Dr Mishel McMahon, a Yorta Yorta First Nations woman from Australia, draws from 60,000 years of Aboriginal cultural experience to discuss what she terms ‘Relational Ontology’ - ontology meaning how we understand reality , what’s real and what’s not real. She says “ Relational ontology is a view of reality that all entities; plants, animals, elements, seasons, skies, waterways, the land, the spirit world and humans are in relationship, like a web. First Nations peoples and many other groups aroun...
Oct 21, 2021•40 min•Ep. 34
Paul brings deep insights into climate change drawing on psycho-social thinking. This conversation explores climate anxiety, climate denial and climate delay, and how we as ‘moderns’ find it very difficult to escape deeply embedded ideas that entrap us. Paul relates this thinking back to our founding myths from Judeo-Christianity that throws humanity outside of the Edenic garden, and outside of nature, and is always looking for external salvation. He reflects that “Us moderns live in a kind of c...
Oct 07, 2021•31 min•Ep. 33
This conversation is important for anyone working in organisations, and trying to make sense of systems thinking. Jim has been working with systems for many years and offers insights into how systems thinking evolved, why it is so important, and also why it is problematic and creates resistances. Drawing on psychoanalysis as a ‘moral’ practice, Jim believes that unless we understand the psychodynamics and emotions that are at play when we take a systems approach, it will likely fail. For example...
Sep 23, 2021•37 min•Ep. 32
This episode explores what it means to shift our mindsets towards ecological thinking and practice in organisations. This shift is away from the dominance of mechanistic and psychological thinking, not to replace these but in addition to them. Joan shares her long experience of working to disrupt organisations and help them to 'liberate' themselves from patterns that entrap them. To achieve this, individuals, teams and organisations have to let go of their attachments to the psychological and te...
Sep 09, 2021•38 min•Ep. 31
Krish Raval is the Founder and Director of Faith in Leadership (FiL), Britain’s main leadership development organisation working with inter-faith communities. As a practicing Hindu he works with senior leaders and clerics from Muslim, Christian and Jewish faith communities. In this conversation Krish shares his work and experiences of leading this inter-faith community. Simon and Krish share their thoughts on how Eco-Leadership expresses the inter-dependencies and rich learning potential not onl...
Jun 24, 2021•47 min•Ep. 30
Caroline is Professor of Culture and Psychoanalysis and in this podcast she shares her thoughts on a wide range of topics. She shares reflections on how our engagement with social media shapes our emotional and relational lives, and how psychoanalysis can help us untangle ourselves from the pervasive media and culture that we can't escape. Our cell phones are not only objects and tools that we use, but they are both intimately close to our bodies, and they are objects we internalise, taking emot...
Jun 10, 2021•44 min•Ep. 29
Mark is a pioneer in the field of neuroscience founding the term Neuropsychoanalysis. In this very rich discussion Mark shares his insights into ‘where the brain meets the mind’. Previously the neuroscience focus was to study the brain in terms of cognition and behaviour, yet Mark saw that this missed out on what is really astonishing about the brain, that it is an organ of feeling, emotion and subjectivity. Marks research is extensive, and the application to organisations and leadership is disc...
May 27, 2021•29 min•Ep. 28
David Armstrong is a thought leader and inspiration to many working in the field of psychoanalysis and organisations. In this podcast David shares his experiences of working with pioneers in the field after joining the Tavistock Institute in 1959. David describes how alive the Tavistock project was in its early days. Innovations coming from the Tavistock Clinic through infant observation, attachment theory and the work of Menzies-Lythe and Ronnie Laing among many others. And from the Tavistock I...
May 13, 2021•37 min•Ep. 27
Professor Kate Kenny is a leading expert in the field of Whistleblowing. In this podcast Kate draws on psychosocial approaches to take a fresh look at Whistleblowing. Whistle-blowers are consistently treated by the media and public as traitors or hero’s. Take Edward Snowden, for some he is a courageous hero who sacrificed his career and put himself in danger for ‘truth-telling’, for others he is a traitor for giving away secrets to enemies of the state. Kate builds a broader case that situates w...
Apr 29, 2021•35 min•Ep. 26
In this episode Daniel shares his research and experience of credentialing and accreditation in coaching. His findings ask many questions about the credibility of practices, often delivered by self-appointed regulation bodies, some that make a lot of money from the process. Daniel identifies eight consumer types of coaches in relation to accreditation and credentialing: The Enthusiast, Complier, Susceptible, Pragmatist, Procrastinator, Agnostic, Ideologue and Inquirer; each seeking or resisting ...
Apr 15, 2021•33 min•Ep. 25
In this episode Lynne shares her personal leadership journey and thoughts on women's leadership. Lynne was born into a working-class community, and travelled a long and fascinating journey to the top of the educational establishment. Lynne draws on two defining influences that have shaped her work, feminism and spirituality. Lynne now runs her own leadership programme based on Goddess spirituality. She believes that creating a separate and sacred space outside of mainstream leadership developmen...
Apr 01, 2021•33 min•Ep. 24
Richard is a thought leader who looks at organisational life through the lens of irony and absurdity. In this discussion with Simon, he shares his thoughts on the need to support those ironists who bring something special and vitally important to organisational life. He shares his research that revealed 4 types of ironist, the Apollonion ironist who sits like a God looking down, commenting from a distance, the Sarcastic ironist, who retreats to the sidelines to poke fun at the absurd enthusiasms...
Mar 18, 2021•41 min•Ep. 23
Lauren identifies as a queer creative. Growing up as straight female, Lauren embraced her Queerness at the age of 27. Since then professionally and in her personal life she is devoted to exploring life outside the Eurocentric norm and how this impacts on herself and others. In this discussion Simon and Lauren explore how queer and non-binary ideas and practices meet resistance and why this is. They also discuss how Queer culture provides new hope, offering liberation for those adopting queer and...
Mar 04, 2021•40 min•Ep. 22
This conversation draws on Trevor's experience and passion of living in the Kruger National Park South Africa. Trevor brings his coaching and therapeutic background to inform his consultancy and coaching at work. Unusually he brings a particular edge to this organisational work that comes from his engagement with the natural world. Trevor recently completed his 'tracker training" and shares how his experiences of vulnerability when confronting an angry bull elephant, can be translated to how we ...
Feb 18, 2021•44 min•Ep. 21
Gianpiero is an internationally renowned thinker in the field of leadership and learning in the workplace. He brings a clinical lens to his research and teaching, which he begun acquiring while training as a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, and refined in two decades of coaching, consulting, teaching, and researching people’s working lives. At the heart of this conversation is the idea that humanising organisations requires revisiting our conceptions of leadership. ‘Caring,’ Gianpiero argues, ...
Feb 04, 2021•43 min•Ep. 20
Tara Nolan is fascinated by teams and has worked extensively with teams as a coach. In this episode, Tara reflects on her work and her insights from interviewing experts and team leaders in her podcast ‘A Game of Teams’. Teams are the heartbeat of organisational success and this episode Tara and Simon discuss team dynamics, team leadership and the changing nature of how teams are working in more fluid and virtual ways, and what this means in terms of containment, trust, leadership and performanc...
Jan 21, 2021•41 min•Ep. 19
Chris Yates has travelled a big journey, coming from the West Indies to London as a child, brought up by a single parent, he has held some of the biggest 'people jobs' in the business world. Currently Chief Talent Officer at Ford Motor Company, previously General Manager of Learning & Development at Microsoft, Chief Learning Officer and Head of People and Organizational Development for Caterpillar Inc. and he served in senior roles at HSBC bank and American Express. Chris is also co-author o...
Dec 17, 2020•43 min•Ep. 18
Pooja Sachdev is a leading practitioner in the diversity and inclusion space. Pooja discusses with Simon the real challenges faced by organisations when working on diversity and inclusion. This conversation reveals how language can be used to silence people rather than open up discussions, and how we need to 'decriminalise bias' if we are to acknowledge our conscious and unconscious biases. Pooja and Simon discuss their personal experiences of working with diversity; Pooja from a perspective of ...
Dec 03, 2020•41 min•Ep. 17
Dina Hassan lives in Egypt and works as a clinical forensic psychoanalyst. In a wide ranging conversation, Dina shares her experience of life in Egypt and her time spent studying in Ireland. Dina is 30 years old and a few years ago chose to wear a veil and she shares her experience of how this played out with her peers and challenges our perceptions of what it means to wear a veil. Dina discusses her love of psychoanalysis and how it sits culturally in Egypt. She identifies as half Egyptian and ...
Nov 19, 2020•27 min•Ep. 16
Professor Tatiana Bachkirova shares her deep knowledge of coaching and in conversation with Simon they explore some of the limitations of coaching practice today, and what can be done to change this. Tatiana and Simon are both advocates for coaching and believe coaching to be a hugely important developmental practice, yet they see problems in how coaching is practiced today. The mainstream coaching focus on positivity and positive psychology and the lack of criticality are central concerns. The ...
Nov 05, 2020•36 min•Ep. 15
Jeff is a sinologist and has spent many years working and living in China. He works as a leader in the world of technology and has worked in global tech companies and now is CEO /owner of a mid size tech company. In 2018 Simon and Jeff presented together at a conference exploring how new technologies pull us in two competing directions, towards centralisation and to decentralisation. Techno utopians led us to believe that the internet and other technologies would lead to a greater democratizatio...
Oct 22, 2020•33 min•Ep. 14
In this podcast I read a short essay that explores the art of living the good life through the lens of the thermos flask. Internalised as a childhood ‘good object’ that represented happy times- family holidays and mountain walks- and it produced ‘good things’ that comforted me; warm nourishing soup and hot coffee. It acted as a transitional object when I travelled, bridging home and my place of arrival, and it became a lost symbol when consumerism and the cappuccino cult seduced me and millions ...
Oct 01, 2020•20 min•Ep. 13
Professor Jonathan Gosling has been working in leadership development across the globe and in diverse settings for many years. In this podcast he discusses with Simon the pleasures of power. They reflect on their own relationships to power, those of leaders they have coached and the tangled collusions around domination and submission. Many leaders who seem powerful to others feel themselves to be trapped in organisational cultures that render them quite powerless in these totalising corporate sy...
Sep 17, 2020•42 min•Ep. 12
Michael and Simon, two white men, discuss whiteness as a paradigm. Their conversation draws on their personal experiences and addresses the wider systemic issues that are at play. They reflect on how white fragility plays out, and what it will take to enable people to move from being defensive, to engage with the vulnerable curiosity that is required to lead to change? Whiteness is often referred to as a place of privilege and entitlement, as clearly it is in many social settings. Yet ‘whiteness...
Sep 03, 2020•42 min•Ep. 11
Edgy ideas are a speciality from my guest Martin Parker. As Professor of Organization Studies at Bristol University, Martin challenges mainstream ideas about how we think about organisations, leadership and management. His recent books ‘Shut down the Business school’ and 'Anarchism, Organization and Management' are discussed in this vibrant conversation. Martin draws on his sociology, anthropology and cultural studies training to inform his thinking. Martin and Simon discuss how anarchism and so...
Aug 20, 2020•37 min•Ep. 10
This very special episode of Edgy Ideas addresses issues of race from MLK to BLM, on a journey experienced by my esteemed guest Dr Kathleen Pogue White. Kathy met Dr King as a student and shares her unique experience of living and working through periods of hope and despair in relation to racism in the USA and beyond. As BLM puts racism back at the top of an international agenda, Kathy shares her experience of working in organisations to address ‘white supremacy’ and structural racism. Kathy bri...
Aug 06, 2020•43 min•Ep. 9
World-renowned author, academic and award-winning teacher, Manfred Kets de Vries joins Simon to share his invaluable insights on working with leaders and organisations. Manfred discusses his work with CEOs, family business leaders, and his work in Russia. In his new e-book 'Journeys into Coronavirus Land' Manfred sets out the five fundamentals that guide good leadership - Belonging, Purpose, Self Competence, Self-Control and Transcendence. Manfred's long term focus has been to use psychological ...
Jul 23, 2020•37 min•Ep. 8
In Part 2 Simon continues his conversation with Leslie Brissett and they explore faith, belonging, monastic calling and the beauty of trees amongst other issues relating to identity. Leslie is from the UK with a Caribbean heritage, and recently relocated to live in Arkansas USA. Leslie is Director of Group Relations at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and has studied human dynamics in experiential settings in many countries; he is also the Company Secretary at Tavistock Institute of Hu...
Jul 09, 2020•29 min•Ep. 7
In this episode Simon invites special guest Leslie Brissett to share his personal experience of race and identity. This delightful and deeply human conversation meanders through race and identity exploring otherness and drawing on psychoanalytic insights. Leslie shares his reflections and insights on these big issues bringing his unique perspectives on what it means to live a good life and create the good society. Leslie is from the UK with a Caribbean heritage, and recently relocated to live in...
Jun 25, 2020•27 min•Ep. 6
Our special guest today is Irena Izotova from Moscow, who will be sharing her thoughts and experience from a Russian perspective. Our conversation meanders through our experiences of the pandemic and we touch on how the 'Discourse of the Master' returns to impose prohibitions on us during the lockdown. This is something new to many in the west, but Irena points to this being historically familiar to Russians. Irena relates how her elderly relative trangresses this prohibition as a refusal to sub...
Jun 18, 2020•27 min•Ep. 5
