Edgy Ideas

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’.

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. BiosChris 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) and at 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.

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! BioAndrés 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.

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.

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 Health and 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.

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’.

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

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!  Bio Alicia 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. Previously a tenure profesor at Alcalá de Henares University. 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.  Get in contact with Alicia: aliciakauf@gmail.com

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. BioJulia 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.

Donate to Karolina (Fine NGO): https://fine.ngo/en/make-a-donationDonate to Zuzanna (Salam NGO): https://paypal.me/salamlabIn 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-donationDonate to Zuzanna (Salam NGO): https://paypal.me/salamlabBiosZuzanna 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.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