Quantum Leadership for Uncertain Times

Andrew McCombe:

Hey guys, Andrew McCombe here from LeadWell Global. I’m with the Dean of the school, Malcolm Dunn. Malcolm, welcome to the video.

Malcolm Dunn:

Hi Andrew. Thanks for coming along and helping us reflect on what’s happening in the world and some of the ideas we’ve got in terms of what we can do moving forward.

Andrew McCombe:

Amazing backdrop. But mate, the world’s not in such a great place at the moment. Is it?

Malcolm Dunn:

As you would have heard from our Head of Wealth, Suren Pather before, the answer’s yes. We’ve got a lot of challenges in front of us, but we’ve always seen, the ability of mankind to rise up and be innovative in the face of challenges. So feel the pain, learn the lessons, and then create the opportunity and put your energy into that because that’s something we can do. Worrying has never created solutions.

Andrew McCombe:

So just on that though, there is a significant impact going on. What’s your take on that?

Malcolm Dunn:

So Andrew, there is a significant impact but it does impact different people in different ways and different industry sectors, different geographies. So part of that is to really understand that and what we’ve done is developed a volatility assessment/instrument so that we can look beyond the VIX, which is looking at market volatility, which is all over the place at the moment. But from a sectorial perspective, we can look at what’s happening in financial services, what’s happening in the legal profession, what’s happening in healthcare, therefore, what are the appropriate interventions and fit the problems that are presenting rather than just one size fits all.

Andrew McCombe:

And obviously there’s a short term and a long term approach to that.

Malcolm Dunn:

Yes, you’re right. So building resilience in people so that they not overwhelmed is critical at this point in time. And the support for them. And that’s both at the individual level but also at the systems level for their teams and their organizations. And those are some things we’ve put in place, some LeadWell coaching to help create that balance, that equanimity from that balance point, then you can start to say, what are the solutions? What are the fundamental issues? Face up to them? And then what are some of the solutions moving forward?

Andrew McCombe:

So I guess like you say you want, it is important to acknowledge there is some pain going on right now, feelit essentially and then come out of it with some solutions.

Malcolm Dunn:

I think there’s solutions, but there’s actually, what is the opportunity that this presents, we call it an inflection point and we’ve got a true change that could occur in the way that we look at the world and the way that we manage the world. And what we’ve titled it is Quantum Leadership. So this is really taking an outside in perspective, much more holistic. One of the environment that we faced with the eco system. So it’s the economy, it’s the community, it’s the family, it’s the organization. It’s the person, it’s the professional, all of those together creating some much better understanding of the causality of large systems and the impact that has on people. Quantum Leadership is then starting to say, okay, well how do we manage that in a different way? Old leadership models of command and control and high level of structure just don’t work in the environment we’re now facing for the future.

Andrew McCombe:

So would you say a Quantum Leader, is someone who’s actually taking the outside in and then and assessing what’s important to them, what’s important to their organization, their family, etc? Every aspect, the environment their financial situation and then bringing that to the team?

Malcolm Dunn:

I think that’s what is required. But more than that, so we call it Quantum Leaders, but the real goal of Quantum Leaders is to create Quantum Leadership in organizations. A distributed leadership model. It might even be across organizations. It’s definitely across the private public sector. So they’re not separate entities. They can’t be managed separately. We need to have something that really looks at long term sustainable growth. Looks at sustainable wealth creation, looks at health. Yeah we’ve had the whole issue of mental health being a major thing that’s come forward. The focus on money that led to us to diminish all the things of joy and happiness in our life. So how do we create a better balance? So Quantum Leaders are the people with the mindset, the capability, the communication, the political nous to create a much better environment for themselves and for the people that they’re leading. So that is what leadership is.

Andrew McCombe:

So from a LeadWell Global perspective, if I’m a leader that’s out there and I’m facing some short term pain, but I want a long term gain, what have you got for me?

Malcolm Dunn:

Andrew, it’s really interesting and I wish (I’ve had 15-20 years in this) and I’m qualified psychotherapist. I’ve never seen human growth occur because it’s a good thing to do. Unfortunately, you know, shit has to happen. You have to stub your toe. And from what’s called a pertubating event, we start to develop new insite. It cracks the shell of our understanding, helps us break long seated bad habits. So hard to reflect that this is what’s occurring now cause it’s bloody painful. But it is if we have the ability to reframe it, a learning experience to see things differently. So your question was what can we do at Leadwell Global to help that process. We help normalize what’s occurred. We help reframe it into an opportunity for learning and we start to then equip some of these leaders with the capabilities and the tool sets to be able to see the world differently outside in, still see their organizations, what they need to do, but understand the macro economic, the societal and the community things that surround it as well.

Andrew McCombe:

So Malcolm obviously LeadWell Global’s a lot about leaders, but it’s also ,obviously this has an impact on so much more than leaders. What else have you got that supports people outside leadership?

Malcolm Dunn:

You know, Andrew, I’ve been a perpetrator of leadership programs and people for 15 years now and I apologize for people who I thought you could fix you for next Monday morning and that just doesn’t happen. It’s much deeper seated than that in behavioral change. But the biggest shift we’ve got to do now with Quantum Leadership, position and perspective, is what is the field? And if the field is the whole ecosystem, so it’s the world, it’s different population groups, different genders. How do we think differently about what leadership looks like to engage and embrace all of those people? So it’s about a shift in mindset. So when we talk about outside in what that is is what we call systems intelligence, starting to even notice what is the effect of all of those. And then we can never be prescriptive and it’s never deterministic our things that we need to sense and make sense of. So it’s a different part of our collective intelligence we need to use for that. It’s not resident in one person. So how do we start to harness systems intelligence, systems thinking and then also something that we forgot when we were fight or flight. You know, we knew to run before our brain had figured out run if a dinosaur was chasing. We’ve started with our world of cognitive reasoning. We moved away from that. But the thing of gut feeling and intuition and really starting to pay sense and notice to that is really important for us to be able to look at what else is occurring here. That’s the reality, not what we met up in our heads, that different type of person in a different type of collection that’s required for that. So working with the individual, but working with the team, with the organization is really important. And that’s what those interventions need to look at the system and the person simultaneously.

Andrew McCombe:

So how’s LeadWell Global going to help me with that.?

Andrew McCombe:

So part of it, Andrew. There’s one other group that we want to work with is the future leaders. So they haven’t yet got all our bias and prejudices in the things to unlearn. So may they learn the new way of doing things. May they lead the new way of doing things, let them disrupt us so that they will take us into this next generation where we have global technology enablement but we’ve also got the ability to laugh at ourselves and balance ourselves. So what we do following good adult behavioral change perspective? We say it takes time to become wise. So it’s three to six months to nine months to be able to do that. But part of that first part is what we call the awakening. So this is the aha moment. We do that through a range of assessments. But this is for you to be able to get that moment where you can start to say, okay, I see myself as others see me, or I see myself. What is it I want from that position of higher knowledge. Then you can start to look at the system around you and notice things you hadn’t noticed before. The way we do that is to use what we call an immersion experience or scenario-based learning. We drop people into those futures as far as possible, with virtual reality or over video. We drop them into these plausible scenarios. Like there’s a global virus or something’s happened and bring out, fail safe in an environment where it doesn’t matter and you can reset it. You know, it’s like the pilot training. Not good. If you crash but didn’t kill anybody, – they’re doing that now in the surgical profession. You can learn on dummies, you know, rather than killing somebody to learn,

Andrew McCombe:

So you’ll put people under pressure in the programs to bring out their learning, I guess?

Malcolm Dunn:

We do the both. It’s the duality of consciousness to be on the dance floor involved, which is where the pressure, but be on the balcony and noticing what’s happening and be able to say, how would I change it? So that ability to have that reflective capacity to then as a leader to do an intervention that’s going to change the dynamic of what’s occurring on the dance floor, to call the discordant notes, to see the disconnects, but most importantly is not think that we can fix it in a structured manner through a process that we need to create an environment that allows it to adapt and fix itself. And that creates a lot of trust. And it says investment in the people who are in the dance room is more important thing rather than going and telling them this is how it works.

Andrew McCombe:

So you’re saying as long as they show up, it’s more important as to what they then do once they show up?

Malcolm Dunn:

I think the showing up is about them wanting to improve themselves and feeling that there was something to learn and there’s capacity in the organization to change. And we can help create that through the awareness, awakening activities. And some of them are challenging, but they’re really good. But then there’s, what do you do with that? You know, at the moment everybody’s in a state of heartache, wonderful place of learning. And nice not to stay there. Okay, so what have we learned? And then what can we do about it? So the use of optimism, creativity, innovation to come up with new solutions, really good. But then how do we make that happen? So after we’ve done the immersion experience of saying, okay, let’s look at alternate worlds. How does it feel? What have we learned? Perspective taking. Then they’ll get an adaptive challenge project. We say their real world is their project, but you’re doing it with a view of how do I make it a better real world and we support them with coaching through that process. And that’s a three to six to nine month process. Then integrating that way it becomes an everyday habit again. And it’s not enough to do it for an individual because they can be isolated. We need to do that for enough people to create a tipping point, critical mass to create a tipping point where you can shift a team or shift a business unit or shift an organization, shift a nation, shift a world.

Andrew McCombe:

So who should be showing up?

Malcolm Dunn:

Andrew, that is a really good question. And I’ve had the heartache of getting people who aren’t learning really showing up and it takes so much effort to energize them for change. So the unfortunate but fortunate bi-product of a crisis is that people who show up want to change, they want to see things better. And so the people who are ready to change,. I believe in everybody, there’s innate capacity in the intellect to do things differently. I really do believe that. Not everybody’s tapped into that, but the potential is there. Ok, so how do we build them to be their best person and help them support them? It has to be self-authored, they have to do it. So the people who show up have to want and suspect there’s more for them, but there’s also around them the other side of themselves that they see that they’re part of a community, they’re part of a society, they’re part of an organization so they can have that broader perspective taking. So there’s people with a sense of purpose, which is beyond self-actualization, to self- transcendence, to be able to support a society. And ironically, Andrew, the only true learning comes when you self-transcend because that’s when you recognize how little you really knew because now you’re having to influence others. You’re seeing other people’s perspectives, you’re trying to engage them and you learn that your next layer of learning and so ironic, when you think you know something until you start working with other people and learning.

Andrew McCombe:

What I’m hearing is it’s people who want to make a difference to themself, to their team, to their business, to their corporation and ultimately I guess to community and the world in some form.

Malcolm Dunn:

Andrew, yes, but let’s not forget at that personal level their family and I’ve seen so much psychological splitting of professional and personal family members and it just causes real psychological distress. and there’s some professions in the health industry, there’s 42% dysfunctional distress. So in the name of a noble cause people are sacrificing themselves at work and then coming and not doing the right thing in other social settings. In executives in general, it’s about 34% had a level of dysfunctional distress, which manifests in bullying and substance abuse. Not happy John, not happy people, you know. So how is it that now we can say that is not good enough anymore. Let’s use this inflection point of a real global crisis to change the way we see the world and do things differently. It may be embracing some of the things that we get out of Bhutan and the gross national happiness index or the wonderful Jacinda Ardern is doing in New Zealand. Also looking at factors of the livability as well as GNP in terms of how is it that we have our responsibility to society. I think it’s going to be more pervasive than that. Economic sustainability is fundamental. It’s a hygiene factor if we don’t have that, poverty brings misery. But beyond that, creating true wealth is collective wealth and looking after health and wellbeing of our families.

Andrew McCombe:

Well guys sounds like Quantum Leadership might be the new way forward. If you feel inspired by what you’ve heard from Malcolm, then www.LeadWellGlobal.com We’ve got more information for you, more videos, more programs, more support. Malcolm last words.

Malcolm Dunn:

So really to those future leaders and existing leaders who are agents of change in the world, I really emplore you that this is the opportunity to stand up and make a difference. It’s going to take courage. It’s going to take insight and resilience from you. There’s a whole wonderful group of people that are starting to emerge, that we’re seeing now. How is it that we get that message, the message of hope there, because that’s going to lead to innovation and constructive solutions. Not that we undermine what needs to happen from a hygiene perspective. Now critical, we’ve got to do all those things, but what happens beyond this, not going back to business as usual. Let’s learn from what we didn’t do in the global financial crisis in terms of the fundamental change this time around. Let’s be smarter. Let’s look at this gift. We’ve got to do things differently as we move through this.

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