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What's it like being a senior B leader in an organisation but not realising you hold privilege in that position? This was Collin's experience and the basis of our conversation, a fascinating exploration of what it means to be a POC in a senior leadership role today.

Collin reveals the impact of a post BLM era and how expectations on leadership for change has affected him, a revealing conversation which you definitely don't want to miss.

Some of our key talking points:

• Not appreciating that you hold a position of privilege irrespective of your colour or background. That you are being seen as a role model without you knowing.
• What's the implication of being a role model? How does it affect your leadership stance? It's important to focus on what's achievable in your sphere of control. Otherwise it can be overwhelming!
• Are there risks to publishing diversity data? Could it affect people's perceptions of why they've been hired. Transparency is always important and changing the system requires courage.
• Getting external support with DEI efforts needs to be treated with care but much needed expertise to hold space for all viewpoints within an organisation is equally important.

Guest bio

Collin spent the last 11 years at ustwo, an award-winning a digital product studio. He has been a member of their Executive leadership team for the last 9. He has recently left ustwo to start his independent consulting practice. His focus is on helping teams and organisations radically improve their capability to create and delivery digital products. During almost 30 years of industry experience, working in London, New York, Tokyo, Bangalore and San Francisco, he’s helped organisations like Three, Sky, JPMorgan, HSBC, and Nissan, as well as start ups, to create cultures where people can thrive in their work. He advises and trains senior leadership teams to support their adoption and use of modern ways of working. He even wrote a book about it called Make Learn Change.

To connect with Collin and learn more about his work visit his website and connect with him on LinkedIn

Visit our website www.humble.associates
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This week we don't have a guest, but we do have a topic that TK's been thinking about for a while. The unpredictable and unconventional journeys our careers take, and more importantly how this affects the nature of work within organisations.

So many CEOs and business leaders in the world today have taken non-linear paths to reach where they've got to in their careers

- How the future of work is changing, hiring for skills will be a future priority for organisations, at the expense of specific role definitions.
- The importance of taking ownership of your career direction, positioning yourself for success.
- Tensions between generations in the workforce and the impact of AI on hiring decisions.
- How models like Ikigai can help you figure out what you'd like from your career going forward.
- How taking risks with your career direction is a very personal personal choice, Arif reflects on his own story.

And you can learn more about Ikigai here, and Gartner's Human Deal framework here.

Download the episode now to learn more!

Visit our website www.humble.associates
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This week we host Carolyn Shepherd, an AI expert, Author, HR professional and author of the 'ChatGPT Advantage' who is leading the charge to equip organisations to adopt AI tools. She's also the founder of Emmeline AI through which she delivers her expertise.

The free-flowing conversation meant we covered a great deal around ethics, merits and the value of AI to organisations, specifically in the world of HR. Key discussion points include:

• Is AI here to replace work or will it augment roles?
• How Carolyn has leveraged AI to boost her own productivity
• How AI is disadvantaging women and how sh'es helping to address the gender imbalances
• How to make AI more accessible for everyone

A fantastic conversation all round with so many inisghts to draw from!

Guest Bio

Founder, Emmeline AI | Host, Emmeline Odysseys a safe space for non-tech women to get comfortable with AI. LinkedIn Top Voice: Mentoring and Change Management. 20+ years as a tech enthusiast and domain specialist in HR, law, and the white knuckle end of entrepreneurship.

Carolyn empowers professionals to harness AI confidently by prompt engineering for job security and career advancement, productivity boosts and cost savings.
Carolyn also built a LinkedIn Training titled: 'Demystifying AI: Boost Your Confidence at Work.'

To learn more about Carolyn, feel free to connect with her via LinkedIn.
Or to find out more about her work, visit her webiste, Emmeline AI.
Her book, 'The ChatGPT Advantage' can be found on Amazon.

Visit our website www.humble.associates
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This week we're joined by Ceri Newton-Sargunar, an expert behavioural coach who specialies in supporting engineering leaders transition from being a technical expert to an effective people manager.

Key discussion points include:

• The differences between Introversion vs Extroversion when exploring what makes successful leaders
• How neurodiversity in Engineering leaders affects leadership effectiveness
• The impact of raising self-awareness through coaching
• Supporting Engineering leaders to improve their emotional awareness
• New research that shows how our brain is actually growing right up until we die!

Referenced academic research:

• Research paper: Personality Dimensions and Temperaments of
  Engineering Professors and Students
• The Effects of Personality Type on Engineering Student Performance and Attitudes

Guest Bio

Ceri is a Behavioural Coach, an ex-teacher and a Neuroscientist-in-training, with just under a decade of hands-on agile experience. She enjoys putting research into practice with colleagues, agile coaches, technical leadership and her teams. She has worked in the public and private sector, with large organisations, SMEs and start-ups, and now coaches and trains agile teams and agile professionals looking to improve their ways of working.

Tea in-hand, she loves helping fellow professionals focus on, and make real strides with individuals and their interactions. Favourite pastimes include creating lightbulb moments, turning assumptions on their heads, and reading literally everything in front of her (because ADHD). Ceri also loves brains, but not in *that* way.

To learn more about Ceri, feel free to connect with him via LinkedIn.

Visit our website www.humble.associates
Or check out our LinkedIn page to learn more about Humble Associates

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This week we're joined by Rupert bull, an experienced Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) professional and CEO of The Disruption House, an ESG consultancy.

We discuss a range of issues, including:

• Why C-Suite leadership must demonstrate authenticity when implementing ESG policies.
• How leadership must reflect wider societal concerns around sustainability and other social issues if they are to retain talent.
• What it means to ethically run a business and how we can learn from "Quaker Capitalism".
• Leadership lessons from the Army, how it has influenced Rupert's beliefs in sustainably run organisations.

So tune in to listen to the full discussion with Jag and discover his insights to being a senior leader leading change!

Guest Bio

Rupert is the CEO and Co-Founder of The Disruption House. He is passionate about driving sustainable and resilient growth in our Clients in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and beyond. Outside of work, he is a Charity Trustee and sponsored their first Social Impact Investment in a VC-run fund to explore how technology can be a force for good and scale the results for Philanthropic organisations. Rupert also served as a Captain for the Blues and Royals in the British Army.

To learn more about Rupert ,feel free to connect with him via LinkedIn, or visit https://thedisruptionhouse.com/ to learn more about his work

Visit our website www.humble.associates
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What does it mean to be a leader responsible for transforming a legacy auto manufacturer to adopt an entirely new way of working?

In this discussion with Jag Johal, he opens up about his journey and shares some of the perosnal challenges he's faced as he's transitioned from a role in HR to leading a trasnformation effort towards Agile ways of working.

We discuss how:

• He's created a why of change amongst senior leaders at JLR
• Having so many ideas and struggling to put them into practice can leave people feeling unsettled
• important it is to be vulnerable and open to feedback as a leader
• self-awareness and humility is crucial to leverage the team's skills in making decisions

So tune in to listen to the full discussion with Jag and discover his insights to being a senior leader leading change!

Guest bio

Jag has been with JLR for over twenty years. joining as a grduate and for the majority of that time, working in HR, working with all parts of the business across multiple locations. For the last couple of years he has transitioned into the space of leading on their agile transformation, which has been a huge learning curve. It has been great way to learn new skills, methods and techniques, and be able to contribute to their overall transformation journey.

To learn more about Jag, feel free to connect with him via LinkedIn.

Visit our website www.humble.associates
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In this fascinating episode with Elina Koussis, we discuss in depth how she has worked to create learning cultures that span the traditional classroom environment.

For many of us, training interventions require time spent in classroom environments, whether virtual or in-person. Elina offers us a different viewpoint, which is that learning is a constant endeavour and in this episode she describes what this looks like. From learning communities to virtual learning environments and bespoke interventions such as female leadership programmes.

We also discuss how learning patterns have changed post Covid, with the increased adoption of virtual learning environments and even gamified learning techniques coming to the fore.

So join us for an insightful discussion about how to create a learning culture that works.

Elina's Bio

Elina is a global leadership development learning leader at Maersk and her expertise is for all things virtual – designing and delivering transformational virtual experiences and enabling virtual teams to stay connected and productive. Elina grew up in Greece, studied Biology and Psychology, Cornell University (USA) and since her Master’s in HR, London School of Economics, she lives in the UK. After a few years working in mental health, Elina turned to the corporate world and worked at BP, GE and now at Maersk. She has been building an HR career spanning 25 years in business partnering and leadership development roles and she is Fellow with the UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Find out more about Elina by visiting her LinkedIn profile

Visit our website www.humble.associates
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In this week's episode we sat down with Dr Benjamin Ritter, an experienced talent professional and leadership coach to discuss what it really takes to step up and take on the role of leader or manager.

Too often he comes across managers who are struggling with the burden of people management, or are fearful about taking it on. In many cases they aren't comfortable being in a position of such responsibility but don't know how to speak up. Which is why in Dr Ritters view, organisations must offer options and possibilities beyond the typical people management expectations.

So join us as Dr Ritter walks us through how leaders need to face their fears and be open about what they want, don't want and why they shouldn't suffer in silence.

You can find out more about Dr Benjamin here and buy his book here

Visit our website www.humble.associates
Or check out our LinkedIn page to learn more about Humble Associates