Devon. Phoebe is the founder of Moral Imagination, an organisation that helps to bring about an ecological shift in society and consciousness through the power of imagination. This episode explores this work, the amazing range of foundations and influences that underpin her work, and look at where the amazing energy of Phoebe may take it next. This is a great episode for anyone needing to see how, even in dark and troubling times, the power of imagination breathes light and possibility into making something new and better possible.

Chris and Mark first met during the Ashridge MSc in Organisational Consulting, when Chris was struggling to find colleagues who could bear his love of ambiguity and improvisation. Mark immediately struck Chris as someone who rejoices in creating experiences to explore the unknown. In this episode, Chris and Mark explore the roots of Mark’s work, from being a professional musician to his time as a sound engineer, and the joy of weaving his worlds together when he developed his form of organisational work called Grounded Creativity. This was a form of musical constellation inquiry, that Chris and Mark took into organisations as diverse as the NHS, Lufthansa, Beiersdorf, financial services and many more, to help address systems changes when the use of words was just not sufficient for the job.

In this episode, Chris Nichols talks to Professor Roger Kneebone, who has been a surgeon, a GP, a medical educator, a harpsicord player (and maker) and explorer across many frontiers.  Roger and Chris first met during Roger’s engagement fellowship at The Wellcome Trust, and from there dived into many adventures in looking at the world through richly different lenses. Roger’s book, Expert, is one of Chris’ favourite pieces of writing on the subject of expertise, and in particular the improvisational edges that it embraces. This episode includes a treasury of references and links, kindly provided by Roger, which we have included in the show notes.  Roger also talks about his latest work, using artful collaborations and simulation to address the problem of knife crime.Here are some links to some of Rogers work: Roger's website (lots of info about projects and podcasts) - ⁠www.rogerkneebone.co.uk⁠An Imperial feature on SHARP - ⁠https://www.imperial.ac.uk/Stories/the-sharp-project/⁠ And a BBC London News item on SHARP - ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8EYlLlD1fE&t=4s⁠Countercurrent episodes with engravers:Howard Phipps - https://rogerkneebone.libsyn.com/howard-phipps-in-conversation-with-roger-kneebone Anne Desmet - https://rogerkneebone.libsyn.com/anne-desmet-in-conversation-with-roger-kneebone David Dobson - https://rogerkneebone.libsyn.com/david-dobson-in-conversation-with-roger-kneebone Andrew Davidson - https://rogerkneebone.libsyn.com/roger-kneebone-in-conversation-with-andrew-davidson