Latest / New Thinking for a New World / This Is What Leadership Looks Like

Transcript

This Is What Leadership Looks Like · New Thinking for a New World

• 0:02
  Speaker 4: Welcome to New Thinking for a New World, A Tilburg Foundation podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 4: I am Alan Stoga your host.
• 0:09
  Speaker 4: Each week i bring you conversations with people who think differently about the great issues that are shaping our world Geopolitics Disruptive Tech Mass Migration The Changing Climate Culture Wars.
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: All of it is grist for our mill!
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: and that you join the conversation at telbergfoundation.org.
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: And now for today's episode of New Thinking For A New World.
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: In December last year, The Telberg Foundation hosted a webinar to celebrate the winners of the twenty-twenty five TELBURG SNF Eliason Global Leadership Prize.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Brian Dorries, Rhett Butler & David Gruber were selected by the prize jury from an initial pool of fifteen hundred nominations.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: These three amazing leaders will be honored in June, in Athens-Greece at SNF celebration of thirty years' grant making.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: But that's too long to wait for a sense these leaders and their approach towards
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: leadership.".
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: In this spirit Helena Nielsen Deputy CEO of the Miele Institute in Sweden And an accomplished global businesswoman in her own right interviewed Brian Rhett & David about challenges of leadership.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: today This brief podcast captures the essence of that inspiring conversation.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: You can find a link to The Full Recording on the Tilburg Foundation website.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Listen as Helena introduces our three warriots and then nominate leader for the twenty-twenty six Tilburg Prize, thank you!
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Like Alan said I had the pleasure of serving at the price jury this year.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: so... a super inspiring body of work, very rigorous process and that makes it even more special to be here with you.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: So by that I would like to introduce the twenty-twenty five laureates of the Tel-Bai SNF Elias and Global Leadership Prize.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: And as...I thought i'd start with you Rhett.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: So Rhett Ayes Buckler founded and built Manga Bay and is since served as CEO.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: he's also writer and photographer.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Manga Bay is a non-profit news organization, global digital platform for high quality journalism that covers issues at the intersection of people and nature via network.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: around a thousand journalists in more than eighty countries.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: And I hear currently six languages but going on eight.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Brett received the Global Leadership Prize for redefining global environmental journalist from Manga bay A network model of independent reporting that empowers local voices, informs global policy and renews confidence in journalists as a source for accountability and change.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Wonderful to have you here at.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Thank You
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Brian Doris.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Wonderful To Have You Here As Well!
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: production uses aged old approaches to help individuals and communities, to heal from trauma and loss.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Through dramatic readings of ancient tragedies and seminal texts they really frame community conversations about pressing existential questions... ...and brings up that magic when people connect and look deep into themselves on each other.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I think Brian's approach strips away What we think of as so special about the time that we are living in, focus on instead what makes us human.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: The magic of conversations with brave spaces for true reflection and real dialogue can take place where empathy is at the core and when people listen deeply into both themselves to each other.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: it's good to be here
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: And David a marine biologist an explorer as well as the founder-president of the CETI project, Citation Translation Initiative.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: So The Project CETi is a nonprofit organization that brings together with fifty scientists across many disciplines within an ambitious global effort to decipher the communication of sperm whales and David in this team's pursuit of interspecies dialogues invites us think what it means be alive on a planet together, to change the perspectives we have in ourselves and reshape or the possibility to reshape relationships with our life on Earth.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: David received The Global Leadership Prize for bringing together science technology imagination and empathy to decipher the language of ways pointing towards new ways of understanding interacting with and protecting non-human lives.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Wonderful to have you here as well, David.
• 5:15
  Speaker 0: Thank You!
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: How do you think of yourself?
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: As a leader... I don't know who feels like the start.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: would you like to start Brian
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Sure?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Who are you as a leader?
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: how'd we think about
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: that?
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: Well i describe myself as a facilitator.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: and I've facilitated now thousands of events over last twenty years all over the planet.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: And if I've done my work two things happen.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: One, it's a disappearing act and its as if I hadn't been there to begin with.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: The group or the organization of community that i'm engaging in takes ownership on their own terms about great eloquence because they're proximity to issues we are trying discuss.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: so it is a disappearing Act.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: number two-I know my job when the least powerful person speaking when the person who never has the microphone in their hand, or doesn't feel they deserve to be the person with a microphone on their hand is sharing their truth and perspective.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: And I do see that kind of facilitation as type leadership because it runs against the grain of hierarchy at most institutions.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: so i see myself as someone who's facilitating honoring wisdom.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: You know, we've done performances with Nobel laureates to a busload of tourists from New Jersey.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: To people who have no formal education whatsoever but have the most important thing to say in the room.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: So I see it as an active leadership.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: and then i would also say It is an active leadership As was sort of alluding before... ...to create leaderless spaces And places where The Greeks knew uh, twenty-five hundred years ago.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: that I feel like we're only rediscovering now kind of in spite of ourselves.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Is there had to be places and spaces where communities could communalize?
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Could...could collectively reckon with the moral, the spiritual, the ethical, the emotional dimensions of the choices they have to make?
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Right!
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on it?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You've been thinking about who you as a leader is something but How do you think about yourself as a leader?
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: how would you describe your leadership?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean traditionally i haven't thought of myself was the leader.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I just done focused on The work and so yes You could say that it is um leading by doing.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: but the leadership question has been coming up More lately So I have had to do some reflection on it And I really agree with what Brian said in terms of Thinking of it as being more facilitator.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: part of success is being able to disappear if you're no longer needed.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I would say that's kind of a guiding principle as how we operate at Monger Bay, but i guess why do have to talk about being a leader then?
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I think part of it creating clarity in terms of what our mission is and positioning people to be successful so removing barriers finding resources for them empowering.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: when I switched from a for-profit where it was just, you know me and another person kind of doing our journalism.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And knew how's gonna have to basically give up doing what I love which is journalism.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: but that has got much greater impact in the world because I could hire or find resources to hire team journalists who are better journals than I was do this work so as enabling all these people pursue their talents and, you know make it most of their abilities.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Whereas I could sort of go into the background and bring those resources to the table.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: It's interesting because i've kind of dissipated in the background but now come back into the foreground.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: so its been very serendipitous that how these things evolve I guess?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: In my leadership capacity part is just being able listen really closely connect insights from wherever they come across the environment.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It's not only an organization, but more broadly and then helping people who have great ideas turn those into real impact on the road.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts David?
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: How do you think about yourself as a leader?
• 9:49
  Speaker 0: I Think there is pieces of this that really resonate in terms being a facilitator trying to be invisible And also I'm kind of hearing what Rhett says, starting out as a journalist.
• 10:01
  Speaker 0: But then you're leader and have to let go doing the work.
• 10:06
  Speaker 0: so changing role?
• 10:10
  Speaker 0: With this project it's interesting because we are in an individualistic professor setting maybe run on lab But Project SETI is also a nonprofit organization now, and had to completely learn how to run a non-profit.
• 10:30
  Speaker 0: And how to keep the science team which are all speaking very different languages in terms of even like you know... The cryptographers speak different languages than natural language processors or machine learners.
• 10:43
  Speaker 0: There's a different culture in robotics that there isn't computer science And especially the animal and AI communities are very different.
• 10:52
  Speaker 0: So really just listening, which I'm also kind of hearing from Brian in red like kind of listening and good ideas could come from anywhere.
• 11:02
  Speaker 0: And I think managing ego and really giving credit to your team and being with your team is important.
• 11:16
  Speaker 0: Also seeking mentorship is important.
• 11:19
  Speaker 0: You know, I'm traveling right now but i even carried a book with me on this one and it was a book that just happened to be on my shelf.
• 11:26
  Speaker 0: That um... One of my mentors Roger Payne who discovered that whales sing And passed away A few years ago.
• 11:33
  Speaker 0: he used to talk about his book all the time But its from The Little Prince Which oh there you know It's just that line There.
• 11:40
  Speaker 0: if you want build a ship don't drum up men together would divide their work.
• 11:44
  Speaker 0: give orders Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
• 11:49
  Speaker 0: And I think especially running on a non-profit budget leadership style is much more about carrots and offering incentives to my team in getting them expired rather than kind of demanding things.
• 12:03
  Speaker 0: so... ...I really feel like my job is continuously inspiring keeping the mission clear and straight And a lot of people on the team are working for much less than they could be making an industry.
• 12:23
  Speaker 0: They're doing that for reason, you know?
• 12:25
  Speaker 0: Because their believing in the wider mission of good we can create as a collective.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Beautiful!
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I was going
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: to say it seems like David.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: another aspect leadership at least listening to your talk is also about modeling ethical and also RET like ethical, built into both models.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: This sort of decentralizing of journalism and pushing it out in communities who are most proximal to the very things that need to be reported on... And seeing perspectives from animals or humans from POVs which is also proximal for those beings closest in proximity.. Also gentle and ethical our ways of modeling ethical, I would describe it as ethical leadership.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: And that ethical leadership also isn't about necessarily this, Rhett said.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: talking about yourself is a leader.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: It's about showing another way to a field That may not be able to see beyond the way its done things traditionally whether thats journalism Whether that science or academia Whether Thats The arts which from one perspective at least consequential From my perspective of those fields in terms of the stakes.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Do you know leaders who, regardless where they live or what they do are changing world?
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Leaders that aren't content with is and working hard for could be.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: Leaders with both a demonstrated track record AND potential continued impact.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: Leaders whose work innovative courageous rooted universal values global approach implication.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: If so, please nominate them for the Tilburg SNF Eliason Global Leadership Prize at tilbergprize.org.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: How are you three helping next generations of leaders push boundaries and challenge their own assumptions?
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I think that could be in many different ways.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: What do your thoughts Rhett, what comes up to you listening tonight?
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: My general approach to life is to minimize assumptions as much possible, especially when it comes to people.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Cause I feel like When you enter into a situation with an assumption It often puts your at disadvantage or You know we're just wrong for its you.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and so Um
• 14:58
  Speaker 0: i
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: encourage-I
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: encourage people to keep in open mind.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I think is really important Especially the leader because The world's changing quickly And there are So many opportunities out There that should be aware of.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: We have paid fellowship program.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I think it may be too big a stretch, but we have a paid fellowship program which is basically to create opportunities for journalists in low and middle income countries who don't otherwise have our opportunity.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: It's just develop their skills into build up portfolio.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And so these are almost you could describe as micro leaders because they're making decisions about what stories to elevate you know, and communicate to the world.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: And so it's like a small step.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: It is not leading an organization but making decisions that affect other people lives.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: But again we want create opportunities.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: We wanna be sure they are viable for people who actually participate and reduce barriers you know, because of the circumstances of their birth or where they grew up.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: We don't want those to limit what they can do with our lives and so I guess that we kind like use it as a microcosm for how we think about leadership.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: How are you helping next generations of leaders push boundaries and challenge own assumptions?
• 16:21
  Speaker 0: No i think thats'a great question!
• 16:22
  Speaker 0: think about it.
• 16:24
  Speaker 0: I mean, one is again...I'm also an educator so i work a lot with the kind of demographic of eighteen to twenty-two year olds which is always really nice to be in contact with that demographic to feel how they're seeing the world and um..and I think one of things.
• 16:47
  Speaker 0: well…so thats oneside we've all set up a marine conservation leadership program as part of a, you know embedded into the forming the organization.
• 16:58
  Speaker 0: And that's based in Dominica and for young Dominicans to engage this work and to partake it.
• 17:07
  Speaker 0: Ultimately we're working very place-based on Dominica right now in Eastern Caribbean To be giving this entire research project...to run entirely by them is the model that we have
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: to what emerges, how do you balance this intentional versus the emergent?
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: What comes up in your work.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I know it's a tricky question but i think is one of those leadership questions that we need to ask ourselves... The intention and the emergence?
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Listen to you ask that question.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I reminded of a mentor of mine, Peter Brooke.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: the great stage director of The Twentieth Century just died a couple years ago and had the privilege knowing him as friend but also working with them on some productions even producing his work in prison here at New York City where i'm currently And he wrote about something really guided my works In one book called Shifting Point.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: It's the concept of formless hunch And what I like about it, and he means that in terms of the theater but it could be applied to any field.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: At The Center Of The Formless Hunch is a question how can you possibly know What the form Is until It Emerges?
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: So there's so much In our lives marketing and the costumes before we've even gone into rehearsal.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure the same could be said for biology or journalism, you know?
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: We put certain priorities ahead of the actual thing that we're trying to do... ...and then it somehow in some ways obstructs our ability to actually discover an unearth what The Form really is.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: so What That Means?
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: In my field Is Really Taking Time To Develop Ideas Over Many Years.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: The Dance Between The Structure & The Intent.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Rhett, what are your thoughts?
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Intent emergence.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Is that something you think of or how do you relate to it?
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Well I think running a journals organization has presence in so many places because we need vantage point ideas that are percolating out there.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: just great information flow coming across my desk every day and so this is the place pick up new ideas see trends when they're very early and you know, recognize potential opportunities.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And I think the other big thing is that my approach again...I don't have a background in what i do now like.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: having no training as a journalist um..i've never had any experience fundraising or running a non-profit.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Um....is taking very iterative approach being experimental, making small mistakes and avoiding catastrophic mistakes.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: And so again it fits really well with the journalism model because there's all sorts of information coming in you know?
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: It is a place where we can test things.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: The other thing that happens at having all these different bureaus around the world Is that if they work in Indonesia bringing them to the global manga bay or manga bay Brazil That cross-border learning is also really important.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: In a world where globalization seems to be fading, how do you sustain the notion that global challenges like climate change need global as well as local solutions?
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Question but... How do we think about that?
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Global Solutions Local Solutions?
• 21:01
  Speaker 0: I think we have come at it from both angles.
• 21:08
  Speaker 0: It's an either or, I think it would be both.
• 21:13
  Speaker 0: And to link back this last question is that being able to adapt quickly to stochastic dynamic settings is very important because these are changing quickly.
• 21:28
  Speaker 0: so i think its about coming up with both global and local tactics and modify at what is coming out of it, but its challenging.
• 21:42
  Speaker 0: I mean this is not going to cherry-coat it.
• 21:48
  Speaker 0: This one the most complex dynamic issues that humanity has ever faced in this juncture And i think It's taking all hands on deck To be able to kind of steer into a not catastrophic direction.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Your work and manga-based is really at the... You've tried to work with that global aspect.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on this?
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's close to ground but still a global initiative or a global ambition.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Well one way you interpret global solutions isn't necessarily top down control But cooperating on problems that cross borders.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: So whether it's climate, oceans, biodiversity pandemics whatever the topic is and so there's a critical role for local actions.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: The best solutions often start in community.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: then when you talk about global collaboration its supporting and scaling those solutions You know, you rarely come up with like a global solution that starts at a global level.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Like you need those local use cases to prove it... To prove a concept where we can cope with the ideas.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and so again our.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I think what makes our approach interesting is that We have all these local voices who are elevating These Micro case studies essentially on of What's working how people trying to solve problems?
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And then bringing them into a broader audience had stories that we've done on community forestry in Indonesia, for example.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And then we've learned the other communities have contacted those communities or us to learn how to replicate those ideas.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and when you see people in Peru reaching out to people from Indonesia will learn more about what they're doing so they can try it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: So I think When your talking global solutions its really scaling local solution.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.