The 91 Untold Change Project 91 Untold

Today's podcast features Kevin Watson, one of the finest thinkers we know around organisations and disruptive leadership. Kevin is the former Operations Director at Selfridges and was a key part of the turnaround team there. He was also their Head of Customer Service, so we wanted to tap into some of his wisdom and radical thinking. Kevin is a sublime coach, with first-hand experience in organisational design and leadership. 
As Kevin would say, radical change has already happened. It's now about individuals and organisations catching up and learning to embrace the possible. In this podcast, he discusses with out host, Neil Almond, his ideas around occupational philosophy, creating chaos in businesses and how appraisals should be dumped and kicked into touch.
Kevin has a passion for shaking up the way organisations are led and is an advocate of dismantling the hierarchies within them, so that teams run from the bottom up. 
 

Today’s podcast features Sarah Smith. We asked Sarah to be a part of the 91 Untold Change Project because she has the very rare ability to elegantly marry empirical research with real world applied practice. She has a particular academic passion for Positive Psychology (again blended elegantly into her highly respected executive coaching and facilitation practice). Sarah also leads the 91 Untold Applied Positive Psychology programme 
 
In this episode, Sarah challenges the myth that millennials are demanding different conditions from the rest of us, suggesting that you’d be hard pressed to find a member of Generation X who is asking questions about how they could flourish more effectively in the workplace. Millennials may be shaking things up, but actually it's potentially all of us who benefit.
 
Sarah also talks about the importance of vulnerability in Leadership and shares some Positive Psychology-inspired interventions that individuals and organisations can make in order to foster the conditions in which workers can flourish, grow and tap into their full potential.
 
Sarah has vast experience of working as a coach and consultant within organisations, and this shows through in the practicality of her comments. Leaders don’t need to know all the answers, but the behaviours they model are reflected through the organisation.  

On today’s show Neil interviews James Smith. As you know, the 91 Untold Change Project aims to explore how change happens across different domains – organisational, personal and social. As one of the pioneers of the social enterprise movement in the UK, James has a unique insight into how effective social change can be achieved and the qualities needed by social change agents. 
 
Much of this insight was earned during James’ time as CEO of The School for Social Entrepreneurs, an organisation he founded alongside Michael Young, Lord Young of Dartington (perhaps best known for founding organisations such as Open University and the Consumers Association). Michael was arguably one of the finest social thinkers of the last century and Neil wanted to use this opportunity of talking to James to also tease out any lessons we can glean from the late master.
 
Equally important to our project research are lessons from James’ current adventures as a social and environmental leadership consultant.
 
Neil’s friendship with James goes back to 1999, when he was a student at the school setting up Kikass. Neil later became a visiting tutor for the SSE and an action learning set facilitator.

Today’s podcast shines a light on the future of business. How, in a world that seems more and more driven by stakeholder value, can organisations buck the trend and take a stand for being ‘good’? How do they measure their impact on the world and the people who work within them? How can they be progressive and harness their collective energies to become a force for positive change?  
 
Our guest, Giles Gibbons, has literally written the book about Good Business (albeit a while ago) and for the past 20 years has run a hugely impactful company of the same name. Giles works with businesses and charities to help them use their power to positively impact the world socially and environmentally. He also argues that this ‘good’ purpose can offer the resilience for organisations to remain current and relevant in our evolving world.  
 
Based on his experience, Giles talks to Neil about his thoughts on how “listening” businesses are typically the ones staying ahead of the game. He also outlines the importance of organisations opting for a more open and agile approach, as opposed to businesses solely focussing on meeting last year's targets.
 
Having a foot in both the commercial sector and in the charity sector gives Giles a unique perspective on how businesses could become a force for good in the world – if indeed they aren’t already.
 

To be honest, we went into today’s podcast knowing we’d be wowed by our guest, Rachel Higham, Managing Director of IT at the communications colossus BT. After all, Neil consistently regales us with stories that paint her as one the most inspirational leaders he’s ever worked with. But truth be told, we were expecting dirt; David and Goliath stories about her fight with the corporate machine, epic battles of her efforts to wrestle BT kicking and screaming into a modern world. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Rachel was still brilliant, of course, but the story she shared gave real insight into how organisations can embrace massive change whatever their size. The conversation became a rich case study of how to place your purpose at the heart of change in order to remain relevant to customers, talent and stakeholders whilst simultaneously harnessing the organisation's energy to positively impact society.This podcast is a frank discussion between host Neil Almond and Rachel about the importance of a socially-rooted purpose and how to avoid the platitudes of green-washing so many organisations resort to. Together, they explored how to attract and keep the best talent and how vital this is becoming, given the changing employment landscape. Rachel gives templates for energising and inspiring change projects within organisations, and explains how Human-Centred Design is driving innovation and allowing her tech teams to place people at the heart of development.As usual, Neil also asks Rachel to also consider the workplace skills that will be needed to thrive in the years ahead. As someone at the very heart of technological advances in Artificial Intelligence, chat-bots and automation, her answers have a heightened poignancy.

In Episode #4 of the Change Project Giles Gibbons suggested that the separate nomenclature of ‘charity’ and ‘business’ is potentially becoming ever more irrelevant. What is more important are the values that are brought to bear and the impact an organisation has. In today’s podcast Neil Almond interviews Sophie Livingstone, Managing Director of Trustees Unlimited with the aim of exploring some of these ideas further.Sophie has great experience as a social change activist and is perhaps best known for her leadership of the pioneering youth charity City Year, where, with her team, she took it from start-up to a hugely successful organisation with three regional bases. Sophie has always cherry-picked the best of business and blended it with leading thinking from the charity and social sectors.This podcast explores how to help people coalesce around a central vision for change by developing a sense of urgency and alignment around a ‘crisis’. Sophie explores how to lead through change and how to maintain consistency of values and culture as you grow. She also shares some of her learnings around how to measure success and get funders eating out of your hand.