Radio Future Skills Academy

We often meet people through their professional surface. The roles they've held. The companies they've built. The neat story their CV tells. It's efficient. It helps us place each other quickly. But it also skips a more interesting question. Who are you when the career story goes quiet? That question sits at the heart of a this conversation Morgan Duta had with Jakob Knutzen. Not as a quote machine or a success case, but as a mirror for something many of us recognize, often uncomfortably. Because Jakob talks very openly about a moment that I've seen again and again in leaders, founders, and senior professionals. The moment where you suddenly realize you can see your entire future. And it scares you. When predictability becomes a problem Jakob describes leaving a consulting path not because it was failing, but because it was too clear. The promotions, the rhythm, the outcomes. Everything made sense. And that was precisely the problem. It wasn't risk that pushed him away. It was boredom disguised as safety. That resonates deeply. Not because everyone should leave their job or move across the world, but because that moment of clarity is information. When the future becomes entirely predictable, the question is no longer "is this good enough?" but "is this alive enough for me?" Many people misread that feeling as restlessness or lack of gratitude. Jakob frames it differently. He treats it as a signal that experience, challenge, and growth matter more to him than optimizing for certainty. We are terrible at judging risk One of Jakob's sharper observations is how badly we assess risk, especially in hindsight. From the outside, his choices look dramatic. Moving countries. Switching domains. Building companies without ticking all the expected boxes first. But from the inside, the downside was limited. He knew he had a safety net. He knew what "failure" would actually look like in concrete terms. And this is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable in a useful way. Jakob is explicit about privilege. If you come from stability, if you have a solid base, some financial or social safety, then constantly holding yourself back "just to be safe" can become a form of self-deception. Not everyone has that room to move. But if you do, maybe the question isn't whether you're allowed to take risks. Maybe it's why you're not using the space you've been given. That's not a moral judgement. It's an invitation to be honest. Adventure is not what we think it is Another thing Jakob reframes beautifully is the idea of adventure. It's easy to confuse adventure with travel. With geography. With movement on a map. But for him, adventure is much broader. It's about experience. Attention. Staying open to being changed by what you're doing. Interestingly, becoming a father didn't reduce that sense of adventure. It deepened it. He talks about experiencing the world through the eyes of his son, about how everyday life suddenly becomes intense, surprising, and meaningful in new ways. That matters, because it expands how we think about ambition. Ambition doesn't have to mean more scale, more speed, more visibility. It can also mean more presence. More learning. More lived experience. A bigger internal life, not just a bigger external footprint. Leadership as creating conditions Jakob doesn't describe himself as a "creative genius". In fact, he's quite explicit that creativity isn't central to his identity. What he is good at is something else. Channeling creative energy. Removing obstacles. Creating the conditions in which others can do the best work of their lives. That's a subtle but important shift in how we think about leadership. In his work with facilitation, product building, and teams, leadership isn't about having the best ideas. It's about helping a group move from point A to point B without collapsing into noise, politics, or safe mediocrity. That's facilitation in its purest form. And it's increasingly relevant in a world where tools, processes, and AI can easily overwhelm human attention. The real enemy is the average One of Jakob's strongest points is also one of the most confronting. Most teams don't fail because they lack talent. They fail because they converge. They aim for what everyone can agree on. They smooth out edges. They optimize for comfort. And that's how generic work gets made. He's blunt about it. Convergence to the mean is how bland products, forgettable strategies, and soulless experiences are created. Especially now, when AI makes it easier than ever to generate "acceptable" output. What cuts through that isn't more ideas. It's taste. Taste, courage, and communication Jakob talks about taste as the ability to say what is good and what is not, and to stand behind that judgement. Taste is opinion. Opinion requires courage. And courage only matters if you can communicate it clearly. This is where his thinking becomes particularly relevant in the age of AI. As generating content becomes easier, expressing meaning becomes rarer. Writing, speaking, and structuring thought clearly are no longer "nice to have" skills. They are differentiators. You can feel how much Jakob values this. He prefers writing over slides. He cares about structure. About first principles. About meeting people where they are and choosing the right medium, not just the right message. It's not about sounding smart. It's about making thinking visible. A quiet question to sit with What I appreciate most about Jakob's reflections is that they don't push a lifestyle. They push awareness. Where in your own life are you staying safe out of habit, not necessity? And if you're honest with yourself, does predictability currently feel like comfort, or like a warning sign? You don't need to blow up your life to answer that. But you do need to stop ignoring the signal. That, to me, is where creative leadership actually starts.

Every now and then you meet someone who comes from a world so far from your own that you expect the conversation to be polite, distant, and maybe a bit abstract. That's what I thought when Warren Yu joined us for Creative Leaders Unplugged. He carries decades of experience inside one of the most rigid and hierarchical systems imaginable, the U.S. military and government. I come from design, creativity, messy entrepreneurship. Two planets, right? But from the very first minute, something unexpected happened. We didn't meet as a military officer and a designer. We met as humans. He told stories about family, heritage, loss, identity, the same stories we all carry whether we come from Shanghai, Hungary, New York or Haarlem. That's when I realised: the starting point for creative leadership is always the same. Strip away the titles, the roles, the armour. Ask someone who they are. And then simply listen. What unfolded after that was like watching a movie. Warren is one of those natural storytellers who pulls you straight into the world he's lived in, from his grandfather's assassination to CIA front companies to being accused of "witchcraft and black magic" on a Navy ship because he dared to bring a new idea into a rigid system. And still, somehow, everything he said resonated deeply with what we talk about in design thinking. The power of culture over technology. The need to make it safe to fail. The importance of "yes, and…". The courage to hold space for others. The leader's job of clearing obstacles so people can run freely. At one point he describes his design studio, a simple conference room he quietly transformed into a kind of pirate ship inside the system. A place where people could bring fragile ideas, experiment, fail, recover, collaborate across ranks and cultures. A NICU for innovation, he called it. And I thought: yes, this is creative leadership in its purest form. Not the shiny version. The subversive version. The courageous, slightly rebellious, meaningful version. What struck me most is how his whole journey mirrors something many creative leaders recognise: being an outsider, navigating contradictions, learning to adapt, holding multiple perspectives, and seeing what others miss. The pirate who doesn't disrupt for ego, but for the greater good. We ended our conversation with one simple question: What are you looking forward to? His answer was surprisingly soft and human, to help people, to create meaning, to help organisations rediscover their purpose when they've drifted away from it. That's the thing about pirates. They're not trying to burn the ship. They're trying to remind everyone why they're sailing in the first place. This episode is full of stories, insights, emotion, humour and hard-earned wisdom. Honestly, we could have talked for hours. But I hope the part we captured inspires anyone who feels stuck in a system, anyone wondering how to make change from the inside. Maybe the answer isn't to break the system. Maybe it's to create a small space where new possibilities can breathe. A place where people feel safe to bring their ideas, their doubts, their scars. A place where stories can be told. A place where pirates are welcome. Enjoy the episode. And Warren, go write that book. The world needs it.

The Real Work of Building Community Talking with Todd Nilson reminded us how misunderstood community building still is. We often treat it like marketing: launch a platform, create some content, hope people show up. But the way Todd talks about community is much closer to psychology, art, and human behavior than to funnels or metrics. What stood out most is his idea of the "woolly mammoth factor." People don't gather around your product. They gather around something essential to them, identity, purpose, survival, pride, belonging. If the only thing a company offers is "join our platform," nothing happens. If you speak to something bigger, activism at Patagonia, financial peace or job-seekers supporting each other in Todd's Job Camp, it moves people. They feel part of something that matters. And once they're there, a community is never a self-driving machine. It needs someone tending the garden, creating safety, giving direction, setting norms, but doing it lightly and humanely. Todd's frame is simple: a community is not an audience. If the chairs all face the stage, it's a performance. If the chairs face each other, it's a community. And if one person stands in the middle of that circle… that's a cult. The other important shift is honesty about the lifecycle. Communities don't last forever. They begin, grow, plateau, and end. The Wednesday Web Jam is a good example, we built it in the early pandemic when we all needed connection, learning, and support. When the mammoth changed shape, we gave it a funeral, not because it failed, but because it had done its job. Marking endings is part of community leadership. And leadership is the right word. Community building is creative leadership. It's creating a space where people feel safe, seen, and able to contribute. It's not about control, but about intention. Not about influence, but about care. Right now, that work is more important than ever. Social media feels like a casino run by robots, loud, distracting, and increasingly flooded with content no one can trust. AI will only amplify that. The result is predictable: people start craving smaller rooms, softer voices, lived experience, and real stories. Not noise. Not performance. Not scale. Connection. Maybe that's the future Todd is pointing toward: More intimate communities, built around real purpose, shaped by people who understand how to create belonging. And eventually, blended with new forms, VR, AR, social presence, where digital spaces feel more human again. But the heart of it won't change. It's still about people. It's still about stories. It's still about the courage to bring strangers into a circle and say: "Let's make something together."

In this episode of Creative Leaders Unplugged, Morgan Duta and Arne van Oosterom speak with Dara Douglas, who leads the Co-Design Lab at PwC in the UK. Dara describes her work as a kind of corporate therapy, helping senior leaders align, make decisions, and connect beyond their roles. Listening to her, it's clear this comes from somewhere deeper: growing up as one of nine siblings, learning early how to mediate, listen, and bring people together. What stands out most is her view on stories. Dara reminds us that stories are not just how we communicate, they're how we connect, learn, and reframe the world around us. Science shows that when we listen to stories, our brains sync with the storyteller's; we literally align. It's what makes empathy possible. In a time when technology is everywhere, she believes real lived experiences and authentic stories are what separate us from machines. We also spoke about learning, creativity, and the importance of making the process enjoyable. Dara told us how she's learning piano with her father—not for perfection, but for the joy of learning together. It's a reminder that growth happens when we slow down, make space for curiosity, and find meaning in the process, not just the outcome. Finally, we explored bravery in conversation, especially in today's polarized world. Dara shared her approach to diversity and inclusion: be curious, be forgiving, be brave. These simple principles open the door to understanding perspectives that challenge our own, and they're just as vital in design, leadership, and everyday life. If there's one thread through all of this, it's that creativity and empathy begin with stories, our own and those of others. As Dara puts it, "We can't always change what happened, but we can change the story we tell about it."

In this episode, we chat with Creativity Strategist Natalie Nixon about the connections between dance, creativity, and personal growth. She shares transformative insights from her experiences in ballet, modern dance, and open water swimming, emphasizing the importance of embracing vulnerability and imperfection. We discuss her upcoming book, "Move, Think, Rest," which advocates for a cyclical approach to productivity and the value of daydreaming in fostering innovation. Natalie also explores how organizations can cultivate curiosity and well-being, envisioning workplaces as collaborative ecosystems. This conversation highlights the need to merge personal experiences with professional pursuits, celebrating the richness of human experience.

This episode centers around the concept of "the hook," a transformative idea that has the potential to enhance participant engagement and foster meaningful connections during workshops and meetings.

The Power of Human Creativity in a Time of AI Reflections from a conversation with Leo Chan In a rich and personal conversation on the Radio Future Skills Academy podcast, Leo Chan joined Arne van Oosterom and Morgan Duta to talk about creativity, imposter syndrome, the importance of psychological safety, and the impact of AI. What unfolded was more than a talk about innovation, it became a shared reflection on what it means to be human, and how creativity is a deeply personal, vulnerable, and social act. Leo spoke openly about growing up feeling like he didn't belong in the world of "real" artists, a narrative that followed him well into design school. His story of having his work literally torn up by a professor during a critique was painful to hear, but it was also the moment he decided he would never do that to anyone else. That moment shaped his mission: to create environments where people feel safe to be creative, to fail, and to try again. This, he argues, is the foundation of innovation, not perfection, but safety. The conversation also explored how many people don't see themselves as creative because their job or background doesn't fit traditional definitions of creativity. Leo challenged this idea: creativity is everywhere, in parenting, in finance, in solving everyday problems. Innovation, he said, is often about associative thinking: seeing connections where others don't. And that kind of thinking often comes from those who feel like outsiders. AI, of course, came up. Rather than fearing it, Leo suggested we see AI as a tool, one that can support the creative process without replacing it. What AI lacks, and will always lack, is lived experience. It doesn't feel fear, joy, heartbreak, or purpose. And it's these human experiences that make creativity powerful and meaningful. Leo put it simply: "If the story of my professor ripping up my work was made up by AI, no one would care. What makes it matter is that it happened to me." At the heart of the episode is a belief that everyone has something to offer — but that this can only grow in environments where people feel seen, heard, and safe. Leo's message is clear: innovation is not just about new ideas, it's about creating spaces where people can be brave enough to share them. And maybe that's the future of work: not more technology, but more humanity.

In this episode of The Naked Facilitator, we talk with Annika Madejska about her provocative workshop "Facilitating Evil." What happens when we flip the script and explore how technology can be misused with good intentions gone wrong? Anika shares how speculative design, worldbuilding, and playful discomfort can trigger deep ethical reflection—and why sometimes, pretending to be "evil" for a day can lead to better choices in the real world.

Behind the Glass Wall "Sometimes, I feel like I'm behind a glass wall." Morgan described this feeling during our conversation with Jesse Poe. She spoke about observing the world, people, conversations, systems, all unfolding just beyond an invisible barrier. You're present, yet not truly part of it. That image resonated deeply with me. It brought to mind the times I've felt out of sync with the world around me. When societal structures and expectations don't align with my way of thinking or being. It's not about unwillingness; it's about a fundamental disconnect that leads to exhaustion and frustration. In our discussion, Jesse, Morgan and I delved into neurodivergence—ADHD, dyslexia, sensitivity, creativity, and the myriad ways our brains can function differently. But beyond the labels, it's about the pervasive sense of isolation that can accompany feeling out of place. The internal question arises: "Is it just me?" Then, a moment of connection occurs. You meet someone, hear a story, or listen to a podcast, and suddenly, there's recognition. Someone else understands. The glass wall doesn't shatter, but it cracks, becoming less opaque. These moments remind us we're not alone. This experience isn't exclusive to those with specific diagnoses. Many of us wear masks, play roles, and strive to appear "normal," often at the expense of our well-being. The act of pretending can be draining, leading to anxiety and disconnection. What if we stopped pretending? What if, instead of conforming, we sought out those who resonate with our authentic selves? In the podcast, Jesse emphasized the importance of community and understanding. He spoke about creating spaces where individuals can express themselves without fear of judgment. It's about fostering environments where differences are acknowledged and valued. This isn't solely about neurodivergence; it's about humanity. We all have facets of ourselves that don't fit neatly into societal molds. Embracing these aspects can lead to richer, more meaningful connections. So, let's strive to create spaces where authenticity is celebrated. Where the glass walls become windows, allowing us to see and be seen.

The Hidden Life of a Facilitator By Arne van Oosterom Facilitation often looks easy from the outside. A room full of people, energy, sticky notes, good vibes, some structure, and someone calmly guiding the process. But what most people don't see is the part that happens afterwards. When the room is empty again. When you're back in the car. Or alone in a hotel room. We recently had Alwin Put on the podcast, a great facilitator and writer. One of the first things he said stuck with me. He described how much he loves working with groups—and then immediately admitted how exhausted he feels after a session. Like, completely drained. I know exactly what he means. It's something we rarely talk about, but I think many facilitators feel it. That strange combination of being completely present all day, and then just… done. Not tired like you've had a long day at the office. But tired in a way that goes deeper. It's emotional. It's physical. Sometimes even spiritual. And it's not because we don't like people. We love people. It's literally our job. We spend the whole day holding space, guiding energy, helping people connect, think, decide, and move. That takes something out of you. For me, it sometimes gets a bit absurd. I'll be with groups of people all day, talking, laughing, facilitating like it's nothing. But then I get home, and the doorbell rings. My wife will look at me and say, "You've been with people all day, and now you don't want to answer the door?" And she's right. I don't. I'll freeze. I'll whisper, "Who is it?" and hope they go away. Not because I don't like them. But because I just can't be "on" anymore. It's a strange paradox. Many facilitators are introverts. We're tuned into group dynamics. We read the room. We sense when someone's holding back. That sensitivity is our strength—but it's also what makes it so exhausting. It's the hidden part of the work. Alwin called it the facilitator's hangover. It made us laugh, but it's real. And it's something we should talk about more. Because if we don't, people will think something's wrong with them when they feel this way. It's not. It's part of the job. And yes, there's joy in it too. When it works—when the group clicks, when something shifts, when someone finds the words they didn't know they had—it's beautiful. It's what keeps us doing it. But here's the thing: the work doesn't end when the session ends. The silent part—the recovery, the walk, the quiet meal, the time alone—is part of the work too. So if you're a facilitator reading this and you've ever avoided the doorbell, or skipped dinner, or just needed a day to stare at the wall… you're not alone. It's not a weakness. It's part of the craft. Let's just be honest about that.