Evolutionary Provocateur

Dawna talks to Giles Hutchins, a systems thinker, speaker and author of 'Future Fit'. Future Fit refers to the leadership mindset needed to move from 'Business as Usual' to companies that are fit to surf the uncertainties of today’s reality. - companies that focus is on who you are versus what you are.

Company management structures are under pressure to distribute power, engage employees and rethink the role of manager in order to meet the challenges of a fast-moving world. Bonnitta Roy has designed an open architecture for self-managed companies otherwise known as an Open Participatory Organization. Listen on to find out more.

Despite being made famous by Zappos, holacracy isn't flavor of the month. Anna McGrath of Wonderworks Consulting worked with Zappos to roll out the radical organizational structure. Her conversation with Dawna debunks several myths of holacracy being either too unstructured or too over-structured to work in practice.

Leaders and bosses are not the same. Dawna Jones explores the trust-based culture inside W. L. Gore. with long-time company Associate, Michael Pacanowsky.

LiquidO is an agile governance model championed by Cocoon Projects, a values-driven innovation company located in Italy. Listen on to find out what it is and how it works.

Dawna Jones talks to best-selling author, Karan Bajaj, about his new book, The Yoga of Max's Discontent, and what it tells us about the leadership challenges executives face today.

Increasing quality and lowering costs is the holy grail of healthcare. And that’s precisely what Netherlands-based home care organization, Buurtzorg, has achieved. Listen on to find out how they do it.

Andrew Holm and Julian Wilson redesigned aeronautics engineering company, Matt Black Systems, to revolve around the smallest unit – a person. With the help of four metrics - quality, delivery, profitability and conformance - the company shrank in size while achieving quantum leaps in profitability.

How does a business gets things done when there’s no boss and no-one is in control? Morning Star, the world’s largest tomato processing company, proves you don't need managers to run a successful company.

Dawna talks to author and management thinker, Steve Denning, about scaling practices like Agile, DevOps, Lean and Scrum to work in large companies.

More and more companies are turning to Agile software development process to accelerate speed and quality of delivery. What few realize is that the Agile methodology, which centers on the customer and is built for uncertainty, is a world-view that’s very different from traditional management practice.

Sociocracy 3.0 (S3) is a collaboration framework for evolving effective, resilient and agile organizations. Listen on to find out how it works in practice and how to start experimenting with it.

What is needed for business to achieve sustainable effectiveness? In this interview with the editors of a new book, "Corporate Stewardship: Achieving Sustainable Effectiveness", Dawna Jones explores some options.

Dawna Jones talks to Peter Cook, a musician, scientist and business consultant who draws from his eclectic background to help companies to adopt an intelligent approach to innovation. Dawna met with Peter in the bowels of the Royal Society of the Arts in London where they talked about: The role of VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in driving innovation. How dissonance in music relates to cognitive dissonance in business; the high cost of cognitive dissonance. A different way to look at failure, including how Prince uses mistakes and the mistake Richard Branson made when moving into the US market competing against Cocoa-cola. Where organizational structure starts and how it is like eggs - boiled, fried or scrambled. Why constraints help and why too many KPI’s can block creativity. Why musician Jack White puts his guitar slightly out of reach.

B Lab is a non-profit organization dedicated to using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. Founder Bart Houlahan talks to Dawna Jones about their mission.

What happens when business schools are less progressive than the companies hiring their graduates? The Global Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI) aims to close that gap and encourage change in business schools. Dawna Jones talks to Executive Director, John North, about how GRLI set out to achieve this.

Designing the future of work is not a casual endeavor. So why are companies so interested in exploring better ways of organizing work and what direction are they moving in?

Award-winning investigative journalist Roberta Baskin spent her career shining a light on corporate misconduct. Now she heads up The Flourish Prizes at Case Western University, an initiative designed to inspire the current and next generation of business leaders to build a better world. She tells Dawna Jones about some companies that have opted to do things differently.

Dawna Jones talks to Wendy Chapple, deputy director of the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Nottingham University Business School, about a different approach to executive education and why the school has launched an MSc in sustainability.

Andrew Thornton, owner of a community supermarket in London, talk to Dawna Jones about bringing heart back into business and how to be a different kind of business leader.

Dawna Jones talk to Will Lauder, founder of Kapuluan Coconut, a social enterprise aiming to merge social, environmental, economic and community values into an artisanal product.

Resource scarcity is no longer an abstract ‘green’ concept. As Dawna Jones finds out from Dr Nadya Zhexembayeva,, for many businesses, scarcity is an unwelcome reality that needs to become a primary strategic consideration.

Systems change specialist Al Blixt talks to Dawna Jones about the forces that work for and against innovation in higher education and how business schools can better prepare students for the real world.

More people quit their bosses than quit their jobs. The manager’s role is under scrutiny. Yet, managers can’t change without a shift in how a company manages itself. Vlatka Hlupic, professor, coach, business leader and author of the Management Shift talks to Dawna about what is happening in bold companies and why it makes a difference to the economy.

The idea of 'flow' or peak performance states has been around for a while. Dawna talks to 'Flow Genome' author and journalist, Steven Kotler, about how well business executives have incorporated the knowledge to function in today’s business environment.

Harvard educated economist and author of the "Price of Fish – A New Approach to Wicked Economics and Better Decisions", Michael Mainelli talks to Dawna Jones about how we can bring economic tools and long-term decision-making up to the task of tackling our new global reality.

We’ve all heard of emotional intelligence, but what about conversational intelligence? How can you use conversation to activate higher-level intelligences such as trust, integrity, empathy and good judgment?

Forget organizational planning, budgeting and performance appraisals; these are all tools of the past. Companies that really want to navigate their way through complexity need to be able to think, not just steer. In this episode of Evolutionary Provocateur, systems theorist and practitioner, Niels Pflaeging, talks to Dawna Jones talk about what thinking differently means in an organization context.

Why do companies ask employees to innovate, and then work hard to block it? Gary Klein, author of Seeing What Others Don’t, talks to Dawna about the value insights bring to companies, the many ways companies work against themselves, and what decision-makers can do to embrace good ideas instead of stopping them.

It’s increasingly clear that traditional ways of organizing how work gets done isn't working to engage employees. Which begs an obvious question. How can organizations re-inject life into their workplaces so that individuals can approach their work with enthusiasm and vigor?

What can rock bands like Metallica, Slayer, U2, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd teach business teams about distributed collaboration, risk management and change? Listen to Dawna Jones2019 interview with Ruth Blatt to find out.

The same lean and agile principles that have changed the way software is developed are now helping companies with the people side of change. To find out what this means in reality, Dawna Jones talks to Lean Sensei Daniel Stoelb about what he2019s learned from working with change in organizations for over thirty-five years and how the principles used in business can apply and support local change initiatives and how we utilize our resources.

If one thing2019s certain in life, its uncertainty. Yet conventional project planning simply fails to take this reality into account. So we could all do with some help managing risk and options in our lives and understanding how those risk and options keep messing up our projects.

Love them or loath them, Ugg Boots are one of those instantly-recognisable brands that has spread across the world from small beginnings back in 1978. But for Ugg2019s founder, Brian Smith, success hasn2019t been plain sailing and his journey has has its ups and downs. Earlier this year, Dawna Jones met Brian Smith to discuss what it takes to weather the uncertainty of being an entrepreneur. As he talks about the Ugg Australia story, he shares some philosophical lessons learned that helped keep his spirits alive when all seemed lost.

With media and personal attention on financial crisis and uncertainty, what can you do to avoid getting sucked in by negativity or doubt? Learn how to become more resilient in the face of unexpected events that pull the rug out from under your feet.

In this Episode we discuss: Why we are being asked to evolve... not change. Why business is under so much pressure and why they are creating their own stress-related illness and disengagement costs. Why people and companies are having trouble adjusting. What lies at the heart of the tension between managers and employees and what they can do about it. How employees and managers can collectively engage in removing barriers to collaboration, adapting the culture while expanding leadership consciousness.

When geologist and mining expert, Dr Ian Thomson, realized that the company he worked for had created the conflict they2019d become embroiled in, it kicked off a steep learning curve about what environmental and social responsibility really is. In this discussion, Dawna and Ian talk about how you can tell companies who are really doing acting responsibly from those who are just talking about it while still practicing a 2018take what you want and run2019 approach. They also talk about how to manage your management style by observing what the pattern of negotiation is. Do you value harmony over conflict? Will you avoid conflict? There is a level of sophistication required to realize notice the pattern of negotiation and know what to do about it. Dr. Ian Thomson has a lifetime of experience in the resource industry, working for the last fifteen years to advance the management of social issues. He has led development of standards and guidelines for the management of social issues during mineral exploration programs, facilitated construction of the PDAC Principles and Guidance for Responsible Exploration, and is a prime mover in developing metrics for the Social License to Operate. Ian is a founding member and principal of On Common Ground Consultants Inc. Prior to founding On Common Ground, he held positions with Orvana Mineral Corp, Placer Development and Barringer Research.

How can we break the habit of resurrecting command-and-control management even when we know it doesn2019t work. What does it take to do things differently? What do companies who are making 2018alternative2019 un-management models their new normal have that others don2019t? And what are companies managed by traditional models doing to actively create passive employees?

What happens when you realise that most of the things that people have tried and most of what they think is true no longer fit reality? Diederick Janse is a young entrepreneur who went against prevailing thinking when he started his consulting business right after graduation. His was following an intuitive sense that exploring possibilities was more interesting than being 201Cnormal201D. Together with other friends whose thinking went against the predictable flow, he formed Realize.nl, a consulting company for start-ups focused on conscious business. Dawna talked to Diederick HUB Amsterdam about how he navigates the world of business, the relevance to today's reality of what they teach in university, the potential for SME business, the tricky choice graduates have when considering their direction and the role of inner knowing in decision making. They look at how young people can follow their higher calling in work by following their intuition to restore the glory of work. Diederick Janse2019s expertise centers on organization development. As a consultant, he quickly surfaces the core issues, and asks the kind of questions that are needed to create clarity and focus. He combines integrity, curiosity and design skills to help start-ups and fast growing companies scale up their business without losing passion and focus. Diederick is also co-founder of Waking Up the Workplace and currently serves as its content director.

We2019ve known command and control, seen fads come and go and yet people still hate their jobs. To explore why this is, Dawna talks with Jurgen Appelo who explains how the manager2019s role involves recognition that we function in a living system. He explains why management fads fail and talks about his project to gather practical tips for managing in a better way. Jurgen Appelo writes the blog noop.nl, which covers agile management, business improvement, and personal development. He is also the author of Management 3.0, which describes the role of the manager in an agile organisations. A speaker and author, you2019ll find Jurgen keynoting and workshopping at various conferences in many countries.

Last January, twenty-one business strategists, Agile/Lean practitioners met in Stoos, Switzerland to talk about the mess management is in. Out of that has grown the Stoos movement, a community of business professionals world-wide who believe that by challenging the status quo, a better way can be found for business, management and the role of business in society as a whole. Here, Dawna talks to John Styffe, self-sustainability coach and one of the founding members, about the origins of Stoos, the emergence of Satellites and about #LESS2012 where the Stoos conversation will be continued.

Erwin van der Koogh, Chief Wow Officer at Erronis, has a vision. It is to turn how we manage and change organizations upside down. The old style of management has served us well but a new style is emerging to meet new challenges. The in-between phase is messy. Listen in as Dawna and Erwin sit at a coffee shop on the streets of Amsterdam and talk about the Stoos Stampede, career change, and the role of storytelling to create effective change.

The recent financial crisis2019s and ethical breaches challenge business and business schools to rethink their role in society along with how leaders both develop and adapt. Professor Ken Starkey, Head of the Management Division for the Management and Organisational Learning at Nottingham University Business School explores why we are stuck on short term thinking, and what role business schools and business leaders can play to return to restore 2018humanomics2019 and care in what we do and how we do it as a basic part of business sustainability. Will business schools accept responsibility for their part in short term-ism? Will they step up to a role as agents of change? Ken Starkey2019s current research, teaching and consulting interests include: leadership, management education, sustainable strategic management, and organization and the art of design. He has published articles in leading journals such as Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, Organization Studies, Human Relations and Journal of Management Studies. His most recent book is The Business School and the Bottom Line (Cambridge University Press, with Nick Tiratsoo) and a contribution to the Harvard Business School Handbook of Leadership Teaching edited by Scott Snook, Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana (Sage Publications).

Most companies can readily articulate what they do and how they do it, but great companies inspire customers to come to them. With the competition for customer's attention increasing, knowing how to change the game from attempting to motivate a transaction to inspiring loyalty can make customer retention much easier. Simon Sinek started as a student of anthropology and then applied his interest to understanding who great leaders lead great companies and what sets them apart from the crowd. Here, he explains how and why to start with "why".

In an environment of absolutes such as "adapt or die" there is room for creativity and a higher level of awareness. Max Mckeown, author of Adaptability, shares stories that show how, by being creatively adaptive, even the apparently hopeless situations can be transformed into radical change. Adaptability can open up possibilities when there appears to a single option while, moving from idea to execution without being clear on the context can result in case examples like Borders versus Amazon. Loaded with practical examples, Max dives deep into what the value of adaptability is for business now.

Dr. John MacDonald is known as a true visionary and entrepreneur in the space technology and renewable energy industry. Prior to helping establish Day4 Energy in 2001, Dr. MacDonald co-founded MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), Canada’s largest space technology company. In his role with MDA he played an instrumental part in many of the organization’s highest achievements, including the RADARSAT-2 spacecraft. Prior to MDA, Dr. MacDonald held a faculty position in engineering at UBC and MIT for a total of 12 years.

Dov Seidman, author of "How! Why how we do anything means everything", talks to Dawna Jones about what it takes for business to become resilient in a world where the Occupy movement raises fundamental questions about the role of business in society. Too many organizations are scrambling to cope with uncertainty and complexity by relying on old strategies, he says. But Dov's research explains exactly what companies must do in order to move away from measuring ‘how much’, to start restoring integrity and start understanding true value. Dov Seidman is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of LRN. He has been called by FORTUNE Magazine “the hottest advisor on the corporate virtue circuit.” Leading companies such as Disney, Dow Chemical, eBay, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Raytheon, and 3M turn to LRN to help management govern more effectively and workers do the right things the right way, even in the most challenging of situations. Dov is a Harvard Law School graduate who also earned a bachelor's and master's degree in philosophy from UCLA, and a BA with honors in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University.

The Global Leadership Forecast presents five skills to address what research shows is a crisis of leadership. But these five skills aren't going deep enough to unleash human potential. In this program, Dawna Jones outlines the five inner skills that equip leaders to navigate uncertainty with greater ease and to use it to advantage.

As the global markets suffer further jitters, Dawna Jones talks to Dr Carl Callerman about how the role of money as the sole purpose for business and enterprise appears to be changing. In this two-part interview, Dr Callerman puts forward an entirely new way of seeing the role of business in society.

In part two of Dawna's interview with ecopreneur Kemp Edwards they explore a range of topics: • • Is using sustainability as a strategy about being ethical or is it recognition that nature's principles apply to business? • • How does service to community impact employee engagement? • • What power do consumers have to affect business accountability? • • Why some businesses (Boomers) struggle with failure to 'execute'? • • What can businesses do to restore credibility when it comes to reporting social and economic responsibility?

Kemp Edwards is a Canadian Gen X eco-entrepreneur who started out as a graduate from Queens University with an honors degree in Philosophy. Taking a creative leap away from philosophy and into the action sports industry, Kemp spent ten years in that business before acting on his inspiration to merge business interests with a desire to create a world he wanted to live in and leave to his two kids. In this interview, he shares how inspiration lead to the growth of two his two eco-businesses: www.Ethicalprofiling.com, which helps companies make ethical purchasing decisions through sourcing high quality socially and environmentally friendly products, and FuGen. His second company, www.FuGenDesign.com matches charitable organizations and causes with retail partners to bring eco and socially conscious products to the consumer. The network of benefits means everyone wins. It is the model of partnerships between businesses, consumers and non-profit activists co-creating shared value through being environmentally and socially responsible.