Practical Bravery: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP!

What can we learn from medical practice about resilience, purpose and communication that can support every line of work? If all professionals had an opportunity to reflect deeply on what matters to them before leaping into the next job, how much more likely would productivity, adaptability, and success (whatever that means) be? How can we challenge the conventional metrics of success and emphasise the importance of aligning our careers with personal values and well-being? Our guest has delivered babies in war zones with Médecins Sans Frontières and shaped global health policies with the UN. But a big leap came in 2016 when she founded a coaching and consulting practice, working with some of the worl'd highest achievers and game-changers to redefine their paths to fulfillment.

This is The Possibility Club, and our special guest is author, doctor, coach, academic, Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi

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"Public health is always trying to link up between political decision-making and making a difference to people in daily life. That is the science and art of public health."

Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi via LinkedIn

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

"I was advised that it's good to get clinical experience before going into policy or research, so people would give you respect and treat you as a 'proper' doctor."

"These public health policy decisions aren't just scientific."

Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi via Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/iamdoctoramina/?hl=en-gb

Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi's page via University College London

https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/9680-amina-aitsiselmi

"It's not so much about 'understanding' as it is about creating a sense of safety in society, through social safety nets, having political dialogue that's wise and sensible, not polemical and inflammatory, and having media that actually informs and helps people think sensibly, not in a polarised way."

"There's so much stress, fear and anxiety, that survival mechanisms which narrow attention and focus take over."

"Even the idea of flying around talking about climate change started to grate. It didn't make sense."

"Sometimes you wonder how you suspend disbelief and just do things."

Doctor Amina website

https://www.doctoramina.com/

"A crisis is an opportunity to dig deeper, to start to question: what's the model I've followed so far, what is true for me now?"

"We need more leaders who are self-aware. It's not just the leaders; the whole ecosystem needs to evolve."

"There's a sense that we're being hijacked, and that's not helpful for our development."

"A lot of people seem to resign when they work with me! They apply for a new job, or they're offered a new job."

Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi's book The Success Trap via Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Success-Trap-Good-People-Break/dp/1789665647/

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This episode was recorded in April 2024

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - HAPPY FOOD!

In this episode, we'll explore the evolving dynamics of the restaurant industry, particularly in the face of economic challenges and shifting consumer behaviours. We'll discuss the importance of maintaining cultural authenticity in cuisine and how chefs can use their platforms to educate and inspire. Sustainability is a key theme, with a focus on locally sourced ingredients and environmental compatibility, reflecting a broader movement towards more responsible and ethical food practices.

And on a personal level, how does someone transition from a stable corporate career to the uncertainty of the culinary world? What are the keys to creating a successful food business in today's economic climate? And how can a chef balance tradition with innovation to create a unique and compelling food story?

This is The Possibility Club, and our special guest is MasterChef 2023 Finalist, Anurag Aggarwal.

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"I chose finance as my career. I was on a typical life path, wanted to make a living, raise a family. On paper I was doing great, all my boxes were checked. Then that thought started coming into my mind: what next? Something was missing. I can't do this for the rest of my life."

"Covid gave me a deeper insight that what we consider secure and permanent is nothing like that. Somebody sneezes on me and I could be gone in two weeks time. So that realisation gave me courage: I want to do something to follow my passion, which is cooking. So I need to do something about it."

Anurag's biryani pie video, via the Masterchef Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1540693743124303

"Masterchef was the best experience of my life so far. It's not about being on television, to me food is much more than just ingredients, dishes or cuisine. To be able to be on that presitigious platform, to express myself through my cooking, that was very honouring. It was a brilliant experience."

"Masterchef gave me the inner conviction that yes, I'm on the right path."

BBC Masterchef UK

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t1k5

"They asked me bluntly off camera why I was diversifying into western food. Because I wanted to showcase I could do everything, other than just Indian food. They said you don't have to. We are not judging if you are a master of all cuisines, we just want to see your original flare, your passion for food. So if you feel passionate, feel love about Indian cuisine, stick to that. That gave me a lot of conviction."

Anurag Food Story website

https://anuragfoodstory.co.uk/

"The food aspect is at the core. But the rest is more like any other business, it's just managing the operations, managing the process."

"There's no fixed formula, there's no right or wrong but it's important that you create a product that is desirable — but more important in a restaurant, service has to be top notch. If you don't invest that time and money for your front-of-house staff, your product is of no use."

"Keep it small! It will evolve over some time."

"One thing is for sure, the current model will massively change."

"Restaurants for the time being I'm putting on hold, but I'm working on a project to open up food productions commercial units, to cater to businesses for their food needs."

Anurag Food Story via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/anuragfoodstory/

Instagram — @AnuragFoodStory

https://www.instagram.com/anuragfoodstory/?hl=en

Anurag Aggarwal via LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anuragfoodstory/?originalSubdomain=uk

"Especially in hospitality, one of the biggest reasons of failure is people who are passionate about food start businesses. They have a huge command of the food but they forget that food is one product in the business, they should focus on the commercial aspect of the business."

"They should focus on the process. Always think about, what is my process? Think of your business as a process so you can objectively answer those questions."

"One thing I'm a little concerned about, sometimes we give our priority to all these modern techniques and forget what was the point of food itself. You don't want to forgo the nostalgia and the real stories behind food."

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This episode was recorded in April 2024

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - RADICAL WATER!

How can innovative partnerships transform global health initiatives? What role does transparency play in building trust and driving impact in charitable organisations?

This episode delves into these questions through the lens of global organisation, charity: water.

charity: water, has revolutionised how charities operate and engage with donors. The organisation operates on a 100% model, where all public donations go directly to funding clean water projects, while private donors cover operational costs. This model ensures that every contribution has a direct impact, fostering greater trust and engagement from donors

We ask why, and how this affects the world of fundraising and accountability.

This is The Possibility Club, and our special guest is Director of charity:water UK, Hannah Bellamy.

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Hannah's page on the Business Charity Awards website

https://www.businesscharityawards.com/hannah-bellamy

Hannah Bellamy via LinkedIn

https://linkedin.com/in/hannahbellamy/

Costa Foundation board and team page

https://www.costafoundation.com/our-team/

United Way books / education charity

https://www.unitedway.org/

"Growing up in the 1990s we thought about businesses like The Body Shop for example, but they were outliers. We didn't necessarily think about other businesses and how they behaved. So it was a whole new world to me, and that's how I got into the charity sector."

charity: water

https://www.charitywater.org/

"We've always had this different model where 100% of funds raised on our website, anyone who gives me £10, whatever it is, that will all be spent within the countries where we're working, and then we will prove that work."

"We put every single project on our website, you can see them, and that holds us to account."

"charity: water founder Scott Harrison was a nightclub promoter for ten years in New York. Lots of drink, drugs, probably a lot of fun but started to be much less fun over time. He decided to give that up and volunteer. Eventually found himself on a hospital ship in Liberia."

Scott Harrison via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Harrison_(charity_founder)

"He realised that so many people were coming to emergency hospital with illnesses or other types of situations that came from not having any water where they were living."

"He was talking to people who traditionally don't give to charity. He jokes that he was talking to his drug dealer about giving and he said, well I don't trust charities. So people who perhaps had never trusted or supported charities. He said, I guarantee you, give me your money and one hundred percent will be invested in the project and I will show you."

"It seems huge, it is huge, it's a massive problem but we are making progress. We do know how to fix it — and we can."

"It's one of the few problems in the world that we can all agree on. So we can look at it and say at the extremes, everyone still agrees that every human should have access to clean and safe drinking water."

"If I'm fundraising, I know I'm not fundraising for my salary. It makes it more comfortable. The difficulty is, it's really hard to scale."

Hannah's TEDx Winchester talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca0PspF85QM

"Climate change is actually all about water. It's a drought, it's a flood, it's too much, it's too little."

UN Sustainable Development goals

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

"It impacts women and girls: when a home and a family don't have clean water, the people having to go and collect water, usually from a dirty source and having to walk a long distance, it's the women and girls."

"If people want to make their maximum impact, what does that look like?"

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This episode was recorded in April 2024

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - CUTTING EDGES!

In this episode we dive into the textured world of style AND substance, where creativity meets a profound sense of purpose. How do our expressions of style reflect broader cultural, economic, and personal shifts? How does the aesthetic we choose broadcast our identities and our values to the world?

This episode takes us on a journey through the life and legacy of a creative industries pioneer who's been shaping the public personas of icons across the globe with nothing but a pair of scissors and a flair for transformation.

From working class boy with a Bowie obssession to the style sculptor of Princess Diana, Lady Gaga, Kate Moss at their most iconic. What does social mobility look like at the very top of high fashion? And what is it like to move from creating the faces behind brands, to becoming one yourself?

This is The Possibility Club, and our special guest is the hairdresser's hairdresser, Sam McKnight MBE.

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One of the most important image makers of the late 20th and early 21st century

— New York Times on Sam McKnight

"What I know is, people want their hair to look good. Having your hair looking good is an incredible mood booster. It's a simple, relatively inexpensive way of making yourself feel better."

Hair By Sam McKnight website

https://sammcknight.com/

"We said from the beginning we want to bring some joy into the hair care world, which we have done. And I get lots of joy from that in return."

Sam McKnight via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_McKnight

"That generation of the sixties is when social mobility became possible, really."

Sam McKnight via Gagapedia (the Lady Gaga wiki)

https://ladygaga.fandom.com/wiki/Sam_McKnight

Sam McKnight on X and Instagram — @sammcknight1

"When David Bowie exploded in colour, that was the start of it for me."

David Bowie on Top Of The Pops, 1972, via YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOKWF3IHu0I

"My friends had a hairdressing salon. I took a Saturday job there and then very quickly I'd left teacher training college and started training as a hairdresser. I didn't want to be a teacher."

"I've always taken risks and that goes back to being a teenager. I like to think that I've carried that through to my sixties. I've always been a risk taker."

David Bailey, photographer, via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bailey

Twiggy (Dame Leslie Lawson), via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy

"It was pretty brave, to leave a secure job in the salon in Molton Brown, the best salon in London — before it was hand-wash it was the top London salon, in South Bolton Street — it was the shit, it was the place to be, and I left that in 1980 to be by myself, doing this thing called 'photo shoots' and two years later I was in New York working for American Vogue."

Vogue (UK site)

https://www.vogue.co.uk/

Molton Brown via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molton_Brown

"There are much more opportunities now but there are much more people going after those opportunities."

"There needs to be a revaluation put on the values of what we bring. You have to train for years to be a good hairdresser. You can't just turn up with a hairdryer."

'Hair by Sam McKnight' 2016 retrospective exhibition at Somerset House

https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/hair-sam-mcknight

"The exhibition gave me power in myself that I hadn't really tapped into before. To see it all in front of me, all the people I'd met."

"The creative industries are very attached to emotions. Not only does music, fashion and beauty bring in billions to this country, which is not recognised properly, but they reach people's emotions. Your music, your makeup, your clothes, it sparks people's emotions. When you're working with people on a photoshoot, you're touching them."

"Usually I'm meeting people when they're very young and forming themselves. You build very, very strong bonds with people and there's a huge emotion attached to it. It's a very special relationship."

Kate Moss via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Moss

"She doesn't turn out of bed as 'Kate Moss' at six o'clock in the morning, there's a whole process of becoming Kate Moss, becoming Princess Di, becoming Lady Gaga."

Hair By Sam McKnight — the book, via Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hair-Sam-Mcknight-Tim-Blanks/dp/0847848787/ref=sr_1_2?crid=Q5S1J0SQNBVU&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.p64JyGeSiexU74ORtn6pFf43Ch-AXpRYp6oSR1gyDQ8.ec_4zM0pkuyQY8U4zh6-4lHtVdu1obiSrk2i8BTHkqY&dib_tag=se&keywords=sam+mcknight+book&qid=1715868587&sprefix=sam+mcknight+book%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-2

"I listened to Coldplay on the radio a couple of years ago now, it was touted as the first sustainable tour and Chris Martin was amazing, he was saying, look we're a fifty piece troupe that's going on big jets all over America, we're not sustainable. But we are thinking about it, and we're doing everything we can in the small ways to have less of a footprint. And I thought, that is really inspiring because it's hard!"

"Now this is where the Internet is really incredible and positive, is people doing their own hair and posting the videos. There was a couple of decades when kids weren't really doing much with their hair — and that's completely and utterly changed. And I find that really inspiring, I love that the Internet has made that possible."

"I'm a great collaborator but in the end it's instinctive as well and I need to be happy with it."

"I don't really have to please anyone but myself."

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This episode was recorded in March 2024

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - CONSCIOUS CO-WORKING!

In this episode we explore the transformative world of co-working spaces and the burgeoning professional communities they foster. As the traditional office evolves and the allure of flexible work arrangements grows, the importance of spaces that inspire, include, and innovate becomes increasingly clear.

Our guest is leading an initiative with established roots in Brighton and plans for nationwide expansion, where workspaces not only meet modern needs but also cultivate communities grounded in equity and sustainability. But what broader impact do these spaces hold for local economies and social dynamics? Can the environments we work in become the epicenters of innovation and social change, fostering a new kind of urban and community life?

Are fancy co-working spaces just a modern trend, or do they represent the foundational elements of future cities where collaboration is at the core?

I'm Richard Freeman, this is The Possibility Club, and my special guest this episode is Director at Projects, Alex Young.

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Alex Young via LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-young-74431a135/

"I don't think using the term 'revolution' is incorrect, when it comes to the power that co-working has for the future of business."

"I love to disagree! I love to argue!"

Projects website

https://www.projectsclub.co.uk/

"You can't expect an amazing community to form naturally. You're much better off investing in establishing a community while you are setting up a space, and ideally before."

"Founding members really make a space. You can have a huge impact if you hand-pick a few key people that are going to join you once your space is open."

"We don't just sell workspaces. Because if that's what we did, we'd do that a lot better and we'd make a lot more money, but that's not why we're here."

"We need diverse people in our spaces. We need to problem-solve together and to do that you can't just have people who think the same way, look the same, have the same kind of lived experience."

"I know 'diversity and inclusion' are buzz words, they get used way too much, for us we're creating community spaces, not just selling office space."

Projects — the team

https://www.projectsclub.co.uk/the-team

"We are not just running beautiful buildings, we are helping individuals that come into our space every day feel more support, feel welcome, and ensuring that they're able to show up as their best selves, do their best work."

"I've been back working at Projects for a year and I feel like I'm home again."

"I'm very nosy, I go to co-working spaces all over the world."

Ethos Property Management

https://ethosproperty.com/

B Corp certification

https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/certification/

"Everybody talks about how hard becoming a B-Corp is. I don't find it hard. It requires a lot of hours, policy changes, data gathering, you have to literally change the legal wording of what your business exists to do. Okay, it's not straightforward, but it's not hard. For us we were doing all these things anyway."

Coworkies https://www.coworkies.com/

Together Co

https://togetherco.org.uk/

"We've seen the issues that come about if people don't come into work, and I'm not just talking financially. It's really bad for your health. We need to be around other people."

"When people show up every day and feel that they can contribute to their work in their best way, that's going to make a huge impact, not just on their friends, family but their employers as well."

Alex's page on Favourite Positions podcast

https://www.favouritepositions.com/meet-alex

Imperial College Business School MBA

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/mba/

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This episode was recorded in March 2024

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - VOLATILE INNOVATION!

What does it mean to be a global entrepreneur today? How do new technologies help entrepreneurs tackle big challenges? And what kind of bravery does it take to lead in such dynamic times? Join us as we explore these questions with a leader who's redefining the boundaries of business and innovation. In this episode we're diving deep into how entrepreneurship not only shapes economies and sociey worldwide but also drives the bold leadership and bravery required to address some of our biggest global challenges. From economic inequality to technological disruptions, what do we need to answer in order to pave the the way forward in a digitised future? Our guest this week is serial entrepreneur and CEO of MoreThanDigital, Benjamin Talin.

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Benjamin Talin website

https://talin.digital/

"My first enterprise was at 13 years old, I stumbled into doing I.T. marketing stuff, building server networks. I was making good money for a small boy who got 20 Euros allowance per month, suddenly having 300 Euros per day was kind of good!"

"I got bored. Later I was burning a lot of my own capital for my startup and I literally rode it into the ground. I didn't really get the game because no product no funding, no funding no product. So I built a digital agency. I'm good at marketing so I just built that."

"It was just a journey of constantly: I see an opportunity and I do it, and I create an opportunity and I leverage it."

"I traded most of the companies just out of frustration!"

MoreThanDigital

https://morethandigital.info

Ben's page at MoreThanDigital

https://morethandigital.info/en/author/ben/

"Eastern Europe is very entrepreneurial, because they have more pain, I would say."

"When you talk with Americans they talk about billions, but in Switzerland, Germany or Austria it's like 'yeah we dream about one million, or two million' — so the type of 'dreaming big' is different."

Benjamin Talin on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/talin/recent-activity/all/

"We are doing economic development programmes. That is what I was doing for governments but they didn't want innovation, they didn't care about innovation. Most of the time I had people say to me, 'ah, that's so different from what we are doing,' and I'm like, 'that's what you paid me for!'"

Most people think that innovation is like building a rocket or something. But more than eighty percent of innovation is incremental innovation. You have something, it's an existing market, it's an existing product, and you implement something that makes it better.

"Radical innovation, which is what people think about innovation, is actually creating a new market with a new product. And that is almost impossible."

Benjamin Talin on Twitter/X

https://twitter.com/BTalin

Benjamin Talin on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/t_b3n/

"First of all, we are all humans. We need to understand that besides that we wish that society would be better, and we wish that humans would be nicer, we are first and foremost always optimising our own good. That's our own priority. If we understand that we can extrapolate it onto organisation."

"People are starting to lose a lot of money. If you are VC-backed they always tell you, 'invest everything! Be fast! Be fast!' But if no money is coming up, it's like 'ah, you invested everything, how bad'!"

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

"Technology will change the way people perceive money, people perceive freedom, people perceive the social structure."

"You have an idea, you pump it up, it goes bust. Before you even launched the second t-shirt, people are already bored and there's somebody else doing it."

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This episode was recorded in March 2024

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - FUTURE-PROOFING WORKPLACES!

In this episode, we return to the nuanced interplay between machine learning and human ingenuity. Can machines complement our creativity, or will they eclipse the essence of human touch in professions once thought impermeable to automation? As we navigate the digital era's complexities, questions of equity, diversity, and the human experience within the technological landscape become increasingly pressing. How do we harness AI to foster inclusivity and bridge divides, rather than widen them? Amidst the relentless pace of innovation, where does the individual find their footing, and how do we cultivate resilience and adaptability in a workforce facing unprecedented shifts? Our guest this week is work futures and technology expert, Dr Naeema Pasha.

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Dr Naeema Pasha via LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-naeema-pasha-9b23b66/?originalSubdomain=uk

Dr Naeema Pasha on Twitter/X

https://twitter.com/naeema_pasha?lang=en

Futureproof Your Career — Dr Naeema's ebook

co-written with Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj via Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Futureproof-Your-Career-Succeed-Changing-ebook/dp/B091Y37WZC/

"There was just a report done recently at Henley about bosses wanting people back in the workplace, having what's called a 'proximity bias', I will trust you more if I can see you visibly."

Henley Business School

https://www.henley.ac.uk/

"Research shows there are people wanting this identity of us just not being workers, that we are also doing other things, we have families, or commitments, or hobbies, or anything. People expect flexibility."

"People are expecting to have time to take children to school, or wellbeing. All these things seem to be much more in the psyche of workers."

"Looking at the research I did on race equity, and other people in Henley have done further study on this, is that people are biased. And what we found with the A.I. is that it could be less biased in coaching."

"When we talk about skilling, the research I did — and this was my doctorate — is that, rather than the skills of coding and STEM and this kind of thing, what is more important is for us to start understanding ambiguity, work through uncertainty, and therefore what skills are important are how to be focused, how to go through these complexities that we have, and work out where we are and how we progress."

Work of Work Institute

https://www.henley.ac.uk/world-of-work

Henley Business Schools' Leading Edge podcast with Naeema

https://www.henley.ac.uk/leading-edge/future-of-work-how-to-channel-the-spirit-of-gen-z

On job hunting —

"The job hunting experience has been interesting. Having worked in graduate recruitment, where thousands of people go through processes, now myself being part of a pool."

"The most important thing is to humanise the process."

"The 'ghosting' experience is strange. A handful of big organisations are processing everyone. Your data is kept and it's pushed through this funnel, but then you get ghosted at the end. Automated systems should allow for a rejection stage as well."

"There's enough intellect in organisations to be able to think, how do we manage this process? Because it's a decent thing to do and actually it's good for the recruitment brand as well."

"It still feels like 'you should be grateful' and we'll put you through these ridiculous amount of tests and interviews."

"This year has been a real experience of hearing the term 'we're about the hustle', 'we're about the hustle culture', hearing that quite a lot with employers."

'Equality alone won't help you win the war on talent'

article by Dr Naeema Pasha in The HR World

https://www.thehrworld.co.uk/culture-clash/equality-alone-wont-help-win-war-talent/

Wired article on Grindr's demand that workers return to the office

https://www.wired.com/story/grindrs-return-to-office-ultimatum-gutted-a-uniquely-queer-space-in-tech/

"Being able to collaborate was really important, and being able to collaborate in a way that allowed for diversity to come into place."

"We still want to feel a sense that people care for us. And we can also do the same for other people. And that was the same in physical places, as well as online."

"Caring has come up so often in organisations that people want to know how they can make it more explicit, how they can show that a lot more. Not just to care for others and our teams, but ourselves as well."

"We might even go to shops where it'll say 'no A.I. used here' because we don't want our retinas scanned."

"The rate of change is fast. We have to work with young people to understand you are valuable, you are brilliant, you've got capability, how can we understand your strengths?"

"I think equity and diversity is going to be more important and A.I. will probably enable that to work better."

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This episode was recorded in November 2023

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - CREATIVE PARTICIPATION!

In this episode of The Possibility Club podcast, we're exploring the spaces where creativity becomes a conduit for connection, and where theatres and arts venues become the heartbeats of the communities they serve.

Our guest is the Head of Participation at Southwark Playhouse, orchestrating a symphony of projects that resonate with thousands yearly, from all ages and backgrounds. His work is about creating a mosaic of experiences that reflect south London's diversity, challenges, and aspirations. Through strategic development, he weaves the threads of local needs with the theatre's aims, securing funding to turn vision into reality and offering tangible opportunities for emerging talents.

Let's explore the conversation where art and community come together to rewrite stories, with David Workman.

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David Workman via LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-workman-3ba02132/?originalSubdomain=uk

"I constantly pinch myself at how lucky I am to be doing the job I'm doing."

"I realised all my career has been spent in the Borough of Southwark, which is totally unintentional."

Southwark via GoogleMaps

https://www.google.com/maps/place/London+Borough+of+Southwark/@51.4652303,-0.1528077,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x48760398794427df:0x41185c626be6770!8m2!3d51.4880572!4d-0.0762838!16zL20vMG45Y3c?entry=ttu

"Some of the wards are some of the poorest in London, if not the UK. But that's slap bang up against brand new developments."

"No-one has to engage with us, I've got to reach out to them."

"The minute we went out and ran a workshop in a community space, we had a lot more people come along. We went into their territory and said we want to be part of this community."

Southwark Playhouse

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/

Southwark Playhouse — participation pages

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/participate/

"I still suffer quite regularly from imposter syndrome, thinking I got here, how did I get here? But I guess I've been doing it for fifteen years now, so maybe I should get over that."

"All I've learnt, I've learnt by doing. Not necessarily through studying it per se, but doing it, getting it right, getting it wrong, learning on the job."

"Last year we opened a second venue, so we now have two venues in Elephant & Castle, and within our new venue we have a dedicated participation space, which is all of my work. Realistically I'm not going to be able to fill that space twenty-four seven with all the work I do, but I want to make that space usable. So we're partnering with charities working with refugees, adults with dementia, young people at risk of exclusion. They're already doing great work — which there's no point us trying to replicate, I'd rather support and amplify that in the community, rather than trying to muscle in."

Bristol Old Vic

https://bristololdvic.org.uk/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwMqvBhCtARIsAIXsZpaWRrn75HVlHHPChA8o1USd1QqX5NVN0Ryfo7v3eAbjNnZk4HbAxkwaAhg8EALw_wcB

Theatre In Education via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_in_education

Shakespeare's Globe schools team

https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/learn/

"I don't that there's one approach for everything you do. You have to be adaptive, you have to adapt to different communities, different demographics, one size will not fit all. But also I work with a lot of artists and if I employ someone because of what they're going to bring to that project, their own approach, their own artistic practice. I'm not keen on imposing on a practical side how that might be."

Elephant & Castle via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_and_Castle

"The community is changing. There's very little point me not changing how I approach my work."

"It's a way of softly building those relationships with the community, really."

"We're not funded by the Arts Council and we never have been and we've sustained and grown that over thirty years. Our model is, in a year we'll stage between twenty-five and thirty shows and we have spaces of different sizes. By not having money from the Arts Council it gives us more flexibility but more risk. But we get the balance right, generally."

Operation Mincemeat via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat_(musical)

Operation Mincemeat

https://www.operationmincemeat.com/

Little Angel Theatre

https://www.littleangeltheatre.com/

"I'm a glass half full person. I approach things with a 'let's see what happens' kind of approach."

"There's always going to be a need, a desire, for live art. Post-pandemic it took a long time for that to come back, and I think it's still doing that. People have to weigh up the costs of coming into London. You have to take a punt on something. But there's lots going on and there are a lot of exciting voices coming through."

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This episode was recorded in February 2024

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - EMPOWERED ENTERPRISE!

In this episode, we navigate the journey of a visionary whose leadership has not just built businesses but has transformed lives.

An architect of opportunity, whose blueprint for change is reshaping the landscape of social mobility.

From the foundations of financial literacy to the pillars of small business support, her mission is to elevate the underprivileged, to turn the tide of poverty through the power of enterprise. By advocating for a model that combines training, seed capital, and ongoing mentoring, she's not just changing the game; she's setting a new standard for how we approach development aid. Her vision is clear - a world where business serves as a vehicle for social mobility, where every entrepreneur, no matter their starting point, has a chance to thrive.

Joining The Possibility Club is a leader in lifting lives through enterprise, and perhaps, a guiding light for future generations of social entrepreneurs - CEO of Village Enterprise, Dianne Calvi.

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Dianne Calvi via LinkedIn

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

Dianne Calvi via Twitter / X

https://twitter.com/DianneCalvi

"When I was child my dad told me stories about his own childhood. His mum was a single mother who struggled to just put food on the table, they were migrant workers during the summer, they would pick fruit, live in a tent, often go hungry. His life was so foreign to me. I realised that I wanted to make a difference in the lives of people like my dad."

Village Enterprise

https://villageenterprise.org/

"When I got the opportunity to take on this role, it brought together so many things I was looking for. To take what I'd learned in organisations like Microsoft and apply it to the non-profit sector. To try to build an organisation that had significant impact."

"If you want to solve a big problem, you have to change policies in the way governments operate. One of the ways you can do that is building a solid base of evidence for an approach."

"We see real transformative change, not only in the women we work with but in the lives of everyone in their families. It really is an incredible change that happens in a relatively short period of time."

"We see a whole new local economy grow out of this work."

Dianne Calvi's page on Village Enterprise

https://villageenterprise.org/about-us/team/dianne-calvi/

"We're working in the very rural areas, so still today most of the businesses that we start are agriculture businesses. In many cases people transition from subsistance farming to planting crops that generate income, and generating much more income off the land because of this re-orientation."

"We're not providing them with a loan, we're providing them with a cash grant."

Dreamstart Labs — DreamSave fintech for informal community banking

https://www.dreamstartlabs.com/dreamsave.html

"When we go into a new community we target those in extreme poverty and we work with every single household that qualifies. So we're not just cherrypicking entrepreneurs, we're really working with the entire village. In many cases 85% of the households in an area."

Mercy Corps

https://www.mercycorps.org/

"We create businesses for the first time but they need customers, so Mercy Corps is providing the incentives and in some cases training for the private sector actors to work together with our entrepreneurs."

Dianne Calvi's page on Next Billion

https://nextbillion.net/authors/dianne-calvi/

Dianne Calvi wins award at Stanford

https://news.stanford.edu/report/2023/06/05/stanford-alumni-honored-work-advancing-common-good/

"We've done two randomised control trials. It's the only way you can prove attribution to a program. And we've found we can quantify them. We now have evidence that people's wellbeing is increasing, their mental health, their sense of agency is increasing, and this has all been measured by a randomised control trial, so there are questions you can ask that help quantify that that is happening."

Boconni University, Milan, MBA course

https://www.sdabocconi.it/en/mba-executive-mba?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA84CvBhCaARIsAMkAvkKhSc7ycAO9HYa7NoCrR1rV-OrjpDfm4sdGFFbiwbeAis86VMUF6s8aAro2EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Development Impact Bonds via Social Finance

https://www.socialfinance.org.uk/what-we-do/social-impact-bonds#

"For every dollar invested in the Village Enterprise program, five dollars of income are generated. So now governments are interested in adopting this, because they see that that will create economic growth."

US AID Development Innovation Ventures

https://www.usaid.gov/div

Wildlife Conservation Society

https://www.wcs.org/

African Wildlife Foundation

https://www.awf.org/

Jane Goodall Institute

https://janegoodall.org/

Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Dufflo — Poor Economics via Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poor-Economics-Barefoot-Hedge-fund-Surprising/dp/0718193660/

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This episode was recorded in October 2023

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk

The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - MUSICAL POLITICS!

Can artists change the world? Should they? And should it be through their art, or through their activism? In this episode we're charting the course of a journeyman whose guitar has graced stages worldwide, and whose convictions have spotlighted the corridors of change. From the euphoric highs of indie rock stardom with his band Gomez, capturing hearts and the Mercury Prize in 1998, to the critical acclaim and UK Top 40 albums, his artistry has been undeniable. But it's his transition from artist to advocate and activist that makes him stand out. Elected as the Chair of the Ivors Academy and sitting on the council of the Performing Rights Society, he's not just playing tunes; he's setting the tempo for change. And in 2024 (after we recorded this interview), he's seeking a place in the mother of all parliaments. Our guest is rockstar, campaigner and - who knows - maybe a future prime minister, Tom Gray.

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"I always saw myself as a side man, I was the guy stood next to the guy, I loved writing songs. I never saw myself as being a leader."

Tom Gray via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Gray_(activist)

Tom Gray via LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-gray-8a084328/?originalSubdomain=uk

"Actually music wasn't my goal at all, hilariously, music was just my way of slowing down my racing brain."

"I actually had a choice: do I get on a plane and work for a senator, which is what I wanted to do — I wanted to be a speechwriter — or do I get Madonna's private jet? A ridiculous thing to choose between."

Gomez the band

https://www.gomeztheband.com/

Gomez the band via Wikpedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomez_(band)

"By the time I was twenty-four or twenty-five I felt like I was on my third thing."

"I realised there were all kinds of problems facing my friends in music and a lot of the organisations representing them, although heartily trying, weren't necessarily getting there."

"I had this curious superpower which was that I understood politics, I'd grown up in politics, I knew loads of people in politics. If didn't do something, who was?"

Featured Artists Coalition

https://thefac.org/

The Ivors Academy (formerly British Association of Songwriters and Composers)

https://ivorsacademy.com/

"I realised they didn't have a policy unit, helped them build a policy unit, helped them develop a public affairs strategy, actually employ people to do policy, which they didn't have. They were kind of shaking their fists in the air but not doing this stuff."

Musicians Union

https://musiciansunion.org.uk/

"So, end of February 2020 I became a one man campaign, called Broken Record. And three months later the MU and Ivors Academy ran my more traditionally designed campaign called Fix Streaming."

"I was the guerrilla ground offensive, and then the air attack came later."

Broken Record campaign via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Record_campaign

Mixmag article on the Broken Record campaign to fix streaming

https://mixmag.net/feature/brokenrecord-music-industry-streaming-labels-artists-exploitation-equitable-renumeration

Tom Gray's evidence via the UK Parliament

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/10156/pdf/

Twitter/X — @MrTomGray

Instagram — https://instagram.com/automatoms

"There's a series of levers, there's a series of relationships, there's a way to change the world, there's a path and, boringly, that's how you do it."

"We got all major labels agreeing to forgive debt of artists who'd been in debt for more than twenty years, which was huge."

"We've got an industry-wide transparency agreement that is about to be signed."

"My entire thing is, hold the industry in a headlock and force them to improve. People will say government process takes you out of that campaigning mode, it takes you out of holding their feet to the fire. That's true but you've also got the institutional grip. They have to keep saying the right things, there's no easy exit for them."

Labour List — "Meet Labour Brighton Pavilion candidate Tom Gray as Eddie Izzard falls short"

https://labourlist.org/2023/12/brighton-pavilion-candidate-tom-gray-labour-eddie-izzard/

"Music isn't the arts, are you mad? It's one of our most basic forms of communication!"

Possibility Club interview with Crystal Asige

https://www.alwayspossible.co.uk/podcast-practical-bravery-crystal-asige/

Pete Wishart of Runrig via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Wishart

"We are one of three music net exporters on the planet. We have this huge benefit of our language and our unbroken history of music learning, conservatories, the Beatles, you wouldn't have the Beatles without the Education Act, that's clear. Public policy changes the world. John Lennon going to art school was a profoundly important thing that needed to happen, in order for the world to experience the Beatles."

"Resilience is 100% the lesson of being a musician, because it's been pretty hard, the past twenty years, working in that sector. There's always someone who's making a buck out of everybody but for me I think these fights can be won, still. And if that's optimism, that's optimism."

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This episode was recorded in September 2023

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts

For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk