Zafer Achi is an executive coach, a team coach and a designer and facilitator of leadership development interventions. He has 34 years of consulting experience, including 27 years as a partner with McKinsey & Company. We have invited Zafer Achi to talk to us about complexity. He will help us create a language on the different types of challenges we face to enable us to apply the right tools. The key topics covered in this episode are:  The difference between technical and adaptive...

Jennifer Garvey Berger is the co-founder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership. She holds a  master’s degree and a doctorate from Harvard University and is a former associate professor at George Mason University. Jennifer believes that leadership is one of the single most important tools in these times of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. We have invited Jennifer to introduce us to mindtraps and how they can hinder us when dealing with complexity.  The key topics covered in this episode...

Dr Laura Sicola is a leadership communication and influence expert and the author of “Speaking to Influence: Mastering Your Leadership Voice”. We have invited Laura to talk to us about how you can establish your vocal executive presence through the three C’s: command, connect and close the deal. She also addresses how to remain invitational in conversations even if there is an experience of competing priorities and how to unlock the potential of seemingly opposing views.    The key topics...

Eli Buren is an expert in embodied presence. Eli has taught workshops and retreats and has worked with clients internationally since 2005, working with thousands of people across the US, Europe and Asia. We have invited Eli to talk about how we can be more present in our conversations by working with embodiment.   The key topics covered in this episode are:  How to bring presence to your conversations How to practise presence How to honour the creation cycleGiving space in the conversation to...

Michele Zanini is the co-founder of the management lab and the co-author of the book “Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them”. Michele helps organisations become more resilient, creative and engaging places to work by inventing new management practices. We have invited Michele to talk about how we can unleash people’s potential by introducing a more humanocratic organisational model.  The key topics covered in this episode are:  How organisations can reach...

Wendy Smith is a professor of management at the Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics, co-founder of the Women’s Leadership Initiative and author of the book Both/And Thinking. She is an advocate for bold leadership, and much of her work focuses on helping leaders and teams navigate paradoxes. We have invited Wendy Smith to talk about how we can get better at embracing paradoxes and go from either/or to both/and thinking. The key topics covered in this episode are: How we can...

Sheila Heen is the founder of Triad Consulting Group, a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and Co-Author of “Thanks for the Feedback” and “Difficult Conversations”. She is consulting with companies ranging from Pixar, Hugo Boss to the NBA around difficult conversations, negotiation and sound decision-making. We have invited Sheila Heen to talk about the conversations around feedback and specifically how we can each be better feedback receivers.     The key topics covered in this episode...

Gail Gallie is the co-founder and creative leader of Project Everyone. Project Everyone is the organisation behind the campaign launch of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Previously, Gail has run marketing and advertising practices, but she is now focusing on how to drive solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. In this episode, we have invited Gail Gallie to talk about the conversations that led up to the big success that is the Global Goals and how it changed global...

Julie Diamond is the founder of Diamond Leadership. She works as an executive coach and international leadership consultant, and she authored the book: “Power - A User’s Guide”. Her focus is on creating transformational learning and leadership solutions across sectors. In this episode, we talk with Julie Diamond about the power of power in conversations and how each of us can become better power users.     Key topics covered in this episode are:   Understanding the difference between social...

Fred Dust is the founder of Dust&Co. He works as a designer and advisor to social and business leaders and he authored the book “Making Conversation”. Fred works at the intersection of business, society, and creativity where he tries to implement the craft of humancentric design. In this conversation, we talk with Fred Dust about the importance of committing to the conversation and thinking of conversation as a creative act. Key topics covered in this episode are: Building a space for...

David Whyte is a philosopher and poet. He explores the conversational nature of reality, focusing on the relationship of human beings to their world, to creation, to others, and to the end of life itself. In this conversation, David challenges us to think of conversations not as an exchange of words but rather as a lens through which you can look at your life and way of being.  Key topics covered in this episode are: Being in conversation with the things that are other than usThe concept of a...

Elizabeth Stokoe British is a scientist and Professor of Social Interaction at Loughborough University where she studies conversation analysis. In this conversation, we explore how Elizabeth’s research and experience could be applied to better understand and change conversations.    Key topics that are covered in this episode are: Our ability to predict the way a conversation is going to goThe way that one word can change an entire conversationMapping conversations to better understand which...

In this episode we meet with conflict resolution facilitator and author, Priya Parker. We discuss takeaways from her book, “The Art of Gathering” and how to make a gathering meaningful, effective and engaging.  In the pursuit of designing more transformational conversations and meetings, Priya encourages us to address the deepest need of the moment in our gatherings, to name a meeting according to its purpose, and to think about when a conversation or a meeting should take place in the...

Hosts Katrina and Stig are joined by renowned strategy advisor and author Professor Roger Martin. Roger Martin is former Dean and Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada.   In this episode, we discuss Roger Martin’s 5 strategy questions laid out in his book “Playing to Win”. We talk about a case example from the book through the lens of changing conversations: how strategic conversations might have been...

In this episode, hosts Katrina and Stig are joined by Ørsted CEO Mads Nipper. The episode explores how leaders are never not in conversation and Mads’ perspective on how he engages in those hundreds of touchpoints each day.  In conversation, Mads lives by three principles that we can takeaway from the conversation: (1) Leave people with more energy, (2) Be present and (3) Strive for balance.

In this introductory episode, hosts Stig Albertsen and Katrina Marshall Dyrting discuss Changing Conversations in organisations and lay out the foundation for this podcast series: why focus on conversations, what could be possible if we do and who we will meet in the coming episodes?   Key takeaways from this episode are that: (1) Organisations are conversations, (2) If you want real change, change the conversation and (3) That conversations are the smallest biggest thing we can play with...