Today, we explore the world through phrases.

Not just any phrases, but aphorisms – those short sentences with the power to stop us in our tracks, cause us to rethink how we see things, and even make better decisions.

I'm joined by James Geary, author of the newly re-released book, The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism. James is a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School. James is also a self-confessed 'aphorism addict', and he studied the history of what he calls the world's oldest written art form.

As you will hear, aphorisms transcend culture and historical periods. And James's work and this conversation refer to the likes of Lao Tzu, the ancient Greeks, through to Mark Twain, and modern figures like Wynton Marsalis and Brian Eno. From a decision-making lens, aphorisms have potency as heuristics. When we think about modern challenges, James explains that they can help us so very much, particularly as AI is taking over the written word and threatening to reduce our cognitive load to zero.

Show notes:

James' website

The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism

James on Instagram

James on Blue Sky

Stanisław Lec

Yogi Berra

The I Ching

G.K Chesteron

Cyril Connolly

Brian Eno

Wynton Marsalis

Clet Abraham

Steven Wright

Brian Wilson

Josh Billings

Eric Jarosinski

Joseph Joubert

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The world does not seem to be doing particularly well at the moment. Much needs to change. Most conversations focus on what should change and how. This episode asks a different, and more refreshing, question:

👉 What can we do every day to help make change happen?

To explore this, I am joined by Adam Kahane, a leading organiser, designer and facilitator of processes that bring business, government and civil society together to address seemingly intractable problems. Adam was formerly Head of Social, Political, Economic and Technological Scenarios at Shell, and later co-founded the social enterprise Reos Partners.

His latest book, Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems: The Catalytic Power of Radical Engagement, offers a practical guide to creating meaningful change. In this conversation, we discuss what these habits are, how to practise them, and why they matter.

It is a refreshing, empowering and enjoyable discussion about the everyday actions that can transform the systems around us.

Show notes:

Adam Kahane – www.adamkahane.com

Everyday Habits For Transforming Systems – The Catalytic Power of Radical Engagement - https://reospartners.com/everyday-habits-for-transforming-systems

Reos Partners - https://reospartners.com/

Trevor Manuel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Manuel

Donella Meadows - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donella_Meadows

Dave Snowden - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Snowden

Dave Snowden on The Decision-Making Studio Podcast: https://youtu.be/hSMHFeV54iM?si=BR_DRZZX6t0DeQMN

Christiana Figueres - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiana_Figueres

Juan Manuel Santos - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_Santos

Dan Davies on The Decision-Making Studio Podcast - https://youtu.be/3pm8_ssLtdQ?si=ZJ5cP3eEqBwDY9pk

Robert Capa - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa

Báyò Akómoláfé - https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/

Leonard Cohen's Anthem ("ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8-BT6y_wYg

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Like what you heard? Check out:

The Decision-Making Studio: https://thedecisionmaking.studio/

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This episode is a fun one – and covers a topic we most certainly have not covered before: the strategic decision-making of Taylor Swift, the most famous pop singer in the world. Taylor Swift may recognised as a pop star, but as you'll hear, her decision-making is pure punk rock.

My guest today is Kevin Evers, who wrote as a senior editor at The Harvard Business Review and the author of There's Nothing Like This - The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift.

Kevin breaks down exactly why Taylor has been able to scale her success, why she's been able to reinvent herself time and again, and how she's been able to both manage disruption and be a driving force herself.

We'll hear all about that, as well as Taylor's authenticity, her relationship with her fans, and the way in which she makes decisions.

Whether or not you're a Swiftie, this one is a fun and fascinating conversation.

Show notes:

There's Nothing Like This - The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift - https://www.nothinglikethisbook.com/

Kevin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-evers1/

Taylor Swift's discography

Olivia Rodrigo

Billie Eilish

LeAnn Rimes' impact on Taylor Swift

Newton's laws of motion (and 3rd law)

Max Martin

Nathan Chapman

Drake-Kendrick Lamar Feud

Scott Borchetta

Prince's contractual disputes

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Today, we tackle some big-picture questions about the role of business in society when it comes to protecting human rights and democracy. And of course, this is very topical. I am honour to welcome Michael Posner to the show.

Michael is the director of the Centre for Business and Human Rights at New York University's Stern School of Business. He is a human rights lawyer, and he was Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour under the Obama administration. He is the author of a new book, Conscience Incorporated: Pursue Profits While Protecting Human Rights, which, given the state of things in the world and the United States, is pretty timely and important.

Michael covers a ton of ground here, from the primacy of shareholder capitalism, how to make decisions in a world comprised of competing expectations and trade-offs, the tensions associated with decisions around human rights and environmental concerns, when CEOs should speak up, and his thoughts on the Trump administration and what's happening with regard to the United States' role in the world and to democracy and human rights.

Show notes:

Michael Posner - https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/author/michaelposner/

Conscience Incorporated: Pursue Profits While Protecting Human Rights - https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/publication/conscience-incorporated/

Centre for Business and Human Rights at New York University's Stern School of Business - https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/about/departments-centers-initiatives/centers-of-research/business-and-human-rights/center-business-and-human-rights

Fair Labour Association - https://www.fairlabor.org/

Xinjiang, forced labour, and solar panels - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57124636

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Today, we talk about happiness. Is happiness a choice? Is it a skill? Is it a set of practices? Is it all those things? What's the difference between happiness and fulfilment or well-being? I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Mark Fabian to the show. Mark is a professor of public policy at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. He was previously a Fulbright scholar.

He studies well-being from an interdisciplinary lens. Mark is also the author of a fabulous new book called Beyond Happy - How to Rethink Happiness and Find Fulfilment. So, we talk all about that in this episode, including what happiness is, the foundations of happiness, success and its hidden costs, relationships, happiness and the decisions we make, and something very important today - happiness and confronting nihilism.

Show notes:

Mark Fabian

Beyond Happy - How to Rethink Happiness and Find Fulfilment.

Theory of Subjective Well-being

Hedonic treadmill

Introjection

Intrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation

Moneyball

Sonya Lyobomirsky

Epicureanism

Laurie Santos

Jonathan Haidt

Cyber punk

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Today, we delve into the world of organizations and what my guest calls a "future-fit" organisational culture. My guest is Geoff Marlow and he has over three decades of experience around the world helping organisations create these future-fit cultures.

That term caught my attention because around here, we're interested in the future and uncertainty. For part of his career, Geoff spent time on the leadership team of the Society for Organisational Learning, which included the legendary Dr. Peter Senge - a renowned or was a renowned management guru and Arie de Geus, a scenario thinker who was the head of Shell's strategic planning group. Geoff helps leaders understand why organisations fail or succeed. And we tackle all of that in this conversation. We get into Geoff's three aspects of a future-fit culture, which are sense-making, decision-making, and action-taking. We also talk about leadership, change, and so much more.

Show notes:

Geoff's substack: https://geoffmarlow.substack.com/

Geoff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffreymarlow/

Peter Senge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Senge

The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge

Mike Jackson and Critical Systems Thinking

The Dance of Change by Peter Senge

Geoff's "The Five Fatal Habits"

The Big Con by Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington

Intentional Revolutions by Nevis, Lancourt and Vassallo

Eric Weinstein's DISC – "Distributed Idea Suppression Complex"

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Learn more about The Decision-Making Studio: https://thedecisionmaking.studio/

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What can we learn about business and society from a seasoned sustainability practitioner?

Plenty!

Meet Isobel O'Connell. Isobel has a couple of decades of experience in areas related to the environment, social issues - particularly local community consultation across the globe, human rights and related areas. She's now an advisor, and a board member, and was named one of the top global 50 women in sustainability.

In this episode, she shares several insights and perspectives from her broad career in these areas. We get into a variety of stories, the different landscapes and definitions out there for things like ESG and corporate social responsibility, how these things have evolved, and how people who work in these areas navigate a variety of complexities and trade-offs when it comes to decision-making.

This conversation provides a fascinating window into how both business and society interact via a career path you perhaps didn't know existed.

Show notes:

Isobel on LinkedIn

The Juukan Gorge destruction

Double materiality assessment

UN Global Compact

Alison Taylor on The Decision-Making Studio Podcast

OECD Guidelines for citizen participation processes

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Get in touch: https://thedecisionmaking.studio/contact-us

This episode is about thinking differently around climate change, and it will help you think about this topic much more expansively. My guest is John Morrison, who is the CEO of the Institute for Human Rights and Business, which is a global "think and do tank" with consultative status at the United Nations. John serves on a number of boards and advisory councils, and he is the author of a new book called The Just Transition - A Systems Thinking Approach to Climate Action.

And John posits that if we try to solve the climate crisis in isolation from tackling other challenges, particularly social challenges around how local communities and workers feel about a transition to a net zero world, we won't solve the climate crisis. Things are interconnected and we need to recognise that. So, we get into that. We talk about systems thinking, navigating the complexity of these topics, trade-offs, technology, accountability, and of course, decision-making.

According to John, we need to move beyond narrow, linear and box-ticking type of approaches to these challenges. Otherwise, we are doing ourselves and the planet a huge disservice.

Show notes:

John Morrison The Just Transition - A Systems Thinking Approach to Climate ActionThe Institute for Human Rights and Business Herbert Simon Donella Meadows Free, prior and informed consent The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive The EU Corporate Responsibility Reporting Directive Transition minerals _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Learn more about The Decision-Making Studio: https://thedecisionmaking.studio/

All our podcast episodes are here: https://thedecisionmaking.studio/podcast

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Why is it seemingly so difficult to find a human to speak to when having an issue with your bank or mobile phone company? And if you do, why do they sound like robots and/or aren't empowered to make a decision that will solve your problem? More broadly and worryingly, why is it nearly impossible to hold an individual accountable for decisions that led to a major societal or organisational calamity like the Global Financial Crisis, or the UK's Post Office Scandal?

Something is going on, and today, we're going to talk about it. My guest is author Dan Davies, and we are talking about his latest book, The Unaccountability Machine - Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions and How the World Lost Its Mind. The book was long-listed for the Financial Times and Schroder's Business Books of the Year.

Dan is a former investment banker turned author. His previous book, Lying for Money, was about the 2008 global financial crisis in which no banker went to jail. Dan became interested in why that was the case and to see if the same types of causes for that exist elsewhere. And they do. And it led him to write The Unaccountability Machine.

Dan also has a wonderful term called the "accountability sink", in which a human system delegates decision-making to a rule book rather than an individual, which means that when something goes wrong, no one is to blame. We get into all of that and so much more.

Show notes:

-The Unaccountability Machine: https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/ -Dan's newsletter: https://backofmind.substack.com/ -Dan's author page: https://profilebooks.com/contributor/dan-davies/ -Lying for Money: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38605195-lying-for-money?from_search=true -Dan's previous appearance on the podcast: https://allthingsrisk.libsyn.com/ep-89-dan-davies-lying-for-money -Stafford Beer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Beer -Brian Eno: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno -"Designing Freedom", Stafford Beer's lectures from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNVZ3IuNlXY&list=PLW6YNX5jIRDEvjZz0_icNAaelHXArzfc- -Norbert Wiener: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener -Neural Networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network_(machine_learning) -Variety engineering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics) -Good regulator in management cybernetics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_regulator -Ben Recht: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~brecht/bio.html -Jen Pahlka's Recoding America: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61796680-recoding-america -William Butler Adams / Brompton Bicycles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Butler-Adams

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Today, I welcome Roger Spitz back to the show. Roger is a futurist, author, and president of Techistential, which is a strategy consultancy. He's also the chair of The Disruptive Futures Institute, which is a global education hub. For the purposes of this episode, however, he is the author of a new book, Disrupt with Impact - Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World, which is all about helping to guide us through uncertainty and unpredictability.

Roger was in London at the end of last year and we met up and recorded this fabulous episode in an external studio. We covered lots of ground with this chat, including what Roger means by "disruption 3.0", uncertainty, AI, some of the shortcomings of our education system, and what leaders can and should be doing to disrupt with impact.

Show Notes:

Disrupt with Impact - https://www.thrivingondisruption.com/disrupt-with-impact

Roger on LinkedIn - Roger Spitz

Techistential – www.techistential.ai

Roger on the podcast on episode 198 - https://open.spotify.com/episode/0LTP4xkhxwpjwpUEDeE7Xe?si=LhgixrbnRXGB9OXSccLK4Q

Joseph Schumpeter - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter

Clayton Christensen - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Christensen

Dr. Peter Bishop - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-bishop-2866257/

Teach the Future - https://www.teachthefuture.org/

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