Episode 21
Power, agency, and influence
Power, agency, and influence interplay at individual, group, and systems levels. Understanding their dynamics can help us navigate uncertain times and make better decisions.
Tony Fish is a writer and researcher whose upcoming book delves into the complexities of these concepts. The episode delves into the complexity of power, the ability to act (agency), and the role of influence in shaping outcomes. It also highlights the importance of questioning our own framings and asking better questions to break free from biases.
Tony's work aims to help individuals and organizations make better decisions in uncertain and changing environments. He emphasizes the importance of asking better questions, challenging framing, and fostering constructive relationships to navigate the dynamics of power, agency, and influence effectively.
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Transcript
Power agency and influence three big words that elysian with a lot of
Speaker:meaning and not always in a good way.
Speaker:My guest this week has been unpacking these words both at an individual
Speaker:group and systems level to see how they interplay together in order to help
Speaker:better decision making in uncertain times.
Speaker:You'd think that you could boil them down into simple terms and
Speaker:that that would bring clarity.
Speaker:But in trying to follow a recipe, it's easy to forget that you can lose your
Speaker:bearings on what you're being framed by, and you can be caught by the very
Speaker:forces you're trying to break free of.
Speaker:I'm Julia Rebholz.
Speaker:Welcome to Generative Leaders.
Speaker:One of the most, I think the, the interesting piece about when you introduce
Speaker:yourself is everyone's very bashful.
Speaker:And actually as age and time goes forward, you introduce yourself differently.
Speaker:So when you're very young and you've, you've kinda like probably
Speaker:only got your, your exams, you tell people how wonderful your exam's in.
Speaker:And as you go through, uh, midlife, you tell 'em all about the, the
Speaker:great things you've done of, of m and a or investments or whatever.
Speaker:And when you reach the sort of, um, the older.
Speaker:Oh, segments of your life suddenly it's how much time I dwell, think, and reflect.
Speaker:Um, and I suppose if I look back, yes, you can look at achievements,
Speaker:but actually now what I look back at is what did the achievement teach me?
Speaker:And how, when I thought I was getting to the top and pinnacle of, of, of, you
Speaker:know, commercial deals and, and whatever, actually what I realized, they were
Speaker:just another base camp on a journey.
Speaker:And I'm still on that journey.
Speaker:And yes, I've got some experiences behind me, but all experiences taught me is
Speaker:actually the experience creates a frame.
Speaker:And what you've gotta do is actually break the framing.
Speaker:And if you can't break the framing, the experience you've got, just biases
Speaker:you to believing the same things.
Speaker:So actually, I've sort of reached a point where explaining who I am now is
Speaker:actually all I do is question myself.
Speaker:Well, that's a brilliant segue to ask you some questions then,
Speaker:and, uh, and, and dive in.
Speaker:Obviously, one of the things that you do is you write a lot, um, about these
Speaker:reflections and, um, your upcoming book, Decision Making in Uncertain
Speaker:Times seems so apt, um, at the moment.
Speaker:And I, I, I'd love to hear about the genesis of this book and how you think
Speaker:it might relate to generative leadership.
Speaker:Yeah, let's cover off, I suppose, an opinion on generative leadership,
Speaker:that it is this ability to generate.
Speaker:For me, and again, you know, it's one of these words that has, um, many views
Speaker:and many opinions coming to it, but it's not about re-imagining and reinventing
Speaker:because that just says going back over the old and trying to optimize for better
Speaker:efficiency and better effectiveness.
Speaker:It doesn't ask the question, where's the efficacy?
Speaker:Are we doing the right thing?
Speaker:Where to me, generative leadership starts from are we doing the right thing?
Speaker:And if it starts from that question and that approach, you
Speaker:can then go and build something.
Speaker:You can generate something which is utterly new.
Speaker:I think so much of society is incredibly good at making sure we optimize
Speaker:for efficiency and effectiveness.
Speaker:And that's kinda like the question I was asking so many boards.
Speaker:When I was being asked to go and do board work, which is a first question,
Speaker:which used to really annoy people, um, which is, what are we optimizing for?
Speaker:And everyone would come out with their different opinions and I'd go
Speaker:around the table and then I'd ask the same question all over again.
Speaker:And then I'd ask it all over again.
Speaker:And usually, uh, at the point they're just about to kick me out,
Speaker:there was this haha moment for a few people when they go, we ain't got
Speaker:a clue what we're optimizing for.
Speaker:And that was really helpful and that's kind of like the genesis of the book,
Speaker:which started from a, a sort of piece of thinking going, um, how do you
Speaker:make better decisions in uncertainty?
Speaker:Because uncertainty is this place where you don't know what you're optimizing for.
Speaker:And actually what you think you're optimizing for is about to change.
Speaker:And therefore all of the experiences you've got probably are not going to
Speaker:help you in what you're about to do.
Speaker:Therefore you have to learn how to ask better questions.
Speaker:And if you have to ask better questions, what you have to do is un frame yourself.
Speaker:You have to be able to go, what is the question I'm not asking?
Speaker:And that's tremendously difficult.
Speaker:And then I get told off at this point, usually because people say, what you're
Speaker:talking is philosophy, and what you're talking is ethereal and it doesn't
Speaker:actually have a tangibility of, you know, what does somebody do tomorrow?
Speaker:But you are very good at doing what you need to do tomorrow.
Speaker:What I'm asking is, what are you gonna be doing in a year's time?
Speaker:Because actually, if you just carry on doing exactly what you are today,
Speaker:and you just get more efficient at it, you haven't asked the question,
Speaker:are you doing the right thing?
Speaker:So that's where the genesis has come from.
Speaker:Well, that, that's effectively what the book is about is, is
Speaker:how do we ask better questions?
Speaker:And Tony, I loved the opening of your book, which basically points people to
Speaker:the fact that this book doesn't have any of the answers that they're looking for.
Speaker:What a, what a terrible book.
Speaker:But it may have some very good questions that spark insights
Speaker:and realizations in the reader.
Speaker:Um, and that's the whole purpose of the book, is to spark something in
Speaker:the listener, um, that might have them reflect or do something differently.
Speaker:in, in a way, the, the way I I, I write in the front of the book is
Speaker:that, you know, Julia, you are somebody who has incredible experiences.
Speaker:And I don't wanna take away from any of them because they're the right things.
Speaker:And I don't want you to think like me, but I want you to look at yourself like a
Speaker:flint, but also look at me like a flint.
Speaker:And when we hit each other, that should create a spark.
Speaker:And the spark is the really important thing, not that you've
Speaker:got experience and I've got experience because that's pointless.
Speaker:It's the spark between us.
Speaker:But the spark becomes really valuable when we give the spark, fuel and
Speaker:oxygen because that creates fire.
Speaker:And the fuel in in so many ways is that thing of being able to
Speaker:share with a group of people.
Speaker:And this is what you are doing, um, through, through the podcast, is you
Speaker:take interesting ideas, you throw it out there, you get people to spark
Speaker:off it, that creates fuel, which allows people then to, to build fire.
Speaker:'Cause when you've got fire, you can refine things and
Speaker:refining thing is the process.
Speaker:And to me, uh, if I want to ask better questions, it's
Speaker:very easy to ask questions.
Speaker:It's very difficult to ask better questions, and you need fire.
Speaker:People who spark off each other, who disagree, but do something through that
Speaker:process to create something which allows us to, to refine questions through fire.
Speaker:So the reason I want to talk to you, and I want to listen to what you are doing
Speaker:and to all the people you interview, is because that does exactly the same for me.
Speaker:It allows me to gain new insights.
Speaker:It allows me to gain new wisdoms that I didn't even know existed, and me to
Speaker:actually refine my own thinking because that's the important part of where we are.
Speaker:it is so fascinating, isn't it?
Speaker:That, that question that arises in you that you'd never thought of before.
Speaker:It's such a fascinating, wonderful thing when that happens
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:And, uh, even this morning, so, um, we're talking on the 11th of October and this
Speaker:morning on Radio 4 was, um, Reverend Dr.
Speaker:Sam, Sam Wells.
Speaker:And he on Radio 4 did his thought for the day.
Speaker:And it was just absolutely fantastic, um, because one of the things he, he
Speaker:goes on about is that moment where, the difference between anger and rage
Speaker:and how anger can be used in so many ways for good, because it actually can
Speaker:have a purity of what you're doing.
Speaker:But when you hit rage and the red mist falls as in the words he
Speaker:uses, that's when you lose control.
Speaker:And you dunno what you're doing.
Speaker:And how in times of war and conflict, it's right to be angry.
Speaker:But when we hit rage, we're in a very different place.
Speaker:And actually it's the subtlety of difference in, in, in the commercial
Speaker:world is, is incredible 'cause we don't even like the word anger yet.
Speaker:Therefore we lose passion, we lose, um, so much idea.
Speaker:And we want a culture which doesn't have things.
Speaker:Like passion and they don't have anger, but we don't want it to have rage.
Speaker:And you know, I was, I was listening to that going, how
Speaker:does that apply to the boardroom?
Speaker:How do we actually get people angry in the boardroom to create change?
Speaker:If you want generative leadership, actually you kind of like need anger.
Speaker:But then people going, yeah, but I don't like that because then it
Speaker:introduces these ideas of conflict.
Speaker:Yet, you know, conflict is great if you go through refining fire.
Speaker:Yeah, we, we've, we somehow, we've sort of got ourselves into a, a societal
Speaker:place where it is not okay to disagree.
Speaker:It's not okay to, um, to have a conflict.
Speaker:And you know what, what I find really interesting, Tony, and I'd love your
Speaker:perspectives on this, is that when actually you can love someone and disagree
Speaker:with them, and you can, you know, be with that person and thoroughly disagree, but
Speaker:still hold them in the highest esteem.
Speaker:In my experience, that's where the greatest things come forward.
Speaker:I, I'd use the word greatest love.
Speaker:Because again, in a way, the disagreement generates an anger and a passion.
Speaker:And not to try and persuade.
Speaker:And this is the opening which you're, you are in, you know, we chat about
Speaker:two seconds ago in that book, it's where two heavyweights come together,
Speaker:but it creates something new.
Speaker:And it's not about disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, it's for the sake
Speaker:of actually, how do we refine something?
Speaker:How do we make something better?
Speaker:How do we move forward?
Speaker:How do we know if we're doing the right thing?
Speaker:And quite often we disagree for a very simple purpose, but I've got
Speaker:so much experience that this is the only thing that can be right?
Speaker:But you are so in, in indoctrinated in your own belief and your own
Speaker:self-assurance that what your experience has taught you is the right thing to
Speaker:do that you can never break the cycle of just repeating the same things.
Speaker:Where somebody new comes along, introduces a new idea, and the first thing you,
Speaker:you go is that that old anti of, um, if it's too good to be true, it is.
Speaker:And that just allows you a justification to say, well, I can just ignore it.
Speaker:And we're very good to your own.
Speaker:You know what you said, we're very good.
Speaker:Ignoring everything that we don't want to agree with.
Speaker:Which then leads us into not being able to make, ask better questions
Speaker:and, you know, escape our own framing and our own way of seeing the world.
Speaker:And you know, part of that responsibility, I think, is the way
Speaker:we look at what we're incentivized by.
Speaker:And you know, the economy in which we live has a methodology of creating incentives.
Speaker:The way you work and what you're paid with and the way you get receive
Speaker:remuneration creates certain incentives and those incentives frame you completely.
Speaker:Yet we find it very difficult if somebody doesn't have those
Speaker:framings and wants to break it.
Speaker:Therefore, they ask different questions.
Speaker:And the crux of this is the chapter in the book that we are gonna speak about,
Speaker:which is power, agency, and influence.
Speaker:Those sitting with the power, those who have the agency, and those who
Speaker:have the ability to influence, create this ability to either hold the framing
Speaker:in place or to break free of it and, uh, to start to ask better questions.
Speaker:So I'd love to hear your take on unpacking those different, uh, dimensions and,
Speaker:and for us to explore them together
Speaker:yeah, I think the first part is, and I do this quite often, which is
Speaker:the reality of complexity and wicked problems means that you have to come
Speaker:up with a simple, linear narrative to explain something that's complex.
Speaker:But in explaining something simply, you actually lose.
Speaker:The wickedness of the problem and the complexity of what
Speaker:you're trying to explain.
Speaker:And power agency and influence kind of like don't exist, but
Speaker:we have them as words to try and articulate certain aspects.
Speaker:And they neither exist on their own or collectively, but they all exist in every
Speaker:single individual as a bit of a mess up.
Speaker:So you have to separate them out, explain them separately, but at all points,
Speaker:understand that they exist collectively together in different ways in every single
Speaker:individual, and therefore every tribe, and therefore every clan, and therefore every
Speaker:community, and therefore every nation.
Speaker:And therefore every organization.
Speaker:And therefore every organization.
Speaker:So it's, it's useful to talk about them as separates and in different
Speaker:ways as separates, but at no point can you sit there going, well, they are.
Speaker:It's that I, you know, I, I have to say that I suppose for myself, because
Speaker:elsewise, I, you, you get an injustice where somebody says, well, yeah,
Speaker:power doesn't really look like that.
Speaker:And I totally and utterly agree it doesn't.
Speaker:Um, so, power is one of those aspects of life where everybody thinks they
Speaker:know what power is, and there is hundreds and hundreds of books on power.
Speaker:In fact, I didn't realize quite how many books there are on trying
Speaker:to define what power actually is.
Speaker:But most seem to come to a conclusion that power is that ability to have control at
Speaker:some form of level, and that is either through, effectively violence or, um,
Speaker:economic or emotional, the, the range of how people get control is, is quite vast.
Speaker:And what they then choose to do with.
Speaker:That power is quite vast as well.
Speaker:But it was just majorly the point that somebody has an aspect of control.
Speaker:But it's more subtle than that.
Speaker:It's probably they just have slightly more control than you do.
Speaker:And you know that it's, it's very much like a, you know, um, a dad and
Speaker:daughter relationship or with you Julia you or with one of your kids.
Speaker:At some points, the kids certainly have control, and we have to accept that.
Speaker:No matter what we think, the, they have control of a situation.
Speaker:And they can manipulate the control of that situation incredibly well without
Speaker:understanding power, agency, and influence in any way, shape, or form.
Speaker:So there's something deeply within us as well, which, which gets unpacked in it.
Speaker:So that's power.
Speaker:Um, agency, the ability to act, the ability to go and do something.
Speaker:So you have this choice that you can actually just go and do something.
Speaker:And this is, you know, taught so much in schools, uh, as,
Speaker:as part of freedom, really.
Speaker:Um, that if you want to go and do it, go do it.
Speaker:There's no choice in there if it's the right thing to do, or what
Speaker:you're doing is gonna harm anybody else, or be benefit to all society.
Speaker:But basically you have the, the power to be able to go and do it.
Speaker:Um, and know power's the wrong word at that point, but you have
Speaker:the ability to go and do it.
Speaker:Uh, influence itself is somebody who is part of the cycle and
Speaker:it's actually part of your own reading knowledge conversation.
Speaker:This has influence.
Speaker:Um, and what influence does is say to the people with power, if
Speaker:you enact this policy, those with agency will keep you in power.
Speaker:So there's an axes that suddenly comes to this.
Speaker:So the influencer wants to listen to the people with agency, to direct the people
Speaker:who have power to go and do something, which benefits the people with agency
Speaker:who carry on pay, paying the people who can influence those who are in power.
Speaker:And you see this in ourselves, uh, in the way that we approach, um, things
Speaker:like diets or exercise or holidays.
Speaker:Uh, how we can justify to ourselves incredibly quickly, and how individuals
Speaker:can influence our choices of both the type of diet, the type of exercise or the
Speaker:type of holiday you want, in fact, the type of work that you want to undertake.
Speaker:And then you are back to this idea of influence by incentive, where the
Speaker:company who has agency, is actually selecting a methodology remuneration
Speaker:to influence you to actually change the people who have power.
Speaker:It's a really, the more you unpack the layers, the more
Speaker:you realize the complexity.
Speaker:Um, but the whole piece in the book was to make a point about destructive
Speaker:and constructive relationships.
Speaker:And we see this in all of humanity where the people with influence, um,
Speaker:create more rules and regulations or demand them for the people of power.
Speaker:The people with power create more restrictions and therefore the people
Speaker:who have agency, um, basically want to become, uh, more secret because they
Speaker:know they will be, um, more controlled.
Speaker:So you end up with these relationships where the agency
Speaker:doesn't want to actually help the influencer because the influencer's
Speaker:actually acting in a different party for somebody who has power.
Speaker:And the person with power doesn't like the level of agency that people have.
Speaker:And you end up with these destructive loops and particularly
Speaker:around regulation and laws.
Speaker:It's an incredibly destructive way of changing the power base.
Speaker:It could be really constructive, but actually most of the
Speaker:time it's destructive.
Speaker:And Tony, have you got, have you got an example of that where, you
Speaker:know, we could put it into more sort of concrete, concrete terms?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Finance industries a is a classic where you, you have, um, the banks,
Speaker:the regulators, and the individuals, um, and the individuals are the only
Speaker:people who are losing out as the banks decide, um, what they're going to do,
Speaker:and the regulator tries to control them.
Speaker:Um, and Metro Bank, uh, has, has gone through this issue, uh, in the last couple
Speaker:of weeks where the regulator said, you're gonna fail capital, uh, adequacy test at
Speaker:some point, therefore go raise more money.
Speaker:It turns around to the market, says we wanna raise more money.
Speaker:The market says we don't like you because you've got branches and every other
Speaker:bank, bank is shutting branches down.
Speaker:So none of the banks want to buy you, even though there's queues outside the doors
Speaker:at Metro Banks, because everybody still wants a branch, or some people still want
Speaker:to branch and therefore they've moved to them, they've got the customer base.
Speaker:But because, um, the bank, the, the central bank regulator is effectively
Speaker:saying you are going to, um, fail a test that we believe is a randomly made up
Speaker:test, which actually looks like you can actually have sufficient capital to cover,
Speaker:um, the basal test of, of liquidity, um, we're gonna restrict you, and the market
Speaker:says, well, the only way to raise money is one single shareholder has gone from
Speaker:8% share to owning 51% share and actually has crushed everybody else to death.
Speaker:So who was the winner in this wonderful regulatory debate?
Speaker:Oh, a single shareholder who's pulling up a bit of cash, basically
Speaker:now take control of a bank.
Speaker:And we see this all the time where the regulator has set a set of standards,
Speaker:and those standards are not aligned to the rest of the market, but they put them
Speaker:in place to try and protect the public.
Speaker:But actually, the only person who now uses loses is the public.
Speaker:And, you know, if we, if we take that example a little bit further then,
Speaker:so, you know, you've got people in regulation believing that they're doing
Speaker:the right thing, the leaders in the bank responding to that regulation,
Speaker:trying to do, respond to what they're being asked to do, and then you've
Speaker:got different actors responding to what the bank is trying to do.
Speaker:I, I'm gonna challenge the first piece, which is the regulator believes
Speaker:they're doing the right thing.
Speaker:And that's not the regulator's job.
Speaker:The regulator is given a mandate in policy to do something.
Speaker:It is not asked if it's doing the right thing.
Speaker:And neither can it challenge the mandate it's been given
Speaker:if it's doing the wrong thing.
Speaker:It's a, it's a really interesting aspect of regulation.
Speaker:So, so then if we go back to the power, agency, and influence, who's
Speaker:setting the mandate for the regulator?
Speaker:Ah, those between the power and the agency who are trying to determine how
Speaker:effectively they get better control.
Speaker:And sometimes the ways of aspects of getting better control, uh, means the
Speaker:regulator steps into try and prevent them from doing it, but becomes draconian.
Speaker:No regulator has been set up to, to turn around to a aspect of business
Speaker:and say, um, you as a aspect of business behave badly, we are going
Speaker:to regulate so you behave better.
Speaker:What they do is they say, no, we're gonna create regulations to make
Speaker:sure that you don't get worse.
Speaker:And that's it.
Speaker:It's a, it's a natural form of policy in the way the regulators are actually
Speaker:structured and actually managed.
Speaker:And yes, it's a.
Speaker:You know, we, we, we do have an issue with the way we believe the
Speaker:regulator actually should regulate.
Speaker:And even back to, you know, the, the old steam engine, where the regulator
Speaker:was to try and stop something, basically getting out of control.
Speaker:And that's exactly what it tries to do.
Speaker:It is not designed to then shift it from where it was to be something better.
Speaker:Know, the fascinating thing here is that it is human beings that are making up
Speaker:these rules, but thinking that it's not.
Speaker:And one of the other chapters in the book is that whole principle that,
Speaker:you know, humans want something, but actually society wants something else
Speaker:and businesses want something else.
Speaker:And that's all around, um, who sets the purpose, who manages the risk
Speaker:matrix, and who sets the rules.
Speaker:And quite often in, um, our business environments, particularly a new rule
Speaker:comes along or a new standard because that's what we have to comply to.
Speaker:But we don't ask the question is that new rule or process or methodology we
Speaker:put in place aligned to our purpose?
Speaker:And because we don't do that, we drift off from what our actual purpose is.
Speaker:Because what our rules say is we're gonna do something differently.
Speaker:But the rules are easier to implement and actually control than
Speaker:actually keep going back to asking the question, what is our purpose?
Speaker:And boards have been prevented from a very long time from asking
Speaker:the question, what is our purpose?
Speaker:Well, and it's, um, I mean also the other, the other very interesting
Speaker:piece about the regulation is that, that it is down to interpretation.
Speaker:So, so, you know, quite often boards will say, well, we have to do this
Speaker:because the regulation says so.
Speaker:But in fact, the regulation doesn't prescribe how you implement it.
Speaker:Um, it's, it's a series of, of tests.
Speaker:And so, you know, it's, it is that encouragement to have the people
Speaker:within the business to say, well, how does it make sense given our
Speaker:purpose to implement this regulation?
Speaker:Yeah, spot on.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And, and we see this in, you know, I, I the joys of things like Formula
Speaker:One, where they have this massive regulatory book, um, and set of
Speaker:standards and the innovation at the edges allows an advantage.
Speaker:And yet.
Speaker:If they don't like the advantage, they rere, they rewrite the rule or
Speaker:the regulation to write out that one particular team has created an innovation
Speaker:which is an unfair advantage because it's ruining the sport, because actually
Speaker:it doesn't make it competitive and see the regulation is actually written to
Speaker:make it competitive, so it looks like everybody finishes in the same moment,
Speaker:not to make the best performing car.
Speaker:So if you know, you go back to are you believing in doing the right thing?
Speaker:If the right thing is to make sure everybody gets all across the line
Speaker:in the in one second and everybody overtakes at one point, therefore it's
Speaker:exciting, then that is the right thing.
Speaker:If your driver was to make the fastest, quickest, bestest cars, then actually
Speaker:you've can completely the wrong ideology.
Speaker:So you know what's, what's better entertainment or actually
Speaker:the advancement of technology.
Speaker:And that's a big question about what is better and what is best.
Speaker:So, but the, but then you end up with this.
Speaker:So one side of power agency and influence is destructive/ and
Speaker:one side of power agency and influence is actually constructive.
Speaker:And so how can the people with power effectively give more freedoms and more
Speaker:independence to the people of agency?
Speaker:Which sounds very much like, you know, some, uh, more of the, the, the capitalist
Speaker:based views of, uh, of politics.
Speaker:Which means that the people with agency have higher trust and increased openness,
Speaker:and therefore more transparency, therefore, the people have influence, can
Speaker:be better educated and create more rights for everybody in society, which means the
Speaker:people with power can give more freedoms.
Speaker:Therefore, you can end up with constructive loops.
Speaker:The issue is that if one of those parties decides effectively to become
Speaker:destructive in the way that it behaves, the whole lot collapses very quickly.
Speaker:So we have this sort of breathing where every now and again, power, agency, and
Speaker:influence are actually constructive.
Speaker:And every now and again it's destructive.
Speaker:And we see this in politics as you, as you switch between left and right
Speaker:views as it breathes in and out, and it's, you know, have you got your
Speaker:timing aligned to what is happening within those policy frameworks?
Speaker:Which is, again, this is why board governance and understanding
Speaker:these things is so critical.
Speaker:'Cause if you are not aligned to what's happening, you can be driving towards
Speaker:efficiency and, and effectiveness.
Speaker:But actually it's not what the market's driving for at the moment.
Speaker:So you find your outer kilter and therefore you can end up with all
Speaker:sorts of financial problems, purely because you haven't understood the
Speaker:environment in which you operate, which is, you know, it's old
Speaker:anti, but it's, it's where people.
Speaker:They, they, they seem to not learn.
Speaker:And yeah, we talked about an example on the destructive side.
Speaker:What's an example that you've seen on the constructive side?
Speaker:some local councils.
Speaker:you know, they, they can't like get it for a period of
Speaker:time and then, then they don't.
Speaker:And this is obviously local councils in the UK where effectively, uh, from central
Speaker:government, they devolved some powers.
Speaker:Those powers mean that the, the local government then acts in the interests
Speaker:of the local community who then see that actually this is good, which
Speaker:then allows them to vote more for.
Speaker:So you end up with this, this sort of collective.
Speaker:And you see it, uh, sometimes through the planning, um, system where actually
Speaker:the planning is aligned to what the community wants and what the community
Speaker:wants is aligned to what the government wants and what the government's getting
Speaker:is enabling the local communities to get more housing and it solves a problem.
Speaker:Um, but it's, it's rare to see.
Speaker:And this is the thing, because so often there's individuals who have particular
Speaker:incentives, and those incentives mean they believe their, their own judgment skills
Speaker:and their own experience over actually wanting to find people to spark off
Speaker:and find conflict again to your opening phrase, which I agree with completely, you
Speaker:know, we're, we're not good at conflict.
Speaker:We don't like it.
Speaker:We see it as negative, not as positive.
Speaker:Well, I mean, you know, another example for me is if you, if you look at the
Speaker:European Commission, they've put a lot of regulation in place, especially around
Speaker:financial markets for sustainability, um, and encouraging businesses to be
Speaker:transparent on, you know, what they're doing about the climate, what they're
Speaker:doing about diversity, equity, inclusion, what they're doing about, um, making
Speaker:a positive contribution to society and how they, you know, exemplify that.
Speaker:Whereas obviously in the US you've got the whole anti-environmental social
Speaker:governance because people think that they, you know that investing in those types
Speaker:of businesses actually destroyed their financial, uh, worth and, and wellbeing.
Speaker:And so you've got a whole load of states now writing this anti
Speaker:legislation, um, against that, um, you know, making investment decisions
Speaker:based on that, on that basis, which then doesn't deal with the climate
Speaker:change issues, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker:So it is almost like you can see the constructive and the destructive in
Speaker:that, in, you know, the regulator saying, look, we've got this climate
Speaker:change issue, let's force everybody to disclose and be transparent.
Speaker:And then people may start making, you know, irrational decisions, and then
Speaker:you've got a whole load of legislation coming in that's destructive around that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:fear, uncertainty, and doubt sale.
Speaker:It's one of the, the fundamentals of humans, fear,
Speaker:uncertainty, and doubt sells.
Speaker:And Larry Fink, um, I posted a piece out the other week.
Speaker:Um, he's, he's, he's basically seems to have mandated a number of his teams
Speaker:that the essence of ESG is really good.
Speaker:So he's not to lose the essence and the purpose and the understanding
Speaker:of ESG, but do not use the words ESG, because it's become so
Speaker:politically divided and detrimental to, to what's actually happening.
Speaker:So, um, as far as I understand, yeah, he's, you know, if you go back to his
Speaker:letters that he is been writing for a few years, and actually oddly when
Speaker:he'd started writing them, and probably about 2019 one was, was, was absolutely
Speaker:super because it had an intent.
Speaker:And what, again, I think the simple linear narrative of ESG has done is tried
Speaker:to boil down complexity into something which it wasn't, and there was an intent.
Speaker:Are we doing the right thing?
Speaker:And what ESG has determined is that, you know, effectively an oil company,
Speaker:which we don't believe is doing the right thing, is now doing the right thing.
Speaker:And therein lies, I think the fundamental that, you know, should
Speaker:actually an a oil company be able to have an ESG statement at all?
Speaker:And it's a really, these are the questions we don't like because we want democracy
Speaker:and therefore everybody to have the same.
Speaker:And I, you know, it comes back to the conflict point, doesn't it?
Speaker:It's, you know, it's, you've got a whole industry that has basically
Speaker:fueled the progress of society, and you've got, you know, literally
Speaker:thousands of people that make their living from that on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker:And it's something that's not going to go away for a very long time.
Speaker:And there is a, you know, compassion that's needed for those people to help
Speaker:them transition to the new future.
Speaker:Um, and, you know, there's a whole load of ego, power, caught up in
Speaker:that, around what, you know, how does that happen and you know, what,
Speaker:what, what does that look like?
Speaker:Um, and again, it's that point of, well, we could get really raging
Speaker:about that, um, and say, well, these are the people that have destroyed
Speaker:the future for future generations.
Speaker:Or we could get passionate about it and say, well, you know, how do
Speaker:we help speed up this transition?
Speaker:What does that look like?
Speaker:How does that happen?
Speaker:Totally agree.
Speaker:Brilliant.
Speaker:I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll add one further, which is, it's democracy is a lie in
Speaker:the, in the framing of sustainability.
Speaker:And the reason democracy is a lie in the framing of sustainability.
Speaker:Sustainability needs you exactly what you said, Julia to act in the
Speaker:incredibly long term, so you need to be acting in 50 to a hundred years.
Speaker:Democracy, people are gonna be voted back in this year,
Speaker:next year for four years time.
Speaker:And therefore, they have to come up with policies which affect people
Speaker:today and for the next four years.
Speaker:And there isn't anything on the planet, which is in
Speaker:sustainability, which is today.
Speaker:And therefore we have this, we have a way of providing power to individuals to take
Speaker:office, which is not supporting anything that we need to do in the long term.
Speaker:So democracy is fundamentally broken through the lens of the idea of how
Speaker:do we make a more sustainable planet.
Speaker:Well, and as you said earlier, you and I are starting the pledge
Speaker:here and now to get rid of.
Speaker:The word sustainability as, uh, as we, as we, we don't wanna
Speaker:sustain what we've currently got.
Speaker:We wanna generate, we wanna generate something new.
Speaker:We wanna have generative leaders.
Speaker:We wanna have generative, you know, gen, generative in nature.
Speaker:That is gonna be the 5,000 year view, not to sustain the, the status quo.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't want, yeah, it's, it is one of the odd, that's another issue
Speaker:of sustainability is a lie, which it absolutely is, but it's the democracy
Speaker:piece, which is really interesting for us.
Speaker:Um, where, you know, we, we actually don't have a choice but to go through
Speaker:democratic voting and therefore we are taken down a path that we have to
Speaker:elect somebody who is effectively going to, market to people who will, enough
Speaker:people who will get them into office.
Speaker:So they have power, based on whatever process they can.
Speaker:And therefore, unless the entirety of the population decides that
Speaker:sustainability is important, or we're kind of like stuck and I don't dunno
Speaker:how to break that problem today.
Speaker:Um, and if somebody tells me how to support them in that process,
Speaker:I will just get behind them.
Speaker:You hid it.
Speaker:You heard it here first.
Speaker:If you didn't know already, democracy is dead.
Speaker:Well, and, and I think we're seeing it, aren't we?
Speaker:You know, where we've, we've not been able to form a government here in the
Speaker:UK, there's been a lot of issues in the US, um, and, uh, you know, the,
Speaker:the European, uh, system, you know, maybe it's just become outdated.
Speaker:Maybe this power, agency, influence, um, you know, peace
Speaker:is not working for us anymore.
Speaker:Uh, yeah.
Speaker:Um, uh, one of the other chapters in the book, I talk about this, the, the,
Speaker:um, the issues are, uh, in the s-curve, but the s-curve is redrawn drawn as,
Speaker:um, certainty of outcome and ubiquity.
Speaker:And as you go up the s-curve, you go from innovative, bright idea to commodity.
Speaker:But, um, all of that is about, is what matters is the transitions,
Speaker:because that's where things break.
Speaker:And if you look at democracy, actually all it was is another transitional methodology
Speaker:of governance over a period of time.
Speaker:And we probably are starting to see the transition to something new.
Speaker:I dunno what the new is, but it, it, it's got to emerge, um, if
Speaker:we're going to be in a better place.
Speaker:Now, it doesn't mean that the end game is going to be the next thing, and it doesn't
Speaker:mean what we had before us wasn't great.
Speaker:What it means is what we're living through right now is not fit for
Speaker:where we are going in the future.
Speaker:And that's just a recognition of change, not that actually
Speaker:there's any right or wrong to it.
Speaker:Well, no, that's the other thing as human beings we love to do, isn't it?
Speaker:We love to say, well this is good, this is bad, and judge that.
Speaker:Um, whereas if we met, if we sort of evolve to a much more neutral state
Speaker:of, uh, you know, being able to see that there different choices for
Speaker:different moments with a different context, um, that we might be able to
Speaker:hold that a little bit more lightly.
Speaker:But then where does anger, uh, come in and that passion?
Speaker:Because actually we can't like something to disagree with such that we can go and
Speaker:change it and actually have that focus.
Speaker:So yeah, the joy of this is that generative leadership and everything
Speaker:you've been exploring through this entire series wrestles with these
Speaker:questions because there's nothing easy about it and it's actually,
Speaker:we need more time to wrestle it.
Speaker:So I actually love what you're doing because it helps me wrestle with it.
Speaker:So, uh, my support is please keep doing this 'cause I love them.
Speaker:Wonderful.
Speaker:Well, Tony, thank you so much for your time today, and I know that
Speaker:we could do probably a podcast on the how many chapters in the book,
Speaker:chapters.
Speaker:10 chapters.
Speaker:So that could be a 10 podcast, uh, series that would love to keep exploring with
Speaker:you, especially when the book is actually out and people can look at it in turn.
Speaker:So thank you so much for your time today, Tony.
Speaker:Thank you Julia.
Speaker:What a fascinating conversation with Tony, and he's certainly been
Speaker:looking to really unpack these words and find out what their meaning is.
Speaker:There's so many opposing forces.
Speaker:I'm wondering if you can think of your own examples of seeking
Speaker:power agency and influence.
Speaker:And I took away for me to think about in my own sphere of life,
Speaker:how I can discern the different actors and if the relationships
Speaker:are destructive or constructive.
Speaker:It's certainly been one that I've been reflecting on and
Speaker:it's not always easy to unpack.
Speaker:The other area to think about is what insights that reflection might
Speaker:have you move from destructive to constructive in your relationships.
Speaker:If
Speaker:you've enjoyed this episode.
Speaker:And you think someone else would too, please feel free to share it.
Speaker:You can do that at generativeleaders.co or on any podcast platform
Speaker:that you choose to listen to.
Speaker:Thanks for listening and look forward to seeing you next
Speaker:time on Generative Leaders.
