Better Conversations with Sehaam Cyrene Sehaam Cyrene

Working from home or remote working in some shape or form is going to continue and depending on which report you read, it’s a good thing for work life balance (flexibility and productivity are up) or a bad thing for our mental health (stress levels and feeling isolated are also up). The reality is managing our people remotely is harder and leaders may be underestimating how poor their emotional connections really are.

While the increased use of digital tools has meant we can continue with our jobs, we have found ourselves overwhelmed by those tools, feeling unproductive and inadequately supported by our bosses. So much so that 1 in 3 of us will be looking for a new job as soon as we can.

And there’s also the fact that your remote work culture may be harbouring toxic behaviours which are harder to locate when it’s distributed electronically rather than physically experienced or observed. 

Better spec kit and strong internet connection fit for home working, working time flexibility and maybe a pay rise might fix the mechanical aspects of work but what about feeling that our boss cares and knows how to be remotely supportive?

If we agree that the quality of our relationships is directly related to the quality of our conversations and time together, then our emotional connections could be the powerhouse of managing our people remotely.

So, how can we earn that emotional credit with our direct reports and people generally?

Read or listen at: https://betterconversations.co/emotional-connections-powerhouse-remote-managing/

My guest today is Bettina Palazzo. She is an expert in business ethics and advises companies and non-profits on how to look after the leadership and cultural dimension of compliance. She is a big proponent of speak-up cultures and ethical leadership. 

Living in Switzerland, Bettina also teaches ethics in business at various Swiss universities and, from what I know about her, she’s always bridging the gap between theory and practice.



I’m really looking forward to this conversation and hearing Bettina’s point of view, certainly one of things I’ve picked up in conversation with her is her capacity to hold opposing thoughts in conversations… I will also be asking her about her best and worst conversation, do stick around for that, I promise you, it will be worth it.


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My guest today is Jason Ring. Jason joined Global Shares in 2019. After spending a decade within hyper growth cyber security companies helping them build their global go to market strategies and achieve unicorn status.  Jason was brought on board to help drive the next stage of growth within Global Shares particularly in their SaaS business.

Having worked in market disrupting pre-IPO start-ups across EMEA, NA and APJ Jason has built up extensive knowledge into the day to day challenges facing Start-ups, Founders and early stage companies as they grow and scale.

Jason works directly with Founding teams of high growth start-ups, their legal advisors and their VC investors to make sure that the company ownership is tracked, employees have access to their share options and shareholders have full transparency into the value of their investment.

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My guest today is Lorenzo Espinosa. He works in tech - he’s currently Director of Data Operations and Product at Chattermill, a London-based AI startup “disrupting the unified customer experience ‘analytics space’ — which is means they analyse the feedback from your customers to give you insights that help you improve the experience, service or product to your customer.




Lorenzo has been innovating on products and platforms for companies like Amazon and American Express. He considers himself strategic in his thinking; he enjoys mentoring and we can also add, multicultural in his outlook. And from what I can tell so far, he’s pretty switched on when it comes to understanding people and motivating teams, which in my experience, tells me he’s got a high degree of comfort with being open and vulnerable. I love guests like this.




He’s also an MBA graduate from London Business School. He’s Spanish and has lived, worked and studied in the US, and he is a half IRONMAN Finisher in Boulder Colorado and has run 2 world marathons, one in Chicago and one in Berlin.




Let’s get inside his head. “Lorenzo” welcome


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My guest is Steve Chapman. Steve is an artist, writer and speaker interested in creativity and the human condition and, from conversations to date, he has a certain comfort being in the space of not knowing. He speaks to organisations, over 80 to date, around the world on the subject of human creativity — he remits that he has been to help them nurture a culture of creative freedom. As an artist, he’s sold his work across five continents and exhibited alongside the likes of Pablo Picasso and David Shrigley. He’s also visiting faculty on a number of well-regarded organisational change and coaching MSc programmes where he teaches spontaneity, creativity and not knowing. 

Hello Steve, so it seems that you are at your best when you’re not quite sure what you’re doing - for many listeners that would be a very uncomfortable place to be.

“The way I love to work is to come alongside them, be curious with them and just to notice what are the subtle patterns of human interaction that if we experiment, disrupt and disturb something else might happen."  

My guest is Steve Gaskell a fellow coach, and author of ‘Business Shouldn’t be this Tough’ has a deep understanding of the difficulties leaders face today, he’s been helping leaders of businesses for some 18 years.

Steve is a former Army Master Coach, British Army, he helps develop a “pig-headed approach to personal discipline, drive and ambition”.

Steve and I have spoken previously and we connected on many levels, we speak the same language, so that always makes it feel like we’ve known each other a long time. 

“In conversations it is probably one of the most difficult things sometimes to define, what goes to make a really good conversation. I think in some instances if you out with your friends it is the one who can talk the most and you know, have people recognise and woo what it is your saying, agree with you, and yet there are other conversations where you don't get a word in edgeways, so for me I think the really best conversations that I as a coach are interestingly those that I don't do a lot of talking. I am in a position to listen more deeply.“”



He’s doing some fascinating work with people who’ve been in a life of service and are transitioning into a new career and we’ll be talking about that a little later in the conversation.