WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.379 Tell me about your vision. Well, it's something 00:00:07.379 --> 00:00:12.380 that's developed over quite a long time. But 00:00:12.380 --> 00:00:17.460 I've been teaching leadership for 30 -odd years, 00:00:17.579 --> 00:00:24.339 33, 34 years now. And it's clear to me that the 00:00:24.339 --> 00:00:29.800 skills of leadership that are taught today not 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:32.340 the ones that are going to take us forward we 00:00:32.340 --> 00:00:37.899 need new mindsets we need a new idea about what 00:00:37.899 --> 00:00:42.399 leadership is and how it's going to bring about 00:00:42.399 --> 00:00:46.479 real change that we can live with so my vision 00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:51.299 is is bringing the concept of rewilding into 00:00:51.299 --> 00:00:56.770 leadership So I'm writing a book at the moment, 00:00:56.869 --> 00:00:59.429 which is called Rewilding the Corporate Mind. 00:01:00.950 --> 00:01:06.950 And it's well, that's that's what it is. I don't 00:01:06.950 --> 00:01:08.730 know whether everybody's familiar with the term 00:01:08.730 --> 00:01:12.469 rewilding. It's not in the dictionary. Each time 00:01:12.469 --> 00:01:14.829 I write it, my computer wants to put something 00:01:14.829 --> 00:01:19.709 else in. But yeah, that's that's what it's about. 00:01:20.810 --> 00:01:23.810 That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. What 00:01:23.810 --> 00:01:28.250 would you say, Tom, that why do you think that 00:01:28.250 --> 00:01:31.390 leadership needs to change and why is it not 00:01:31.390 --> 00:01:34.349 working? I want to get to know about your vision 00:01:34.349 --> 00:01:35.849 a little bit more. Can you tell us more about 00:01:35.849 --> 00:01:43.390 it? Yeah, well, I think that the world is in 00:01:43.390 --> 00:01:49.549 a mess right now. On a political basis, there 00:01:49.549 --> 00:01:53.599 are moves. either left or right mostly right 00:01:53.599 --> 00:02:00.299 uh and um there's an enormous amount of damage 00:02:00.299 --> 00:02:05.780 being done to if i can call him joe normal uh 00:02:05.780 --> 00:02:09.419 the rich are getting richer and the poor are 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:14.939 getting poorer and this is if you look at history 00:02:14.939 --> 00:02:19.020 over the last two three thousand years you can 00:02:19.020 --> 00:02:25.479 see how quote civilizations have risen and then 00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:31.979 they've fallen and We are in a very typical Downward 00:02:31.979 --> 00:02:42.259 spiral now and I think that in order to You know 00:02:42.259 --> 00:02:45.479 in order to for us to prevent us just going down 00:02:45.479 --> 00:02:49.900 the way that literally every civilization has 00:02:49.900 --> 00:02:54.979 over millennia, then we need to behave differently 00:02:54.979 --> 00:02:59.340 to all the ones that failed. And part of that 00:02:59.340 --> 00:03:22.659 is bringing in the traits of kindness. I'm talking 00:03:22.659 --> 00:03:33.039 about kindness, compassion, the willingness to 00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:36.599 bring on the strengths of community. I think 00:03:36.599 --> 00:03:39.340 that an awful lot of you see it all over the 00:03:39.340 --> 00:03:42.479 world, really. Community is being destroyed and 00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:45.819 people are being encouraged just to be individuals. 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:51.159 And you never have success that way. what where 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:53.599 we have success is when people come together 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:57.439 as community and support each other um i mean 00:03:57.439 --> 00:04:00.719 i could go on about this for quite a bit but 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:03.379 i remember when i lived in colorado um there 00:04:03.379 --> 00:04:08.560 was all the flooding in boulder what i did was 00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:12.759 to bring out a sort of a pioneer spirit where 00:04:12.759 --> 00:04:18.879 everybody got together and working together to 00:04:21.299 --> 00:04:37.060 And I don't know that after the L .A. is it's 00:04:37.060 --> 00:04:45.560 a it's a leadership that cares more for the group 00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:48.120 than it does for the individual. This is less 00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:56.670 about me and it's about us. Awesome. Tom, what 00:04:56.670 --> 00:05:02.810 would you say that if people were to actually 00:05:02.810 --> 00:05:07.889 start looking at or start applying better leadership 00:05:07.889 --> 00:05:11.250 roles and skills into their day -to -day life, 00:05:11.470 --> 00:05:15.850 how do you see that helping us with the society 00:05:15.850 --> 00:05:23.629 not declining now? Well, I think society is changing. 00:05:23.910 --> 00:05:26.490 Whether it declines or not is kind of dependent 00:05:26.490 --> 00:05:28.910 on, I think, the quality of leadership that people 00:05:28.910 --> 00:05:36.550 bring to it. What leaders now, what they need 00:05:36.550 --> 00:05:43.350 is an access to their own inner wisdom. I think 00:05:43.350 --> 00:05:47.050 that an awful lot of... the business schools 00:05:47.050 --> 00:05:49.889 and other schools are teaching people about how 00:05:49.889 --> 00:05:53.569 to lead by looking outwards and seeing groups 00:05:53.569 --> 00:06:00.149 of people and and how do we for instance uh inculcate 00:06:00.149 --> 00:06:03.709 followership some people define leadership as 00:06:03.709 --> 00:06:07.250 as a way of creating followership i don't really 00:06:07.250 --> 00:06:10.970 agree with that i think that an awful lot of 00:06:10.970 --> 00:06:14.839 people are looking for a leader I mean, there 00:06:14.839 --> 00:06:18.860 was a statistic in the London Times the other 00:06:18.860 --> 00:06:23.980 day where they said that 52 % of young people 00:06:23.980 --> 00:06:27.220 in this country would rather have a dictator 00:06:27.220 --> 00:06:31.500 than a normal prime minister. And that's sort 00:06:31.500 --> 00:06:36.879 of a reflection of how confusing and anxiety 00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:42.920 -creating the environment is and how unhappy 00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:47.459 an awful lot of people are they just want someone 00:06:47.459 --> 00:06:49.600 who's going to take away the problems come in 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:52.180 tell me what to do get rid of the problems and 00:06:52.180 --> 00:06:54.779 then I can get on with my life but life's not 00:06:54.779 --> 00:06:58.240 like that and and so what we really need to do 00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:05.399 is is to resource individuals to be at least 00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:08.220 to a good extent self -sufficient in the way 00:07:08.220 --> 00:07:10.040 that they look at the world, in the way they 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:14.439 make decisions, in the way that they conduct 00:07:14.439 --> 00:07:17.579 themselves with other people. You can't do it 00:07:17.579 --> 00:07:21.100 alone. You've got to do it with others. That's 00:07:21.100 --> 00:07:23.620 why the power of community is so, so very important. 00:07:24.139 --> 00:07:26.240 But at the same time, it's not community where 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:29.930 you've got some... head honcho. It's a community 00:07:29.930 --> 00:07:32.629 where people get together and they talk and they 00:07:32.629 --> 00:07:35.550 communicate. I mean, boy, we've got social media 00:07:35.550 --> 00:07:38.509 coming out of our ears and yet people don't talk 00:07:38.509 --> 00:07:42.949 to each other anymore. It's a real irony. Yeah. 00:07:43.949 --> 00:07:48.310 Wow. There's a lot you shared in that. Wow, something 00:07:48.310 --> 00:07:52.269 blew my mind. One thing I did not expect that 00:07:52.269 --> 00:07:56.250 a big percentage of people would want a dictatorship 00:07:56.250 --> 00:08:01.269 in their own country. there's a lot I come from 00:08:01.269 --> 00:08:04.290 India born and raised and I live in the United 00:08:04.290 --> 00:08:06.850 States and coming to the United States and experiencing 00:08:06.850 --> 00:08:10.430 the freedom that we have here and knowing the 00:08:10.430 --> 00:08:12.389 history of what people went through to get the 00:08:12.389 --> 00:08:15.110 freedom that they have and the rights that they 00:08:15.110 --> 00:08:20.550 are so proud of and the sacrifice that were made 00:08:20.550 --> 00:08:26.529 I can understand if someone is too weak to see 00:08:26.529 --> 00:08:32.059 that giving away their their freedom for for 00:08:32.059 --> 00:08:34.899 ease of life because it never comes in that you 00:08:34.899 --> 00:08:38.600 throughout civilization throughout civilizations 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:42.840 anytime someone has given up their freedom only 00:08:42.840 --> 00:08:48.100 with bloodshed has been recovered so I totally 00:08:48.100 --> 00:08:50.360 agree with you on that aspect is that there is 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:53.740 we need to be treating we need to have a lot 00:08:53.740 --> 00:08:57.330 more better leaders. We need to have better leaders 00:08:57.330 --> 00:09:01.570 in the society that lead by example in ways. 00:09:02.389 --> 00:09:05.590 I think it's reminding me of that very famous 00:09:05.590 --> 00:09:11.809 social media quote like great men create good 00:09:11.809 --> 00:09:16.009 men create good times. Good times create weak 00:09:16.009 --> 00:09:19.610 men. Weak men create hard times and hard times 00:09:19.610 --> 00:09:22.509 then create strong men. It's a circle and the 00:09:22.509 --> 00:09:25.559 circle that keeps going. So, wow, thanks for 00:09:25.559 --> 00:09:27.039 sharing that. What are your thoughts on what 00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:36.179 I just shared with you? Well, for what it's worth, 00:09:36.559 --> 00:09:38.919 speaking as an Englishman, although actually 00:09:38.919 --> 00:09:41.740 I am three -quarters French, but speaking as 00:09:41.740 --> 00:09:45.580 an Englishman, looking back at the way that particularly 00:09:45.580 --> 00:09:51.580 England, let alone Britain, treated India, It's 00:09:51.580 --> 00:09:53.000 the kind of thing that we don't really see in 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:59.559 the history books in this country. And yet, it 00:09:59.559 --> 00:10:03.960 was abominable. The colonial mindset, which still 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:12.159 exists in many ways, it's old hat and it doesn't 00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:15.620 belong in today but like so many of the things 00:10:15.620 --> 00:10:18.500 that the legacies of history that we carry even 00:10:18.500 --> 00:10:21.379 if we only carry them systemically we still carry 00:10:21.379 --> 00:10:26.240 them and they need to be put to rest and the 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:28.340 only way to put them to rest is to really acknowledge 00:10:28.340 --> 00:10:32.559 them uh and i think that there's an awful lot 00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:36.940 of dynamics in today's societies where they say 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:39.830 oh look that's in the past forget it You can't 00:10:39.830 --> 00:10:43.629 do that. I deal with organizations all the time 00:10:43.629 --> 00:10:47.690 where they want to bring in a change, but they 00:10:47.690 --> 00:10:50.909 don't want to acknowledge where the organization 00:10:50.909 --> 00:10:53.350 has come from to get to where it is that needs 00:10:53.350 --> 00:10:55.990 to change. They just say, right, here we are, 00:10:56.029 --> 00:11:01.759 let's change. And it never works. you know systemically 00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:04.720 you've got to look at the roots and where things 00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:08.379 have come from and and actually look at the mindsets 00:11:08.379 --> 00:11:11.000 of the people that created the environment that 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:13.200 has produced the situation that we're now in 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:19.779 so uh i we we have to acknowledge the the past 00:11:19.779 --> 00:11:22.620 i think that's a that's a that's a that's a really 00:11:22.620 --> 00:11:26.299 important aspect when i talked about the 50 52 00:11:26.299 --> 00:11:31.710 i think that they're genuine Generation Z. So 00:11:31.710 --> 00:11:33.789 it's not the whole population that's thinking 00:11:33.789 --> 00:11:37.450 like that. It's the youth. And I mean, that's 00:11:37.450 --> 00:11:44.190 kind of scary in a way. But these things are 00:11:44.190 --> 00:11:46.370 so complex. You know, why do they think like 00:11:46.370 --> 00:11:50.110 that? Well, because their boomer parents have 00:11:50.110 --> 00:11:54.090 both been out at work earning money. And, you 00:11:54.090 --> 00:11:57.179 know, these are the latchkey kids. they're now 00:11:57.179 --> 00:11:59.679 saying i don't want that i i want something different 00:11:59.679 --> 00:12:04.120 and so uh again we're getting these waves of 00:12:04.120 --> 00:12:12.659 of change um so ah yeah there was something else 00:12:12.659 --> 00:12:15.379 i was going to say um to what you said and i'm 00:12:15.379 --> 00:12:18.440 afraid that this slipped my mind right now uh 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:23.700 yeah tom um thank you for sharing that there's 00:12:23.700 --> 00:12:26.889 a lot more thoughts that i have you know it's 00:12:26.889 --> 00:12:29.730 it's a call it a coincidence or not but yesterday 00:12:29.730 --> 00:12:33.389 i was listening to a podcast from someone in 00:12:33.389 --> 00:12:36.490 india it was actually talking about the history 00:12:36.490 --> 00:12:39.610 of india and it's probably one of the first times 00:12:39.610 --> 00:12:42.110 i've actually listened to a podcast that talks 00:12:42.110 --> 00:12:46.370 about that and in that it was a staggering opening 00:12:46.370 --> 00:12:51.409 eye opener for me that when the when the british 00:12:51.409 --> 00:12:56.509 when the brits colonized india They did a lot 00:12:56.509 --> 00:13:01.909 of damage to the memory of India where the history 00:13:01.909 --> 00:13:04.909 was stored and the things that they were keeping 00:13:04.909 --> 00:13:07.549 accounts of. So they burned a lot of that. And 00:13:07.549 --> 00:13:10.570 when they colonized, they rewrote the history 00:13:10.570 --> 00:13:15.549 in a way that to this day in the books in India, 00:13:15.669 --> 00:13:20.990 they are taught the wrong history and they're 00:13:20.990 --> 00:13:24.009 taught the wrong mental blocks in their own head. 00:13:24.379 --> 00:13:29.399 I think it's easy even now for people to self 00:13:29.399 --> 00:13:32.080 -sabotage because of what they've been taught 00:13:32.080 --> 00:13:34.980 for generations now. And it's on autopilot. It's 00:13:34.980 --> 00:13:37.600 flowing through the system. It's flowing through 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:39.019 government. It's flowing through everything. 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:42.919 And I think that's kind of the leadership I think 00:13:42.919 --> 00:13:45.440 you were talking about earlier, that we need 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:48.860 leaders who can see through that and give clarity 00:13:48.860 --> 00:13:52.620 and need to know how you can discern from the 00:13:52.620 --> 00:14:00.509 truth. and false claims. How you can stop from 00:14:00.509 --> 00:14:03.330 self -sabotaging and actually not be a victim 00:14:03.330 --> 00:14:06.190 of the situation anyhow. How you can take control 00:14:06.190 --> 00:14:09.470 and not blame anyone else for the situation you're 00:14:09.470 --> 00:14:13.289 in, but take away power from them and empower 00:14:13.289 --> 00:14:16.190 yourself to do better, to be better, to make 00:14:16.190 --> 00:14:17.769 the change that you want to see in the world. 00:14:18.870 --> 00:14:22.269 So that was a very eye -opening. thing for me 00:14:22.269 --> 00:14:24.190 that i thought i just wanted to share that with 00:14:24.190 --> 00:14:27.389 you sure yeah i mean if you're if your listeners 00:14:27.389 --> 00:14:30.509 are are um are interested there's a there's a 00:14:30.509 --> 00:14:36.889 british podcast which is um done by uh um a a 00:14:36.889 --> 00:14:45.730 a british indian um journalist uh and a a british 00:14:45.730 --> 00:14:48.610 author who lives in india it's called empire 00:14:49.879 --> 00:14:52.620 And there are, I don't know, I mean, there's 00:14:52.620 --> 00:14:56.740 hundreds of them now, the podcast. But it starts 00:14:56.740 --> 00:14:58.980 with an examination of the East India Company, 00:14:59.159 --> 00:15:02.320 which was an organization that went in and frankly 00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:12.500 raped and pillaged through India. And the motivation 00:15:12.500 --> 00:15:17.840 for that was money. and it's one of the the troubles 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:22.460 the difficulties that we are in in today that 00:15:22.460 --> 00:15:26.039 so much damage is being done by people who have 00:15:26.039 --> 00:15:32.620 one orientation which is to make money and it's 00:15:32.620 --> 00:15:34.220 really interesting i've done quite a lot of work 00:15:34.220 --> 00:15:38.620 around ai the introduction of ai one of the things 00:15:38.620 --> 00:15:41.940 i often say about this is that ai is an amazing 00:15:41.940 --> 00:15:45.200 tool It's going to bring all sorts of amazing 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:49.799 positive changes. But at the same time, companies 00:15:49.799 --> 00:15:56.519 are fighting over how to use the AI in order 00:15:56.519 --> 00:16:01.379 to make more money. And they're spending fortunes 00:16:01.379 --> 00:16:05.419 on it. But very few companies are actually looking 00:16:05.419 --> 00:16:08.639 at what are the implications of the way that 00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:12.529 we introduce AI to our people. to the human beings 00:16:12.529 --> 00:16:15.309 you know we've got um british telecom in this 00:16:15.309 --> 00:16:17.809 country which is a you know it's a fairly large 00:16:17.809 --> 00:16:20.269 company where they were talking about laying 00:16:20.269 --> 00:16:26.009 off um i think it's 20 000 people in the next 00:16:26.009 --> 00:16:30.269 two years because of ai so what are these guys 00:16:30.269 --> 00:16:32.610 going to do what jobs are they going to get so 00:16:32.610 --> 00:16:37.649 once again ai actually if we if we don't apply 00:16:37.649 --> 00:16:43.809 it sensibly and with a systemic viewpoint, we 00:16:43.809 --> 00:16:46.309 will just make the rich richer and the poor poorer. 00:16:46.750 --> 00:16:51.649 And as I said a little earlier, I don't know 00:16:51.649 --> 00:16:54.230 whether that was caught on the recording, that 00:16:54.230 --> 00:16:58.289 where you have in this sort of quote unquote 00:16:58.289 --> 00:17:04.170 civilization, this disparity, this spread, this 00:17:04.170 --> 00:17:09.180 difference between the rich and the poor, eventually 00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:15.859 society breaks down. And one of the things that 00:17:15.859 --> 00:17:18.200 really struck me in the States was when I lived 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:24.539 there, there's a lot of people who just say, 00:17:24.700 --> 00:17:28.480 why should I help this person? They're not working 00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:32.140 hard enough or they've had bad luck. That's tough 00:17:32.140 --> 00:17:36.089 on them. I pay my taxes. and i don't want to 00:17:36.089 --> 00:17:41.750 pay anymore and it's that sort of sense of uh 00:17:41.750 --> 00:17:45.589 that sense of individualism as opposed to a community 00:17:45.589 --> 00:17:51.089 you know in the old days when when a a family 00:17:51.089 --> 00:17:54.950 had a child the child was brought up by the community 00:17:54.950 --> 00:17:59.069 not just by those parents and and the the children 00:17:59.069 --> 00:18:04.549 that way had a sense of a balance in them and 00:18:04.549 --> 00:18:08.509 a sense of belonging, which today we've largely 00:18:08.509 --> 00:18:11.049 destroyed by the way that we've created society. 00:18:12.230 --> 00:18:16.109 And nothing stands still. As I said, we're on 00:18:16.109 --> 00:18:18.950 this roller coaster. But I think that the effects 00:18:18.950 --> 00:18:22.670 of these kind of things will come home to roost. 00:18:22.730 --> 00:18:26.710 And so going back to the sort of the concept 00:18:26.710 --> 00:18:30.109 of leadership, what we need are leaders who can 00:18:30.109 --> 00:18:36.109 see the overall picture, see the impact of what's 00:18:36.109 --> 00:18:40.170 going on, and can say, actually, no, we're not 00:18:40.170 --> 00:18:42.869 going to do this, we're going to do that. And 00:18:42.869 --> 00:18:45.269 the implications are, we'll make a little bit 00:18:45.269 --> 00:18:48.609 less money, but actually, we'll have a group 00:18:48.609 --> 00:18:54.329 of people who have a level of contentment in 00:18:54.329 --> 00:18:58.849 the group and within themselves that things will 00:18:58.849 --> 00:19:01.259 go better. Yeah, you know, I mean, I've been 00:19:01.259 --> 00:19:03.359 to India a number of times. And one of the things 00:19:03.359 --> 00:19:05.119 that really strikes me about that every time 00:19:05.119 --> 00:19:09.859 I go is you see people who have nothing. And 00:19:09.859 --> 00:19:14.539 they're really happy. And then you come into 00:19:14.539 --> 00:19:18.559 the West and you see people who have got everything. 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:22.579 And they're miserable. There's something wrong 00:19:22.579 --> 00:19:26.140 here. We are prioritizing the wrong things. And 00:19:26.140 --> 00:19:30.609 so we need leaders who can see that. have this 00:19:30.609 --> 00:19:34.369 broader sense of the impact of the decisions 00:19:34.369 --> 00:19:36.750 that they're making. Thank you for being here 00:19:36.750 --> 00:19:38.650 today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to 00:19:38.650 --> 00:19:41.109 Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing 00:19:41.109 --> 00:19:44.150 your reactions as these episodes continue to 00:19:44.150 --> 00:19:45.869 move forward. This is going to get more and more 00:19:45.869 --> 00:19:48.190 fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. 00:19:48.210 --> 00:19:50.130 We'll invite people to participate in the show. 00:19:50.269 --> 00:19:52.309 And thank you for giving us your time and attention. 00:19:52.569 --> 00:19:55.230 Have an excellent time building out your vision 00:19:55.230 --> 00:19:56.589 and becoming a vision pro yourself.