Edgy Ideas

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. 

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).

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)

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

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.

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.

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.

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. 
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) 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! 


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.