The Inner Game of Change

Ali Juma
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 Welcome to The Inner Game of Change podcast, where we dive deep into the complexities of managing organisational change. Tailored for leaders, change practitioners, and anyone driving transformation, our episodes explore key topics like leadership, communication, change capability, and process design. Expert guests share practical strategies and insights to help you navigate and lead successful change initiatives. Listen in to learn fresh ideas and perspectives from a variety of industries, and gain the tools and knowledge you need to lead transformation with confidence. Explore our episodes at www.theinnergameofchange.com.au, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Youtube or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. 

  1. Inside The Messy Middle - AI And The Organisational Immune System

    3D AGO

    Inside The Messy Middle - AI And The Organisational Immune System

    Inside the Messy Middle is a special series from The Inner Game of Change This fortnightly short series is for people who carry responsibility inside complexity.  Between strategy and delivery. Between intent and impact. Between what was imagined and what must now be made real. In this episode of Inside the Messy Middle, I explore a powerful idea: What if organisations behave like immune systems? As AI enters the workplace, many organisations are not simply reacting to new technology. They are responding to perceived threats to identity, expertise, workflows, control, and certainty. Through stories from medicine, business, and lived organisational experience, I explore why good ideas are sometimes rejected, why thoughtful people hesitate during change, and why resistance is often more complex than it first appears. This episode examines: • the hidden defence mechanisms inside organisations • why AI triggers different reactions across legal, IT, policy, and leadership teams • the psychological side of resistance and uncertainty • the role of leadership and change management in creating safe movement during disruption • what business history can teach us about adaptation and survival Featuring reflections on Semmelweis, Kodak, Nokia, and modern AI adoption dynamics, this episode is a deeper look into the invisible tensions shaping organisational change today. Send us Fan Mail Ali Juma  @The Inner Game of Change podcast Follow me on LinkedIn

    10 min
  2. E107 - You Cannot Change What You Cannot See - Podcast with Jill Macauley

    MAY 2

    E107 - You Cannot Change What You Cannot See - Podcast with Jill Macauley

    Welcome to The Inner Game of Change.  where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens.  Today’s conversation sits at the heart of something we do not talk about enough when it comes to change. We talk about strategy. We talk about tools. We talk about capability and execution. But very rarely do we stop and ask a simpler question. What if the real challenge is not the change itself… but what we cannot see about ourselves as we go through it? In this episode, I sit down with Jill McCauley. Jill is the COO at Behavioral Essentials, and her work focuses on one thing that sits beneath performance, culture, and leadership. Self awareness. She has spent years working alongside leaders and teams, helping them see themselves more clearly, especially in environments that look successful on the outside, but feel very different on the inside. In this conversation, we explore the idea of blind spots in the workplace. Not as abstract concepts… but as real forces that shape how leaders show up, how teams operate, and ultimately how change either moves forward… or quietly stalls. We talk about the hidden cost of leadership without self awareness. Why capable leaders unintentionally create friction. And how the strengths that got us here… can sometimes be the very things that get in the way. There is a simple but powerful idea that runs through this conversation. You cannot change what you cannot see. And the moment you start seeing yourself more clearly… everything else begins to shift. I am grateful to have Jill chatting with me today.  About Jill I’ve spent my career working alongside leaders — in boardrooms, executive meetings, and organizations that look successful on paper but feel different on the inside. I’ve learned that this feeling is rarely a strategy problem or a skills gap.  It’s a self-awareness problem. Capable leaders unintentionally create friction. Teams spend time managing dynamics instead of doing the work. Meetings become more painful than they need to be. Energy and efforts get wasted. And no one can quite name why things feel harder than they should. This is the hidden cost of leadership without self-awareness. Over time, I stopped seeing these challenges as individual failures and started seeing them as systemic issues. As organizations grow, roles evolve, pressure increases, and identities lag behind reality. Leaders keep relying on the same strengths that got them here, without realizing those strengths may now be creating blindspots, tension, or misalignment downstream. Self-awareness isn’t soft. And it isn’t intuitive for everyone. It’s a discipline, practice, and a leadership responsibility. That can’t be ignored. At Behavioral Essentials, we work with leaders, teams, and organizations to build awareness where it actually matters — in how people show up, make decisions, communicate under pressure, and impact the systems around them. This work sits at the intersection of psychology, behavior, and real-world leadership demands. It’s not about labeling people or fixin Send us Fan Mail Executive Wins PodcastThe Executive Wins Podcast features inspiring Executives who share their biggest wins.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Ali Juma  @The Inner Game of Change podcast Follow me on LinkedIn

    50 min
  3. Inside The Messy Middle - The Weight of the Middle Feels Heavier Than the Authority

    APR 20

    Inside The Messy Middle - The Weight of the Middle Feels Heavier Than the Authority

    Inside the Messy Middle is a special series from The Inner Game of Change This fortnightly short series is for people who carry responsibility inside complexity. Between strategy and delivery. Between intent and impact. Between what was imagined and what must now be made real. These episodes are not about tools or frameworks. They are reflections on judgement, dignity, and the human cost of change as it is actually lived. The Weight of the Middle Feels Heavier Than the Authority. This episode explores a reality many middle managers and change makers quietly carry. Seeing what needs to change.  Feeling responsible for making it work.  But not always having the authority to fully shape it. Drawing on history, from Roman centurions to naval captains, and modern organisations like Toyota, this episode reflects on a pattern that has always existed. Responsibility does not always come with full control. And in the messy middle, leadership is often less about authority… and more about judgement. Send us Fan Mail Ali Juma  @The Inner Game of Change podcast Follow me on LinkedIn

    6 min
  4. E106 - AI as a Mirror for Organisations - Podcast With Shannon Lucas

    APR 17

    E106 - AI as a Mirror for Organisations - Podcast With Shannon Lucas

    Welcome to The Inner Game of Change.  where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens.  Today I am joined by Shannon Lucas. Shannon is the Co CEO of Catalyst Constellations, where she works with executive teams to close the gap between the speed of change and the speed of execution. And in this conversation, we explore what that might mean in practice. We talk about discernment. We talk about resistance as a signal. We talk about fear in the system. And we explore the reality of leading change when everything is moving at pace. One idea! AI might be acting as a kind of mirror. Reflecting how we think, how we decide, and how we design work. In simple terms, what we notice may shape what happens next. This is an episode for those navigating change in real systems. Not just designing it on paper. I am grateful to have Shannon chatting with me today.  About I help executive teams and organizations build the muscle to transform continuously without burning out their best people or watching momentum die between initiatives. Most organizations treat transformation like a one-time event: hire consultants, launch the program, declare victory, exhaust everyone involved, then wonder why nothing sticks. I work with CEOs and C-suite leaders to break that cycle by building real change capability into how their organizations actually operate.  As Co-CEO of Catalyst Constellations, I bring 20+ years of enterprise-scale innovation and transformation experience from companies like Ericsson, Cisco, and Vodafone. I’ve owned a $150M P&L, generated over $1B in new business pipeline, and learned firsthand what actually works (and what definitely doesn't) when you're trying to change how global organizations operate. My approach combines hard-won operational experience with ongoing research into how transformation really happens. I co-authored the #1 Amazon bestseller Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out. based on our research into Catalysts (the highly action-oriented change agents inside organizations who can't stop themselves from driving change). We wrote it after watching too many talented people flame out while trying to transform their companies without the right support or frameworks. And based on lived personal experience. I believe the organizations that will thrive are the ones that stop treating change as an event and start building the human, cultural, and structural capacity to adapt continuously. These are the firms that turn transformation into a sustained advantage rather than a recurring disruption. My mission: help make the world's largest organizations more sustainable in every sense of the word: for people, profit, and planet. Shannon’s profile linkedin.com/in/shannonglucas Website catalystconstellations.com (Company) Send us Fan Mail Executive Wins PodcastThe Executive Wins Podcast features inspiring Executives who share their biggest wins.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Ali Juma  @The Inner Game of Change podcast Follow me on LinkedIn

    53 min
  5. Inside The Messy Middle - When You Realise the Plan Will Not Survive Reality

    APR 8

    Inside The Messy Middle - When You Realise the Plan Will Not Survive Reality

    Inside the Messy Middle is a special series from The Inner Game of Change This fortnightly short series is for people who carry responsibility inside complexity. Between strategy and delivery. Between intent and impact. Between what was imagined and what must now be made real. These episodes are not about tools or frameworks. They are reflections on judgement, dignity, and the human cost of change as it is actually lived. This episode is for anyone who has started moving, only to find that the plan does not quite hold once it meets the real world. The shift.  The tension between following the plan and adjusting it.  The quiet judgement required to make things work in practice. This is where many middle managers and change makers operate.  Not just executing plans, but reshaping them to fit reality. Because change does not move forward because of the plan alone.  It moves forward because of how people engage with it. Send us Fan Mail Ali Juma  @The Inner Game of Change podcast Follow me on LinkedIn

    8 min
  6. E105 - How It Lands - Podcast With Millie Marconi

    APR 3

    E105 - How It Lands - Podcast With Millie Marconi

    Welcome to The Inner Game of Change.  where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens.  Today’s conversation is not really about technology. It is about decision making. It is about how we make calls when we do not fully know how something will land. How we rely on instinct, experience, and sometimes guesswork. And now AI is entering that space. Not to replace the human, but to sit alongside the human. So the question becomes, are we moving into a world of human in the loop,  or AI in the loop supporting human judgement? Today I am joined by Millie Marconi. Millie is a serial entrepreneur who has been building most of her life. She has created over sixty products across ecommerce, SaaS, mobile games, and recruitment tech. She raised capital, built a product to early revenue, and then made a very deliberate decision to pivot in public when she hit scaling friction. What triggered that pivot is what caught my attention. A single AI generated LinkedIn post that did not land. And her reflection was simple and powerful. How something lands matters more than how it sounds in your head. From that moment, she started to explore what she now calls a perception problem. Not a content problem. She is now building TestFeed, a platform that allows you to simulate how your message, your idea, or your decision might land before it goes out into the world. In simple terms, helping humans make better decisions before the consequences arrive. What I enjoyed in this conversation is that it is not just about the tool. It is about judgement. It is about confidence. And it is about what happens when we start to reduce the unknown. Let’s get into it. About Oh, I'm Millie. I'm a serial entrepreneur and have been building my entire (professional) life since I was 20 - I've built over 60 products across e-commerce, SaaS, mobile games, and recruitment tech. I've had one 'real' job which lasted a matter of months, and we don’t talk about that. I put my entrepreneurship down to incredible impatience, painful curiosity, and inspiration from my immigrant grandfather, who came to Australia from Italy with nothing and built a fantastic life for himself and our family (and, as a child, introduced me to the joys of red wine and orange juice at breakfast). In 2023, I joined Antler as a solo founder, raised and built a recruitment product that hit $100K in revenue. But after hitting scaling friction in enterprise sales, I made the hard call to pivot - and did it in public. The insight came from an unexpected place: a single LinkedIn post. It was AI-generated. It bombed. And it sparked a realisation: “How something lands matters more than how it sounds in your head.” I wasn’t alone. In dozens of conversations with founders, marketers, and execs, the same problem kept surfacing: “I don’t know how this message will land.” That became the thesis: businesses don’t have a content problem - they have a perception problem. That’s what I’m building now: TestFeed, the world’s first perspective engine. TestFeed lets you simulate how your audience will react using synthetic audiences - befo Send us Fan Mail Executive Wins PodcastThe Executive Wins Podcast features inspiring Executives who share their biggest wins.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Ali Juma  @The Inner Game of Change podcast Follow me on LinkedIn

    50 min
  7. Inside The Messy Middle - When You Must Act Before Clarity Arrives

    MAR 19

    Inside The Messy Middle - When You Must Act Before Clarity Arrives

    Inside the Messy Middle is a special series from The Inner Game of Change This fortnightly short series is for people who carry responsibility inside complexity. Between strategy and delivery. Between intent and impact. Between what was imagined and what must now be made real. These episodes are not about tools or frameworks. They are reflections on judgement, dignity, and the human cost of change as it is actually lived. Send us Fan Mail Ali Juma  @The Inner Game of Change podcast Follow me on LinkedIn

    7 min
  8. E104 - Consistency In A World Of Change - Podcast with Dr Michael Canic

    MAR 14

    E104 - Consistency In A World Of Change - Podcast with Dr Michael Canic

    Welcome to The Inner Game of Change.  where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens.  Today’s conversation is a special one for me. My guest today was actually the very first person I interviewed when I started this podcast during the middle of Covid back in April 2021. At the time, the world was navigating uncertainty, disruption, and trying to make sense of what consistency meant when everything around us was shifting. Since then, a lot has happened. The podcast has passed one hundred episodes, the world has moved through Covid, and we now find ourselves in another wave of transformation with Artificial Intelligence entering the workplace and our lives in profound ways. So I thought it would be meaningful to bring him back. My guest is Michael Canic, author of the book Ruthless Consistency. It was one of the books I was reading at the time when the idea of this podcast first came to me. Michael’s central idea is simple but powerful. Consistency is not about robotic repetition. It is about the relentless alignment of intentions, decisions, and actions. In this conversation we revisit the idea of consistency, but in a very different context. We explore whether consistency is the opposite of change, or whether it is actually the thing that enables change. We talk about consistency in leadership, in capability building, and in the way individuals manage themselves in a world full of distraction. And of course, we also touch on Artificial Intelligence, and how it is beginning to amplify the conditions that already exist inside organisations. This is a reflective conversation about leadership, identity, discipline, and the inner game of navigating uncertainty. I am grateful to have Michael chatting with me again. Send us Fan Mail Executive Wins PodcastThe Executive Wins Podcast features inspiring Executives who share their biggest wins.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Ali Juma  @The Inner Game of Change podcast Follow me on LinkedIn

    52 min
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About

 Welcome to The Inner Game of Change podcast, where we dive deep into the complexities of managing organisational change. Tailored for leaders, change practitioners, and anyone driving transformation, our episodes explore key topics like leadership, communication, change capability, and process design. Expert guests share practical strategies and insights to help you navigate and lead successful change initiatives. Listen in to learn fresh ideas and perspectives from a variety of industries, and gain the tools and knowledge you need to lead transformation with confidence. Explore our episodes at www.theinnergameofchange.com.au, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Youtube or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. 

Information

  • Creator
    Ali Juma
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    140
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Inner Game of Change
  • Show Website
    The Inner Game of Change

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