Talent Smart Podcast

Season 2 Episode 6 - Ade McCormack – Leadership is NOT about heroics,… it’s about fostering an ecosystem

Ade is a former technologist who now, forty years on, is focused on leadership.
Is a former Financial Times columnist. 
Has lectured at MIT Sloan on leadership matters. 
Works with Cambridge University (Moller Institute) on leadership development. 
Trained in astrophysics and has worked for the European Space Agency. 
Has worked in over forty countries across the world across multiple sectors with many of the world’s most prominent brands. 
Has written six books on leadership and transformation.
Ade has recently set up an embryonic thinktank, The Intelligent leadership Hub. The ILH aims to empower society to flourish in an increasingly unpredictable world by reshaping perceptions of leadership. The goal is to promote an intelligent approach that highlights our humanity and embraces the natural complexity of our environment.
In this revealing insights episode, Ade explains the concept of “everyone is a captain”, ubiquitous leadership and distributed leadership, together with covering the idea of environmental biology
We discuss the pros & cons of remote working, which includes the potential mental health cost the risk of losing the ‘mentor’ training/leadership due to more remote working.
Ade also explains some of his brilliant expression including; “The death of deference”, “Cognitive Gymnasium” and “Passing on the survival code”
We uncover Ade’s advice for the processes to ensure that a company’s short-term actions are aligned with its long-term goals?
For more information on Ade or to make contact - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ademccormack/

Season 2 Episode 5 - Roly Walter (Founder, Appraisd) – “The accidental manager,… and how to help”

Roly launched online performance management system Appraisd in 2012. Since then, it has been adopted by hundreds of businesses and is used by tens of thousands of employees around the world. Roly began his career as a Business Analyst at Goldman Sachs designing global online HR tools. It was this experience that inspired him to design and launch Appraisd.
In this episode, Roly explains the term accidental manager, including the journey of an accidental manager – how does this happen – why does this happen. We focus on the UK, to see is there a cultural issue that drives people to seek managerial promotions when they would often be much happier being a valuable team contributor.
We also discuss the investment footprint of UK companies in their leadership, as research would suggest that there has been an under investment for some years. 
We explore imposter syndrome that will lead to some managers choosing to avoid some actions (performance reviews, relationship building with team members) and does internal politics play a role in some managers not wishing to seem vulnerable or being fearful of doing the wrong thing / asking an inappropriate question.
Finally, Roly offer some key advice to Senior Leaders on how to improve their management performance.

Season 2 Episode 4 - Joe Hardstaff – The Business benefits of data efficacy

Joe is an innovative decisive, and accomplished IT Executive who delivers and embeds digital, data and technology transformation, technology architecture and project / programme management having led £100M transformation and acquisition programmes generating more than £200M revenue improvements.
Business orientated strategic thinker skilled at driving technology and cyber security teams to achieve operational excellence in the face of persistent and targeted state sponsored attack against military and government data assets.
In this episode, we talked about data.  Joe gave us his definition of data efficacy and why it is important for a business, together with how to differentiate between data efficacy and data quality.
Joe also gave us an overview of the best way ensure the accuracy and consistency of data across different systems and departments and the best way to align data architecture with business goals? We also covered ways to implement data governance frameworks to ensure data efficacy?
In addition, Joe gave us a real life scenarios where improved data efficacy directly contributed to achieving business KPIs or goals. There were a couple of surprising examples.

Season 2 Episode 3 - Cliff Oguzie – The changes in change

Cliff is a senior leader of change initiatives with about 20 years experience across multiple industries. He currently works in professional services helping clients achieve their business and tech strategies by establishing high performing teams that deliver products with excellence.
To help fuel his passions, Cliff started the Change Leaders Playbook podcast and newsletter, which are growing resources capturing insights from his experiences alongside contributions from highly experienced guests bringing valuable industry experiences.  His guests range from business leaders, project or program delivery professionals and entrepreneurs.
In this episode, we discuss the common elements that lead to successful change, together with the qualities that are essential for a successful change leader.
Cliff also shares his thoughts on the key steps you take when developing a change strategy and how do you manage and mitigate resistance to change.
In addition, we talked about how the field of change management evolve in the next few years.
Follow Cliff:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliffoguzie/
Podcast Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/4QY8VNWSYXUCEFSagPiCSA
Podcast Video: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangeLeadersPlaybook
Newsletter/website: https://changeleadersplaybook.com/

Season 2 Episode 2 - Josh Knox (“Knox”) – Architect Specialist with ReversingLabs - "Knox" - How to take control of your career journey

Joshua Knox is Cybersecurity Technologist specialising in Kubernetes and Kubernetes security. Prior to this role Knox was a Principal Engineer focusing on automation and application developmentBefore transitioning to the IT industry, Knox was a High School teacher. For many years he taught python and javascript to his students. Once switching his career he has quickly moved through many roles, gathering certifications for Cloud, Kubernetes, and Security along the way. When he is not working with his team, you can find him working on his home lab, building a new machine, studying for his next cert, or hacking CTF boxes.
To give everyone some context, we quickly chart through Knox’s career. He was a youth pastor, then a teacher and then decided to go for a career in technology. He explains more about his journey.
We also covered one of the areas of concern for future employers, that the young/entry workforce/GenZ…etc are not resilient and give up too easily. Knox had some amazing insights and gave a some great advice to young employees and potential employers. This included why you should train like an athlete for your chosen career and his funnel mindset to learning.
Finally, we discussed Knox’s theory on Circular Learning’ and he offered some top tips on how to take control of your career journey?

Season 2 Episode 1 - Rob Brown (Chief Transformation Officer, So Energy) – “Out to Lunch” Why sharing some food could be the key to high performance

Rob has over 30 years’ experience leading, managing, consulting and delivering innovative solutions to businesses of all shapes and sizes. He has focused intensely on organisation transformations and helping other leaders and teams become high performance and to gain results that are longer lasting, impacting more people positively.
 
During this episode we uncover the key ingredients to a high performing team and the importance of spending time together (eg going for lunch together). We discuss how this matches into today’s remote and disparate teams?
We hear from Rob’s phraseology such as; “stitching people together” and “the generational chasm”. Rob also explains why it is important that leaders demonstrate vulnerability (Bleeding in front of their team).
 
Rob explains the importance, for really high performing teams, that they must make tough commitments and meet them and he advises how to avoid situations where people simply nod and agree to commitments, but don’t genuinely believe that they will meet them?

Episode 25 - Keys To Success For Start Ups And Scale Ups – Graham Smith

It was great to catch up and chat with one of our long standing friends, Graham Smith, who is a highly accomplished and respected Strategy and Implementation Advisor. During this session, Graham shared his insights into how to successfully launch a start-up or a new product, together with offering some amazing advice for companies who have an existing product and now wish to scale up. We also covered trends and what is next for the AI world, including the new “AI CEO” run companies that are enjoying early success.

Episode 24 - Word Forest - A Conversation With Simon and Tracey West - Episode 2 of 2

It was an absolute pleasure to spend more time with Simon and Tracey West from Word Forest today. Word Forest are an environmental and education charity based in the UK that works to combat the devastating effects of global warming and climate change by planting fast growing trees in the tropics, predominantly food bearing. To assist the communities they also support women’s empowerment, build classrooms and facilitate education.  In this episode, we uncover the meaning of ‘Perma-Culture” and ‘Three Sisters” growing, together with learning more about the environment in Kenya and how planting trees can make a massive impact on the two rain cycles.
Also, Simon and Tracey tell us more about the Kenyan government’s commitment to planting 15 Billion trees. We also explore what ‘we’ can do to make a difference.

Episode 23 - Word Forest - A Conversation With Simon and Tracey West - Episode 1 of 2

It was an absolute pleasure to spend time with Simon and Tracey West from Word Forest today. Word Forest are an environmental and education charity based in the UK that works to combat the devastating effects of global warming and climate change by planting fast growing trees in the tropics, predominantly food bearing. To assist the communities they also support women’s empowerment, build classrooms and facilitate education.
 
In this episode, we discussed why they chose to set their programme up in Kenya and their “Mothers of the Forest”. In addition, we discussed the 4 pillars of the Word Forest programme and how they facilitate education

Episode 22 - Adrian Pagdin – Creating a work place based on belonging and purpose

Adrian Pagdin (Consultant, Advisor, Author and Project Manager) began his career in the Hotel industry before moving into project management and then on into the world of Learning & Development. Adrian has been a consultant and manager within some well known brand names, including Unilever, Holiday Inn and Hemsley Fraser. He is also the author of two books and the founder of Purpose Into Action, as well as being an ambassador and L&D Consultant for ADHD Aware.
 
In this podcast we uncover the benefits of hiring from the Neurodiverse community. Starting with a definition of neurodiversity and Adrian’s personal journey into neurodiversity?We discuss what kinds of adjustments might be required when a company is considering the neurodiversity community, together with some real life examples where a companies have realised the benefits of a more open hiring policy.
Adrian offer some great advice to leaders and hiring managers on how / where to start to create an amazing work place where everyone has a sense of belonging & purpose.