Edgy Ideas: Recent Episodes

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Show Notes
In this episode of Edgy Ideas, Simon Western is joined by Maria Guerrero - social entrepreneur and leadership educator - to explore leadership, power and human development.
Starting from Maria's work in education, faith-based institutions and social transformation, the conversation asks what kind of leadership is needed when expertise and authority are no longer enough. Drawing on Adaptive Leadership, Maria asserts that many of today's challenges require collective learning, shared responsibility and the willingness to engage with uncertainty rather than seeking quick answers.
Simon and Maria examine how power operates in organisations, churches, universities and society, often shaping whose voices are heard and whose knowledge is valued. They discuss the importance of recognising lived experience alongside expertise and explore how leadership can emerge from unexpected places.
The conversation also moves into the embodied and spiritual dimensions of leadership. Through stories of facilitation, peacebuilding and contemplative practice, they reflect on silence, discernment, movement, fragility and interdependence. In a time marked by polarisation and rapid change, Maria offers a vision of leadership rooted in connection, purpose and our shared humanity.

Key Reflections

• Leadership is less about position or authority and more about the capacity to help individuals and communities navigate meaningful change.
• Many of today's challenges are adaptive rather than technical, requiring participation, experimentation, and collective learning rather than expert solutions.
• Power is often embedded in organisational cultures and social norms, influencing whose voices are heard and whose perspectives are overlooked.
• Real transformation requires the ability to stay with uncertainty, discomfort, and not-knowing instead of rushing towards certainty and control.
• Embodied practices such as movement, silence, and deep listening can reveal forms of wisdom that are inaccessible through rational analysis alone.
• Human fragility and interdependence are not weaknesses to overcome but realities that can deepen connection, compassion, and collaboration.
• Engaging constructively with difference is essential for leadership, peacebuilding, and creating communities capable of addressing complex challenges.
• Spirituality, understood as connection to self, others, nature, and something beyond ourselves, remains a vital but often neglected dimension of leadership development.

Keywords
Leadership Development, Adaptive Leadership, Power & Authority, Human Development, Embodiment, Interdependence, Spirituality, Social Change.

Brief Bio
María Guerrero is a social entrepreneur, leadership educator, and facilitator working at the intersection of social change, collective learning, and human development. Trained as a lawyer and economist, she began her career in corporate law before leaving the profession to found Acción por la Música, a pioneering organization in Spain that uses collective music-making as a platform for inclusion, community building, and social transformation.
Over the past decade, María has combined her practical experience leading social innovation initiatives with a deep exploration of how people, organizations, and societies navigate complexity. Her work draws on Adaptive Leadership, collective sensemaking, adult development, conflict transformation, and traditions of spiritual discernment. She has designed and accompanied large-scale participatory processes in educational, social, and faith-based institutions, helping communities engage difficult questions, navigate polarization, and develop the capacity to learn their way forward together.
María teaches leadership at Comillas University and works internationally as a speaker, facilitator, and advisor. She is part of global leadership networks connected to Harvard Kennedy School and Acumen, and is currently pursuing doctoral research on leadership development and organizational transformation in complex systems.
At the heart of her work is a simple conviction: many of the challenges that matter most cannot be solved by expertise alone. They require people to learn, adapt, and discover new possibilities together.

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Show Notes
In this episode, Simon Western is joined by his long-time colleague, Leslie Brissett, to explore the history, purpose and enduring relevance of Group Relations Conferences. They trace the roots of this pioneering methodology from the early Leicester Conferences and the Tavistock Institute tradition to its contemporary applications in leadership, organisations and society. They discuss how Group Relations creates a temporary learning organisation where participants study authority, leadership, membership, and the unconscious in real time. They reflect on why these conferences can be deeply moving, often revealing hidden assumptions, internal constraints and patterns carried from our earliest relationships.
Simon and Leslie also discuss the changing nature of leadership, the growing prominence of identity and systems thinking and the need to reconnect questions of soul, embodiment and spirituality with organisational life. Along the way, Simon shares how a Group Relations Conference helped him discover a different path to leadership - one that emerged not from hierarchy, but from working at the edge.
This is a conversation about learning, freedom, authority and what it means to become more conscious participants in the systems we inhabit.

Key Reflections

• Every Group Relations Conference is a unique, temporary learning organisation that can never be repeated in exactly the same way.
• Authority is not simply something exercised by leaders; it is shaped by how each of us relates to systems, roles, and early life experiences.
• Experiential learning can reveal aspects of ourselves that remain hidden in traditional education, coaching, therapy, or leadership development.
• Freedom often exposes the internal constraints and assumptions that unconsciously shape our behaviour.
• The origins of Group Relations are rooted in post-war efforts to understand authority, democracy, and the conditions that give rise to authoritarianism.
• Leadership does not only emerge from formal positions of power; it can arise from the edge of a system through connection and influence.
• Identity has become a more visible and important aspect of organizational life, inviting deeper reflection on both self and system.
• The future of Group Relations may lie in integrating embodiment, spirituality, and ecological ways of thinking with its psychoanalytic foundations.

Keywords
Group Relations, Leadership, Authority, Tavistock, Systems Thinking, Identity, Organisational Learning, Soul, Work

Brief BioLeslie has worked in organisational and community leadership for over 30 years. He is on the advisory board of the Eco-leadership Institute. He is the former Group Relations Programme Director at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, and is currently serving as the Board Secretary for the International Psychoanalytical Association. Leslie has studied human dynamics in experiential settings in many countries and acts as an adviser and consultant to boards, nations, groups and individuals seeking to improve the quality of life and deepen what it means to be human and humane. Leslie holds multiple degrees including master's degrees in Health Education from Kings College and Organisational Psychology, Social Policy and Non-Profit Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as a PhD in Unconscious Decision Making from Trinity College.

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Show Notes
In this episode, Simon Western speaks with seasoned psychoanalyst and organisational consultant Dr. Anton Obholzer about the hidden emotional and relational dynamics shaping leadership, organisations and society. Anton is a hugely respected organisational consultant from the Tavistock tradition, and it is a delight to hear his wisdom and insights on this podcast.
Moving beyond technical models of management and mental health, the conversation explores organisations as living systems embedded within wider social and political realities. Anton reflects on the Tavistock tradition, the influence of Eric Miller and the importance of understanding organisations not simply as structures of efficiency, but as emotional containers carrying anxiety, projection, creativity and possibility. Simon and Anton discuss leadership as a protective and generative force, creating the conditions for growth, talent and human flourishing.
The dialogue explores the erosion of relational life in contemporary society, the dangers of organisations becoming spaces for unmanaged social anxiety, and the increasing dominance of technological and managerial rationality over human connection. They examine the importance of experiential learning, vulnerability, observation and creative practice in sustaining healthy organisations and societies.
At the heart of the episode is a deeper question about how we live together in increasingly uncertain times. Rather than retreating into expertise, certainty or control, Anton calls for greater relational awareness, collective responsibility and societal imagination.

Key Reflections

• Organisations are emotional and societal systems, not simply technical machines
• Leadership involves creating protective spaces where people and creativity can flourish
• Psychoanalysis offers ways to understand the hidden dynamics shaping organisational life
• Relational intelligence matters more than purely technical expertise
• Organisations often absorb and enact wider societal anxieties and fractures
• Creativity, art and dialogue are essential to organisational and societal health
• Experiential learning creates deeper awareness than abstract theory alone
• Technological advancement risks intensifying alienation and loss of human contact
• Mental health cannot be separated from political, social and organisational conditions
• Healthy societies require interdependence, vulnerability and collective responsibility

Keywords
Psychoanalysis, Leadership, Organisational Dynamics, Tavistock, Anton Obholzer, Simon Western, Eco-Leadership, Relational Intelligence, Systems Thinking, Emotional Containment, Group Relations, Society, Human Connection, Organisational Culture, Creativity, Vulnerability, Interdependence.

Brief Bio
Dr. Anton Obholzer is a psychiatrist, Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and both a child and adult psychoanalyst, trained at the Tavistock Clinic and the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London. Alongside his clinical work, he trained as an organisational consultant under Eric Miller at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, helping pioneer the application of psychoanalytic thinking to organisations, leadership, and institutional life.
Until 2002, he served as Chief Executive of the Tavistock & Portman Clinics in London and continues as Chairman of the Consulting to Institutions Workshop and Senior Consultant in the Tavistock Consultancy Service. He has designed and directed group relations and management conferences internationally, and lectures widely on organisational change, leadership, and resistance under conditions of stress and turbulence.
A Visiting Professor at the Universities of Vienna, Graz, and Innsbruck, faculty member at INSEAD’s Advanced Management Programme, and teacher across Europe, Dr. Obholzer has spent decades exploring the unconscious dynamics that shape organisations - especially when systems are under pressure.
He is also the co-editor of the influential book The Unconscious at Work, a seminal text that examines how unconscious anxieties and emotional dynamics operate within organisations and institutions. His writings and publications have profoundly shaped the fields of systems psychodynamics, organisational consultancy, and leadership studies.

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Show Notes
In this episode, Simon Western speaks with political theorist and author Professor Brad Evans about the collapse of traditional working-class politics and the growing sense of abandonment across post-industrial communities. Drawing on Brad’s experiences growing up in the South Wales Valleys, the conversation explores how solidarity, class identity and community structures have been eroded by deindustrialisation, neoliberalism and the rise of precarious labour. They reflect on why many working-class communities no longer feel represented by progressive politics and why populist movements are gaining traction.
Simon and Brad discuss the emotional and political consequences of precarity - from Brexit and nationalism to homelessness, resentment and the rise of the “precariat.” Rather than dismissing people drawn toward nationalist or populist politics, they ask what happens when communities lose dignity, voice and recognition. The conversation challenges simplistic binaries of left and right, arguing instead for deeper listening, political humility, and a renewed understanding of interdependence.
The episode also turns toward possibility. Simon introduces ideas from his work on “precarious interdependence,” asking how we might learn to live creatively within uncertainty rather than retreat into fear, certainty, and division. They discuss the role of art, culture, dialogue, and political imagination in creating more humane futures - futures grounded not in nostalgia for the past, but in new forms of solidarity and shared becoming.

Key Reflections

• Working-class communities have not simply lost jobs, but also the social bonds and identities that once gave meaning and solidarity.
• Populist movements gain power when people feel politically abandoned, unseen and culturally dismissed.
• Precarity can produce fear and division, but it can also open possibilities for new forms of creativity, mutuality and transformation.
• Nationalism often emerges in spaces where class consciousness and collective identity have collapsed.
• Real political dialogue begins when we stop demonising opponents and start listening to the conditions shaping their lives.
• Art and culture are not luxuries; they are essential for reimagining society and creating empathetic futures.

Keywords
Precarity, Working Class, Nationalism, Populism, Brexit, South Wales, Political Violence, Class Identity, Labour Party,Identity Politics, Mutuality, Interdependence, Neoliberalism, Community, Deindustrialisation, Arts & Politics, Political Agency, Democracy, Social Change

Brief BioBrad Evans is a Professor of Political Violence & Aesthetics at the University of Bath, United Kingdom. He is the author of 20 books and edited volumes, along with over 150 academic and international media articles. Brad has written extensively on the state of international affairs, while making major theoretical contributions to the understanding of violence. He has previously held positions at the Universities of Bristol and Leeds, and has also taught at Columbia University in New York.
Brad is widely known for bringing critical theory into public conversation through projects with The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and American Book Review. His recent work explores the politics of disappearance, bridging art, academia, and policy through exhibitions, public events, and global collaborations. He is also the founder of the internationally recognised Histories of Violence project, which connects critical research and public dialogue across more than 140 countries.
A frequent speaker at institutions including Harvard, NYU, Columbia, UCLA, and the Guggenheim, Brad’s work moves between philosophy, politics, art, and lived experience. He is also the author of the acclaimed semi-biographical book How Black Was My Valley, reflecting on growing up in poverty in South Wales. His work and commentary have featured across major global media including the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Newsweek.

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In this episode of Edgy Ideas, Simon Western speaks with Gareth Owen OBE, former Humanitarian Director of Save the Children UK, about what it means to practice humanitarianism in a world where the global order is shifting rapidly. Drawing on more than three decades working in conflict zones - from Somalia and Angola to leadership roles shaping global humanitarian response - Gareth reflects on how humanitarian work has evolved. He describes how the aid sector grew alongside the post-Second World War liberal order, and how today that system is fragmenting under geopolitical tensions, rising authoritarianism and declining global cooperation.
A key theme in the conversation is the growing bureaucratisation of humanitarian institutions. Gareth and Simon explore two key issues. Firstly the widening gap between frontline human suffering and the managerial systems that increasingly govern aid delivery. Secondly the breakdown of the liberal international order and what it means for humanitarian work. The discussion turns to what Gareth calls the potential “loss of the humanitarian soul” - the relational depth, moral courage and human connection that once anchored the sector. Rather than turn to nostalgia for the past, Gareth argues for a renewal grounded in solidarity, human-centred leadership, and new alliances that emerge beyond traditional institutions.
Ultimately, the conversation asks a simple but demanding question: in an uncertain and fractured world, what are we each willing to stand up for?

Key Reflections

• Humanitarianism is not a role or title; it is something learned through deep proximity to suffering.
• The humanitarian sector has become over-bureaucratised, often distancing itself from the people it claims to serve.
• The liberal rules-based order is breaking down, and with it the structures that once gave humanitarianism legitimacy and support.
• Aid institutions are caught between external political collapse and internal managerial systems that drain imagination and moral energy.
• The loss of reflective space inside organisations weakens their ethical compass and disconnects them from purpose.
• Humanitarian soul is rooted in relational depth, truth-telling, solidarity, and the willingness to remain open to pain.
• Real hope does not come from nostalgia for the old order, but from building new alliances, mutuality, and political courage.
• Change begins with self, but must move outward into communities, ecosystems, and collective action.

Keywords
Humanitarianism, liberal order, solidarity, aid sector, bureaucracy, managerialism, soul at work, ecosystems, leadership, mutuality, geopolitics, reflection, trauma, global crisis, moral courage
Brief Bio
Gareth Owen is the former Humanitarian Director of Save the Children UK (2007-2024). One of the sector’s most accomplished, influential and creative humanitarian practitioners; a passionate and inspirational leader of global renown; strategic thinker and critical reflector; outstanding communicator, systemic collaborator, team builder, talent developer, fundraiser and champion of change; chief architect of some of the humanitarian system’s most innovative and forward-looking collective initiatives. Over two decades, he crafted and led the growth of Save the Children UK’s humanitarian work and had a defining influence on the global Save the Children movement’s humanitarian renaissance. He built to worldwide pre-eminence a Humanitarian Department of 300 professionals then latterly initiated its consolidation and downsizing to catalyse shifting of power. In parallel, he co-founded and incubated the Humanitarian Leadership Academy, Elrha, the START Network, the Collaborative Cash Delivery Network and The Alameda Institute. A leading contemporary figure in the humanitarian sector, Gareth now offers his wealth of experience as a consultant, coach, author and lecturer.

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What happens when anthropology turns its gaze on psychology and coaching?
In this episode, Simon Western is joined by social anthropologist Dr Mikkel Kenni Bruun and social scientist Dr Rebecca Hutten to explore what sits beneath contemporary mental health, therapy, and coaching practices. Together, they discuss culture, power, and the often-invisible assumptions shaping therapeutic work.
Rather than treating psychology as universal or value-neutral, Mikkel and Rebecca show how it is culturally produced, shaped by specific histories, institutions, and ways of making meaning. From this perspective, therapy and coaching are never neutral; they are embedded in social, political, and moral worlds.
Ethnography is central to this conversation, not just as a research method, but as a way of listening and staying with complexity. Instead of forcing distress, healing, and care into predefined psychological categories, ethnography attends to how these experiences are actually lived across contexts.
The discussion also challenges dominant Western ideas of the self. While psychology and coaching often centre the autonomous individual, anthropological perspectives highlight relational and socially embedded selves. This raises urgent questions about what happens when Western therapeutic models travel globally - and what they may erase or misunderstand.
Cultural competence comes under scrutiny too. Often presented as a solution, it can risk flattening culture into tidy checklists rather than engaging with lived complexity and power. As psychological language increasingly shapes public policy, workplaces, and everyday life, anthropology helps reveal the cultural and political work happening beneath the surface.

Key Takeaways

• Psychological and coaching practices are culturally produced, not universal
• Therapeutic cultures vary across histories, institutions, and contexts
• Ethnography reveals how mental health is actually lived
• The individual self is not a universal model
• Cultural competence can oversimplify difference
• Psychological practice is fundamentally relational
• Mental health discourse shapes ideas of the “good life”
• Anthropology makes the familiar strange - and visible again

Keywords
Anthropology, psychology, coaching, mental health, therapeutic culture, ethnography, cultural competence, relationality, self, good life

Brief Bios
Dr Mikkel Kenni Bruun is a social anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, Research Associate at the Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute, and Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. His ethnographic research includes NHS Talking Therapies (IAPT) services and community mental health initiatives in the UK. He is co-editor of Towards an Anthropology of Psychology (2025) and Rhythm and Vigilance (2025).

Dr Rebecca Hutten is an independent researcher, social scientist, and Associate Lecturer at The Open University. Trained as an anthropologist, she has worked in government policy research and Public Health at the University of Sheffield, and brings extensive fieldwork and clinical experience within NHS psychological services. She is co-editor of Towards an Anthropology of Psychology (2025).

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Show NotesIn this episode Simon and Dr. Jack Black, Associate Professor at Sheffield Hallam University, think dangerously about AI through the unsettling lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis. This is a conversation about desire, discourse, power and the fantasies we project onto machines.
Drawing on Lacan, Jack reframes AI not as a neutral tool or intelligent object, but as a relational phenomenon - one that speaks into us, structures us, and increasingly stands in for authority itself. Together, Simon and Jack interrogate how AI comes to occupy the place of the Big Other: the supposed holder of knowledge, truth, and certainty in a fragmented world.
They explore Lacan’s four discourses, particularly the discourse of the hysteric, as a way of resisting AI’s creeping authority and the ideological narratives that present it as omniscient, objective, or inevitable. AI, they argue, does not know in any human sense - it recombines, repeats, and reflects back our own symbolic order, including its exclusions, biases and violences.
The conversation moves into education, where AI is rapidly being positioned as a new master signifier. What happens when learning is outsourced to algorithmic systems? What kinds of subjects are being produced? And whose knowledge is being legitimised - or erased - in the process?
Throughout the episode, AI is revealed as a site where cultural anxiety, political power, and unconscious desire collide. Rather than rejecting technology, Simon and Jack argue for a more critical, psycho-social engagement - one that keeps the human, the relational, and the ethical firmly in view.
This is a conversation about AI, but it is also about us: our longing for certainty, our fear of lack, and our temptation to hand over authority to machines. Lacan, unexpectedly, offers not despair but hope - a way to stay with complexity and resist the fantasy that technology can save us from being human.

Key Takeaways

• Lacanian psychoanalysis offers a radical way to rethink AI beyond hype and fear.
• AI is relational - it emerges within human discourse, not outside it.
• The discourse of the hysteric provides a critical stance toward AI as authority.
• AI does not “know”; it mirrors and amplifies existing symbolic systems.
• Education must resist uncritical adoption of AI as a master solution.
• Algorithmic systems reproduce social bias, including racism and exclusion.
• Technology increasingly objectifies the Big Other.
• AI exposes deep tensions around desire, knowledge, and power.
• Ideology sits quietly behind the push to normalise AI everywhere.
• Lacan helps us stay critical, hopeful, and human in a technological age.

Keywords
AI, Lacan, psychoanalysis, discourse, education, culture, technology, relationality, society, human experience

Brief Bio
Dr. Jack Black is Associate Professor of Culture, Media, and Sport at Sheffield Hallam University. An interdisciplinary researcher, working across the disciplines of psychoanalysis, media and communications, cultural studies, and sport, his research focuses on topics related to race/racism, digital media, and political ecology. He is the author of The Psychosis of Race: A Lacanian Approach to Racism and Racialization (Routledge, 2023) and co-editor of Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires, Fantasies, and Fears (Lexington Books, 2024). He is also Senior Editor for the Journal, Sport and Psychoanalysis (Cogent Social Sciences).

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In this episode of Edgy Ideas, Simon talks with Stewart Desson, founder of Lumina Learning, whose work has reshaped the field of psychometrics by bringing a deeply humanistic, culturally sensitive, and relational approach to understanding personality at work.
Stewart reflects on the evolution of psychometrics, from traditional trait-based systems to more nuanced, emergent models that honour human complexity rather than reduce it. Simon and Stewart explore how leadership, workplace culture, and collective performance are shaped by the ways we measure and make meaning from human behaviour. Drawing on large-scale data sets, Stewart shares insights into gendered leadership patterns, highlighting how women frequently bring more collaborative strengths to the fore and questions how organizations reward or neglect such capacities.
The conversation ranges widely: from the cultural biases embedded in psychological tools, to the rise of AI and its disruptive impact on assessment practices, to the philosophical question at the heart of both leadership and psychometrics: How do we live a good life and build a good society?
Stewart invites us to reconsider how organisations balance the drive for individual performance with the need for collective thriving, urging leaders to cultivate workplaces grounded in collaboration, kindness, and continuous self-development.

Key Reflections

• Psychometrics is expanding as a discipline that bridges science and humanism, offering deeper insights into human behaviour.
• Many organisations continue to reward individualistic traits over relational or collective strengths.
• Psychometry should empower individual uniqueness and avoid the reductive labelling common in traditional models.
• Cultural sensitivity is essential when designing and applying psychometric assessments.
• AI is rapidly transforming the psychometry, raising both opportunities and concerns about quality and validity.
• Leadership models must be adaptable to diverse cultural contexts and organisational needs
• A good society is built on collaboration, shared purpose, and relational leadership.

Keywords
psychometrics, leadership, AI, workplace culture, individual performance, collective performance, cultural sensitivity, organisational psychology, human behaviour, collaboration

Brief Bio
Dr Stewart Desson, Board Member of the Association for Business Psychology and Founder & CEO of Lumina Learning, is a leading voice on how people’s behaviour drives organisational performance. Drawing on decades of experience and a PhD in Organisational Psychology, he revolutionised workplace psychometrics by empowering individuality through the Lumina Spark model. Over the past 15 years, he has built a global community dedicated to moving beyond traditional assessments toward a more nuanced, human-centred approach that helps organisations create adaptable, resilient, high-performing teams.

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Show NotesIn this episode Simon speaks with Tatiana Bachkirova, a leading scholar in coaching psychology. They explore how AI is impacting on the field of coaching and what it means to remain human in a world increasingly driven by algorithms. The discussion moves fluidly between neuroscience, pseudo-science, identity, belonging, and ethics, reflecting on the tensions between performance culture and authentic human development.
They discuss how coaching must expand beyond individual self-optimization toward supporting meaningful, value-based projects and understanding the broader social and organisational contexts in which people live and work.
AI underscores the need for ethical grounding in coaching. Ultimately, the episode reclaims coaching as a moral and relational practice, reminding listeners that the future of coaching depends not on technology, but on how we choose to stay human within it.

Key Reflections* AI is often a solution in search of a problem, revealing more about our anxieties than our needs. * Coaching must evolve with the changing world, engaging complexity rather than retreating to technique. * The focus should be on meaningful, value-driven projects that connect personal purpose with collective good. * AI coaching risks eroding depth, ethics, and relational presence if not grounded in human awareness. * Critical thinking anchors coaching in understanding rather than compliance, enabling ethical discernment. * The relational quality defines coaching effectiveness - authentic dialogue remains its living core. * Coaching should move from performance and self-optimization to reflection, purpose, and contribution. * Human connection and ethical practice sustain trust, belonging, and relevance in the digital age. * The future of coaching lies in integrating technology without losing our humanity.

Keywords
Coaching psychology, AI in coaching, organisational coaching, identity, belonging, neuroscience, critical thinking, human coaching, coaching ethics, coaching research

Brief Bio
Tatiana Bachkirova is Professor of Coaching Psychology in the International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies at Oxford Brookes University, UK. She supervises doctoral students as an academic, and human coaches as a practitioner. She is a leading scholar in Coaching Psychology and in recent years has been exploring themes such as the role of AI in coaching, the deeper purpose of organisational coaching, what leaders seek to learn at work, and critical perspectives on the neuroscience of coaching. In her over 80 research articles in leading journals, book chapters and books and in her many speaking engagements she addresses most challenging issues of coaching as a service to individuals, organisations and wider societies.

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Show Notes
In this special 100th episode of Edgy Ideas, we mark a moment of reflection and celebration. Simon is joined by a panel of thoughtful voices; Chris Yates, Leslie Brissett, Eleanor Moore and Hetty Einzig, to explore a topic close to the heart, the soul at work and what it means to live a good life amidst the turbulence of our times. They reflect on the quiet yet powerful force of soul, not as something otherworldly, but that which connects us more deeply to ourselves, to each other, and to the work we do. The panel discusses: how do we re-enchant the workplace? How do we speak about 'soul' without falling into cliche or sentimentality? And how do we cultivate a spirituality that is lived, relational, and grounded in everyday acts?
Their conversation weaves personal stories with collective insights, inviting you into a space where the sacred and the secular meet.
Enjoy this rich and resonant conversation as we mark a century of episodes, and step forward soulfully into what comes next.

Key Reflections* Edgy Ideas has evolved to meet the moment - seeking pathways to live well in disruptive times. * Soul at work is not a luxury, but a necessity - a call to engage the whole person: mind, body, and essence. * Everyday spirituality matters. It's found not in lofty ideas, but in presence, care, and connection. * Work can uplift or diminish the soul - context and culture matter. * Relational dynamics are the hidden architecture of soulful work. * Activism and soul are not opposites - activism can be a soulful practice. * Grace appears in the ordinary fleeting moments that illuminate meaning. * Sacred spaces can be created anywhere we choose to be present. * Soul embraces the paradox - the light and the dark, joy and struggle, both shaping who we are. * To witness another with kindness is perhaps the most radical act of all.

Keywords
Soul, Spirituality, Connection, Presence, Grace, Wholeness, Meaning, Authenticity, Relationships, Transformation, Soul at Work, Everyday Spirituality

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In this episode of Edgy Ideas, Simon Western is joined by David Rothauser, psychoanalyst, organisational consultant, and executive coach, to explore the practice of analytic listening. They discuss what it means to listen beyond words, to hear silences as much as speech, and to create spaces where deeper human connection becomes possible. Their discussion explores the role of voice and transmission and how psychoanalytic traditions of listening extend into coaching, consulting, and organizational life. Attention is given to how cultural and historical contexts shape psychoanalytic practice, and how listening itself can become a radical act in today’s fast-paced world. The exchange is punctuated with insights and stories from practice. As David notes, “Analytic listening is not just about hearing words; it’s about understanding the unspoken and creating a space for genuine connection.” This episode invites listeners to consider listening not as a passive skill but as an active stance that redefines relationships, organisations, and communities.

Key Reflections* Analytic listening is introduced as a concept with deep significance for today’s world. * Consideration is given to the role and nuances of psychoanalytic listening in coaching, consulting and organizational life. * The challenge of sustaining safe spaces for expression within complex organisational systems is examined. * Receptivity to conscious and unconscious communications in learning psychoanalysis and the similarities to transmission of knowledge in various spiritual traditions is explored.

Keywords
Psychoanalysis, Coaching, Analytic Listening, Human Connection, Receptivity, Safe Spaces

Brief Bio
David Rothauser is a psychoanalyst, organizational consultant, executive coach, educator and supervisor. He maintains a private psychoanalytic practice, leads training groups for coaches and consultants, and engages senior leaders and their teams in reflective practice. David has coached and consulted in a range of industries, including entertainment, PE- and VC-backed tech startups, data analytics, the commercial space industry, cyber security, real estate, healthcare, and education. He trained in coaching supervision at Oxford Brookes University, executive coaching at Columbia University, psychodynamic group leadership at the Center for Group Studies, and psychoanalysis at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies, where he is on faculty. David is based outside of Philadelphia.

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Show Notes
In this episode, Simon is joined by Natalie to open up the existential questions that lie at the heart of coaching: What does it mean to live well? How do we find meaning in a finite life? How do we coach for authenticity, freedom and responsibility?
Far from being bleak, existentialism is revealed here as a liberating practice. Death is not avoided but faced - giving urgency and clarity to our choices, reminding us that life is finite and must be lived meaningfully. This conversation shows how reinvention is possible at any stage of life, and how helping others can deepen our own sense of happiness and fulfillment.
Together, Simon and Natalie highlight the value of micro meanings - the everyday rituals, relationships and joys that ground us in significance. They reflect on the importance of structure in supporting growth, while also recognising the liberation that comes when we accept life’s pointlessness and take responsibility for creating meaning ourselves. To live authentically, we must face uncomfortable truths, resist “bad faith,” and embrace freedom with courage.
Existential coaching, then, is less about problem-solving and more about opening a space where clients can explore their choices, discover what matters, and move towards a life without regrets. It speaks to the universal human pursuit of meaning, and to the possibility of finding spirituality and depth even in the midst of uncertainty.

Key Reflections* Coaching at its best creates space for clients to face the uncomfortable truths of freedom, choice, and responsibility. * Awareness of death can deepen our sense of aliveness and urgency to live meaningfully. * Micro meanings - rituals, relationships, and small daily joys - are vital in shaping a good life. * Bad faith often creeps into coaching conversations, and part of the coach’s role is to gently challenge it. * Balancing structure and freedom is essential, both for personal growth and for effective coaching practice.

Keywords
existential coaching, good life, meaning, spirituality, death, personal growth, coaching psychology, self-discovery, relationships, happiness

Brief Bio
Dr Natalie Lancer CPsychol is a Chartered Coaching Psychologist, experienced supervisor and Former Chair of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Coaching Psychology (DoCP). She coaches a range of people from doctoral students keeping up their motivation and self-belief to get their thesis over the line, to young people applying for their first job, as well as female executives and retired professionals, often using The Eight Tensions framework. She runs professional development and training for coaches and coaching psychologists including Eight Tensions Coach Training (based on existential psychology), Coach Development Club and The School of Supervision. Natalie is a Master’s and PhD supervisor at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling. In 2016, she co-authored ‘Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring’ with David Clutterbuck. She also is a stand-up comic and performed most recently at the BPS DoCP 2025 Conference.

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Show Notes:
Simon Western is joined by Yoko Kunii Aldous - lecturer, coach, hypnotherapist and cultural translator - to explore the deeper roots of this Japanese concept, revealing it to be less a “life purpose formula” and more a way of being-in-the-world.
Yoko reflects on her journey from Japan to the UK and how living between languages and cultures opens up inner landscapes. She shares the real history of Ikigai - not as a productivity hack, but a pre-capitalist way of locating oneself in community and cosmos - and interrogates why the popular Western Venn diagram (“what you love, what you’re good at…”) oversimplifies and erases its cultural nuance. Drawing on Japanese concepts, Yoko frames language as a worldview where nature, spirit, and objects are integral to self-understanding. She speaks of spirituality in everyday life - from cherry blossoms to chopsticks - and explains why Ikigai should be seen as fluid, shifting across life stages and relationships, rather than as a fixed endpoint. The conversation explores the tension between individualism and collective responsibility, asking whether one can truly have Ikigai without caring for the village. From embracing imperfection through wabi-sabi, to recognising sacrifice and service as pathways to fulfilment, the episode challenges Western coaching to move beyond self-improvement toward a more relational, ecological, and culturally entangled way of living.

Key Reflections:* True Ikigai cannot be pinned down or defined - it must be lived * Culture shapes not only what we think, but how we feel our way into meaning * Japanese aesthetics embrace imperfection (wabi-sabi) as essential to beauty and purpose * Spirituality in Japan is woven into the everyday - from teacups to trees * Personal meaning and collective wellbeing are not separate projects * Every item has a spirit

Keywords:
Ikigai, cultural insights, coaching, psychology, Japan, Western perspectives, personal development, spirituality, Venn diagram

Brief Bio:
Yoko Kunii Aldous is an award-winning university lecturer, coach, and language and culture trainer for the Ministry of Defence. She holds an MA in Applied Linguistics and an MSc in Coaching Psychology, and is a certified coach, hypnotherapist, and yoga instructor. Her background in language and communication informs her work in higher education, cross-cultural training, and personal development coaching.
Her latest research explores how the Japanese concept of Ikigai is understood and applied by non-Japanese coaches. Her study critically examines how Ikigai is interpreted and integrated into coaching practices outside Japan, revealing common misconceptions and promoting a more culturally authentic understanding. This work was recognised with the Best Early Career Research Paper award by BPS Division of Coaching Psychology.
By integrating Eastern philosophy with Western psychological theory, Yoko offers a coaching approach that is reflective, holistic, and grounded in cultural nuance. She supports individuals and professionals in aligning their core values with purposeful action, towards meaningful and sustainable change.

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In this episode, Simon Western is joined by Daniel B. Frank and Caro Bainbridge to explore how our connection to place shapes who we are, how we relate to others, and how we make sense of the world. They share stories of growing up in Chicago and Liverpool, revealing how personal and collective histories are held within the places we call home.
The conversation moves between the intimate and the systemic. Dan and Caro reflect on how certain streets evoke safety or sorrow, how schools have taken on roles far beyond education, and how cultural roots are both grounding and restrictive. They examine the emotional weight of returning to one’s childhood city, and the strangeness that can accompany that return.
With digital life pulling people away from physical presence and history, the episode raises timely questions about what it means to belong - and how identity is shaped in an era of mobility, forgetting, and cultural fragmentation.

Key Reflections* A sense of place gives structure to identity and meaning to memory. * Emotional ties to place can be nurturing or suffocating—or both at once. * The same place is experienced differently depending on one’s history, role, and identity. * The legacy of slavery and colonialism shapes how some communities relate to home. Being physically present in a place doesn't always mean belonging to it. * Schools are now expected to hold emotional, moral, and community roles once carried by families. * Digital technology creates new forms of disconnection, despite increased connectivity. * Living well includes being present - to place, to people, and to time.

Keywordssense of place, identity, displacement, cultural connections, history, emotional well-being, modernity, community, education, technology
Brief Bios
Daniel B. Frank, Ph.D. is a graduate of Francis W. Parker School in Chicago where he has been has been its Principal for over 20 years and has been a senior administrator there since 1988. He is the founding Executive Editor of the international education journal Schools: Studies in Education, which is published by the University of Chicago Press,and has served as Executive Director of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations.

Caro Bainbridge works at the intersection of psychoanalysis, culture and organisational life. She is an organisational consultant, leadership development expert and executive coach, known for bringing depth insight to complex systems and supporting individuals and teams as they navigate change, uncertainty and transformation. Her practice is grounded in a long academic career: she is Emeritus Professor of Psychoanalysis & Culture, a former editor of Free Associations and of the film section of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and co-editor of Routledge’s Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture book series. Caro is a Fellow of the RSA and a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. She is widely published in the academic context, and has recently launched The Culture Fix on Substack, where she explores the emotional and symbolic currents shaping contemporary life. Her work is animated by a belief in the generative potential of thresholds and transitions - a perspective shaped, in part, by her daily walks near Antony Gormley’s Another Place, where art, nature and thought meet at the water’s edge.

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In this episode of Edgy Ideas, Simon Western is joined by Fr. David McCallum, a Jesuit priest and Executive Director of the Program for Discerning Leadership. Together, they explore the unique leadership style of Pope Francis and what it means for the future of the Catholic Church - and humanity at large.
The conversation unfolds around the radical shift Pope Francis has led, prioritizing humility, listening, and symbolic action over institutional command. Fr. David shares moving anecdotes from his encounters with the Pope, offering insight into how leadership rooted in deep presence and discernment can inspire systemic change. They reflect on synodality as a leadership practice - a process rooted in dialogue, participation, and inclusion - and the ways it reorients traditional hierarchies toward relational and collective discernment.
They discuss how change often emerges from the margins rather than the center, and how Pope Francis embraced paradox and complexity rather than rushing to resolve it. In a world increasingly polarized, this leadership invites us to see difference as generative and to engage across divides with empathy and courage.
Looking ahead, the conversation calls on leaders across sectors to let go of rigid structures and embrace more inclusive, compassionate and participatory ways of leading. Through stories, reflection, and critical insight, this episode challenges the dominant narratives of leadership and offers a deeply human alternative.

Key Reflections* Leadership is a relational and spiritual practice, not a role tied to status or control. * Navigating polarity and difference is essential in an increasingly divided world. * The Church’s transformation under Pope Francis offers broader insights into how leaders can hold space for complexity. * Leadership rooted in presence, encounter, and discernment can offer healing and direction in times of global uncertainty. * Every meaningful interaction has the potential to be a transformative leadership act.

Keywords
Pope Francis, Jesuit leadership, synodality, listening, symbolic action, humility, Catholic Church, polarity, discernment, relational leadership, spiritual leadership, inclusion, soul at work

Brief Bio
Fr. David McCallum, S.J., Ed.D, is a Jesuit priest from the USA who serves as the founding Executive Director of the Program for Discerning Leadership, a special initiative of the Society of Jesus headquartered in Rome. The Program provides leadership formation and organizational development support for senior Vatican officials and major superiors of religious orders headquartered in Rome and internationally. From 2021-2024, Fr. McCallum has worked with the Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops on the Commission on Methodology, as a member of the international group that developed the synthesis of the National and Regional Bishop’s Conferences reports at Frascati, and as a facilitator expert at the Synods in October 2023 and 2024. Formerly, Fr. McCallum served as faculty member and then the Dean of the Madden School of Business and as the VP of Mission Integration and Development at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. His doctoral research at Teachers College, Columbia University, focused on the implications of developmental diversity in meeting the leadership challenges of conflict, complexity, and ambiguity.

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In this episode, Simon Western speaks with Lebanese scholar and activist Karim Safieddine. Together, they discuss the vibrant and volatile political landscape of Lebanon, exploring how social movements, intellectual traditions, and grassroots activism collide and coalesce in the streets of Beirut. Karim shares his personal story of growing up amidst conflict, complexity, and contradiction, offering a lens into how identity is formed in a fractured society and how hope emerges through resistance.
They explore themes of secularism, anti-establishment politics, and the evolving role of intellectuals in social change. The conversation touches deeply on what it means to live a good life and how ordinary people - through organising, dissent, and imagination - shape the possibility of a good civile society.
Key Reflections
· Elites often suppress transformative movements; activism persists through localised, organic mobilisation.
· Intellectuals must step beyond theory and engage meaningfully with activist work.
· A good life is not about material excess but about meaningful relationships, creativity, and communal survival.
· Resistance is necessary for vitality; dissent keeps societies alive and evolving.
· Bridging academia and activism is essential for sustainable change.
· Empowering local voices and grassroots movements is crucial to Lebanon’s future.

Keywords
social movements, political sociology, secularism, identity, intellectuals, activism, anti-establishment, cosmopolitanism
Brief Bio
Karim Safieddine is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh whose work explores the intersection of social movements, intellectual history, and political power in Lebanon. With a particular focus on the Lebanese Left, Karim investigates how oppositional movements both contest and reproduce dominant ideological frameworks and structures of authority from the late 20th century to the present.
Rooted in a Gramscian tradition yet open to diverse theoretical tools, his research engages with questions of leadership, resistance, and hegemony. His work bridges political sociology and historical analysis, offering critical insights into how movements emerge, evolve, and navigate Lebanon's sectarian and neoliberal political terrain.
Karim holds an MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics (2020) and a BA in Economics from the American University of Beirut (2019). His academic interests include political and historical sociology, social movements, and the role of intellectuals in shaping public discourse.

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In this compelling and deeply human episode, Simon speaks with Daria (Dasha) Kuznetsova, a Ukrainian humanitarian professional working amidst the war in Ukraine.
Daria brings a grounded yet emotionally resonant perspective on what it means to live in a war zone - not just physically, but psychologically and spiritually. She discusses how individuals and communities survive amidst collapse, and what it takes to begin imagining a future beyond trauma.
Simon and Daria discuss themes of self-awareness, trauma recovery, and the embodied experience of conflict. Daria shares how the first years of war were marked by survival, scarcity of time, and emotional suppression, and how she has come to understand the necessity of listening to the body, building emotional resilience, and holding space for others.
The conversation moves from personal coping mechanisms to wider systemic reflections - offering a rare insight into how community support and relational containment become lifelines in the face of collective breakdown. This episode invites us to consider how diversity, freedom, and emotional truth-telling are vital elements in rebuilding not just Ukraine, but any society fractured by violence or division.
This episode will speak to leaders, coaches, and listeners who are drawn to the depths of human experience, particularly when systems are under strain. It also speaks to the power of Eco-Leadership, where relationality, resilience, and emotional intelligence create the conditions for regenerative futures.

Key Reflections* War reshapes both the physical environment and the emotional lives of those affected. * Developing self-awareness is essential for navigating the psychological strain of conflict. * Small, everyday actions can provide stability and a sense of control in times of crisis. * The body often holds trauma that the mind cannot yet process or articulate. * Strong community connections are vital for emotional and practical survival during war. * Rebuilding society requires a foundation of safety, freedom of expression, and inclusion. * Honest conversations about pain and recovery are the first steps toward collective healing.

Keywords
humanitarian aid, war experiences, emotional resilience, community support, trauma recovery, self-awareness, coping mechanisms, rebuilding society, relational depth, Eco-Leadership

Brief Bio
Daria Kuznetsova is a humanitarian and recovery professional with over a decade of experience leading multisectoral and multipartner portfolios in Ukraine. Her work spans international humanitarian principles, large-scale project management, and strategic partnership development, guided by results-driven leadership approaches.
Following the full-scale invasion, Daria played a key role in scaling up humanitarian efforts, managing projects funded by the EU, FCDO, USAID, SDC, BMZ, and other major donors. She currently expands her expertise into the areas of Partnership and Localization, overseeing a portfolio of more than 100 partnerships.
Her current focus is on strategic development, mentoring, and fostering impactful, sustainable change within organizations and communities.

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In this conversation, Chris Yates and Simon Western discuss how organizations have become modern temples of power, shaping societal norms in positive and challenging ways. Organizations offer spaces to be productive, to deliver services and to provide meaning and development for individuals, yet they also can stifle individuality and feedback through corporate conformity. The podcast reflects on how art, small acts of kindness and ecosystems thinking are the leadership approaches that can transform organisations and liberate employees to engage relationally and realise their full potential.
Chris questions traditional leadership models, highlighting the need to prioritize character over competence and move beyond the military-influenced structures that dominate corporate life. Leadership, they argue, is not about static positions but fluid relationships—emerging in unexpected places and shaped by small moments of humanity rather than grand, ego-driven achievements. The conversation also highlights the burden of projections on leaders, who risk becoming seduced by the images others place upon them.
Looking ahead, Simon and Chris consider the future of leadership in a world that increasingly demands authenticity and interconnectedness. They call for a shift to eco-centric leadership, one that embraces moral responsibility, acknowledges the social role of organizations, and also seeks inspiration from art to reimagine work and leadership. Chris closes by reminding us that the smallest acts of kindness and courage in the face of adversity can reshape leadership, organizations, and society itself.

Key Reflections* Organizations hold immense power as modern temples, shaping societal norms and driving change. * Corporate cultures often enforce conformity, stifling individuality, feedback, and personal identity. * Leadership discussions focus too much on competence and too little on the moral character of leaders. * Leadership is not a fixed title but a fluid, relational process that can emerge from unexpected places. * Leaders must resist being seduced by the projections and expectations placed upon them. * The future of leadership requires shifting from ego-driven ambition to collective, eco-centric responsibility. * True leadership is found not in grand gestures but in small, everyday acts of humanity. * Creativity and art offers a powerful lens to rethink work, leadership, and our role in the world.

Keywords
corporate culture, society, leadership, power dynamics, identity, character, reimagination, eco-leadership

Brief Bio
Christopher Yates, Senior Vice President of Talent at Equinix, is a leader committed to professional and personal growth within organizations. He oversees Equinix’s global talent strategy, focusing on attracting, developing, and retaining diverse talent while aligning leadership initiatives with the company’s growth and innovation objectives. Previously Chris held senior OD positions in Microsoft, Ford, American Express, Caterpillar and HSBC bank, playing a vital role in shaping business transformation. Chris is co-author with Pooja Sachdev of Rewire: A Radical Approach to Tackling Diversity and Difference and has also co-authored Share: How Organizations Can Thrive in an Age of Networked Knowledge, Power and Relationships. Chris brings a huge breadth of experience to organisational thinking, and is admired for his empathy, dynamism and original and imaginative leadership.

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In this episode Bernice Hewson and Simon Western challenge the conventional coaching paradigm, exposing its tendency to operate in a decontextualized bubble—detached from the social, political, and historical forces shaping our identities. Bernice brings personal insights from her own journey toward racial consciousness, unpacking the ways coaching often fails to engage with racial trauma, frequently misdiagnosing it as imposter syndrome.
Together, they explore the complexities of addressing racial identities in work and coaching, where labels and names carry power—how they define, constrain, and sometimes liberate.
This isn’t about surface-level diversity work; it’s about questioning the structures within which coaching exists. They explore the profound discomfort required to build true racial literacy, the impact of institutional whiteness in coaching spaces, and the need for collaboration to ignite meaningful change. Coaching, Bernice argues, must move beyond individual self-improvement and cultivate a critical awareness—one that challenges dominant narratives and creates space for authentic shifts in practice.
The episode closes with a call to action: to embrace the edges, hold space for the difficult conversations, and commit to coaching as a radical, relational, and socially conscious practice.

Key Reflections* Racial identity is more than just personal identity; it's a power dynamic. * Understanding one's racial identity is crucial for effective coaching. * Coaching often operates in a decontextualized bubble. * Racial trauma is often misdiagnosed as imposter syndrome. * Coaching can be part of the solution to systemic issues. * Emotional resilience is key to holding difficult conversations. * Institutional whiteness affects coaching practices. * Using personal experiences as data can inform coaching. * Language around DEI is evolving and requires confidence. * Change in coaching requires collaboration and critical consciousness.

Keywords
racial consciousness, identity, coaching, decolonization, belonging, racial equity, personal journey

Brief Bio
Bernice Hewson, founder of Raising Racial Consciousness, is dedicated to challenging conventional thinking to build a racially equitable society. An accredited coach (European Mentoring and Coaching Council) and emotional intelligence practitioner, she holds a Psychosocial MA in ‘Race,’ Empire, and Post-coloniality.
With over 15 years in corporate leadership, Bernice understands the complexities leaders face in driving meaningful diversity and inclusion strategies. She emphasizes that lasting change begins with individuals and that racially conscious leadership is essential for progress.
Bernice equips leaders and coaches with the knowledge, language, and confidence to engage in critical diversity conversations. Through safe spaces for learning and reflection, she empowers professionals to develop race-consciousness as a core competency, fostering inclusion and equity in workplaces and beyond.

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Show NotesProf. Manfred Kets de Vries, is a global thought leader, who is best known for applying psychoanalytic thinking to the challenges of leaders and organisations. He discusses his journey from psychoanalysis to leadership development, the societal forces that shape leaders, and the critical role of emotional awareness in navigating today’s volatile landscapes.
Kets de Vries exposes the hidden psychological currents that drive leadership—how unconscious patterns, unresolved trauma, and deep-seated insecurities manifest in boardrooms and political arenas alike. He explores the destructive nature of narcissistic leadership, the rising stress and impatience among CEOs, and the ways in which cultural expectations mold our leaders for better or worse. Manfred and Simon discuss toxic leadership today, and then focus on what can be done. Manfred shares his experience that ultimately leadership is about relationships—about the capacity for self-awareness, reflection, and genuine connection.
In a world where political fault lines deepen, Manfred challenges us not just to analyze leadership from a distance but to engage with it personally—to recognize our own role in shaping the leadership cultures around us. Because leadership isn’t just about those at the top; it’s about how we choose to show up in our own lives, our communities, and our organizations.

Key Reflections* Toxic leadership can have devastating effects on organizations and society. * Psychoanalysis provides valuable insights into leadership dynamics. * Leaders are shaped by societal expectations and cultural contexts. * Narcissism in leadership can lead to destructive outcomes. * The current political climate reflects deeper societal issues. * Stress and impatience are prevalent among CEOs today. * Leadership is relational * Creating a good life involves cultivating and appreciating happy moments. * Everyone has the potential to make a difference in society.

Keywords
leadership, toxic leadership, narcissism, psychoanalysis, organizational change, political leadership, societal impact, emotional intelligence, executive coaching, personal development
Brief Bio
Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries is the Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organisational Change and the Raoul de Vitry d'Avaucourt Chaired Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus, at INSEAD. He integrates economics, management, and psychoanalysis to explore leadership, executive stress, career dynamics, entrepreneurship, and corporate transformation. He founded the INSEAD Global Leadership Centre and directs The Challenge of Leadership Executive Education program.
He has held professorships at McGill University, HEC Montréal, and Harvard Business School. A prolific scholar, he has authored 49 books and over 400 academic papers, with works translated into 31 languages. His latest book, Narcissistic Leadership, delves into the complex interplay between narcissism and leadership, offering profound insights into its impact on organizations and society. Among many other awards, he received the INSEAD Distinguished Teacher Award five times and was recognized as one of the world’s top 50 management thinkers by Financial Times, Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Economist.
As a consultant, he has advised leading organizations across the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, and Asia on organizational transformation and strategic human resource management. Honored as an Officer in the Order of Oranje Nassau, he is also an adventurer and a member of New York’s Explorers Club, frequently exploring remote regions such as the Arctic Circle, Siberia, and Central Africa.

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Professor Susan Long and Dr. Simon Western's conversation takes us on a journey into the roots of the unconscious, tracing its lineage from early philosophical thought to contemporary psychoanalysis. Susan challenges the dominant view that confines the unconscious to an individual and pathological framework, arguing instead for a more expansive understanding—one that is inherently social, cultural, and even ecological. She draws on thinkers like Schelling, whose work connects the unconscious with nature and spirit, suggesting that our inner depths are not isolated but enmeshed in the world around us. She critiques the ideological structures that shape how we perceive the unconscious, drawing on the Frankfurt School’s insights into culture and power. At the heart of this discussion is the notion that creativity—so often seen as an individual gift—actually emerges from the collective unconscious, offering both potential and peril.
This conversation invites us to consider the ethical dimension of confronting the unconscious, urging us to move beyond mere self-awareness and towards a deeper responsibility—to ourselves, our communities, and the wider world.

Key Reflections
The unconscious has historical roots that predate Freud.
Schelling's work links the unconscious to nature and spirit.
The unconscious is not just individual but also social and cultural.
Creativity emerges from the collective unconscious.
The Frankfurt School critiques how ideologies embed in culture.
Human beings can be both creative and destructive.
Neuroscience offers insights into the emotional aspects of the unconscious.
The bicameral mind theory suggests a collective consciousness.
Facing uncomfortable truths is an ethical responsibility.
Individuality should not overshadow our connection to the community.

Keywordsunconscious, psychoanalysis, Schelling, Freud, social dynamics, creativity, Frankfurt School, group mind, nature, ethical responsibility

Brief Bio
Professor Susan Long is PhD Co-Lead and Research Lead at NIODA and former Professor of Creative and Sustainable Organisation at RMIT University, Melbourne. She supervises doctoral candidates, teaches in global programs such as INSEAD’s Master of Coaching and Consulting (Singapore), and consults on leadership, organisational change, and executive coaching.
A trained clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, Susan has a deep interest in the unconscious and its influence on individuals, groups, and organisations. She has served on advisory boards, including Comcare’s Centre of Excellence for Research into Mental Health at Work, and was the founding President of Group Relations Australia. She is also a past President of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations (ISPSO), where she contributed to advancing psychoanalytic approaches to leadership and organisational life. Her latest book, The Evolution of the Unconscious: Exploring Persons, Groups, Nature and Spirit, traces the historical development of unconscious thought, from early philosophical ideas to contemporary psychoanalysis. She explores how the unconscious operates not only within individuals but also within social, ecological, and spiritual dimensions. Through this lens, she challenges reductionist views and offers a broader, interconnected understanding.

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In this conversation, Simon and Amitabh discuss the current state of the world characterized by a polycrisis, primarily driven by neoliberalism. They explore the implications of this crisis on civil society, the role of the left, and the importance of grassroots movements. The dialogue emphasizes the need for emotional engagement in advocacy and the potential for change through collective action and solidarity.

Key Reflections* We are facing a polycrisis that is a manifestation of neoliberalism. * The current crisis is the biggest since World War II. * Neoliberalism has shed its humane pretenses. * The left has become too centrist and lacks radicalism. * Grassroots movements are essential for systemic change. * Civil society must focus on holding power accountable. * Emotional engagement is crucial in advocacy work. * Generational divides exist but are not the only factor in activism. * International aid needs to be reimagined for effective collaboration. * There is a growing quest for freedom and justice worldwide.

Keywords
polycrisis, neoliberalism, left politics, civil society, grassroots movements, international aid, activism, generational perspectives, emotional engagement, human dignity

Brief Bio
Amitabh Behar, Executive Director of Oxfam International, is a global civil society leader with decades of experience in human rights, economic inequalities, governance, and social justice. Previously CEO of Oxfam India, he has held leadership roles in CIVICUS, Navsarjan, and Yuva. He serves on several global boards, including the Global Fund for Community Foundation and the Norwegian Human Rights Fund. Before Oxfam, he was Executive Director of the National Foundation for India and co-chaired the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, a network of over 11,000 civil society organizations. His work focuses on democracy, philanthropy, and citizen participation.

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In this conversation, Anna Harvey discusses her integration of psychoanalysis and ecology in her work as a senior lecturer in social work. She emphasizes the importance of understanding child protection within a broader sociopolitical context and advocates for a public health approach to social work. Anna explores how ecological perspectives can inform systemic thinking and the interconnectedness of individuals within their environments. The discussion highlights the need to decenter the individual and recognize the symbiotic relationships that exist in both nature and society. In this conversation, Simon and Anna explore the significance of language in psychoanalysis, the transformative practice of composting as a metaphor for personal growth, and the interconnectedness of all living beings. They discuss the importance of symbiosis in nature, the need to re-enchant our lives with spirituality, and the reflections on what it means to live a good life in a society that often prioritizes superficial experiences over deep connections.

Reflections
The internal psychological world is shaped by external environmental factors.
Ecology provides a lens to understand systemic interconnections.
Diversity in ecosystems creates strength and resilience.
Symbiosis is a fundamental aspect of life and ecology.
Understanding our interconnectedness can reshape our approach to social issues.
Composting encourages a physical and spiritual engagement with our thoughts.
We are small parts of a vast interconnected universe.
Modern life often alienates us from our true selves.
Experiences should be deep and meaningful, not superficial.
We must engage with diverse perspectives to grow.
Living a good life involves recognizing our place in the world.

Keywords
ecology, psychoanalysis,social work, systemic thinking, ecological crisis, psychosocial approach, permaculture, interconnectedness, public health, psychoanalysis, composting, interconnectedness, symbiosis, ecology, spirituality, good life, education, nature, holistic thinking

Bio
Anna Harvey is a senior lecturer at the Tavistock and Portman Trust, teaching on the professional doctorate in social work. With 27 years of experience in child protection and social care, she leads modules on reflexivity, institutional observation, and psychosocial interventions, integrating psychoanalytic and ecological perspectives. Her teaching emphasizes self-awareness, therapeutic relationships, and systemic thinking. She supervises doctoral students, focusing on marginalised voices in social work. As a consultant, she trains professionals in reflective supervision. Her awareness of the ecological crisis led to organizing a climate psychology conference and co-editing a special journal issue. She incorporates ecological metaphors into social work education, helping students understand complexity, adaptation, and systemic interconnections. Her research explores interconnection and hyper-individualism. Personally, she home-educates her son in ecology, evolution, and natural history, driven by a deep passion for the dynamic interplay between biotic and abiotic systems, shaping both social work and environmental awareness.

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Show Notes:
In this provocative episode, Simon and Lauri dive into the disruptive potential of AI to reshape coaching as we know it. They challenge traditional coaching paradigms, exploring how systemic coaching can integrate with AI to amplify impact. The conversation takes a sharp turn into ethics, questioning the accountability of AI designers and the values underpinning these technologies.

Simon and Lauri explore the triad of AI, human coaches and clients, and how they might work together to co-create powerful organisational outcomes. As they unpack these relationships, they reveal new ways of thinking about human-AI collaboration.

Lauri also brings his reflective lens to the bigger picture: what does it mean to live a good life and build a good society in the age of rapid technological change? This episode inspires a fresh take on adaptability, co-creation, and the need for conscious design in an ever-shifting world.

Key Reflections:* AI coaching is evolving into a new category of coaching. * There is a bifurcation in the coaching market between AI and human coaches. * AI can engage with large populations cost-effectively. * Human coaching focuses on relational and embodied experiences. * AI coaching raises philosophical and ethical questions about existence and relationships. * Systemic coaching can help organizations understand their complexities better. * AI can facilitate conversations that map out social contexts in organizations. * The relationship between AI and human coaches can create a virtuous loop. * A humane narrative for AI is necessary to alleviate fears. * Living a good life involves understanding one's role in systems and networks.

Keywords:
AI coaching, systemic coaching, ethics, human connection, technology, organizational change, coaching methodologies, coaching relationships, coaching philosophy, coaching and AI

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In this conversation, Simon and Mishel explore the significance of First Nations worldviews, and how through the modern worldview we have lost our relationships to the land and wider ecologies including our ancestors. Mishel McMahon, a proud Yorta Yorta woman living on Djaara Country, northern Victoria, Australia, and shares her lived experience and her academic research to help us break out of our limited modern mindsets, where humans are the top of a chain of being, rather than part of an ecology of co-existence and interdependence.
She emphasizes the need to reconnect, the importance of relationality, and the concept of cyclical time. Michelle shares insights on how these perspectives can inform health and healing practices, and the conversation culminates in a call for re-enchantment and recognition of our interdependence with the world around us.

Reflections
First Nations worldviews offer a broader understanding of reality.
Modern mindsets often reduce our connection to nature and each other.
Relationality extends beyond human relationships to include all entities.
Cyclical time emphasizes the interconnectedness of past, present, and future.
Ancestors play a crucial role in decision-making and identity.
Everything in nature is infused with spirit, creating a sense of family.
Collective identity fosters collaboration and mutual support.
Re-enchantment is necessary to combat disenchantment in modern life.
Thinking is a communal practice, influenced by our surroundings.
Connection to place is fundamental for personal and collective transformation.

Keywords
First Nations, worldviews, modernity, relationality, ancestors, cyclical time, ecosystems, collective identity, re-enchantment, connection to nature

Bio
Mishel McMahon is a casual Senior Research Fellow, Violet Vines Marshman Research Centre and proud Yorta Yorta woman living on Djaara Country, northern Victoria. Through First Nations-led research Mishel positions First Nations worldviews, concepts and processes for application within the health and healing sector, and research methodologies. Mishel led the Victorian Aboriginal Research Accord project, an 'On Country' Aboriginal Youth Leadership Aboriginal youth mentoring: a pathway to leadership, Blak Butterfly: First Nations emergency care best practice framework Blak Butterfly and Replanting the Birthing Trees: Our Kids Growing Up Strong, Happy & Healthy.

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Breaking Together
In this conversation, Jem Bendel discusses his journey from a career in corporate sustainability to advocating for a radical shift in how we approach climate change and societal collapse. He reflects on his influential paper, 'Deep Adaptation,' which argues that the sustainability movement is no-longer appropriate and that we should prepare for societal collapse. Jem introduces his new framework, 'Breaking Together,' which emphasizes community resilience and eco-libertarianism as a path forward. He shares personal insights about his upbringing and how they shaped his worldview, ultimately advocating for a collective approach to lead localised change.

Takeaways* The sustainability movement has largely failed to address the urgency of climate change. * Deep Adaptation provides a framework for discussing societal collapse. * Many people have been radicalized by the realization of impending collapse. * Eco-libertarianism offers a path that contrasts with eco-authoritarianism. * Community resilience is essential in the face of societal challenges. * Personal experiences can deeply influence one's worldview and actions. * A good life is about inquiry, creativity, and connection, not just longevity. * We must reclaim control over our resources and communities. * The dominant narratives in society can limit our understanding of what is possible. * Collective action and community engagement are crucial for creating a better future.

Bio
Prof. Jem Bendell is Founder of the Deep Adaptation movement, an emeritus professor with the University of Cumbria and the co-Founder of the International Scholars’ Warning on Societal Disruption and Collapse. He worked for over 20 years in corporate sustainability, helping launch or develop many international initiatives. That led to his recognition as a Young Global Leader. His 2018 paper "Deep Adaptation" was downloaded over a million times and is widely credited with helping inspire the growth of the Extinction Rebellion movement. That marked a departure, whereby he concluded the field of sustainability had failed. His new book "Breaking Together" goes further by outlining a collapse-based political framework. Jem also co-hosts the short online course Leading Through Collapse: https://www.katie-carr.com/leadingthroughcollapse.

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Psychoanalysis and Humanising the Workplace
Gabriella Braun, a renowned consultant and author, delves into her fascinating journey, sharing her insights from her latest book, All that we are: Uncovering the Hidden Truths Behind Our Behaviour at Work. Gabriella discusses how psychoanalytic principles can provide deep insights into organizational dynamics and group behavior, influencing everything from leadership to team cohesion. Her emphasis on emotional awareness highlights its critical role in effective coaching, while she explores how vulnerability in professional environments can foster stronger connections and transform group interactions.
Gabriella underscores the importance of humanizing the workplace, particularly in the face of rapid digitalization and societal change. She reflects on the interplay between personal and professional boundaries, noting how understanding these elements can contribute to healthier organizations. Gabriella also touches on societal issues, emphasizing the need for sensitivity and awareness in addressing them within organizations.The discussion centers on the broader theme of living a balanced, meaningful life, where understanding human desire and behavior, curiosity, and playfulness contribute not just to workplace success but to a more connected, compassionate society.

Bio
Gabriella Braun is the Director of Working Well, a specialist consultancy firm using psychoanalytic and systemic thinking to help leaders and teams. She has consulted to hundreds of clients including British Library, RADA, Tate, NHS Trusts, Schools, Colleges, University of Cambridge and University of London. She holds a masters's degree in Consulting to Organisations: Psychoanalytic Approaches; and was a Principal Consultant with the Tavistock Consultancy Service. She was on on Associate Faculty of the Dynamics of Consulting Program (in US), and has directed and held staff roles in numerous experiential workshops about leadership and team dynamics in UK and abroad.

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Kate Moger is the Global Director of Pledge for Change, an NGO representing a mutual commitment towards building a stronger aid ecosystem based on the principles of solidarity, humility, self-determination and equality. Kate shares her journey in the humanitarian sector and her vision for transforming it. With over two decades of experience in various leadership roles, Kate reflects on how she entered the field somewhat accidentally and how her perspective has evolved over time.

Kate discusses the changing landscape of humanitarian work, from her early days as part of the "last of the salvationists" to her current role in driving radical change. She candidly shares her experiences in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, highlighting both the challenges and profound connections she found in these contexts.

The conversation delves into the complexities of power dynamics, feminism, and decolonizing aid. Kate emphasizes the importance of intersectionality and understanding power imbalances in her approach to feminism and humanitarian work. She explains the origins and goals of Pledge for Change, an initiative aimed at transforming the humanitarian sector through equitable partnerships, authentic storytelling, and influencing wider change.

Kate and Simon explore the tensions within the humanitarian system, questioning whether reform is possible or if a complete dismantling is necessary. They discuss the importance of nurturing emergent systems and leadership at the edges, while acknowledging the geopolitical complexities surrounding humanitarian work.

The podcast concludes with Kate's reflections on what it means to live a good life and create a good society, drawing on the concept of Ubuntu and the importance of speaking truth to power with kindness. This conversation offers a thought-provoking look at the challenges and opportunities in reimagining humanitarian work for a more equitable future.

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Eleanor shares her experiences and reflections on working closely with social movement activists for over 20 years. She lives in a Catalonian mountain village, where the Ulex Project she works for runs training and capacity-building events for a wide range of social movements. Eleanor reflects on the changes she has witnessed in social movement activists over time, such as how the hope for big social change has decreased due to the poly-crisis and complexity of the world's challenges.

Simon and Eleanor discuss how the ideology of neo-liberalism presents itself as TINA, ‘there is no alternative’, which has been very effective in reducing expectations and diminishing the hope of change. Activists need to sustain and energise themselves, and Eleanor shares how Buddhism has helped her decenter her individualism, and expand her relationality to all beings.

She shares how rock climbing provides her best leadership model, as when climbing there is total reliance on the leadership-followership relationship, and how the best plans get undone usually by nature intervening, forcing an emergent mindset.

Bio
Eleanor Moore is part of the Ulex Project core team that provides pan-European capacity-building support for social movements. Her role bridges facilitation, developing partnerships, governance, strategy, and programme evaluation.

She is embedded in practices of distributed leadership, solidarity economy, and mutual care—a daily exploration of prefiguration.

Before Ulex, Eleanor spent 10 years working across diverse social projects in the UK, such as housing, legal, and horticultural projects. These experiences and an immersion in critical theory in her early 20s led to an ongoing life exploration of the connections between the personal, the interpersonal, the socio-political, and the ecological.

A climber of many years, she finds respite, sanctuary, and sense-making on high exposed ledges, hanging out with lichen and vultures, and connecting with the perspectives of the non-human world.

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Leslie is a student at the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis of San Francisco and shares an interest with Simon about how Lacan’s work can be very useful in our coaching practice. Leslie shares how Lacan’s psychoanalytic approaches show up in her work saying the most important thing is that “it changes the way I listen”.

She shares how this listening picks up on words and other speech acts that are often missed, such as repetitions, and sounds such as um and ah, and how these tell us something about our unconscious relationship to ourselves and others.

Simon and Leslie share experiences of psychoanalysis and how it is used in coaching. Leslie talks of how the body holds so much of our unconscious experience, and how she might ask a client about any body symptoms they are experiencing as a way to engage with the unconscious.

This fascinating discussion meanders through many experiences and thoughts, ranging from how Quakers and Buddhist practices are connected with psychoanalysis, and the overlaps between Leslie’s ceramic artwork and the unconscious. We hope you enjoy this podcast and it enriches your day!
Bio
Leslie Goldenberg is a Coach and an award-winning ceramic artist. Over the past several years, her work has increasingly come to address the unconscious at work in organizational life. Leslie earned her M.A. from UCLA and is currently a student at the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis of San Francisco.

She holds a PCC credential from the International Coaching Federation, has a Master Coach certification from the Hudson Institute of Coaching, and was trained in our own Eco-Leadership Institute Coaching approaches.

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This conversation goes deep into an unplanned examination of the troubles of the world and arises from these to explore the changing workplace and how we reinvent ourselves.

Susan is a Jew who lives in London, and she describes her experience with both the rise of anti-Semitism and the sadness at what is happening in Gaza, as well as her deep desire for justice and peace for Israeli, Jewish, and Palestinian people. She recently returned from visiting Israel and then Poland for the March of the Living 2024 to remember the Holocaust. Simon and Susan share how even talking about these issues seems dangerous and yet so necessary as the world becomes more divided.

The podcast returns to the theme of reinventing ourselves and the changing nature of the workplace. Susan shares a tale from her book reflecting on the need for a much more holistic understanding of the world and ourselves within it.

We can easily see ourselves and others in partial ways, which doesn’t allow the full expression of our shared humanity. Simon reads a beautiful passage at the end of Susan’s book, called On Transience, drawing on Freud's 1916 essay.

This conversation is rich and touches on our deep humanity. Enjoy!

Bio

Susan Kahn is a business psychologist, a speaker, and an academic. She is a chartered psychologist, coaching psychologist, and supervisor with the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the Association of Business Psychologists. She works as an executive coach, consultant, mediator, and observer of working life.

She has a particular interest in the behaviour of people at work and below-surface dynamics in organisations. She studied organisational consultancy using psychoanalytic methods at Tavistock and did her PhD at Birkbeck, University of London, where she teaches coaching psychology and established the Masters in Coaching Psychology. She also works as a group relations consultant. She uses psychoanalytic observation as a research method and has written about the psychoanalysis of endings and resilience. She is a board member of
This Can Happen: empowering workplace mental health, ISPSO and OPUS.

Her latest book is called Reinvent Yourself: Psychological Insights That Will Transform Your Work Life. Purchase it here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reinvent-Yourself-Psychological-Insights-Transform/dp/1398613312

Get in touch: www.drskahn.com

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Liz Rivers shares her rich engagement with nature and how it informs her work in leadership and as a coach. The seasonal organisation refers back to pre-modern times and draws on the Celtic Calendar as a way of connecting our workplaces with the rhythms and cycles of the natural world. The Celtic calendar marks times in the year when the light changes, when we have the shortest and longest days, which in turn mark the beginning and end of seasons. Life and work used to be organised around these seasonal changes, whereas in the process of urbanisation and industrialization, the clock took over and work was organised without reference to nature or its seasonal rhythms. Liz uses the seasonal organisation as part of her work to support women’s leadership in her Purpose Power Presence programmes delivered with Hetty Einzig. This training works with the body and the imagination to find space for something other than the constant, driven, male-dominated leadership styles we still find in today’s workplace. Simon and Liz reflect on how men would respond to this ‘women's course’ and how work and the environment can be more integrated in general. Enjoy this exploration of the seasonal organisation.

Bio

Liz Rivers is a former commercial lawyer turned leadership coach and co-founder with Hetty Einzig of Purpose Power Presence: Leadership Programmes for Women.
Disillusioned with the adversarial world of commercial litigation, Liz jumped ship and became the first woman to be accredited as a commercial and organisational mediator in the UK.

In her personal life, Liz's passions have included Chi Kung, wild swimming, storytelling, body psychotherapy, camping, and wilderness retreats. She has studied and worked with the Celtic Calendar for over a decade and found it a powerful tool for women leaders to align with their rhythms and create more humane workplaces.

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In this fascinating and deeply insightful podcast, Chantal and Brad reflect on the meaning of disappearance. Chantal comes from Mexico where over 100,000 people have disappeared through violence and kidnapping. Human disappearance leaves a hole, an empty space, a void to which our human response is often one of confusion, desperation, pain, loss, anger and even guilt.

Chantal is an artist working with abstract art, she is self-taught and learnt her craft from her artisanal family and the small Mexican community she grew up in. Chantal and Brad discuss how art, and abstract art in particular can speak to us when language fails us. In this wide-ranging discussion, Brad shares his philosophical insights into violence and disappearance in particular, saying that it is not easy to disappear somebody, and to disappear thousands takes a huge organisational effort, and asks what lies behind this?

Brad also discusses the Rhonda valley and the disappearance of jobs, of community, of a vibrant culture after the coal mines were shut without anything to replace the jobs; in his most recent book, he describes how these communities have disappeared from the view of wider society in the UK. Disappearance of humans is one thing, another form of disappearance that is finally entering our collective awareness is the disappearance of nature and the loss of biodiversity; how do we make sense of that?

Each of us has a relationship to disappearance, for some, it is a cultural phenomenon shared by collective people due to drug cartels, war or state terrorism that leads to many being disappeared. For others, it can be a personal story. We hope this podcast stirs your thinking and raises awareness of the meaning of disappearance in our current world.
Bio

Chantal Meza is an abstract painter living and working in the United Kingdom. Her work has been featured in exhibitions, auctions and biennials in prominent Museums and Galleries in Mexico, the United Kingdom, Paraguay and Germany. She has delivered international lectures and workshops at reputable universities such as Harvard University, École Normale Superiéure, Goethe Univeristät, and Goldsmiths University among others, as well as being commissioned publicly and privately. Her work has received the support of grants, public recognition and awards of prominent institutions in the cultural sector. More recently, her first edited volume “State of Disappearance” was published by McGill Queens University Press.

Professor Brad Evans is a political philosopher, critical theorist, and writer, who specializes in the problem of violence. He is the author of over 20 books and edited volumes, including most recently State of Disappearance (with Chantal Meza, McGill Queens University Press: 2023) & Ecce Humanitas: Beholding the Pain of Humanity (Columbia University Press, 2020). He previously led a dedicated columns/series on violence in both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Brad currently serves as Chair of Political Violence and Aesthetics at the University of Bath, United Kingdom, where is he the founder and director of the Centre for the Study of Violence. His latest book How Black Was My Valley: Poverty and Abandonment in a Post-Industrial Heartland will soon be published by Repeater/Penguin Random House in April 2024.

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This podcast reflects on my extensive and diverse work journey, which has been profoundly enriching. Yet, it transcends a mere work biography; it delves into an emotional journey shared. Work occupies a significant portion of our lives, yet we seldom reflect on how our experiences in the workplace impact and shape us.

Every time I recount this story to a live audience, I am surprised by how it evolves. The adage "you can't step into the same river twice" holds. My unconscious seems to guide me as I speak, causing me to omit certain details or emphasize aspects that typically escape my attention. Sometimes, I even find myself becoming emotional at specific points that resonate deeply. This story has a life of its own, continually revealing new insights about my past and present self as I revisit it.

We all have countless stories to tell about ourselves, and I've recounted my own tale, "what authored the author," numerous times, both in writing and in various settings. Interestingly, this particular narrative elicits a strong emotional response in people, a fact that initially caught me off guard. However, I've come to realize that this is precisely the essence of the story. It's not about me; rather, it serves as a mirror, reflecting something back to the reader. What it evokes, stirs, and ignites within you is significant; it prompts the question, "what authored you?"

Bio

Simon Western is a leading academic and practitioner in coaching and leadership, and the author of several books, reports, and academic papers. He is the host of the Edgy Ideas Podcast and the author behind the Re-enchanting Our Worlds newsletter on Substack. Simon has also developed and led the organisation’s popular courses. He is the founder of the Eco-Leadership Institute which runs coach training and leadership programmes and is a think-tank to create a more adaptive, ethical and impactful leadership approach for today's precarious-interdependent age.

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Sudarshan and Shweta are key leadership figures in Bal Raksha Bharat (also known as Save the Children India). Sudarshan is CEO and Shweta is Head of Governance & Organisation Development.

In this podcast, they generously share their thoughts and experiences. Their approach is inspiring and enlightening, and it aligns closely to the Eco-Leadership Institute approach. They focus on shifting power from the centre to the edges. Their humanitarian work aims to create capacity, but not only through raising funds from external resources. They see the recipients of the aid they provide as key to creating capacity, as the children and citizens they support are full of potential that they aim to resource. They also look for long term solutions and focus on moving away from crisis reactions, and reliance on external funding, to build sustainable capacity through civic and state collaboration. They discuss some of their pioneering approaches to humanitarian aid and development and what is striking is the emphasis on deep caring and a holistic approach. Sudarshan and Shweta have to constantly adapt to the fast changing landscape. Key to their work is what we call LEDGE approaches - leadership from the edge, and they focus on bringing people from the edge to make their contribution heard and relevant. Whilst they face many challenges, they see their ecosystems are filled with resources. At the heart of their work is hope, fuelled by a collaborative and generous mindset.

Sudarshan is a strong advocate of developing a learning culture in the workplace. He shares insights from Bal Raksha Bharat’s most recent annual ‘Knowledge & Learning Exchange Week’ which focussed on ‘failing intelligently’; to remove any blame culture and learn from both the successful and unsuccessful initiatives. India is a place of diversity and challenges for them, but from this podcast you can feel the power of their hope and the energy they have to create a good society.

Bios:
Sudarshan Suchi is the Chief Executive Officer of Bal Raksha Bharat (also known as Save the Children India). As a staunch believer in participatory processes, Sudarshan believes in co-creation and inclusion of all voices within design and action. Passionate about building self-reliance and creating livelihood opportunities, he has himself dabbled in creating and promoting eco-friendly farming practices.
Although he graduated in Philosophy, Law and completed Masters in Participation Power and Social Change, Sudarshan admits that most of his education happened outside the classroom. Over the past three decades, he has held leadership positions with eminent organisations like Reliance Foundation, Reliance Life Sciences, and National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). He has also taught at Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) and is part of Academic Council of IIHMR’s Rural Management Program.

As CEO of BRB, Sudarshan believes in creating a living organisation that is built on its people and their ability to be vulnerable, embrace shortfalls productively and aim towards improvement. His vision is to build and grow the movement for child rights in India, wherein children have a voice and agency, and participate as active citizens of the country.

Shweta Malhotra is a seasoned professional with 17 years of dedicated service at Bal Raksha, Bharat (Save the Children India), currently serving as the Head of Governance & Organisation Development. In this role, she adeptly oversees the Board, CEO’s office, and plays a pivotal role in enhancing the organization’s adaptability in an ever-changing dynamic environment. A true advocate for fostering a human-centric culture, Shweta thrives on meaningful connections with people.
Her professional narrative includes a fascinating chapter as a freelance fashion designer, where she successfully ran her own label. Beyond her professional pursuits, she finds joy in travelling with her family and relishes the simple pleasures of snuggling up with a good book and a cup of coffee.

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Chloe is co-director of Lighthouse Relief a small NGO set up 8 years ago in Greece to respond to the influx of more than 900,000 refugees arriving in Greece from Syria at that time. Chloe shares her experience and the changing nature of the challenges they face. Initially, Greece was a very welcoming country, as Greek citizens personally and collectively identified with their own histories of forced migration in the 1920s. However, the wars in the Middle East that led to the refugee crisis coincided with the collapse of the Greek economy during the financial crisis, impoverishing many many Greeks. Rightwing politicians exploited this vulnerability and gained a stronger foothold in Greek politics.

Today refugees and asylum seekers are much more diverse coming from many different countries, and often arriving in desperate and vulnerable conditions. Chloe explains how their previous support strategies were being undermined through policy and law changes, such as restricting access for NGOs from entering refugee camps where they had been supporting children for the past 7 years, or preventing them from going onto beaches to support the rescue of asylum seekers in trouble at sea.

Many organisations espouse being agile these days, and many could learn from small NGOs like Lighthouse Relief who pivot and adapt to the fast-changing conditions they have to work in. Chloe shares how the NGO teams support each other to do this work and Simon and Chloe end the podcast reflecting on the importance of what it means to have a home. This is an important and powerful podcast to begin 2024.

Often we question if the money we give to charity goes directly to the people impacted and who need the support. Chloe's NGO is small but has a big impact on so many lives; please give to support Chloe and the Lighthouse Relief team doing their vital work.

You can donate here: www.lighthouserelief.org/donate

Bio:

Chloe draws on her professional experiences in the arts, journalism, and at human rights organizations to run partnerships and advocacy for Lighthouse Relief. As Co-Director, she helps drive its strategic direction and navigate the changing humanitarian landscape.

Previously, Chloe has written about art and cultural diplomacy for publications including The New York Times and served as United Nations correspondent for several media outlets, reporting through the lens of gender equality. Her engagement with refugees and the issues affecting them in Greece began while reporting from camps near the North Macedonian border in 2016. She holds a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a M.A. in International Affairs from Sciences Po, Paris.

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This podcast focuses on Richard Carter's work and life as a vicar at St Martin-in-the-field, a bustling church in Trafalgar Square London, known for its work on social justice and in particular its work with the homeless. Richard and Simon met when Simon was experiencing a deep personal trauma and loss. Richard became a very important spiritual support and friend during the early days of grief. Previous to his work in London Richard spent 15 years in the Solomon Islands as a chaplain to, then member of, the Melanesian Brotherhood, an Anglican monastic community. During this time Richard too experienced a deep traumatic loss when 7 brothers of his community who were working for peace were taken hostage and killed. Richard and Simon discuss their response to their grief, highlighting the hope and grace that transcends grief, enabling new life to emerge.

Richard shares the impact of the move from a quiet island in the Pacific Ocean with no electricity, to the heart of busy, noisy London. Over the years he wondered about returning to a life of more silent prayer, yet realized that he had a calling to build community and offer stability through his work in London. On a retreat, he found spiritual clarity and the words came to him… ‘The city is my monastery’. Seeking community, it was homeless people, particularly international refugees who became an essential part of his community. He founded the Nazareth Community to respond to people's spiritual need for community, silence and sanctuary and to offer service when living in the bustling city and the Nazareth Community welcomes members from all walks and experiences of life. Richard shares the joys of multi-cultural London, his life is enriched by diversity, the nature found in London’s parks, and the gifts he receives from a life of service to others.

Get Richard's book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Letters-Nazareth-Contemplative-Journey-Home/dp/1786224917

Bio

Richard Carter is Associate Vicar at St Martin’s where he has been working and living as a priest since 2006 on the edge of Trafalgar Square. Richard has special responsibility for the education and formation programme, pastoral care and outreach to those facing homelessness. Richard is the founder of the Nazareth Community, whose members gather from everyday life to seek God in contemplation and to live compassionately and generously building a community of welcome on the edge of Trafalgar Square. He also started and coordinates the International Group which provides community and support for migrants and asylum seekers and those with no recourse to public funds. He is the author of The City is My Monastery: A Contemporary Rule of Life, Canterbury Press and editor of Who is My Neighbour? The Global and Personal Challenge (SPCK, 2018). His latest book Letters from Nazareth: A Contemplative Journey Home (Canterbury Press 2023) are letters of encouragement for our times, and how contemplation and reflection lead to resolute action. Richard leads many retreats and quiet days and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Daily Service.

Before living in London Richard was a member of the Melanesian Brotherhood a simple community working for peace in the South Pacific. His experiences there are described in In Search of the Lost (Canterbury Press 2006), a moving first-hand account of loss and grief after the violent deaths of seven members of his religious order.

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In this deeply insightful podcast, Niall shares findings and thoughts from his research and study of the conflict in Northern Ireland, published in his recent book Deniable Contact: Back-Channel Negotiation in Northern Ireland. Niall has spoken to key actors in the peace process, and in particular has sought to understand the conflict by seeking data from the back-channel negotiators, those courageous people who put their lives at risk and whose mediation work was done in secret and without acknowledgement. Niall found a rich store of historical evidence, including the private papers of key Irish Republican leaders, and the papers of Brendan Duddy, the intermediary who acted as the primary contact between the IRA and the British government on several occasions.

Simon shares his experience of meeting Brendan Duddy after inviting him to a Faith in Leadership conference when working at the Tavistock Clinic. Brendan attended Tavistock group relations conferences and was able to utilise this learning in his mediation work, identifying the essential issues with great clarity. At great personal risk, Brendan worked to bridge the unbridgeable divide and bring two sides together in secret negotiations.

Niall shares his thoughts on what learning can emerge from the Northern Irish peace process and warns about what cannot be generalised. This is a truly fascinating discussion.

Get Niall's book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deniable-Contact-Back-Channel-Negotiation-Northern/dp/0192894765

Short Bio
Niall Ó Dochartaigh is a Professor of Political Science and Sociology and Director of the MA in Public Policy at the University of Galway. He has published extensively on the Northern Ireland conflict, on peace negotiations and on territorial conflict. His publications include Civil Rights to Armalites: Derry and the Birth of the Irish Troubles and the co-edited books Political Violence in Context and Dynamics of Political Change in Ireland: Making and Breaking a Divided Island. His most recent book, Deniable Contact: Back-channel Negotiation in Northern Ireland, published by Oxford University Press in 2021,was awarded the Brian Farrell book prize of the Political Studies Association of Ireland and was shortlisted for the 27th Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize.

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Napoleon is back in the cinemas, and apparently, there are more movies made about him than any other person, he is third on the list of most books written about a person (behind Jesus and Hitler).

So what is the allure and what can we learn from this Mesianic leadership figure?

To dig deep into these questions Jonathan Gosling and Stephanie Jones join me as guests, bringing their insights from their book on Napoleonic Leadership, a study of power which you can download from here www.napoleonic-leadership.com

This is a rich conversation, exploring ideas of charisma, power, and patronage, and asking questions about how certain contexts create the conditions for different leadership approaches. We explore the object of desire and how charisma is not just about having an extrovert personality, but how a leader harnesses the desires of a nation to their own desires, and most importantly takes action.

Jonathan reflects on this active element of leadership and how tactics and power, mixed with the drive to act were a big part of Napoleon's leadership approach. If you've watched the movie, listen to the analysis and review if you are interested in leadership, this is a must-listen anyway.

Bios

Prof Jonathan Gosling
Jonathan acts in an advisory capacity for leadership-related projects in commercial, governmental and activist organisations. He has been Professor of Leadership at renowned universities around the world; is a key-note speaker on leadership, power and change; is principal investigator for complex research projects; and coordinates Pelumbra’s growing portfolio of programs. His writing covers a spectrum from scholarly philosophical articles on ethics and wisdom, to applicable lessons drawn from historical leaders such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Horatio Nelson.

Jonathan was recently appointed as a Visiting Professor at the Bristol Leadership and Change Centre (BLCC) at the University of the West of England and runs his own consulting company, Pelumbra Ltd.

You can find out more about Jonathan at: www.jonathangosling.com

Dr Stephanie Jones
Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Maastricht School of Management, having graduated with a PhD from University College London, and a Bachelor’s degree (in History) from the London School of Economics. Dr Jones has authored over 25 full-length internationally-published books on business and management – three of them with Professor Jonathan Gosling. She teaches MBA students across the world, especially courses on leadership, culture and change. Her teaching locations include Kuwait, Egypt, Yemen, China, Vietnam, Peru, Surinam, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and several African countries. With a background managing businesses in recruitment, consulting, and training operations in China, India, the Middle East and Australia, Dr Jones gained extensive experience in the corporate sector before returning to academe a decade ago. She is still active in consulting and training. Dr Jones also supervises student theses, at Doctoral, Masters and Diploma levels, assessing and evaluating theses around the world. Napoleonic Leadership: A Study in Power is her third book with Professor Gosling, the others being Nelson’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Commander (2005, published by Nicholas Brealey) and Key Concepts in Leadership (2012).

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In this episode, the iconic and world-renowned management expert Henry Mintzberg shares his wisdom on issues of management, organisations and how society needs rebalancing. More than this, Henry generously reflects on his own working methods and approaches, which gives a fascinating insight into his success.

When asked by Simon how he sees things that others don’t see, Henry points to his hero, the boy in the Hans Christian Anderson story who told the truth to the crowd that the emperor was naked. This is Henry’s perceptive gift, to see what others don’t see, or what they don’t want to see.

His first success was the book, 'The Nature of Managerial Work'. Henry observed what 5 CEOs actually did at work. This research found that the widely accepted idea that the manager's role was to plan, organise, coordinate & control, was false. By setting out what they actually did, Henry’s observations had a major impact on how we think about
management. Henry doesn't think he is particularly creative, nor is he a contrarian as some claim, he believes he is perceptive and reports what he sees. Much of Henry’s management education approach places observation at the heart of the work; Henry quotes the baseball coach Yogi Berra, who said, ‘You can observe a lot just by watching’.

Alongside his strength of perception, his other self-identified strength is to be able to reframe. He reframed strategy from being an exercise of future planning to learning and emergence, and he reframed management education as social learning.

Henry strongly challenges the MBA as “training the wrong people, in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences”. Henry believes management is a mixture of art, science and craft, and yet the MBA focuses only on the science. Challenged to address this deficit in
management education, Henry alongside colleague Jonathan Gosling and others, created the International Masters Program for Managers, which aimed to rethink management training, placing learning from practice, and learning from each other at the heart of this work.

Rebalancing society is Henry’s continuing passion, where he realises that we are stuck on thinking about two sectors, how the private and public work, but a vital third sector sits outside the other two, which he calls the plural sector. This is made up of those organisations, not private, or public i.e. NGOs, foundations, universities, charities, community groups, non-profits, etc. The plural sector is a vital part of society, and we are presently way out of balance. Henry’s latest book is titled Understanding Organisations…Finally!

This is a deeply insightful podcast that we are sure you will both learn from and enjoy!

Short Bio
Henry Mintzberg is a writer and educator, mostly about managing originations, developing managers, and rebalancing societies (his current focus). After receiving his doctorate from the MIT Sloan School of Management, he has made his professional home in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal, where he sits in the Cleghorn Chair of Management Studies, with extensive stints along the way in England and France. He has authored 21 books which have earned him 21 honorary degrees and an officership in the Order of Canada. He publishes a regular blog, a collection of which was published as Bedtime Stories for Managers. He co-founded the International Masters Program for Managers (impm.org) and the International Masters for Health Leadership (mcgill.ca/imhl) as well as CoachingOurselves.com, all novel initiatives for managers to learn together from their own experience. More of his work can be found on mintzberg.org.

Photo credit: Lisa Mintzberg (2019)

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In this podcast, Nora Bateson shares her thinking about the ecology of communication, which is at the heart of her latest book 'Combining'.

Nora shares her experience of being the daughter of Gregory Bateson the world-famous ecological thinker, and how he lived his ecology, rather than treat ecology and systems thinking as objects to study. Nora internalised this and explains how she works with people on her concept of Warm Data and Warm Data Labs, to practice this ecological way of being. Working organically with them, not to solve specific problems in a linear way, but to discover emergent and nuanced possibilities unknown to them at the start of their work together.

This recording took place on Halloween and Nora shares readings from her new book relating to this time of year, her first reading is 'Lurking Monster' which expresses how the ghosts of industrialisation lurk in our speech and pervade our lifeworlds, entrapping us in cultural patterns of repetition. This is a rich and at times beautiful podcast, which we highly recommend you take your time to listen to when you have the space to feel as well as think.

Bio
Nora Bateson is an award-winning filmmaker, research designer, writer, educator, and international lecturer, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute based in Sweden. She is the creator of the Warm Data theory and practices. Nora’s work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in the ecology of living systems.

In her latest second book Combining, Nora invites us into an ecology of communication where nothing stands alone, and every action sets off a chain of incalculable consequences. She challenges conventional fixes for our problems, highlighting the need to tackle issues at multiple levels, understand interdependence, and embrace ambiguity.

Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Combining-Nora-Bateson/dp/1913743853

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In this podcast, Professor Cary Cooper shares his extensive experience of working to create healthier and happier workplaces. Cary shares his belief that in times of rapid social change, organizational workplaces are more important than ever as sites that can provide healthy environments that support our well-being. Cary identifies key turning points that informed his work; firstly in the 1970s stress was for the first time identified as a big challenge, and the response was to support the individual to cope with their stress better, e.g. stress management and responses such as today's mindfulness. In the 2008 financial crash and the subsequent 'job restructuring' when organizations stripped their workforce to the minimum, Cary observed a change in workplace responses when a manager said to him that the number one challenge he had was staff retention. This began a shift whereby organizations weren't so concerned with managing individual stress but realized they had to provide workplaces that offered healthy environments where employees could flourish, in order to ensure their well-being, get the best performance from them and to retain them.

Cary identifies the line manager as perhaps the key ingredient for a healthy and productive workplace. Most line managers are chosen for their technical ability, and yet their role is vital in terms of people management skills. Reflecting on the UK's focus on growth, he points to the lack of a policy that focuses on this key area of people management; improving this he believes would be vital to increase growth.

Cary reflects on his personal journey and shares that his life from an Eastern European Jewish working-class background story continues to impact on him, citing the constant need to 'prove himself' as the driver of his success.

This is a wonderful podcast with one of the great figures of our generation, who has contributed to organizational health and well-being.

Enjoy the listen!

Bio: Professor Sir Cary Cooper

Cary L. Cooper is the 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. He is a founding President of the British Academy of Management, Immediate Past President of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), former President of RELATE and President of the Institute of Welfare. He was the Founding Editor of the Journal of Organizational Behavior, former Editor of the scholarly journal Stress and Health and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Management, now in its’ 3rd Edition.

He has been an advisor to the World Health Organisation, ILO, and EU in the field of occupational health and wellbeing, was Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Chronic Disease of the World Economic Forum (2009-2010), then served for 5 years on the Global Agenda Council for mental health of the WEF, and was Chair of the Academy of Social Sciences 2009-2015. He was Chair of the Sunningdale Institute in the Cabinet Office and National School of Government 2005-2010. Professor Cooper is currently the Chair of the National Forum for Health & Wellbeing at Work (comprising 40 global companies e.g. BP, Microsoft, NHS Executive, UK government (wellbeing lead) , Rolls Royce, John Lewis Partnership, etc.). Professor Cooper is the author/editor of over 250 books in the field of occupational health psychology, workplace wellbeing, women at work and occupational stress. He was awarded the CBE by the Queen for his contributions to occupational health; and in 2014 he was awarded a Knighthood for his contribution to the social sciences.

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Barbie, patriarchy, and the culture wars with Professor Caroline Bainbridge

This podcast came about in relation to Caroline and Simon’s personal reactions to the Barbie movie and in recognition that this movie is a 'cultural event' that demands some thought.

As Caroline says, 'this movie needs psychoanalysis': Freudians would say it's all about death, desire, and sexual difference. For anyone interested in object relations, themes of play, transitional spaces, and phenomena, aggression and pain make up the substance of the plot. For Caroline, a key part of the movie's pleasure is linked to its radical owning of the patriarchy as a fact, a given of contemporary society. It's the first time she can recall having seen this depicted on film in a mainstream movie in such a bold, incontrovertible way. This, in itself, makes the movie radical, she argues, despite its unevenness in parts. Caroline talks inspiringly about how her repeat viewings of the film revealed the extent of its play with ideas, and she shares her deep and thoughtful views on why this movie is important.

Simon watched the movie once and found himself both very impressed and also very troubled: while he admires the outing of the patriarchy that Caroline mentions, this doesn't outweigh his concern about the portrayal of men as degrading, and he found the depiction of seemingly binary differences between men and women troubling. For Simon, this potentially feeds into the right-wing populist agenda that, in turn, feeds off the gender and culture wars.

Caroline sees it a little differently, suggesting there are some subtle nuances built by director Greta Gerwig, especially in her play with the distinctive absence of genitalia in Barbie and Ken dolls. She suggests that the film centers this idea, the better to open up space to explore what non-binary, trans, and more fluid ideas of gender might be like. Similarly, Caroline notes that critics sometimes describe Barbieland as a matriarchy, but Gerwig actually does something novel here. There are no mothers in Barbieland, and no children either - in fact, the film goes to great lengths to show how maternal versions of the doll such as Midge have been discontinued, and narrator, Helen Mirren, plays with the idea of smashing associations between doll play and being a mother from the very beginning. The implication is that Barbieland is not so much a matriarchy as a woman-to-woman sociality, and this has important implications for how Gloria (America Ferrera) and Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) are able to find one another afresh and to re-navigate their complex relationship.

Simon's Substack blog on the film which led to this podcast can be read here.

Bio

Caro Bainbridge is Emeritus Professor of Psychoanalysis and Culture and a former editor of Free Associations and of the film section at the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. She co-edits a book series on psychoanalysis and popular culture for Routledge. She's a Fellow of the RSA, a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council, Research Associate at the Freud Museum, London, and a member of ISPSO and Opus. Caro has recently co-founded the MiNDings consultancy (www.mindings.org), where she works in the organizational processes and leadership space. She is also a member of the Eco Leadership Institute, and she practices as an executive and personal coach. Outside work, she makes the most of living close to Another Place, an art installation on a beach that evokes edges and possibilities in equal measure.

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In this podcast, Yannick shares how he believes coaching can play an important role for clients with an interest in using psychedelics. LSD and other psychedelics were popular in the 1960s with Timothy Leary being the guru of the age, but disrupting the field as well. At the time, psychedelics-assisted forms of therapy were first explored. Following the Nixon administration's declaration of a "war on drugs'', psychedelics have been marginalised and all research banned until the early 2000s saw a renaissance of psychedelics in the field of mental health treatment. Yannick explains how his interest was stimulated by emerging clinical research and how he started to make relevant connections to positive psychology and coaching. In this episode, he lays out his argument of why psychedelics could be used for learning, growth and well-being, and not just as a treatment for illness, and why coaching might be an ideal partner in this endeavour. In the process, Yannick describes his journey which leads to ethical questions, social questions and also questions about coaching itself.

Enjoy this edgy edition of Edgy Ideas!

Bio:

Yannick Jacob is a Coach, Trainer & Supervisor with Masters degrees in Existential Coaching and Applied Positive Psychology. He is part of the teaching faculties at Cambridge University and the International Centre for Coaching Supervision, and he’s the Course Director of the School of Positive Transformation’s Accredited Certificate in Integrative Coaching, for which he gathered many of the world’s most influential coaches. Formerly Programme Leader of the MSc Coaching Psychology at the University of East London, Yannick now presents at conferences internationally and his book, An Introduction to Existential Coaching, was published by Routledge. Committed to helping other coaches be the best coaches they can be, Yannick founded and hosts Yannick’s Coaching Lab which gives novice and seasoned coaches an opportunity to witness experienced coaches live in action, and he is the host of Animas Centre for Coaching's popular podcast Coaching Uncaged, as well as his own podcasts Talking about Coaching and Talking about Coaching and Psychedelics.

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Paul shares his thoughts and experience on the power of narrative and the importance of upgrading our purpose to meet the poly-crisis and disruptive contemporary social conditions we face. Paul points out that purpose is not a fixed destination, but an emergent position that needs to be adapted to each context. Repurposing leads to revitalising organisations and in a wide-ranging discussion Paul also reflects on the importance of collaborative advantage, drawing on his earlier book, and contrasts this to competitive advantage. He also points to the need to widen our gaze to include the shadow, 'the wolf that lurks to pounce', as very often we are consumed with a more short-term and limited vision of what is going on. Our discussion continues to look at the critical links between narrative and marketing, and we discuss psychotherapy's role in organisational awareness which is becoming ever more critical.

**Bio

Paul Skinner is the author of the award-winning book, The Purpose Upgrade: Change your Business to Save the World. Change the World to Save your Business, which Mike Berners-Lee, author of There Is No Planet B, described as, ‘...a necessary and enlightening call to action for businesses to re-think why they exist and the implications for everything they say, think and do'.

Paul's previous book Collaborative Advantage: How Collaboration Beats Competition as a Strategy for Success was described by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Co-founders of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, as, 'the perfect recipe for successful businesses that improve lives'.

Through his consulting practice the Agency of the Future, Paul helps clients to drive purpose-led change and better mobilise stakeholders for lasting success. He also founded MarketingKind, a non-profit professional membership community bringing business leaders, marketers and change-makers together to address our most pressing problems as 'marketing briefs in disguise’.

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In this podcast, Chris and John share the ideas presented in their recent book, which examines how trauma and marginalization are produced and perpetuated by in-group and out-group dynamics. They turn questions upside down, making us think differently about social problems. When asked how to help the homeless, they return the question in a different way, asking how the ‘we’ of ‘housed’ in groups cause people to be psycho-socially 'unhoused', revealing how we are all implicated in the trauma of others. The hundreds of migrants who die at sea are not poor neutral victims, but those we have unhoused and displaced through wars, colonialism and neo-liberal capitalist economics.

They invite us to make use of their "Diogenes Paradigm", drawing on the story of the ancient street philosopher to highlight questions of power and authority; they re-tell the story of how Alexander the Great asked Diogenes, who lived in a barrel with his dogs, whether he could do anything for him. Diogenes replied: “Yes, you can move as you are blocking the sunlight”. This Diogenes Paradigm allows us to explore power dynamics between systems of care and excluded out-groups, from housing policies in London or the UK prison system at the micro level to the broader issues of human mobility, the "might" of empires, and the climate disaster that threatens us all.

Enjoy this thought-provoking podcast that asks important questions for our times.

Bios

Chris and John have been writing and teaching together for two decades. Their recent co-authored book "Psychosocial explorations of trauma, exclusion and violence: Un-housed minds and inhospitable environments" was published by Routledge in 2022:

https://www.routledge.com/Psycho-social-Explorations-of-Trauma-Exclusion-and-Violence-Un-housed/Scanlon-Adlam/p/book/9780367893316

Dr Chris Scanlon (DPhil) is an independent psycho-social Researcher/Consultant, Training Group Analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis (UK) andat the Irish Group Analytic Society (Dublin), associate lecturer on the Integrated Professional Doctorate (IPD) programme Tavistock Centre/University of Essex and is a founder member and board member of the Association for Psychosocial Studies (APS). He has worked for over 30 years as a practitioner and educator in NHS - including 15 years as an NHS Consultant Psychotherapist in general adult and forensic mental health and has acted as an expert advisor/consultant to a range of agencies.

John Adlam is a group psychotherapist and independent researcher and a founder member of the Association for Psychosocial Studies. He lives in Brixton in South London and works for the most part in the National Health Service, where he is Consultant Adult Forensic Psychotherapist at Bethlem Royal Hospital and Principal Adult Psychotherapist at Springfield Hospital. Previously he worked for the Henderson Hospital Democratic Therapeutic Community. He also worked for many years for the Adult Eating Disorders Service at Springfield. Apart from his book with Chris, he is also co-editor of Violent States and Creative States: From the Global to the Individual (2018); Forensic Music Therapy (2012); and The Therapeutic Milieu Under Fire: Security and Insecurity in Forensic Mental Health (2012); Chris is one of the five co-editors of this last volume - all published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

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In this fascinating discussion, Andrés shares his expertise on economics and money and how policy and politics are created. Andrés challenges the 'taken-for-granted' assumptions that underpin economics and money, he shines the light of emotions onto the topic; or what in psychoanalysis we call the libidinal economy i.e. the underpinning unconscious and emotional drivers that shape political and economic choices.

Andrés shares his view that not only neo-liberal conservatives are attached to the status quo, and argues that many progressives and those on the political left also get caught up in these normative economic and political 'myths'. Radical political agendas are undermined by ideas like "we must stick to the fiscal rules" and "we cannot borrow our way out of this mess". Post second world war construction of the National health service and welfare state in the UK, showed how political will can deliver change when a country is most economically challenged; the same happened in the Covid Pandemic financial crash when all the rules changed to accommodate radical financial policies to keep businesses afloat. Simon and Andrés discuss class and identity politics, the rise of populism and how we need to bring care back into our political and social way of thinking.

In this wide-ranging discussion, we explore the interconnections between our unconscious and emotional lives, economics, politics and money.

Enjoy this powerful podcast!

Bio

Andrés Bernal is a lecturer in urban studies at the City University of New York and a Research Fellow with the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. His focus is on the bridging of theory and practice for fostering equitable and sustainable social systems including researching and advocating for policies like the Green New Deal in the United States. He is a former policy advisor for congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and co-host of the podcast, Funny Money.

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How do we live with technology in our digital age which is fast becoming an AI and Quantum age?

There are those who understand, design and deliver tech’ and those who specialise in understanding people –between these two groups is a huge gap.

Anni Rowland-Campbell has been trying to address this gap for over 25 years, by bringing people together from all walks of life to have ‘Brave Conversations’ about what’s happening in their world, and how technology impacts on them. Anni shares her experiences in this podcast and also her concern that we are just not taking technological change seriously enough or quickly enough.

Simon and Anni discuss regulation, which is mainly coming from the EU, but perhaps more importantly needs to come via ourselves, through self-regulation and community actions that help us regulate and have more choice over how we use tech. Technology can be exciting, amazingly useful and also have many unforeseen consequences. Anni's work is to try and harness the best humanity has to use tech well in order that we live well too.

Enjoy this thought-provoking podcast, and ask yourself: “What am I doing to take more control and to live more healthily with others, in this technologically pervasive world”.

Bio

Anni Rowland-Campbell is a philanthropist and Web Science practitioner. She is Director of Intersticia a global charity and social enterprise which focuses on helping to develop emerging stewards for the 21st Century.

For the past two decades, Anni has worked with Boards, Senior Leadership and Management Teams to help them become more "Digitally Savvy” as they increasingly operate online.

In 2017 she created Brave Conversations as a way to bring the conversations of the Social Machine to the general public of all ages, stages and from all walks of life. Since then Brave Conversations has been held all around the world both face-to-face and online. Anni has worked in the Arts, Government and the Corporate sectors and has also led a number of research projects with the Web Science Institute investigating the topic of "Government as a Social Machine”. Anni is President of the Digital Enlightenment Foundation, a Trustee of the Web Science Trust, a Non-Executive Director of Founders and Coders UK, the Social Change Agency and a Fellow of Goodenough College, London. She is also a member of the Advisory Boards of MENA Alliances.

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Richard brings to his work a deep sensitivity and diverse experiences, to offer us valuable insights into the world of organisational life. Drawing on Group Relations work, psychoanalytic theory, his experience as a psychotherapist and clinician and his coaching and consulting work, Richard makes strong connections between the body, mind and soul.

In this delightful conversation, Richard shares his thinking from his book The Body of the Organisation and its Healthand his work connecting individual, group and social experiences in The Trilogy Event he has innovated, offers an experiential learning setting to explore how different parts of our systems, carry emotions and thoughts on behalf of other parts.

Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Richard sharing his wisdom that is much needed in today's organisations.

Bio

Richard Morgan-Jones: Group Relations, Organizational Consulting and Executive Coaching. Supervising and Training Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist with British Psychotherapy Foundation, Author. Registered member of British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC). Distinguished Honorary Member of International Society for Psychoanalytic Society of Organizations (ISPSO). Mentor and member of the AK Rice Institute (USA) and member of the Organization for Promoting the Understanding of Society (OPUS). Visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

Director of Work Force Health: Consulting and Research whose work is explored in consultancies, an international workshop and a book entitled: The Body of the Organisation and its Health, London: Karnac,which explores how organisations get under the skin and reveal personal and team development opportunities and organisational strategic choices. He also has written about a psychoanalytic approach to understanding Restorative Justice, the Banking crisis, the vulnerability of the nation-state and its citizens in Europe, the celebrity cult, social dreaming and the language of the group skin.

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The Eco-Leadership Institute has recently entered into a partnership with the Humanitarian Leadership Academy with the purpose to re-enchant the sector. This podcast was recorded in the Save the Children London office as part of a workshop for international humanitarian staff. The aim was for Gareth to introduce Simon and his ideas on Eco-Leadership to those working in the humanitarian sector.

In this podcast, Simon shares his personal work journey, showing how his experience shaped the project of Eco-Leadership. Gareth and Simon then discuss the challenges in the humanitarian sector and they explore how the new partnership aims to meet these challenges with some new ideas that are already having an impact. The Eco-Mutualist manifesto below summarises some of this thinking. Enjoy the listen!

Eco-Mutualism: A Manifesto for a New Age of Humanitarianism
Bio
Dr. Simon Western is the founder and CEO of the Eco-Leadership Institute, a leading academic and practitioner in coaching and leadership. He is the author of "Leadership: A Critical Text" (3rd ed., Sage 2019) and "Coaching and Mentoring: A Critical Text" (Sage 2012) plus many book chapters and journal articles. He has also contributed to the development of a new paradigm in leadership through his work on Eco-Leadership.

Dr Western is a Past President of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations, previously adjunct Professor at University College Dublin, Director of Coaching at Lancaster University Management School, and Director of Masters in Consulting and Leadership at the Tavistock Clinic.
Gareth Owen OBE is the Humanitarian Director of Save the Children UK. Over the last two decades, he has led responses to numerous emergencies all over the world including the Boxing Day Tsunami, Pakistan and Haiti earthquakes, Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, East Africa and Niger food crises and the Somalia, Angola, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria conflicts. Today, he leads a team of 190+ humanitarian professionals and in June 2013 he was awarded the OBE for ‘For services to Emergency Crisis Response Abroad’.

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In this podcast, Rob Briner shares his expertise and insights on evidence-based practice. Rob became interested in evidence-based research early in his academic career when he realised how much knowledge and assumed facts lacked convincing evidence. Simon converses with Rob from the position of a sceptic, having experienced evidence-based practice in healthcare and human resources settings when poorly delivered. Rob offers a fascinating insight into how evidence-based practice can be useful if delivered in a thoughtful and rigorous way. He shares the importance of collecting evidence from multiple sources and different perspectives. In a healthcare setting for example, this would include gathering opinions from patients and families, getting expert views from professionals, gathering data from the context such as healthcare outcomes, and finally looking at scientific data to search for the best knowledge/evidence available to apply to the situation.

Evidence-based research can be distorted to produce ‘magical numbers’ and Rob emphasises the need to critically examine what these numbers do and do not mean, and how they are used and misused. Critical thinking is also necessary to reflect on assumptions and biases that can lead to ‘evidence-based’ findings, produced to convince people to follow a particular path that was pre-ordained. Rob also points to the need for a more ground-up approach, to really think about what the challenge or problem is, and then design an evidence-based research study, rather than designing a study that will produce findings desired by a particular power group. This podcast is a must listen for all who wish to deepen their understanding of evidence-based practice.

Bio

Rob is Professor of Organizational Psychology at Queen Mary, University of London and is co-founder and Scientific Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Management. He is also a Visiting Professor of Evidence-Based HRM at Birkbeck (University of London) and Professor at Oslo Nye Høyskole. He has held positions at the Institute for Employment Studies, London School of Economics, Kings’s College (University of London), Bath University and University of Edinburgh. His research has focused on several topics including well-being, emotions, stress, ethnicity, the psychological contract, organizational culture and climate, absence from work, motivation, work-nonwork and everyday work behaviour. Beyond academic research and teaching, Rob helps practitioners and organizations make better use of evidence, including research evidence in decision-making as well as encouraging academics to make scientific research more accessible. He has received several awards for his work in this area including the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology Academic Contribution to Practice Award in 2014, topped HR Magazine’s Most Influential Thinker list in 2016, received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 and was admitted to HR Magazine’s Hall of Fame.
Contact Rob: r.briner@gmail.com

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Alicia brings a multicultural spirit and curiosity to her work and thinking, having been born in Argentina to European Jewish parents, having Spanish daughters, and now living in Spain. In this podcast, Alicia discusses her reflections on a lifetime of experience and work, much of which focuses on women and leadership. She highlights the importance of recognizing age and generational differences, which are often marginalized when we talk of women's issues as if they are universal. Alicia's research identifies how different age groups have different relationships to work and life, and these must be accounted for.

Alicia also highlights how sibling relationships are often left out of our sense-making of workplace dynamics. Yet our sibling relations so often get re-enacted unconsciously at work with our peers and teams, and how we react to our bosses/managers. Alicia has lived a rich life, believing that living in precarious contexts not only produces hardship and anxiety but can also stimulate imagination and innovation, as it has done in her own life. Alicia's insights are rich: enjoy this podcast!

BioAlicia E. Kaufmann holds a doctorate degree in Sociology from Paris and Madrid. She has taught at Instituto de Empresa management school and was a Fulbright scholar twice, once at Yale University in organizational behaviour and the other on leadership. She is a member of ISPSO (International Society of Psychoanalysis of Organizations) and OPUS (Organization for Promoting Understanding of Society) in London, as well as ICF (International Coaching Federation). Her multicultural background (European parents, born in Argentina, with Spanish children) has opened up a range of interests and curiosity for life that has led her to explore different paths.

In 1984, she was part of the executive team of the first Hospital Management School in Madrid. She worked as a facilitator for Stephen Covey, author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" (USA). She has written 28 books, including "Women in Management and Life Cycle (London Palgrave McMillan, 2008), "Change Female Identities" (London Palgrave McMillan, 2012), and "Woman Power and Money: Build Your Puzzle of Success" (editor Madrid, Medialuna, 2016).

Alicia is a Certified Analytic Network Coach and a member of the Eco-Leadership Institute. She now works mainly in Executive Coaching in Organizations, reflecting on new cultures and leadership styles, and helping people take up their authority.

Check out Alicia's work: www.aliciakaufmann.com
Get in contact with Alicia: aliciakauf@gmail.com

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In this podcast, Julia Vaughan Smith shares her reflections about mother and daughter relationships, having just completed a book on the subject. Julia describes the entanglement between mother and daughter that often occurs, and how this can entrap daughters into ways of being that don't enable them to flourish. Anger and hurt can become life scripts that are hard to shake off, limiting daughters' capacity to have joy in their lives. Simon and Julia discuss cross-generational patterns, and also how our relationships to parents continue even when they have died. How daughters relate to mothers, and children to parents more generally, requires time and safe spaces to work through and liberate us from the more destructive patterns and narratives we get caught up in. Julia shares how through the writing of the book, her own relationship with her mother changed and she became more compassionate, understanding and free in the process.

Bio

Julia Vaughan Smith is an accredited master executive coach and coach supervisor; a qualified psychotherapist (no longer practising) who has spent many years as an organisational and leadership development consultant primarily in health care. ‘Daughters: How to Untangle Yourself from Your Mother’ is her third book and her first for a general readership. Her two previous books ‘Coaching and Trauma’ and ‘Therapist to Coach’ were written for coaches. She has been teaching about coaching and trauma for the last five years. Her latest book for daughters will be launched on 3rd April 2023, and will be available from all booksellers and via www.becomingourselves.co.uk.

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Donate to Karolina (Fine NGO): https://fine.ngo/en/make-a-donation-przelewy24/
Donate to Zuzanna (Salam NGO): https://paypal.me/salamlab

In this podcast Zuzanna and Karolina tell their stories of how they responded to the outbreak of war on the Polish border, and to the sudden influx of millions of refugees, mostly women and children fleeing war.

Their individual responses were driven by empathy and a deep humanitarian impulse. Each share how they utilised and transferred existing skillsets, and drew on their networks to offer extraordinary responses. Karolina managed to set up a kindergarten within two weeks of the outbreak of war, providing support for 100 children, employing Ukrainian women and establishing a charity to support this work. Zuzanna’s small NGO had been working on the Belarusian border with refugees and pivoted their focus to immediately provide a help centre and homeless shelter to support the thousands of homeless war refugees flooding into Krakow.

One year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, over 9 million border crossings have taken place, and approximately 2 million refugees remain in Poland. Karolina and Zuzanna’s organisations have organically grown and adapted to meet changing needs. Now their focus is more on integration, building civil society, education and psychological support. They work directly with refugees and also with teachers and others who support them.

Their work is being replicated throughout Poland. Small start-up initiatives alongside existing NGOs have innovated, adapted and worked tirelessly to accommodate and support refugees. These inspiring stories have lessons for the wider humanitarian organisations and for all of us engaged in leading change. This is also a story of how women’s leadership, which dominates the NGO sector in Poland and beyond, can deliver amazing results.

I met Zuzanna and Karolina and many other NGOs in Poland as part of a new initiative sponsored by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy. The Eco-Leadership Institute is partnering with the HLA to pioneer new ways to deliver humanitarian aid we call Eco-Mutualism

This approach challenges paternalistic and centralised approaches, offering alternatives that engage people mutually and harvesting the resources in their wider ecosystems. Zuzanna and Karolina offer excellent case studies of Eco-Mutualism in action. Their task now is to help make their initial urgent responses more sustainable. The Humanitarian Leadership Academy and the Eco-Leadership Institute will be working mutually with them, and you can help by donating directly.

Donate to Karolina (Fine NGO): https://fine.ngo/en/make-a-donation-przelewy24/
Donate to Zuzanna (Salam NGO): https://paypal.me/salamlab

**Bios

Karolina Bisping Adamik** President of the FINE NGO Foundation. Professionally involved in the organization of production and promotion of cultural events, film and music festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, and young art and design fairs for many years. Academic teacher at the Pedagogical University in Krakow and at the School of Computer Graphics. Master of Sociology at the Philosophy Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and postgraduate studies in Cultural Diplomacy at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw

Zuzanna Tamas Co-Founder of Salam Lab; Board Member, Director of Humanitarian Aid and Fundraising. Salam Lab is an NGO working for human rights, inclusion and against discrimination. Zuzanna worked for 7 years in Qatar, with people from all over the world, and brings that experience to create an inclusive and diverse workplace at Salam Lab. She specialises in humanitarian aid, diversity and inclusion. Zuzanna is certified in Management, Humanitarian Standards, Inclusive Humanitarian Programming, as well as Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging.

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Michael Barnett is a leading thinker and scholar on humanitarianism, which as he says cannot be separated from humanity. Michael frames humanitarianism in the context of Empire, discussing the ongoing tensions between paternalism/control and compassion/giving that have been present since humanitarianism began. In more recent times humanitarianism has shifted from a voluntarism ethos to an expert professional ethos. The benefits and challenges of these changes are now under scrutiny. Professional experts, on the one hand, bring important knowledge and changes that save lives; on the other hand, there has evolved a technocratic and instrumentalism that silences local and different voices and creates a managerialist machinery that stifles engagement.

Michael shares his thinking that will be published in a forthcoming book co-authored with Unni Karankura, "Humanitarianism in a Post-Liberal Age" (Cambridge University Press). Three areas he points to that are driving change are:

1. Securitization – how security is impacting humanitarian work in new ways, and more humanitarians are at risk today.
2. Marketisation – how market forces have radically changed the face of humanitarianism, whereas previously there was a split between the 'sacred-humanitarianism' and the 'profane-market', and now the two find themselves very entangled, with contested outcomes.
3. Cosmopolitanism — the shift from human rights to a rooted cosmopolitanism in which the givers and receivers are questioning the quality of the aid relationship, typified by the rise of localization, the racial reckoning in the aid sector, and decolonizing aid.

This is a fascinating and insightful discussion - enjoy.

Bio

Michael Barnett is a University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at the George Washington University. His research interests span the Middle East, humanitarianism, global governance, global ethics, and the United Nations. Author of Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism; his most recent books include The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of the American Jews; Paternalism Beyond Borders; and, most recently, the edited collection Humanitarianism and Human Rights: Worlds of Differences?

His current research projects include the changing forms of global governance, hierarchies in humanitarian governance; the end of the two-state solution and the rise of the one-state reality in Israel/Palestine; and the relationship between suffering and progress in the liberal international order.

A former Associate Editor of International Organization, Professor Barnett is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the recipient of many grants and awards for his research.

Contact Michael: https://elliott.gwu.edu/michael-barnett

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Julian is a British psychoanalyst who has worked in the public health sector for many years. In this podcast, he begins by reflecting on how complacent ways of thinking and being are becoming more commonplace, particularly in the consulting and psychotherapeutic world. He discusses a particular clinical case to emphasise this.

Julian then explores the connection between complacency and action and discusses with Simon how dissociation can lead to conformist ways of being. The conversation then reflects more widely on the role of psychoanalysis in society, and in particular the demise of psychoanalytically applied practices in the public sector. Julian holds the view that society needs containers for its more disturbed and long-term 'ill' citizens, for as he says "not everybody gets well". If psychoanalysis gets pushed wholly into the private sector Julian believes there will be a great loss to society (and also to psychoanalysis). As the public sector increasingly becomes a market-led sector and filled with short-term, more market-friendly treatments and fixes (some of which are helpful of course) the space for holding pain, suffering and dysfunction is diminished.

When exploring what it means to work towards a good society, Julian shares his view that a good society needs a 'maternal' public sector, and that the nanny state, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, obliterates the mother. Julian asks then what happens to the welfare state, to the health and education system and to social care?

Enjoy this stimulating and rich discussion.

Bio

Julian Lousada is a psychoanalyst and former clinical director Adult department of the Tavistock and Portman Clinic, and former chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council and British Psychoanalytic Federation. He is an Organisational Consultant in private practice.

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In this episode, we focus on Carl Jung's work in relation to coaching and consulting. Laurence is an eminent Jungian practitioner and author who is trying to bring the magic of Jungian thinking to the modern world of coaching and consulting. In this rich exchange Laurence shares why he believes Jung's work is so important. At the heart of this approach is a recovery of the 'soul' that is so often amiss in our dominant rational, managerial approaches. We discuss the importance of symbolism and how it can be used in coaching, and Jung's work on the collective unconscious, individuation among many other topics. Laurence also shares his views on Jungian ethics and on misconceptions of Jungian thinking. This is an excellent exploration of Jungian thinking and more importantly Jungian practice. Enjoy the listen!

Bio
Laurence is a coach and consultant, and a Director of Heresy Consulting. Prior to joining Heresy as a Founder Director, Laurence spent over two decades in change leadership roles including most recently as the Director of Group Resourcing and Development for Prudential plc. He holds an MSc in the Psychodynamics of Human Development (Jungian) from the British Psychotherapy Foundation and an MBA from Lancaster University. He trained as a coach and supervisor with the Tavistock Institute and in group work at the Institute of Group Analysis. More recently he has developed an interest in our broader place in the world and holds certificates in Ecopsychology and Ecotherapy from the Pacifica Graduate Institute. He also works as a Practicum Supervisor on the INSEAD Executive Masters in Change and is the author of ‘A Jungian Approach to Coaching: The Theory and Practice of Turning Leaders into People’.

Follow LaurenceWebsite: https://www.heresyconsulting.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurence-barrett
Buy his book: https://www.routledge.com/A-Jungian-Approach-to-Coaching-The-Theory-and-Practice-of-Turning-Leaders/Barrett/p/book/9780367766368

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In this podcast, Nick and Simon go on an intriguing journey that explores coaching from different perspectives. Nick shares his experiences of what is called ‘life coaching’ and reflects on how this differs, and shares common ground with, executive coaching and other forms of helping relationships such as counselling and psychotherapy.

Nick believes that coaching is a new configuration, built on the shoulders of giants i.e. it draws from the well of knowledge and practices from psychology, psychotherapy and more. Yet he also claims that coaching delivers its support to others in a new way, and also that it has created a new and different client group. Contemporary society demands a lot emotionally and psychologically and navigating our way through ‘life coaching’ has emerged because it can be beneficial in this domain. Those who are attracted to life coaching aren’t typically experiencing their lives as dysfunctional or suffering in a way that might attract them to psychotherapy or counselling. This opens up a new space to explore and leads to new conversations, methods and insights. In this fascinating podcast, what it means to be human emerges to be at the centre of Nick's work.

Nick Bolton is the founder and CEO of Animas Centre for Coaching and the International Centre for Coaching Supervision. With a particular interest in the role of coaching in helping individuals navigate existential issues and the complexities of 21st-century life, Nick combines a solution-focused approach with a deeper inquiry into the client’s worldview which contributes to, though isn’t exclusively responsible for, the conditions or dilemmas they are facing. Nick is an avid lifelong learner and recognises that anything he says today merely reflects his limited thinking in the moment. He considers that a wise disclaimer for any foolishness he says along the way!

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Animal rights activism is at the heart of Esther’s work and life. In this podcast, Esther shares her thinking on the entanglements between the way we treat animals and how we live in consumer capitalist cultures. Esther discusses the economic structures behind our mistreatment of animals and the ways in which they are commodified and treated as resources that mirror slavery. She then also offers ideas about what a future world could look like; where animals and human beings have a healthy relationship with one another

Simon and Esther discuss what facing animal rights issues bring up in others, often disassociation and guilt. To live with the awareness of how we treat animals is to live with a burden. We all like to protect the idea of our ‘good-self’; therefore, to acknowledge the animal suffering we collude with is a direct challenge to our 'good-selves', hence our defensiveness. Esther and Simon discuss whether animals are 'individuals', and what rights they have in relation to individual humans. Esther discusses broader social movements, direct action and mass mobilisations in this fascinating podcast.

Bio

Esther delved into full-time Animal Justice work early in life. She dedicates her time towards understanding and building people-powered organisations capable of creating transformative change. She helped to kick-start Animal Rebellion as a full-time member in 2019 and supported it through its first wave of resistance. Esther is the co-founder and Strategic Lead of Animal Think Tank, where she works to promote nonviolence, mass direct action, civil resistance and grassroots activism.

Follow Esther

Websites:

https://animalthinktank.org.uk

https://www.plantbasedfuture.animalrebellion.org

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esther-salomon-0a89a11b9/

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We are celebrating our Golden Jubilee with the 50th episode of Edgy Ideas and thought it appropriate to reflect on the monarchy and its meaning.

My guest Leslie Brissett draws on his wealth of experience in human dynamics and as Director of Group Relations at the Tavistock Institute to share his thoughts on what is projected onto the monarchy from the people, and what the monarchy represents, contains and holds for us.

Simon is an anti-monarchist, and whilst able to admire Queen Elizabeth's extraordinary leadership over 70 years and recognise how the monarchy offers continuity for many, it also is highly problematic. Simon believes it reinforces a dependency and a "know-your-place" culture that reproduces class divisions, and elitist power and undermines our capacity for autonomy and to maximise our collective potential.

Leslie and Simon ponder together the meaning of the monarchy and explore the difference, and continuity between a matriarchy (the Queen) and patriarchy (the King). They reflect together in a non-partisan way, what future containment might look like without a monarchy and what can be learnt from the monarchy, that can help us to work towards creating the good society.

Bio

Leslie is a member of the Judiciary in England and Director of the Group Relations Programme at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and has studied human dynamics in experiential settings in many countries. He is also the Company Secretary at TIHR. Born in the UK, Leslie experiences life as a Citizen of the World

More on Leslie: https://www.tavinstitute.org/staff/leslie-brissett/

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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/

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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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’.

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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.

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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

BioDr 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 beennominated 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.

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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.

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Danny is a leading practitioner working with elite athletes. In this podcast he shares his reflections on working at a leading premiership football club in the UK. Drawing on his experiences of studying at the Tavistock clinic, Danny discusses the leadership and power dynamics at play in these soccer clubs. He applies Menzies-Lyth theory of social defences against anxiety to his experience, observing how the obsessive focus on diet and nutrition are a social defence against the anxiety of poor performance. Whilst diet is clearly important, the excess of the practices tell a different story.

Simon and Danny discuss the 'happiness imperative', how highly paid footballers feel obliged to be upbeat - 'how can you not be happy, with the wealth and glamour' yet this represses the shadow side of their lives, and the anxieties and struggles they face. Discussing mental health issues is not encouraged as they need to be 'at the top of their game' to be selected and successful. Danny ends by discussing his life-long practice of meditation, and how this helps him in his work, and how he uses an embodied approach to help athletes engage more holistically with their bodies, rather than 'stay in their minds'. I hope you enjoy this fascinating podcast. BIO Danny Donachie works with World class athletes and leaders to improve performance through greater presence. He has held several leadership positions in elite sports, most recently working with a leading premiership soccer club in the UK. Danny brings his lifelong practice of meditation from Eastern traditions, alongside a more psychologically informed approach to his work. Through Embodyism he consults with high performing individuals and groups.

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Ian Parker is a practising psychoanalyst, an academic and a revolutionary activist. Ian discusses the radical roots of psychoanalysis and how these have changed overtime, to make psychoanalysis fit with contemporary capitalist society. Ian believes that psychoanalysis should be a radical practice than impacts on individuals and society, rather than an elite practice that adapts individuals to conform to social norms. He writes “Our task is to connect social struggle with the kind of unavoidable internal struggle described by psychoanalytic theory.” Ian challenges the standard idea of the unconscious being like an ice-berg where beneath our conscious surface lies a dark abyss of uncivilised, biological and instinctual drives. He works with a Lacanian approach that addresses the unconscious as a social and external phenomena, one that we individually relate to. He is critical of the ‘Psy’ professions such as psychology and psychotherapy as being instrumental to keeping things as they are, rather than offering a past to individual and social transformation. Ian is working towards developing a psychoanalytic practice that has a liberation ethic Enjoy listening to this fascinating and edgy podcast!

BIO Ian Parker is a psychoanalyst and a member of the new revolutionary organisation Anti-Capitalist Resistance, and of the Fourth International. His academic work has always been critical of psychology and psychiatry. His most recent book, co-authored with his Mexican comrade David Pavón-Cuéllar, is Psychoanalysis and Revolution: Critical Psychology for Liberation Movements https://psychoanalysisrevolution.com/. Ian is Emeritus Professor at Leicester University and his academic writing is widely published and cited.

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Olya Khaleelee shares her experiences and thoughts on 'OPUS, An organisation promoting the understanding of society'.  OPUS aims to develop a deeper understanding of conscious and unconscious organisational and social dynamics; and to promote reflective citizenship – using this understanding to act authoritatively and responsibly as members of society and organisations within society.  Olya shares some of the OPUS early work in the prison sector and workplace settings, and the development and importance of 'listening posts'.  Olya and Simon discuss the worrying authoritarianism growing in society, and how more than ever reflective citizenship is needed alongside spaces to help citizens take up their agency and authority in society.  Enjoy the listen! 

Olya Khaleelee is a corporate psychologist and organisational consul­tant with a particular interest in leadership, and organisational transi­tion and transformation. She was director of OPUS: an Organisation for Promoting Understanding of Society from 1980–1994, is a profes­sional partner of the Tavistock Institute and was the first female director of the Leicester Conference on the theme of Authority Leadership and Organisation. She has published extensively in the areas of leadership and system psychodynamics in organisations, and beyond, into society

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Stanley Gold is concerned with racism, and in his recent book, ‘Unthinkable Evil-Understanding Racism’ he makes the claim that we talk about racism, but not about the cause of racism, because to do so is unthinkable. He takes this phrase from politicians who talk about the ‘unthinkable evil’ when confronted with a racist or terrorist incidents. Stanley shares his edgy idea that racism is caused by neuro-biological and infantile changes in brain structure. Simon challenges this idea as the sole cause of racism. He believes that whilst racism, authoritarianism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of scapegoating can be linked to rigid forms of thinking, anxiety states and perhaps even neuro-biological wiring, it cannot be divorced from social causation. This social causation is the space which can be worked on to mitigate and reduce how anxieties and individual/collective troubled mindsets act out on the stage of life. Simon agrees with Stan that we all have the potential to be racist and authoritarian, and some more than others. Stan believes it is important to face this ‘unthinkable truth’, that racism is caused by infantile and neuro-biological factors. Simon claims our task is to work on the social areas – economic, social equity, education, institutional containment etc, that can reduce the potential of racism being manifested, and utilised by populist and nationalist politicians and other sub-groups. Stan thinks Simon avoids the unthinkable issue, Simon thinks Stan misses the important point that whatever the underlying cause of human behaviour, it is what happens in the social sphere that exacerbates, exploits, the worst of human behaviour or mitigates against it. They both agree that being able to talk openly about differences, and to think about the unthinkable is vitally important today when so many conversations are shut down or cancelled. Enjoy this lively discussion!

BIO

Stan Gold graduated in Medicine in Melbourne Australia and subsequently Guys Hospital London in Adult and Child Psychiatry where he became the inaugural Research Fellow. studying childhood Psychosis. Returning to Australia as research fellow to the inaugural department of Psychiatry , he was also consultant Psychiatrist at Prince Henry’s Hospital.. He subsequently trained in Psychoanalysis, becoming a training Analyst of the Australian Society and chair of the Centre for Psychodynamic studies Monash University. Returning to London and a position at the Cassell Hospital, he broadened his interests to groups and organisations and became a board member and later, President of ISPSO. More recently he has been appointed as member of the Mental Health Tribunal in his state. He has written over 40 papers ranging from clinical and research studies in childhood to Psychodynamic aspects of Organisational life. He has written two books, “How to Bring up your Parents” and last October, "Unthinkable Evil: Understanding Racism”.

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Josephine is Australia’s first out Transgender priest and on this podcast, shares her experiences, and why she believes that trans people can help to shine a light into the world. Simon and Josephine reflect on why transphobia occurs, and how trans, queer and non-binary ways of being create anxieties for those who fear transition in their own lives. Josephine believes that trans liberation is not just about emancipating transgender people, but it offers a vision of a beautiful world, where diversity flourishes. Josephine shares how being transgender doesn’t take away the gender identities of male and female, it expands the limitations of the binary and adds new possibilities. Discussing being in the church, Josephine embraces a theology that embraces mystery, a Christianity that is based on love and a church that embraces transitioning in this life and beyond.

BIO

Josephine McDonnell Inkpin is the first openly and fully recognised transgender Anglican priest in Australia, now currently working as Minister of Pitt Street Uniting Church in Sydney. Originally from England, where she studied at Oxford and Durham, she is a feminist church historian and theologian who has taught in various university settings over many years, as well as in a variety of ministry settings, typically ‘on the edge’. Chair of Equal Voices, a peak Australian network of LGBTIQ+ Christians and allies, Jo has also been a prominent leader in Australian inter-faith, multicultural, First Nations Reconciliation, and other justice activities over many years. A former officer of the National Council of Churches in Australia and General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council, and later described as a ‘Dangerous Woman of Queensland’, she was highlighted by Deloittes as one of the 2020 Out50 Outstanding LGBTI Leaders in Australia.

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Dr Mishel McMahon, a Yorta Yorta First Nations woman from Australia, draws from 60,000 years of Aboriginal cultural experience to discuss what she terms ‘Relational Ontology’ - ontology meaning how we understand reality, what’s real and what’s not real. She says “Relational ontology is a view of reality that all entities; plants, animals, elements, seasons, skies, waterways, the land, the spirit world and humans are in relationship, like a web. First Nations peoples and many other groups around the globe have held relational worldviews for thousands of years”. The relational worldview contrasts with the European/Westernised mindset which places humans at the centre of knowledge creation. Mishel discusses the importance of equality between all things, and how country, community and Ancestral knowledge are all infused and animated with spirit. This rich discussion raises many questions and hopefully inspires us to see the world, and to live in it differently.

BIO

Mishel McMahon is a proud Yorta Yorta woman, she grew up in a large family in the Murray river region of Victoria, Australia. Mishel completed her undergraduate degree of Bachelor of Human Services and Honours in Social Work in 2012 at La Trobe. Mishel has worked at various First Nations organisations, including Indigenous Academic Enrichment Advisor at La Trobe organising Sorry Day and NAIDOC events. Mishel began her PhD, undertaking research that revealed principles of First Nations childrearing, using methodology informed from a relational worldview, and Yorta Yorta language. Mishel recently won Premier's Research Awards for Aboriginal Research 2019, Fellowship for Indigenous Leadership 2019 and recently worked as Social Work lecturer at Shepparton La Trobe, campus. Mishel is in the last stages of developing a First Nations Health & Wellbeing mobile app, and shorts films from her Fellowship. Currently Mishel is Victorian Aboriginal Research Accord Co-ordinator at VACCHO and lives in Elmore, Victoria on the Campaspe river.

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Paul brings deep insights into climate change drawing on psycho-social thinking. This conversation explores climate anxiety, climate denial and climate delay, and how we as ‘moderns’ find it very difficult to escape deeply embedded ideas that entrap us. Paul relates this thinking back to our founding myths from Judeo-Christianity that throws humanity outside of the Edenic garden, and outside of nature, and is always looking for external salvation. He reflects that “Us moderns live in a kind of cocoon, continuing in our everyday routines, of living in our comforts, which means that we are able to live in this world, where because of mass media and now social media we know about all these terrible things going on and yet somehow or other remain unaffected” The conversation moves to how to engage with climate change and the anxieties it raises, and at the same time retain ‘radical hope’. Finally Simon and Paul reflect with caution, on some real changes taking place.

Bio: Paul Hoggett is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at UWE, Bristol where, with Simon Clarke, he was a Director of the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies. In 2000, with Larry Gould, he was founding editor of the journal Organisational and Social Dynamics, a forum for those working within the Tavistock Group Relations tradition. In 2012, with Adrian Tait, he founded the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA) and was its first chair. He recently edited a collection of CPA research papers, Climate Psychology: On Indifference to Disaster (2019, Palgrave Macmillan). Previous books have included Politics, Identity and Emotion (2009, Paradigm) and Partisans in an Uncertain World (1992, Free Association Books).

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This conversation is important for anyone working in organisations, and trying to make sense of systems thinking. Jim has been working with systems for many years and offers insights into how systems thinking evolved, why it is so important, and also why it is problematic and creates resistances. Drawing on psychoanalysis as a ‘moral’ practice, Jim believes that unless we understand the psychodynamics and emotions that are at play when we take a systems approach, it will likely fail. For example, he describes how systems thinking removes the option of blaming the binary ‘bad other’, which is our comfortable fall-back position in so many instances. Applying systems thinking we are all implicated and part of the challenges, and the problems we face are about interactions between things rather than the objects themselves. Jim brings a very humanistic lens to systems thinking and it is a privileged to share this conversation and the wisdom and insights shared.

Bio James Krantz, Ph.D. is an organizational consultant and researcher from New York City, where he is a Principal of Worklab Consulting, LLC. Jim has written extensively about the unconscious in work organizations, the dilemmas of leadership and authority in new forms of organization, and the challenges involved in developing one’s leadership voice. His Ph.D. is in Systems Sciences from the Wharton School.

In addition to consulting, Jim has been on several faculties, including those of Yale and Wharton. Currently he serves on the faculty of the School of Higher Economics in Moscow. Jim is past President of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations, Fellow of the A.K. Rice Institute, Member of OPUS and Chair of the Management Committee of the Organisational and Social Dynamics journal.

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This episode explores what it means to shift our mindsets towards ecological thinking and practice in organisations. This shift is away from the dominance of mechanistic and psychological thinking, not to replace these but in addition to them. Joan shares her long experience of working to disrupt organisations and help them to 'liberate' themselves from patterns that entrap them. To achieve this, individuals, teams and organisations have to let go of their attachments to the psychological and technical ways of knowing and thinking and move towards ecological thinking – understanding behaviour in terms of connectivity, interdependencies, patterns, and circularity. Simon and Joan discuss the challenges and aims of co-creating this emergent field of Organisational Ecology and Eco-Leadership that is so urgently needed to address the challenges of technological and environmental disruption. Bio Joan is the CEO of Orgonomix. A company she founded in 2009 with the purpose of enabling systemic change and reshaping leadership and organisations to thrive in complexity. She has spent the past 30 years working both within organisations and as a consultant assisting executive teams to lead complex adaptive change and disentangle and repattern the organisational systems they are part of. Her work and unique methodology (OrgonomicsTM) helps her client systems find flow and coherence It provides the scaffold to enable them to change their cultures, business and operating models with transformational and commercial results. Using these transformations as containers for development she helps leaders grow leaders’ systemic lens, extend their relational intelligence and build their adaptive muscle to be System Leaders. She sees this as an imperative for leaders to help them thrive, for optimising organisational functioning but also as a necessity for the survival of our whole ecology which is under threat. Joan is a Fulbright Scholar and has a Masters Degree in Adult Education and Development from Wits University, South Africa and a Masters Degree in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University, NYC. She currently lives in Melbourne collaborating and learning with clients and colleagues to discover new ways for all of us to be at our ‘growing edge’.

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Krish Raval is the Founder and Director of Faith in Leadership (FiL), Britain’s main leadership development organisation working with inter-faith communities. As a practicing Hindu he works with senior leaders and clerics from Muslim, Christian and Jewish faith communities. In this conversation Krish shares his work and experiences of leading this inter-faith community. Simon and Krish share their thoughts on how Eco-Leadership expresses the inter-dependencies and rich learning potential not only between faith communities but also between faith and secular organisations. Krish explains that the most powerful learning and development he observes, comes from leaders being with others, and learning how to work with and learn from differences, rather than being taught leadership skills. This aligns with Simon's theory of Leadership formation, which was inspired by his stay in a monastic hermitage. Simon noticed that monks were not taught 'monk skills' but were formed by the monastic life; the prayer, liturgy, rituals, work, spiritual direction, community life, self reflection and service to others. Krish's FiL work recognises this and he creates spaces for leadership formation to happen. He is currently developing the idea of ‘radical hospitality’, sharing his personal experience that inviting others into your home or place of worship to eat together, can be a transformative act. In this wide-ranging conversation Krish recalls his conversation with Nelson Mandela and he shares why he believes faith leadership in our communities is so important, to all society. Bio Krish Raval is the Founder and Director of Faith in Leadership (FiL), Britain’s main leadership development organisation to work with senior and emerging clerical and lay leaders from the main faith communities. Based at St Benet's Hall, University of Oxford, Krish supports and mentors FiL’s extraordinary alumni network. Whether addressing refugee and human trafficking matters, running foodbanks, contending with right-wing agitators outside Mosques or Synagogues, addressing the fallout from the murders of servicemen or dealing with Covid-19, FiL alumni are the nexus of intelligent faith in the public square in Britain today. Krish read law at Cambridge and Sheffield Universities, started a leadership development programme for young people when he was in his twenties, and has interviewed icons of leadership including Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela and HH The Dalai Lama. He’s the only person to have been award an OBE for services to leadership education and inter-faith cohesion

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Caroline is Professor of Culture and Psychoanalysis and in this podcast she shares her thoughts on a wide range of topics. She shares reflections on how our engagement with social media shapes our emotional and relational lives, and how psychoanalysis can help us untangle ourselves from the pervasive media and culture that we can't escape. Our cell phones are not only objects and tools that we use, but they are both intimately close to our bodies, and they are objects we internalise, taking emotional, affective space in our lives. Caroline discusses how 'not being able to breathe' has become a metaphor for our time. George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, "I cant breath", climate crisis with pollution and fires choking cities, the Covid pandemic and millions of respiratory deaths, and the suffocating ideology of neo-liberalism that closes down other spaces, are all part of our emotional, cognitive and physical experience of living today. Simon and Caroline discuss cinema and much more in this fascinating podcast. Bio Caroline is Professor of Culture and Psychoanalysis at Roehampton University, where she is based until the end of July 2021. She's also a practising member of the Analytic Coaching Network. She trained as an organisational consultant at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust. Underlying all her endeavours is a profound fascination with psychoanalysis, which she first encountered as an undergraduate studying languages. Caroline established and co-directed the Media and the Inner World research network between 2009-13, and now co-edits a book series on the theme of popular culture and psychoanalysis for Routledge. She is a widely published author of books and journal articles, a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council, and a former editor of the journal, Free Associations. Outside work she cheers on Liverpool FC through their highs and lows, and makes the most of living close to a beach with an art installation called Another Place. This conjuncture of art on the border between land and sea fuels the imagination and soothes the soul. For more information, see www.carobainbridge.co.uk

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Mark is a pioneer in the field of neuroscience founding the term Neuropsychoanalysis. In this very rich discussion Mark shares his insights into ‘where the brain meets the mind’. Previously the neuroscience focus was to study the brain in terms of cognition and behaviour, yet Mark saw that this missed out on what is really astonishing about the brain, that it is an organ of feeling, emotion and subjectivity. Marks research is extensive, and the application to organisations and leadership is discussed in this podcast. For example, through his research he shares his findings of how our brains are conditioned towards play in groups, as well as competition. Play and hierarchy are both part of the same behavioural pattern, where an essential part of play is to act out group dominance. However Mark describes the 60-40 rule, if an individual dominates play for more than 60% of the time, the play ends- it’s not fun anymore! If we look at leadership through this lens, we see how leaders who are too dominant and too controlling soon lose their followership. Mark’s latest book with excellent reviews is Hidden Spring A journey to the source of consciousness

BIO Mark Solms is a South African psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist. He pioneers psychoanalytic methods in contemporary neuroscience founding the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society in 2000. He holds many roles including the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town , Founding President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. and Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation in New York. In his free time Mark is a passionate wine maker, co-owning a vineyard cooperative.

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David Armstrong is a thought leader and inspiration to many working in the field of psychoanalysis and organisations. In this podcast David shares his experiences of working with pioneers in the field after joining the Tavistock Institute in 1959. David describes how alive the Tavistock project was in its early days. Innovations coming from the Tavistock Clinic through infant observation, attachment theory and the work of Menzies-Lythe and Ronnie Laing among many others. And from the Tavistock Institute through Eric Miller, Eric Trist and A.K. Rice and colleagues. David shares his experience of attending Wilfred Bion’s study group and how he became engaged in psychoanalytic work led by the Tavistock Clinic. He shares how the work in the Institute had a radical and political edge. ‘Democratising the workplace’ was and is, one of David’s inspirations in this field, and remains vital today. David discusses the question, ‘what is a psychoanalytic approach to organisations’, and highlights the importance of the action-research approach, which he feels has become marginalised, as a drift towards external consultancy now dominates the psychoanalytic-systems approach. David discusses the mutual interaction between the external and internal world as key to his work, and how there has been a shift from working with the Organisation-in-the-mind, to Networks-in-the-mind. In this wide-ranging discussion, David shares his interest in how religious dissenting traditions such as Methodism also influenced the psychoanalytic-organisational field, bringing social change and the group to the fore.

Bio David Armstrong

David studied philosophy at Oxford University then trained as a psychologist in Cambridge University and has worked in action research and organisational consultancy for over 60 years. He joined the Tavistock Institute working alongside some of the pioneers in the field. David went on to work in the Grubb Institute and Tavistock Consultancy Service. David has worked in this field with senior executives and executive teams in business, government, health and education in the UK and worldwide. His experience includes working with executives in pharmaceuticals, investment banking, NHS trusts, local government, higher education, prison governors and for senior civil servants. He is a leading thinker in the domain of psychoanalysis and organisations, bringing insights and sharing experiences that have inspired the wider field. David is a distinguished member of ISPSO. David is author of Organization in the Mind: Psychoanalysis,Group Relations and Organizational Consultancy, edited by Robert French.

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Professor Kate Kenny is a leading expert in the field of Whistleblowing. In this podcast Kate draws on psychosocial approaches to take a fresh look at Whistleblowing. Whistle-blowers are consistently treated by the media and public as traitors or hero’s. Take Edward Snowden, for some he is a courageous hero who sacrificed his career and put himself in danger for ‘truth-telling’, for others he is a traitor for giving away secrets to enemies of the state. Kate builds a broader case that situates whistle-blowers in their organisational and social context. In this fascinating conversation Kate discusses how whistleblowing is an organisational phenomenon and how group and social dynamics influence how whistle-blowers act, and how they are responded to. Many organisations respond positively to whistle-blowers yet some continue to enact 'whistleblower retaliation'. Kate also discusses the importance of organisations more generally, and how they impact on our psychic and emotional lives, individually and collectively.

Bio Kate Kenny is Professor of Business and Society at NUI Galway. She has held research fellowships at the Edmond J. Safra Lab at Harvard University and Cambridge's Judge Business School. Her research focuses on organization studies, specifically political and psychosocial approaches. She has researched whistleblowing in organisations since 2010. Along with numerous articles in peer review journals on this topic, she has published two books on whistleblowing: Whistleblowing: Toward a new theory (Harvard University Press, 2019) and The Whistleblowing Guide (Wiley Business, 2019, with Wim Vandekerckhove and Marianna Fotaki). She has written and contributed to articles in the Financial Times, the Irish Times, the Guardian among others. Her work has been cited in the UK House of Commons, Ireland’s parliament and in policy documents at EU level. Kate’s recent book ‘Whistleblowing: Toward a New Theory’ (Harvard University Press, 2019) adopts a psychosocial framing to whistleblowing. Her book ‘The Whistleblowing Guide’ (Wiley, 2019) with Professors Wim Vandekerckhove and Professor Marianna Fotaki is aimed at practicing managers, coaches and others working in this space. The Psychosocial and Organization Studies (Palgrave, 2014 with Professor Marianna Fotaki) is an edited collection of contributions from experts in this field. Watch an interview with Kate and Chris Smalls, Amazon whistleblower mentioned in the discussion. Short pieces on Covid-19, healthcare and whistleblowing (as mentioned), featured in the The Conversation and RTE Brainstorm Reports, videos and research from Professor Kenny are all on www.whistleblowingimpact.org

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In this episode Daniel shares his research and experience of credentialing and accreditation in coaching. His findings ask many questions about the credibility of practices, often delivered by self-appointed regulation bodies, some that make a lot of money from the process. Daniel identifies eight consumer types of coaches in relation to accreditation and credentialing: The Enthusiast, Complier, Susceptible, Pragmatist, Procrastinator, Agnostic, Ideologue and Inquirer; each seeking or resisting accreditation and credential for different reasons. Daniel and Simon discuss the importance of critical thinking to question these credentialing norms, and how the practice of attaining accreditation is often a process more aligned with audit culture and collecting a number of hours in training and practice with very little quality control on what happens in those hours. An important podcast for coaches, trainers and HR and managers purchasing coaching.

Bio After thirty years experience of coaching and business consulting that became increasingly globalised in nature, Daniel returned to the UK from South Africa in 2005, to complete a PhD and to teach and research in a variety of Higher Education Institutions. In 2006 Daniel founded the Critical Coaching Research Group, which he continues to lead to this day. His preferred research idiom is narrative practice; in the past two years he has authored two satirical novels set in the coaching world, and is in the process of writing a series of ‘plays for voices.’

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In this episode Lynne shares her personal leadership journey and thoughts on women's leadership. Lynne was born into a working-class community, and travelled a long and fascinating journey to the top of the educational establishment. Lynne draws on two defining influences that have shaped her work, feminism and spirituality. Lynne now runs her own leadership programme based on Goddess spirituality. She believes that creating a separate and sacred space outside of mainstream leadership development allows for counter-cultural innovations to emerge that can challenge the patriarchal thinking that continues to define leadership practice. Lynne is an inspirational leader and speaker and I hope you enjoy this podcast.

BIO

Lynne was born into a working-class mining community, and had a successful mainstream career in FE as a lecturer and college Principal. She has been a national education influencer, becoming CEO of a national institute and working at Prime ministerial level with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Lynne has received many awards and was given a CBE in 2002. Throughout her journey spirituality has been core to her being. Lynne is now a Priestess and Founder of the Goddess Luminary Wheel leadership development programme. She is an elder who coaches individuals and teams in a range of organisations, especially charities. Her work on spirituality in the workplace received international recognition with books and articles written on her unusual contribution. Lynne has a Doctorate in spiritual leadership, has published 3 poetry collections and her new book Leading through the Goddess will be published later this year.

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Richard is a thought leader who looks at organisational life through the lens of irony and absurdity. In this discussion with Simon, he shares his thoughts on the need to support those ironists who bring something special and vitally important to organisational life. He shares his research that revealed 4 types of ironist, the Apollonion ironist who sits like a God looking down, commenting from a distance, the Sarcastic ironist, who retreats to the sidelines to poke fun at the absurd enthusiasms of others, the Trickster ironist who intervenes with humour, wit and thought to make things happen and to reveal and bridge gaps, and the Wise ironist who pulls the strings from the background and predicts what will happen. These ironists and liminal thinkers can be either a force for dysfunction or for development. Richard believes it is our task to find these organisational people, and make the space to guide their work towards well-being and development. Enjoy the listen! Bio Richard’s work focuses on the dimensions of high performance during long-term organisational transformations, in which volatility, uncertainty complexity and ambiguity are inherent to the business environment. Described as “full of daring and imagination” and “touchstone for the future of management and organisation”, his research examines ways in which plural and diverse ideas emerge in individuals, teams and cultures; how criticality and creativity are communicated to more powerful others; and how you can develop the capacity for this across an organisation.

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Lauren identifies as a queer creative.  Growing  up as straight female, Lauren embraced her Queerness at the age of 27.  Since then professionally and in her personal life she is devoted to exploring life outside the Eurocentric norm and how this impacts on herself and others.  In this discussion Simon and Lauren explore how queer and non-binary ideas and practices meet resistance and why this is.  They also discuss how Queer culture provides new hope, offering liberation for those adopting queer and non-binary ways-of-being and also for wider society.   Breaking the binaries that entrap us, emancipates all of us from the bondage of conformity.  It breaks through us and them dynamics enabling difference and diversity to flourish ..... enjoy this exploration of Queerness!    Bio Lauren has a Bachelor's degree in International Security and Conflict Resolution and a Master's degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She grew up in Southern California and currently resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she works in mental health.  For the past five years, she has actively been pursuing the study of group dynamics doing work as a Co-Creator for Group Relations International and as a member of the A.K. Rice Institute.  Lauren loves riding and competing on American Quarter Horses and is currently a World Finalist (Top 15 in the World) in multiple events. 

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This conversation draws on Trevor's experience and passion of living in the Kruger National Park South Africa. Trevor brings his coaching and therapeutic background to inform his consultancy and coaching at work. Unusually he brings a particular edge to this organisational work that comes from his engagement with the natural world. Trevor recently completed his 'tracker training" and shares how his experiences of vulnerability when confronting an angry bull elephant, can be translated to how we can use our vulnerability at work. Central to his thinking is what he has learnt in the bush about 'Situational Awareness', and how this insight is essential to the work of organisational coaches and leaders, if we are to lead system-change effectively.

Bio Trevor Hough is a Clinical psychologist, Analytic-Network Certified executive coach and organisation development consultant, previously he was an analytic psychotherapist. Trevor grew up as a nomad living all over the world and through this developed a keen interest in understanding diverse cultures. He consults to diverse global companies and has a particular interest in the finance sector. Outside of his consulting work Trevor’s great passion is being out in nature. He has trained as a field and trails guide in the African bush and is in his element when out tracking animals on foot. He has been living and working in the Greater Kruger National park since the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown.

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Gianpiero is an internationally renowned thinker in the field of leadership and learning in the workplace. He brings a clinical lens to his research and teaching, which he begun acquiring while training as a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, and refined in two decades of coaching, consulting, teaching, and researching people’s working lives.

At the heart of this conversation is the idea that humanising organisations requires revisiting our conceptions of leadership. ‘Caring,’ Gianpiero argues, needs to be put at the core of leadership thinking and practice, rather than kept at its periphery. He shares the idea that ‘we often make an instrumental argument for making humanistic organisations, and every time we do that, humanism dies from 100 cuts”.

Gianpiero invites us to consider how the current challenges that many organizations experience, such as a struggle with innovation or inclusion, might be side effects of our devotion to dehumanized models of organizing. The notion of alignment, for example, often serves as a cover for the pursuit of conformity, which in turn undermines the desire for diversity. Among other wide-ranging topics, our conversation reflects on identity and what it means to be cosmopolitan in world that is struggling with helping people belong to a place and also be engaged world citizens. Enjoy this wonderful podcast!

Bio

Gianpiero is associate professor of organizational behaviour at INSEAD. His award-winning research and teaching focus on what it means, and what it takes, to become a leader. He is particularly interested in the development and exercise of leadership in the age of "nomadic professionalism," in which people have deep bonds to work but loose affiliations to institutions, and authenticity and mobility have replaced loyalty and advancement as hallmarks of virtue and success. Gianpiero's research has appeared in leading academic journals such as the Administrative Science Quarterly , Academy of Management Annals , Academy of Management Learning & Education. He also writes essays regularly for the Harvard Business Review and Sloan Management Review. His work has been featured in a range of media including the BBC , Financial Times , The Economist , The Guardian , New York Times , Wall Street Journal , Washington Post , Quartz , Vox , Le Figaro and El Pais , and he is listed among the 50 most influential management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50 .

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Tara Nolan is fascinated by teams and has worked extensively with teams as a coach. In this episode, Tara reflects on her work and her insights from interviewing experts and team leaders in her podcast ‘A Game of Teams’. Teams are the heartbeat of organisational success and this episode Tara and Simon discuss team dynamics, team leadership and the changing nature of how teams are working in more fluid and virtual ways, and what this means in terms of containment, trust, leadership and performance. Tara Nolan is the host of The Game of Teams Podcast, a podcast that was born out of her fascination with teams, her work with teams as a Team Coach and her interest in exploring the thoughts and thinking of others who have a role in making teams great.

Tara is a Master Certified Coach (MCC) and Systemic Team Coach and she uses systems thinking, team essentials, team structure, diagnostics, dialogue, group dynamics, emotional and social intelligences, mindfulness and reflective practices to inform her thinking and approach with teams. She is a facilitator and regular contributor to various publications and respected thought leader on teams. Tara started her career as an Investment Banker working for Morgan Stanley in the City of London. She now lives in Dublin and has her own company called Tara Nolan LTD.

Her websites: www.taranolan.ie and www.thegameofteams.com

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Chris Yates has travelled a big journey, coming from the West Indies to London as a child, brought up by a single parent, he has held some of the biggest 'people jobs' in the business world. Currently Chief Talent Officer at Ford Motor Company, previouslyGeneral Manager of Learning & Development at Microsoft, Chief Learning Officer and Head of People and Organizational Development for Caterpillar Inc. and he served in senior roles at HSBC bank and American Express.  Chris is also co-author of two books titled Share and Rewire.  

In this podcast Chris reflects on this journey, sharing how being in a football gang as a teenager gave him support and identity and what it means to carry a black body into all white boardrooms.  Chris's insights reveal how important it is to hold on to a very human identity in workplaces that consciously and unconsciously pressurise employees to conform to the norm, through dress and behavioral codes.   Chris shares his view that employee's need to be given permission to bring their individuality and their deepest human selves back into the workplace, if we are to create the 'good society'. 

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Pooja Sachdev is a leading practitioner in the diversity and inclusion space. Pooja discusses with Simon the real challenges faced by organisations when working on diversity and inclusion. This conversation reveals how language can be used to silence people rather than open up discussions, and how we need to 'decriminalise bias' if we are to acknowledge our conscious and unconscious biases.

Pooja and Simon discuss their personal experiences of working with diversity; Pooja from a perspective of her 'hyphenated' Indian-UK identity, and Simon as a white UK male. They discuss shame and guilt, and how racism is often repressed but returns in different ways in each generation, the latest wave being the Black Lives Matter movement.

Organisations are often performative in the way they use woke-slogans to cover up hidden toxic cultures. A shift is needed from woke and blame cultures towards creating safe spaces that encourage curious conversations, which can reveal what's really going on, and enable positive reform and changes to be made. Enjoy this podcast.

Note: Pooja and Simon will be leading a Webinar titled 'Diversity and Inclusion: Are you performing or reforming' on January 28th 2021 3-5pm UK time. For more information contact simon@analyticnetwork.com Bio Pooja is a business psychologist, organisational consultant and founder of Rewire Consulting (www.rewireconsulting.com). Pooja is co-author of 'Rewire: A Radical Approach to Tackling Diversity and Difference', which was published by Bloomsbury in 2015 and described by the FT as "the most refreshing approach to diversity I have read" (Nov 4, 2015). Prior to setting up her own practice, she served as Senior Policy Officer at the (then) Commission for Racial Equality in the UK and as a Consultant in the Human Capital division at Towers Watson. In recent years, she has consulted with organisations such as Microsoft, Caterpillar, HSBC, Universal, Annapurna Pictures, Vice Media and Red Bull to help embed inclusive leadership and practices. She has lived in three countries and is raising two feisty and fabulous daughters in London

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Dina Hassan lives in Egypt and works as a clinical forensic psychoanalyst.   In a wide ranging conversation, Dina shares her experience of life in Egypt and her time spent studying in Ireland.  Dina is 30 years old and a few years ago chose to wear a veil and she shares her experience of how this played out with her peers and challenges our perceptions of what it means to wear a veil.  Dina discusses her love of psychoanalysis and how it sits culturally in Egypt.  She identifies as half Egyptian and half Scottish, who is passionate about her country and the food of the country.  Enjoy the listen

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Professor Tatiana Bachkirova shares her deep knowledge of coaching and in conversation with Simon they explore some of the limitations of coaching practice today, and what can be done to change this.   Tatiana and Simon are both advocates for coaching and believe coaching to be a hugely important developmental practice, yet they see problems in how coaching is practiced today.  The mainstream coaching focus on positivity and positive psychology and the lack of criticality are central concerns.  The conversation explores how to develop a more critical-reflective approach to coaching that supports clients and workplaces to become more developmental, rather than simply develop resilience and try to promote positive thinking. 

Bio

Tatiana Bachkirova is Professor of Coaching Psychology and Co-Director of the International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies at Oxford Brookes University, UK.  She is a recognised author, international speaker and an active researcher.  Her books include Developmental Coaching: Working with the Self (2011) and The SAGE Handbook of Coaching (2017).

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Jeff is a sinologist and has spent many years working and living in China. He works as a leader in the world of technology and has worked in global tech companies and now is CEO /owner of a mid size tech company. In 2018 Simon and Jeff presented together at a conference exploring how new technologies pull us in two competing directions, towards centralisation and to decentralisation. Techno utopians led us to believe that the internet and other technologies would lead to a greater democratization and egalitarian society, whilst techno-dystopians claim these new technologies increasingly centralise power and limit individual freedom. Jeff discusses these issues and shares insights on how Chinese culture adapts to these pulls and compares his experience of how western culture addresses these issues.

Bio

Prior to becoming Dilaco's CEO in August 2019, Jeff served as a Senior Director for HP in Asia-Pacific and Greater China, the company's fastest growing region and one of its largest country markets. Before joining HP in 2011, Jeff was country director Greater China for Canon and Oce. He cultivates leadership through benevolence, righteousness, propriety, learning, and trustworthiness throughout his work. Placing prime importance on inspiring and connecting people to take care of themselves and encouraging dynamic and positive collaboration within and across teams. Jeff is also very involved in growing the understanding between China and the West, comparing chinese and western societies from a historical perspective of human consciousness. Here he has a special focus on leadership, based on the belief that Chinese and Western principles and practice of leadership are largely complementary, and an understanding of both is required to be a complete leader.

Jeff is a trained Analytic-Network Coach and co-wrote a chapter on Chinese leadership in Global Leadership Perspectives: Insights and Analysis (Western and Garcia Sage 2018)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffdekleijn/

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In this podcast I read a short essay that explores the art of living the good life through the lens of the thermos flask.

Internalised as a childhood ‘good object’ that represented happy times- family holidays and mountain walks- and it produced ‘good things’ that comforted me; warm nourishing soup and hot coffee. It acted as a transitional object when I travelled, bridging home and my place of arrival, and it became a lost symbol when consumerism and the cappuccino cult seduced me and millions of others to abandon the flask.

Covid19 lockdown closed the cafes I frequented and a ‘return of the repressed’ occurred. The flask re-emerged and ‘flask-time’ has once again become an important part of my life, in unexpected ways. Flask-time is a special time, a transcendent time beyond ‘ordinary time’. Flask-time by-passes consumerism, connects me to the past, present and future, and emancipates me from patterns I was previously entrapped in. I praise the flask, because it engages me in a slower and freer experience, it inspires a micro-resistance to consumer society, and it re-connects me to nature, home produced food and to what it means to live the good-life. 

A print version of this essay can be found here: In Praise of the Flask 

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Professor Jonathan Gosling has been working in leadership development across the globe and in diverse settings for many years. In this podcast he discusses with Simon the pleasures of power. They reflect on their own relationships to power, those of leaders they have coached and the tangled collusions around domination and submission. Many leaders who seem powerful to others feel themselves to be trapped in organisational cultures that render them quite powerless in these totalising corporate systems. Power can be harnessed for the benefit of others, and can give individuals meaning and a sense of agency and identity, and it can also feed ego and be coercive. Jonathan offers the novel idea of "powering" turning power into a verb that opens up how power is used tactically in situations. The discussion ends with reflecting on how power may or may not support the good life and good society.

Bio

Jonathan Gosling is a sailor, emeritus professor and consultant to OD projects in primary health services in southern Africa. He is also lead faculty with the Forward Institute to promote responsible leadership. He is director, Pelumbra Ltd, and was previously Professor of Leadership at the Universities of Lancaster and Exeter. His own troubled relatedness to power and the people who wield it has drawn him into most of his career-defining predicaments - in universities, community mediation, private equity firms, electronics companies, governments, emergency response agencies and more.

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Michael and Simon, two white men, discuss whiteness as a paradigm. Their conversation draws on their personal experiences and addresses the wider systemic issues that are at play. They reflect on how white fragility plays out, and what it will take to enable people to move from being defensive, to engage with the vulnerable curiosity that is required to lead to change? Whiteness is often referred to as a place of privilege and entitlement, as clearly it is in many social settings. Yet ‘whiteness’ is not homogenous, and there are millions of white underclass in the USA (referred to as 'white trash') and across Europe, economically impoverished who have lost the dignity of work and class solidarity, and don’t feel privileged and entitled at all. What can we do to address this aspect of ‘whiteness’ whose rage can lead to supporting populist and xenophobic right-wing leaders? Acknowledging complexity, this conversation explores what can be done to challenge centuries of racial domination and abuse, and the endemic racism that still exists in society today. Questioning the whiteness paradigm is an important part of this process.

Bio

Michael Lindsay is a consulting and clinical psychologist practicing in San Diego, CA. He is interested in supporting the development of consciousness and courage in leaders, organizational cultures, and in society, using Systems Psychodynamic and Integral frameworks. Michael is serving his first year as an Internal Director on the Board of the AK Rice Institute. He is a member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. In addition to his clinical and consulting practices, Michael is an Adjunct Instructor at the University of San Diego in the Leadership Studies Dept. He has also been a yoga instructor for over 10 years and together with his husband, Michael is raising two boys, one 7 and the other 3, in a bi-lingual household.

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Edgy ideas are a speciality from my guest Martin Parker.  As Professor of Organization Studies at Bristol University, Martin challenges mainstream ideas about how we think about organisations, leadership and management.  His recent books ‘Shut down the Business school’ and 'Anarchism, Organization and Management' are discussed in this vibrant conversation. Martin draws on his sociology, anthropology and cultural studies training to inform his thinking.  Martin and Simon discuss how anarchism and social movements can help inform the radical rethink that is urgently needed if we are to #buildbackbetter after Covid19.     

His latest book title is 'Life after COVID19',  other publications focus on utopianism, conspiracy theory, business ethics, pirates and outlaws and other alternative organizations.  Martin is the lead for the Inclusive Economy Initiative in Bristol.  

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This very special episode of Edgy Ideas addresses issues of race from MLK to BLM, on a journey experienced by my esteemed guest Dr Kathleen Pogue White. Kathy met Dr King as a student and shares her unique experience of living and working through periods of hope and despair in relation to racism in the USA and beyond. As BLM puts racism back at the top of an international agenda, Kathy shares her experience of working in organisations to address ‘white supremacy’ and structural racism. Kathy brings immense depth of wisdom to share, drawing on psychoanalytic insights and a lifetime experience of working with leaders from all sectors.

BIO Notes Dr Kathleen Pogue White, is a psychoanalyst who applies the profession's core knowledge and skills in her multi-sectored work in organizational consulting, executive coaching and leadership development. Dr. White’s practice is based in Manhattan and she has vast experience in consulting to multi-cultural, multi-national, and diverse groups and organizations; her work ranges from Goldman Sachs to the Jewish Board of family and children’s services. Dr White also has many professional affiliations, to name a few, she is a founding member and past Director of the Program in Organizational Development and Consultation Program at the William Alanson White Institute for Psychology and Psychoanalysis, Distinguished Member of ISPSO, the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations and is an Associate of the Tavistock Institute.

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World-renowned author, academic and award-winning teacher, Manfred Kets de Vries joins Simon to share his invaluable insights on working with leaders and organisations. Manfred discusses his work with CEOs, family business leaders, and his work in Russia. In his new e-book 'Journeys into Coronavirus Land' Manfred sets out the five fundamentals that guide good leadership - Belonging, Purpose, Self Competence, Self-Control and Transcendence. Manfred's long term focus has been to use psychological insights to make leaders more self-aware, in order to make organisations more humane, therefore making a real difference in the world of work. We finish with his thoughts on what it takes to live a good life and create a good society. Manfred Kets de Vries holds the Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD, he is Program Director of INSEAD’s top management program, “The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Reflective Leaders,” and the Founder of INSEAD’s Executive Master Program in Change Management. Kets de Vries is a prolific and best selling author having authored, co-authored or edited 52 books and published more than 400 academic papers/articles. His work has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Business Week, The Economist, The Financial Times and The Harvard Business Review. He has won awards too many to mention. He is a member of New York’s Explorers Club and in his spare time can be found in the rainforests or savannas of Central and Southern Africa or within the Arctic Circle.

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In Part 2 Simon continues his conversation with Leslie Brissett and they explore faith, belonging, monastic calling and the beauty of trees amongst other issues relating to identity.   

Leslie is from the UK with a Caribbean heritage, and recently relocated to live in Arkansas USA. Leslie is Director of Group Relations at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and has studied human dynamics in experiential settings in many countries; he is also the Company Secretary at Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.    

Enjoy Listening

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In this episode Simon invites special guest Leslie Brissett to share his personal experience of race and identity.    

This delightful and deeply human conversation meanders through race and identity exploring otherness and drawing on psychoanalytic insights. Leslie shares his reflections and insights on these big issues bringing his unique perspectives on what it means to live a good life and create the good society.  

Leslie is from the UK with a Caribbean heritage, and recently relocated to live in Arkansas USA. Leslie is Director of Group Relations at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and has studied human dynamics in experiential settings in many countries; he is also the Company Secretary at TIHR.  Enjoy Listening!  

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Our special guest today is Irena Izotova from Moscow, who will be sharing her thoughts and experience from a Russian perspective. Our conversation meanders through our experiences of the pandemic and we touch on how the 'Discourse of the Master' returns to impose prohibitions on us during the lockdown.

This is something new to many in the west, but Irena points to this being historically familiar to Russians.   Irena relates how her elderly relative trangresses this prohibition as a refusal to submit once again to the prohibitions she experienced in her earlier life.  She also identifies the importance of arranging reflexive spaces both for leaders and for professionals who support them,  to keep their resilience and capacity to think and act maturely. We end the conversation by exploring how to live rather than survive, and how 'not to give up on our desire'.  

Irena is an Executive &Team Coach and Organizational Consultant oriented by a psychodynamic approach.  She is President of Association of Psychoanalytic Coaching and Business Consulting, an Analytic-Network Registered Coach, Lecturer at HSE and a Lacanian psychoanalyst.   Enjoy this podcast! 

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In episode 4, Simon converses with special guest and internationally renowned Professor  Ajeet N. Mathur from Ahmedabad India.  Ajeet is a fountain of knowledge and wisdom, and their conversation traverses a range of issues in relation to these disruptive times.  In search of how to live a good life and create the good society, Ajeet highlights dignity and the loss of humanity as central concerns.  They observe how the return of the repressed is taking place referencing racism and colonialism playing out in different ways pending on the context and country. 

Ajeet N. Mathur PhD, is a Professor at IIM Ahmedabad with many years of consulting experience for transformative leadership and organisational change with businesses, governments, international institutions and not-for-profit organisations. He is an affiliate life member of the Indian Psychoanalytic Society, and Yoga Shikshak and Karma Sannyasin of the Bihar School of Yoga. Ajeet has been the EU-Tempus Professor of European Integration and Internationalisation and teaches courses in strategy, international business, action research methodologies, mysteries in management, directs group relations conferences.  His publications include 29 books and over 160 papers in scientific journals.

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This episode Pandemic Psychodynamics UK opens up a wide-ranging and deeply engaging conversation with award winning author Steven D' Souza.  

We reflect on how people react to the anxiety produced when we get to a place of not-knowing.   We explore how Covid-19 amplifies previous social-political trends such as the rise in authoritarianism and conformism.  Also how the critical and creative thinking that is so urgently needed can be unconsciously repressed in pandemic time.   People can be silenced if they question the dominant discourse such as 'we follow the science' or the workplace equivalent this is 'evidenced-based', people often act as if these are neutral and apolitical,  yet power always plays out in how science, knowledge and data are used.  We end by focusing on social cohesion, and how pandemic time also increases community, how people are deeply touched.. when touching is physically prohibited.    

Steven D'Souza is author/co-author of four books. Most recently Not Knowing, with Diana Renner, which won the UK Management Book of the Year, and Not Doing. He has been an Associate Fellow at Said Business School, the University of Oxford, and currently heads Executive Development for a global organisation.  Enjoy! 

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Simon is joined by Brigid Nossal to discuss pandemic psychodynamics in Australia

Brigid Nossal is a co-founder and co-Director of the National Institute of Organisation Dynamics Australia that delivers a fabulous Masters of Leadership and Management taking a psychodynamic-systems approach.  Brigid combines academic teaching and research with organisational consulting. She recently served on the Board of ISPSO, and is a Registered Analytic-Network Coach.  In this podcast Brigid insightfully reflects on the unconscious impacts the pandemic is having on the Australian psyche.  The discussion with Simon reflects emergent psycho-social influences on leadership and citizenship and they discuss the tightrope between localism and globalisation, nationalism and progressive opportunities. Enjoy! 

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Simon is joined by Professor Zachary Green to discuss pandemic psychodynamics in the USA.  Zachary is Professor in Leadership Studies at University of San Diego, co-founder and director of Group Relations International. Zachary has three decades of experience studying, coaching and consulting to unconscious and systemic dynamics of global organizations, most notably through the World Bank.  Zachary discusses how projections and splitting are creating a secondary wave of challenges for the US that are particularly influenced by political polarization and exacerbated by culture wars. The pandemic is also exposing pronounced racial divides in health and welfare provision like never before. Simon and Zachary reflect on these gaps, and how psychoanalysis teaches us that lack creates desire….  could Covid-19 provoke a new push for greater social cohesion?  Faith, psychoanalysis and leadership are in the mix, enjoy this podcast!

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Welcome to Edgy Ideas, where we explore what it means to live a ‘good life’ and build the ‘good society’ in our disruptive age.   This podcast explores our human dynamics in today's networked society.   Addressing topical themes, we explore how social change, technology and environmental issues impact on how we live, and who we are - personally and collectively. Edgy Ideas podcast aims to re-insert the human spirit, good faith, ethics and beauty back into the picture, offering new perspectives and psycho-social insights.  We pay particular attention to how the ‘unconscious that speaks through us’ entrapping us in repetitive patterns and shaping our desires.  Each podcast concludes by contemplating what it means to live a ‘good life’ and create the ‘good society’.  Enjoy! 

Series 1 Pandemic Psychodynamics   Simon will talk to guests from around the world exploring how conscious and unconscious dynamics are playing out in times of trauma

Contact simon@analyticnetwork.com   www.analyticnetwork.com