What's On Your Mind?: Recent Episodes
Nikki Everton
Join strategy expert Alicia McKay and leadership guru Digby Scott for real-world conversations about the changing demands on leaders and society - through COVID-19 and beyond.
When something happens, it's all about how you make sense of it that determines how you feel and how you choose to respond.
Is there a hot water cylinder about to blow in your life or work? We talk about the inevitability of disaster in our lives.
Are you a rhino or a butterfly? And if you want to be a bit more of either, how do you do that?
What are the steps to handling a breakdown, once we've decided to sit in the mush? How do we start to see the light?
The core is that set of people who stay because they believe in the work of the organisation. They get the work done. They live the values. They are what make it all happen, day-in, day-out.
Alicia and Digby have different ideas on the distinction between listening and hearing.
Do you notice how metaphors might be limiting you or those around you? Might you be stuck in the waiting room?
Digby helps Alicia get clear on meaning and the link to joy. What's it about, and how do you get more of it?
Are you trying to put more into your container than it can hold? Alicia and Digby have different reactions when their respective containers overflow.
Alicia and Digby discuss the differences between transactional relationships and partnerships.
What strategies do you need to adopt to get to the end of the year with fuel left in the tank?
Are you clear on the impact you want to have on others, or are you internally focussed on your inputs?
Alicia and Digby discuss the power of metaphor, and how our language shapes our experience of the world.
Alicia & Digby talk about the metaphor of "ping pong", and how to cultivate discomfort whilst finding joy in the struggle.
Alicia and Digby explore the concept of time, and realise that it is a made up concept. The good news? That we can change the way we relate to it.
What are your values, and how can you find ways to live them, in your work and life? What experiments could you run?
Things get a little feisty as Digby and Alicia explore different ideas about how ownership works in professional relationships.
What's the difference between talking about something and actually being able to DO something?
It's not always easy to answer the question "What do you want?". What DO you want? What do YOU want??
It's not your fault, but you'll have to fix it. Alicia and Digby have a problem with resilience training.
Alicia and Digby discuss stress. The good kind, that gets you motivated and into action... and the bad kind.
If we spend all of our time problem solving, we're robbing ourselves of time for possibility generation.
Alicia has a problem with heroes, and the system that puts them on pedestals. Heroes beat the odds, but changing the system can change the odds.
What conditions do you need to create for people to feel safe in productive disagreement?
When you're having new ideas or creating plans, should you be thinking big picture from the get-go, or starting small? And what does broccoli have to do with this?
If you catch yourself thinking or saying things like “why people don’t realise..” or “I wish people would understand”, perhaps you’re the one in the wrong.
The return of COVID makes Digby wonder whether New Zealand’s relatively easy ride has stifled opportunity for growth and change. Alicia has other ideas.
Alicia and Digby discuss the idea of transitioning to become a better version of yourself.
If you’re experiencing the same problem repeatedly, it’s probably you. Digby and Alicia discuss tiredness, responsibility and patterns of behaviour.
How do you bounce back better than before when things get hard? Digby and Alicia discuss the idea of being anti-fragile.
Sometimes the things we’re great at can hold us back. Alicia and Digby discuss curly identity transitions, and how to break through ceilings.
What's your job?
How clear are you on what your job is? Are you being honest with yourself on how you’re spending your time, and how you’re adding value?
We talk about sudden illumination, building a practice instead of a product, and the unexpected brilliance that can come from developing your thinking, skills and strategies instead of plans, scripts and agendas.
Language is a leadership lever and powerful influence tool. What language are you using around your big ideas?
It's hard to incentivise long term planning when our performance assessments and goals are short-term.
Leverage is about doing more with less. How can you add the most value and the most impact?
Business-as-usual can feel like a barrier to our desired future. Sometimes we need to let go of things that still feel good.
With her arm in a sling, Alicia and Digby discuss the invisible list. When you’re not operating at full capacity, the size of the invisible list becomes clearer.
Taking productive time away from work can be hugely beneficial. But culturally it carries risk and the potential for shame.
Middle managers can be perceived as blockers. The energy and capacity for change is currently high, but the window is closing.
The transition out of lockdown can lead to feelings of overwhelm. When you’re feeling caught in the whitewash should you fight it or roll with the waves.
Authenticity is a critical component of meaningful connection. Sometimes this requires us to bring our less favourable qualities to the fore.
Transformation often requires discomfort. Alicia and Digby explore the differences between positive and negative discomfort.
Alicia and Digby discuss what it means to lead a community of learners and model learning along the way.
As the world celebrates New Zealand’s pandemic response, Digby and Alicia ponder what defines the New Zealand way.
We need to keep some of our new behaviours as life goes back to normal – but how? Alicia and Digby consider how to make change easy to keep.
As pressure on our time and bandwidth rises, Alicia and Digby consider how we can make decisions in advance.
Digby and Alicia consider what new ways of working should look like and the importance of the basics.
After weeks of online meetings, Alicia and Digby talk about the danger of creating new defaults to replace the old.
Tired and battling with mindset and mood, Digby and Alicia talk about how to build your ambiguity muscle.
Alicia and Digby consider the increased significance of physical presence and how to value time differently.
Alicia and Digby reflect on how uncomfortable growing through change can be – and why we need to keep going.
As we’re overwhelmed by content, Digby and Alicia talk about the importance of connection.
In the last in-person chat before pandemic lockdown, Alicia and Digby talk about responding with love in an emotional time.
Digby and Alicia reflect on the finding the balance between intention and relaxation to manage stress.
A spontaneous chat as Alicia and Digby get together to make sense of a new world that’s changing fast.