In Conversation with Nathalie Nahai

Hello, and a warm welcome to this special extended season of The Hive Podcast, featuring the interviews from my new book, "Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience". Join me, as I dive into the conversations behind the quotes, and hear from the world’s leading experts, psychologists and business leaders, whose insights and ideas are transforming how we work, rest and play. I’ll be releasing a new episode here, each week, but if you’d like to download everything at once and access additional resources and recommended reading, I’ve made all of this available to readers over at https://www.businessunusualthebook.com/. And if you’re tempted to discover more about your motivations and the principles that drive you, you can even check out the values map.com, a platform I’ve designed in collaboration with Dr Kiki Leutner of Goldsmiths University, to help you identify, develop and communicate the psychological values you or your business represents. In today’s conversation, I speak with Amy C. Edmondson – the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, whose most recent book, The Fearless Organization, examines the powerful role of psychological safety in teamwork and innovation. Based upon almost 30 years of research, Amy’s work explores what it takes for groups of people to perform at a high level, and the dynamic forms of collaboration that are needed in environments characterised by uncertainty and ambiguity. Before her academic career, Amy was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked with founder and CEO Larry Wilson to design change programs in large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and innovation in the built environment remains an area of enduring interest and passion. Recorded on 6th February 2021.

In the final episode of the season, I speak with Professor Manfred Spitzer - a German psychiatrist, psychologist and neuroscientist, whose research and talks have been translated the world over. Medical Director of the Psychiatric University Hospital in Ulm, Germany, Professor Spitzer is also the founder of the Transfer Center for Neurosciences and Learning, and has worked at Heidelberg, Harvard, and the University of Oregon. In this conversation, we discuss everything from the perils of digitalising classrooms and reliance on our devices, to the exciting new interventions science might offer us as to how we build resilience from the lessons we have learned.

Today I speak with Carl Miller, co-rounder and Research Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos, the UK’s first think tank institute dedicated to studying the digital world. From ‘Fake news’, digital democracy and information warfare, to cybercrime, Internet governance and automated decision-making, Carl’s work explores how social media and technology is changing society, and his research aims to shed light upon how we might make better, more informed choices towards a more democratic society. His debut book, The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab was published in 2018 by Penguin RandomHouse, and won the 2019 Transmission Prize. He presents programmes for the BBC's flagship technology show, Click and has written for Wired, New Scientist, the Sunday Times, the Telegraph and the Guardian. He’s a writer and thinker who’s work I greatly admire, and it was a pleasure and privilege speaking with him today.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Naeema Pasha, the Director of Henley Careers and Professional Development, Director of Diversity & Inclusion, and the Founder of the World of Work at Henley Business School. Naeema’s research on the Future of Work spans the territory of AI, ethics, climate change, diversity and inclusion and more, and her doctoral research on managing careers in uncertainty, explored key factors that enable people to take a positive pro-active stance to build successfully against the backdrop of technological change. Her new book, Futureproof Your Career: How to Lead and Succeed in a Changing World is co-authored by Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj, and comes out in December this year. We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, from themes around diversity and inclusion, to the future of work and her new paper, The Equity Effect. I do hope you enjoy the conversation.

This episode I speak with Dr Tom Chatfield, a best-selling author and philosopher of technology, whose new book, How to Think, explores the habits and practices that are fundamental to clear thinking and effective study. From the ethics of AI, and tech in deep time, to the philosophy of fake news and what it means to think well, Tom’s work explores how we might improve our experiences and understanding of ourselves, of one another and of technology. His non-fiction books exploring digital culture, including How To Thrive in the Digital Age (Pan Macmillan) and Live This Book! (Penguin), have appeared in over thirty languages, and his critical thinking textbooks and online courses, developed in partnership with SAGE Publishing, are used in schools and universities across the world. I’ve had the pleasure of sharing several stages over the years with Tom, and with each event, I’ve come away feeling inspired and awed at his ability both to understand and to vividly convey the complex and nuanced ways in which we might more richly engage with the world.

Today I speak with Sharath Jeevan, an author and speaker who helps organisations and individuals to re-ignite inner-drive and solve deep motivational challenges. Recognised as one of the UK’s ten leading social entrepreneurs in 2019, Sharath’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, CNN, National Public Radio and The Times of India, and he has served on the High Level Steering Group of the Education Commission, the pre-eminent global think-tank founded by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. His forthcoming book, Intrinsic: A manifesto to reignite our inner drive, explores how we can harness ground-breaking research to solve what he describes as our motivational crisis, so as to better create the lives we want. In this conversation we navigate everything from motivation and meaning to purpose, autonomy and mastery, and I’m excited to share his insights with you here.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Austin Whitman, CEO of Climate Neutral, and a thought-leader well-versed in the world of corporate carbon responsibility. Having served as Vice President of Climate Change Capital, and Vice President of M.J. Bradley & Associates, two leaders in climate-focused investing and asset management, in 2019, Austin started Climate Neutral, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit aiming to accelerate the decarbonization of global emissions through their achievable certification framework. By using this framework to certify brands who measure their carbon footprint, offset it with verified offsets, and create future reduction strategies, Climate Neutral aim to turn consumer purchases into funding for climate solutions, and empower brands and consumers to take voluntary action against climate change. This was an eye-opening conversation for me, in which Austin really lifted the lid on how we might practically and proactively move towards a net zero carbon world, and I hope you find it as inspiring and useful as I did.

In this episode, I speak with Cory Doctorow, a Canadian-British blogger, science fiction author, activist, and journalist, whose recent books include "Attack Surface" and "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism", a work of nonfiction that explores conspiracies and monopolies. A special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cory is also a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate and co-founder of the UK-based Open Rights Group, and serves as a visiting professor of computer science at the Open University, and a visiting professor of practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science. In this conversation we dissect the murky world of monopolies, technology and surveillance capitalism, and how these powers are shaping our economic and civic possibilities.

In this episode, I speak with Della Duncan, a Renegade Economist and host of the Upstream Podcast, who facilitates opportunities for personal and systemic transition to a more equitable, sustainable, and enlivened world. Trained as a Right Livelihood coach, Della is also an Atlantic Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, a Gross National Happiness Master Trainer, and a Regenerative Economics Consultant. Our conversation traverses many themes, from regenerative economics and alternative value systems, to sufficiency and one-planet living, and explores how we might reinvent how we live in a post-growth world.

Today I speak with Chris Willan, a multi-award winning travel photographer and nature enthusiast whose clients include The Times, Condé Nast, BBC Worldwide, The Nature Conservancy and The Arts Council UK. Having collaborated with some of the world’s most iconic photographers at the legendary Magnum agency, his photography has taken him around the world, traversing the realms of advertising, travel, TV and film, NGO, editorial and corporate assignments. Chris has also had solo exhibit at Tate Modern and The National Theatre, and he has received the World Responsible Travel Award for photography. In this conversation we explore stories of empowerment, sustainability and change, and how our capacity for curiosity and attention can reconnect us with the people and places we encounter.