## Key Topics

• Why we collude in seeking silver bullet solutions despite knowing they don't work

• The role of shame and anxiety in organisational decision-making

• Functional collusion and unconscious patterns that maintain dysfunctional systems

• The difference between learning for certificates versus learning for practice

• Power dynamics and complicity in organisational hierarchies

• Why embracing ambivalence and absurdity might be the signal we're missing

## Where to Listen

- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102

- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Guest Info

Steve Hearsum is a consultant, executive coach, supervisor and author specialising in organisational change and leadership practices. His book explores why silver bullet solutions persist.

- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stevehearsum

- Company: edgeandstretch.com

- Personal: hearsum.com

## Key Topics

- The true OODA loop vs the linear "communist" version most people know

- How fighter aviation principles translate to organisational learning

- Connections between Boyd's work and the free energy principle

- Why orientation is the key to adaptation and novelty

- The flow system approach to team performance

- AI through the lens of natural vs artificial intelligence

- Sacred geometry, UAPs, and exploring weak signals

## Where to Listen

- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102

- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Guest Info

Brian 'Ponch' Rivera is co-creator and host of No Way Out podcast, CEO of AGLX, and co-author of the Flow System books. A retired US Navy captain with 28 years of service, he flew F-14s and worked in intelligence before becoming a leading voice on John Boyd's work and complex adaptive systems.

- Website: https://aglx.com

- Substack: https://worldofreorientation.substack.com

- X/Twitter: https://x.com/nowayoutcast

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandrivera/

## Key Topics

- The evolution from systems analysis to modern business analysis

- Why organisations struggle with user-centred design despite decades of knowledge

- The Channel Tunnel metaphor: main tunnels vs service tunnels in organisational communication

- Group construct analysis and George Kelly's personal construct psychology

- The role of metaphor and storytelling in business analysis

- AI's impact on business analysis - productivity vs thinking

- Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message" and organisational signals

## Where to Listen

- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102

- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Guest Info

Nick De Voil is a business analyst, trainer, and writer who specialises in user experience, service design, and human-centred approaches to organisational change. He's contributed 20 articles to BA Digest magazine and teaches courses in user experience, business analysis, and service design. Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or read his articles at blackmetric.co.uk.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickdevoil/

BA Digest (the full GCA article series): https://www.blackmetric.com/ba-digest/

User Experience Foundations (BCS): https://shop.bcs.org/store/221/detail/WorkGroupByIsbn/9781780173498

## Key Topics

• The connection between nutrition deficiencies and cognitive performance in children and adults

• Why popular "neuroscience" frameworks in organisations are often pseudoscience

• Modern burnout: how constant information overload exhausts our brains beyond work stress

• The developing brain crisis: how screen time is reducing cognitive behavioural reserve

• Why the illusory truth effect makes bad ideas stick in organisations

• The role of neural friction in building critical thinking capabilities

## Where to Listen

- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102

- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Guest Info

Dr Delia McCabe is a neuroscientist, author, and founder of Lighter Brighter You. She works with organisations and individuals to apply evidence-based neuroscience to leadership, learning, and well-being.

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-delia-mccabe/

- Substack: https://deliamccabe.substack.com/

- Website: https://lighterbrighteryou.life

## Key Topics

• Why treating strategy as a document rather than a way of being leads to failure

• The three critical elements leaders must consider: ground/ecosystem, other actors, and internal capabilities

• How military planning principles can transform organisational decision-making

• The cognitive security threat facing modern leaders in their strategic thinking

• Moving from consensus-driven paralysis to clear decision rights and accountability

• Why organisational structure matters more than behaviour change for strategy execution

## Where to Listen

- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102

- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Guest Info

Mike Jones is Strategic Advisor at LBI Consulting and host of the Strategy Meets Reality podcast. With 18 years of military service and expertise in cognitive psychology, Mike helps organisations move beyond static strategic planning to adaptive strategic thinking.

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

- LBI Consulting: https://www.lbiconsulting.com

- Strategy Meets Reality YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

- Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0svOpfmsZTmrvIXcBpJbys

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategy-meets-reality-podcast/id1811429931

- Substack: https://strategymeetsreality.substack.com

linkedin.com/in/marcusdimbleby

effectivedirection.com

bigthingsfast.com

info@effectivedirection.com

## Where to Listen
- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102
- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Key Topics

- Why change myths become embedded as 'sacred cows' in organisations

- The difference between attacking ideas versus attacking people

- How to apply the LIAR framework (Logic, Authority, Intuition, Research) to evaluate change models

- Context-driven change approaches versus one-size-fits-all templates

- The challenge of measuring change outcomes versus activities

- AI's potential to create an inflection point for the change profession

## Where to Listen

- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102

- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Guest Info

Tricia Kennedy is an organisational change professional with over 20 years' experience and co-author of 'Changed Myths' with Paul Gibbons. Connect with her on LinkedIn for links to her books and ongoing discussions about evidence-based change practice.

## Guest Links

- linkedin.com/in/triciak

- TriciaK.com

- triciakennedy@hotmail.com

- Change Myths: The Professionals Guide to Separating Sense from Nonsense

Drawing on her PhD in systems thinking and meeting culture and 25 years helping organisations shift from industrial-era hierarchies to faster, more agile ways of working, Carrie unpacks the hidden systems driving meeting dysfunction, from collabureaucracy to the parent-child dynamics that still dominate knowledge work.

## Key Topics

- Why meetings are a systems problem, not a process problem—and why surface-level fixes (agendas, timekeeping) miss the point

- The three dominant organisational models (control, achievement, consensus) and how each creates its own meeting pathology

- How bees make decisions through quorum, not consensus—and why waiting for 100% agreement is organisational death

- The historical roots of meetings: from trial by combat to Quaker decision-making architecture

- Four things organisations must do: constrain meeting time, add scaffolding, handle conflict better, and design rhythm and system

- The shift from parent-child to adult-to-adult relationships as the foundation for knowledge-era collaboration

## Where to Listen

- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102

- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Guest Info

Dr Carrie Goucher is a systems thinker and organisational designer specialising in meetings and collaboration. She has a PHD in meeting culture from Cambridge. She helps organisations move from industrial-era hierarchies to faster, more agile ways of working.

- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carriebedingfield

- Website: fewerfasterbolder.com

Chris shares practical frameworks for creating clarity in complex environments. The conversation moves through the power of observation over feedback, the lost art of sensing frequency and vibration in others, and why asking people to paraphrase what they've heard saves time in the long run.

## Key Topics

- Translating mission command principles into business silos and team management

- Why "feedback" should be replaced with "observations" in leadership conversations

- The importance of specificity: timing, objectives, and standards

- How frequency and vibration communicate more than we realise

- Conditioning people to listen through strategic questioning

- The value of creating visual clarity (like military ground models) in organisational contexts

## Where to Listen

- Website: https://thewaggleroom.com

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102

- Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian

## Guest Info

Chris Marren served 27 years in the military with the commando engineers before transitioning to coaching, leadership development, and children's author. He's passionate about teaching humans how to think, not what to think.

- Email: cm@chrismarrenassociates.com

- Mickey Monroe books: mickymonroe.com

- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chris-marren

Paul has spent 30 years challenging the comfortable stories organisations tell themselves. The ones that oversimplify complex realities. The ones that protect us from harder questions. From the myth of Kübler-Ross grief stages in change management, to Myers-Briggs as a hundred-million-dollar industry built on shaky foundations, to why AI is being pointed at the wrong problems entirely — this conversation goes to places most podcasts won't.

We explore why training fails the moment Monday morning arrives. Why systems conspire to keep people doing exactly what they always did. Why humans signal like bees — but not nearly as well. And why the most powerful tool humanity has ever created is being used to answer emails faster, when it could be fixing the NHS.

AI isn't just a data tool — it's a decision-making tool. The organisations getting it wrong are defaulting to ROI-first thinking and big-bang implementations that ignore the humans at the centre. The future isn't human versus machine — it's human and machine, working alongside each other. And the democratisation of AI is already life-changing for people who never expected access to this kind of intelligence.

Paul's signal — the one we're all failing to see — is simple and urgent: we have the tools. We're just not aiming them at the right things.

This is The Waggle Room. Signals. Systems. Sensemaking. Because humans and bees matter.

FIND PAUL GIBBONS 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulggibbons 🌐 Website: https://www.paulgibbonsadvisory.com/ 📖 Substack: https://thinkbiggerthinkbetter.substack.com/

FIND THE WAGGLE ROOM 🌐 https://thewaggleroom.com/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom 🎧 https://open.spotify.com/episode/7m2XdI8lYCWnR2QMYlyUtT 🍎 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102 📖 https://substack.com/@mickbrian

KEYWORDS organisational change, change myths, leadership training, Myers-Briggs, Kübler-Ross, systems thinking, AI ethics, people-first AI, human-centric technology, decision-making, AI adoption, Paul Gibbons, The Waggle Room, democratisation of AI, emergence, complexity, sensemaking, signals, human and machine collaboration

Takeaways

• Signals in work and life
• The importance of empathy and critical thinking in change management Human interaction and engagement are crucial in driving change
• Psychological safety is essential for fostering open communication and growth
• Smaller organizations offer valuable and innovative solutions for change management
• A shift away from traditional enterprise solutions is needed for driving change

Chapters

• 00:00 Finding Signals in Change
• 07:32 The Rebellion Against Traditional Change
• 19:44 The Role of Empathy in Change
• 30:16 The Power of Human Interaction
• 39:07 Addressing Change Fatigue and Demoralization
• 49:06 Leadership and Change Management
• 55:27 The Signal We're Failing to See

What if confusion isn’t failure — but the starting point?

In this episode of The Waggle Room, I’m joined by Dave Snowden, creator of the Cynefin framework, to explore how we actually make decisions in uncertainty.

We dive into:

• Why “fire the sycophants, promote the cynics” is more than a throwaway line
• Why chaos is temporary — and how to use it without being consumed by it
• The most misunderstood part of Cynefin (hint: it’s the centre)
• Why education should teach argument, not just answers
• How neurodiversity strengthens decision-making
• The origins of SwarmCompass and what bees can teach us about optimisation
• Why large scale sensing beats top down control
• Climate change as a dispositional and community problem, not just a technical one
• Why micro interactions create macro change

We also explore the EU field guide on managing complexity in crisis, the limits of AI in decision-making, and why empathy at the community level may be the most powerful signal we’re currently ignoring.

This is a conversation about sensemaking, courage, weak signals and navigating complexity in a world that wants easy answers.

**The Journey into Leadership**

Mark Proctor begins by sharing his fascinating background, which has profoundly influenced his views on leadership. Born during the Rhodesian War and later educated in South Africa, Mark’s early experiences instilled in him a resilience that would shape his approach to leadership. He emphasizes that everyone has a story that contributes to their leadership style, encouraging listeners to reflect on their experiences. Mark’s military career, which spanned over three decades, began as a private before he rose to the rank of brigadier. This progression is noteworthy because it challenges the common assumption that only those who attend prestigious military academies can reach such heights. Mark’s journey illustrates that leadership can emerge from various paths and that personal determination plays a significant role.

**The Concept of Followership**

During the discussion, Mick and Mark explore the concept of followership, often overshadowed by leadership in traditional discussions. Mark argues that leadership and followership are interdependent; effective leadership cannot exist without committed followers. He points out that billions of dollars are spent annually on leadership training, yet only a small percentage of employees feel satisfied with their leaders. This disparity raises critical questions about the effectiveness of current leadership practices. Mark believes that leadership should not be viewed as a rank or position but rather as an action that anyone can embody. This perspective invites individuals at all levels to recognize their potential to lead, regardless of their formal title.

**The Importance of Understanding 'Why'**

One of the key takeaways from the podcast is the emphasis on understanding the 'why' behind leadership. Mark highlights that while many discuss the 'what' and 'how' of leadership, the foundational reason for its existence is often overlooked. He suggests that when leaders and followers align their actions with a common purpose, they can achieve remarkable results. Mark succinctly summarizes this philosophy by stating that leadership is the only social science without an agreed definition, which makes it inherently subjective and open to interpretation.

**Navigating Challenges in Leadership**

Mark shares his personal challenges during his military career, including a pivotal moment that led to a mental breakdown. This experience prompted him to reassess his understanding of leadership and ultimately led to the creation of his company, Green and Scarlet. Through this journey, Mark learned that the responsibility for one’s leadership journey lies within oneself. He encourages listeners to take charge of their paths, emphasizing that everyone can contribute to a positive outcome, regardless of their role.

**Conclusion: Key Takeaways**

Mark Proctor’s insights into leadership and followership offer valuable lessons for anyone looking to understand these concepts more deeply. Key takeaways include:

- Leadership is an action that anyone can take, not just a title.

- Followership is equally important and should be recognized as a vital component of effective leadership.

- Understanding the 'why' behind leadership can lead to greater alignment and success.

- Personal experiences shape our leadership styles, and everyone has a story worth sharing.

• Critical thinking is essential for effective leadership.
• Many organizations suffer from a lack of critical thinking.
• Cognitive biases can lead to poor decision-making.
• The illusion of control in planning can be detrimental.
• Autonomy in the workplace can enhance well-being and creativity.
• Power dynamics significantly influence organizational behavior.
• AI can improve productivity but must be used wisely.
• Culture is often misunderstood and may not exist as a tangible entity.
• Middle management can hinder innovation and should be reevaluated.
• There is hope for change through critical thinking and autonomy.