Learning and Leading in a Regenerative Economy - A Conversation with Graham Brown-Martin

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

We could end up with effectively a Great Depression, perhaps greater than the last Great Depression, or it could be the Great Transformation. The pandemic has created this global pause. It's impossible not to reflect and think about what might be important.

In this episode, I'm joined by Ulrika Suan from Guide and Lead, and we speak with Graham Brown Martin, who is a hugely inspiring and restlessly innovative thinker and leader who has been challenging and disrupting many industries years before it was cool and mainstream to do so. As Graham continues to evolve his fascinating career in education, technology, and entertainment, he weaves together the social, economic, political, and technological trends and adds a bit of his own unique and anarchic take to keep everybody on their toes. Graham is the author of Learning Reimagined, the best-selling book on global education, and he's the founder of Learning Without Frontiers, a global community bringing together renowned educators, technologists, and creatives to share provocative and challenging ideas about the future of learning. More recently, Graham has co-founded Regenerative Global with William Rankin, a transformative learning consultancy based in London and New York. And today, Graham runs a strategic insight and leadership coaching practice to help organizations and their leaders navigate the future and achieve their goals and maintain resilience. I really hope that you enjoy this conversation and engage with us as we continue the dialogue. Hi Graham.

Hello there.

Hi Graham.

Hey, good, very good.

Very nice to meet you.

Yeah, likewise, likewise.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I don't know whether you retweeted something or someone I'd seen recently, Ulrike and I were talking about it, just the idea of the conservative forces that are kicking back in strongly because we have this sense of existential or psychological threat surrounding us right now, and it's invisible and we can't quite get our heads around it, so it pushes us back into this more conservative space.

Well, it's different kinds of behavioral responses to change and to, as you say, unseen enemies and all that kind of business. And so, you know, I don't think we all do the same thing, but I think that we have a choice between the sort of continued nationalism. I mean, that was happening, wasn't it, anyway, before pandemics? I mean, you could point at large tracts of the Western world at the moment that has gone into the sort of nation first, which leads to a sort of isolationism, which is kind of odd when you think about, you know, global threats— that it's a global threat, I mean, and yet you would go into the sort of nationalism. Because we were riding a wave of populism anyway, yeah, it fits quite well into that narrative. You know, it must be somebody else's fault. For causing this.

I mean, it's also a clear justification for more kind of interventionist approaches, right? I was reading Charles Eisenstein's Coronation. He talks about the speed of the change around coherence. So once you've got coherence around an idea, and maybe, you know, in this case, the idea is we've got to beat this invisible enemy, but whatever the idea is, if there's really strong coherence around one idea, then the pace of change is just immense because people are in complete agreement of what needs to be done. And then it's like lots of hands all jump in to try and create new ventilators or whatever it is.

So yes, I think there's a, there's a couple of points that come from that, of course, is that this idea of purpose, you know, like organizations that have purpose. If you know why you exist is a filter for decision-making.

Yeah.

And so if you get people galvanised, say, to a coherence or to one particular path of action, they build ventilators. That's positive. On the flip side of that, of course, is the idea of groupthink, you know, and not reflecting on what got us here in the first place.

Yeah.

What were the things that we were doing as a human society that gave rise to this latest in a long line of warnings?

Absolutely. You know, you call yourself a catalyst, right? I was reading your piece, a catalyst of thought and action around innovation and transformation. So we need you right now in terms of, you know, I see a lot of discussion happening about the new hope or, you know, I don't know whether you saw the Tom Foolery poem about the great realization. You know, there's a lot of rhetoric around suddenly this is really a significant moment for positive change, which is reflecting on how we got ourselves here. So do you share any of that optimism?

There was a time when we had a communication and you told me that innovation and creativity has the potential to create a fairer society. And this goes pretty much to this positive notion that Tim Logan mentioned. So maybe you could explain on how you think this change might happen.

Okay, I'll try and bring those threads together. You know, we could end up with effectively a Great Depression, perhaps greater than the last Great Depression, or it could be the Great Transformation. The pandemic has created this global pause. It's caused a pause in our way of life. It's impossible not to reflect and think about, you know, what might be important. And the natural response is to try and return to what it was before. I mean, there's some interesting things happened as a result of this pandemic. I mean, in the UK, for example, the health minister said, you know, made this great, great, a great hoo-ha over saying that people that worked in our National Health Service wouldn't have to pay for their car parking during the pandemic. I thought, seriously? We had to wait for a pandemic before social care workers and health workers didn't have to pay for car parking to go to work? And then of course there was the local councils had 48 hours to home the homeless. It took a pandemic for that. So there's a lot of things that made us think about, okay, what can we do to solve this problem together? This pandemic is a latest in a series of warnings that we've had. I mean, just 2019 alone, very significant. One of the wettest years on record, one of the warmest years, you know, the permafrost releasing carbon into the atmosphere, record levels of ice sheets falling off of the Arctic, Australia on fire, you know, but that didn't really make us think about how we were living our lives. And now a pandemic, which was almost certainly a result of us encroaching as a species, encroaching on other ecosystems. Systems in some form. So there's a lot of indicators about the way we live our lives globally are not optimal for maintaining our one and only home. And I'm not sort of suggesting we all sit around saying 'come by argh', but I mean, it's actually— this is where we live. And I'm just saying that we have this opportunity now, and whether we turn left or right now is going to be hard.

But this opportunity is not only a technical opportunity, right? It's a human opportunity as well to actually balance things out. I mean, all the three of us, we have strong connection with Africa, and I also think about the chance that actually those societies that are now on the, let's say, bitter end could actually offer solutions for our societies right now. We discussed it the other day, Tim Logan and I, about going away from individualism in the West back now to somehow community feels something that those societies have already. So I don't know, do you see a chance there where maybe these societies can actually overtake the West in a certain way?

There's a sort of old saying that used to say, you know, if they go high-tech, go low-tech, if they go low-tech, go high-tech. And I think the conditions around us could present situations where other ways of living, other ways of being are more optimal. So I think that there are those possibilities. But I'd rather pick up on the theme. I think that we have seen a century of the individual and individualism, and that was very much kind of a theme that came after the First World War and certainly after the Second World War. And it's interesting looking at the work of people like Edward Bernays, the American propagandist and American nephew of Sigmund Freud, who came up with the whole notion of public relations But the point was that this was in order to sell products. It was this idea of this birth of the individual. It was a construct. But we need to ask, what is the economy for? Is the economy there to suit the individual? Do we have an ever smaller number of people or corporations that that benefits? Or do we look at it from a different perspective? I mean, we use economies as a way we manage scarcity, and that does end up being a sort of shaping of our of our beliefs and shaping of the way we live our lives and so forth.

But do we not set up the economy around the idea of scarcity because of our kind of epistemological idea of the fact that we are rationally separated from the material world?

Yeah, I think that's a fair, a fair point. So I think that, you know, when we're talking about the idea of, you know, is this going to be a Great Depression or a Great Transformation? A Great Transformation could be And this is hopelessly idealistic, this idea about moving towards a more circular or regenerative economy that supports not just the human beings, but all of life. And that would be everyone, not just people in the Global North. That would include everyone. But I think where I see a glimmer of hope to get to— I think the framing of the question really is, you know, you've got Generation Z, you know, the sort of 9 to 24-year-olds. There's 2.5 billion of them on the planet. You know, when I was born, there was about 3 billion people on the planet total. And I'm not that old, but I've got a couple of Generation Z. I've got a 14-year-old and 19-year-old. Not to make me an expert at all, but I think about them is that I can qualify the fact that they are just like ordinary teenagers. They have all the sort of challenges that teenagers have, but they do seem to have a plan to change the world. And it's a bit of a cliché, but the Generation Z icons, your sort of Greta Thunbergs and Malala and so forth, I mean, activism for education, activism for climate. And I'm not fetishizing that generation. I'm just saying that because that generation obviously impacts the generations ahead and before and everything else. But the point I'm trying to get to is 2.5 billion of them makes them the world's largest consumer group. So as they mature, as they begin exerting their impact and their influence on the economy and capitalism, I suppose, by what they buy, I think that there's going to be a scenario where that combined with the existential challenges will drive certain consumer behavior. And so what I'm saying here is an argument that suggests that companies, organizations products and services will change, will be redesigned, will be reimagined. And this is this idea of a regenerative economy. And if we think about that, you could be in a situation where, look, from all kinds of— let's take white goods like a washing machine, okay? Well, here's this washing machine. It uses a huge amount of water and detergent and everything else, a lot of electricity and so forth. And the processing and making of it is very damaging, and it's just, you know, you throw it away, it gets land— I mean, all the kind of things that we know about white goods today. Whereas, you know, there's an opportunity for innovation where there's another white goods manufacturer goes, actually, look, this one just uses a pint of water, uses a condenser, it puts that water back into the system, uses less detergent, less electricity, and we built this— we built this device using circular economy principles. Now, obviously I'm simplifying that beyond belief, but my point is, if you were giving product A, product B, there's a good chance that the Gen Z consumer will buy the product which is the most circular or most regenerative in its design principles. Now, and I think that that's where we get into this kind of golden age of creativity and innovation. And it's a sort of a stimulus which is based around, look, these existential challenges are happening. How do we get the economy to shift in that way? Now, on the one hand, yes, it would be great to have the sort of realization and suddenly flip the switch and then we all quickly go and redesign everything. But I don't think that's necessarily going to happen after this pandemic. I think that it's a bit like after 2008— during the 2008 banking crisis, you know, people thought all kinds of things would change afterwards, and some things did, but most things didn't. And I think that, you know, whilst I would like to see significant changes in the way that we live on this planet and go towards, you know, greater responsibility to other inhabitants, I don't think that's going to happen overnight. I think it will come through existing mechanisms. And this idea that we have this very large consumer groups coming through, and it's not just what they buy, it's also how they vote as they come to power and so forth. And I think that makes me optimistic. I think I have to be optimistic. I think you have children, you have to be optimistic.

Sure. No, absolutely. But also you've got those Gen Zs involved in their own learning, training, experience of education, for example. The MBAs that they might be going through, you know, they're not just consumers, they're also producers and future leaders of the companies that are making the decisions to build products in more regenerative and circular ways. Do you see any change or, you know, any cause for optimism in terms of the way that those systems are also working? So, you know, are some of these ideas of regenerative leadership and regenerative economies feeding into, for example, our business schools and our higher education?

I think they're beginning to. You know, each, each generation comes through has their, has their calling in a way, doesn't it? I mean, the work of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, for example, is quite far-reaching. You know, that we are seeing circular economy, regenerative economy design principles moving into that because there are substantial cost savings of this as well. I mean, it's like, you know, the idea of keeping resources in use. This is my point, is you're sort of using the metrics of capitalism and the stock market and so forth. In the process, I mean, actually leveraging those. So rather than it becoming a cost, it becomes actually a way of generating increased profits.

I mean, you can say the same thing with agile transformations in organizations. You know, we've been thinking a lot about agility in terms of transformations within schools and learning systems. But, but if you look at it in, in what's been happening in organizations, you've got the argument that it's about increasing productivity. On the one hand, but actually there's something much, I would say, much more interesting and important going on in trying to build, you know, organizations that really value the people working in and create nurturing environments where people can really come and bring their whole selves to work. And, you know, the kind of teal organization idea from Fred Laloux, that doesn't come from the logic of let's just be more productive.

Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. Now, what I'm suggesting is, is not about being more productive. I'm just suggesting that there are other reasons In addition to creating products and services which have less negative impact on our planet, there are benefits beyond that, because what tends to happen is, is if we want to get the system change, we have to look at the existing metrics in place. Because I think if we just say, well, look, we need to shift to a circular economy, regenerative economy, because, because we should— now, there might be lots of reasons that morally we should, but actually we do operate within a particular commercial framework and we have to look at those levers to make that happen. I mean, I wish it wasn't like that, but I'm just trying to think about how do we get to where we need to be.

I mean, that's the exact reality of the current situation, isn't it, is that people don't actually change until they really have to. You know, the idea of telling people that they need to change is just clearly doomed to failure, and it's just repeated on a cycle.

Yeah, and you get running to all kinds of lobbying groups and everything else. But as you say, if you just tell people what they can't do, it's going to take longer to get change to happen, if change happens at all. I think it's, it's better to provide alternatives that perhaps are better.

I just wonder whether there's a connection there that we could make in the types of leaders and, and the types of approaches to leading others or leading ourselves that, that we might make. And maybe you could talk a little bit about why have you decided now to pick up that idea of coaching and more actively use that approach rather than a different type of leadership style.

Yeah, I mean, so part of my background outside of education has been building fast-growth startups. You know, I did my first business when I was 21, I think. But the management style that I used was always very much trying to be less hierarchical and much more enabling. Now, you know, you have to speak to people that I've managed in the past to sort of see whether it was actually successful or not. I don't know. I think sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. But I suppose the thing that attracts me to coaching is that in some ways it's the opposite of teaching. And the kind of coaching that I practice is relational coaching. So it's about what happens in the space that you create and co-create with someone. And I work from the basis that my coachees, you know, they already have the answers. I just help them find them, really. And it's the coaching thing is— makes a bit of difference. And so in the past, I've been paid to speak to speak, and coaching is more about being paid to listen. So that's quite a new skill that I'm developing. But I think that coaching in particular, it's how to help people build resilience, how to help them achieve their goals, and find— from managing from within or leading from within. I think that it's interesting looking at how we grow companies and organizations. Is that, you know, there's a real difference between leading and managing. And, you know, I think people don't like to be managed. I think it's quite hard to manage. And there's a lot of sort of approaches to organizational design and structures. We go back to late 19th century, early 20th century, you know, people like Frederick Taylor, Ketley, and you can see how that kind of transformation of craft production to mass production, the idea that you could measure everything and then sort of roll it out like software, you know what I mean? And from that we got the idea of human resources and human capital, and this notion that you create management, you could describe a job and you could, you know, the absolute description in there with a job title and everything else. Now that was absolutely fine, I suppose, for most of the 20th century, But of course now in the sort of fourth industrial revolution with sort of AI and automation, those cogs that we were describing have actually been replaced by cogs. Um, you know, so I, I think this is interesting coaching as a management style or as a way of leading is that sort of idea of leading from behind in a sense. And it's that notion that what we're now doing is looking at what is What is unique about being human? What are the— what are the diversity within humans? And that doesn't really necessarily work well in that sort of managed approach. So the work that I had been doing with a number of organizations, having run organizations myself, I mean, I found myself in a situation where, you know, when I was running businesses and organizations as a young man, it was incredibly lonely. And I found it very hard to find places where I could share ideas. And because I think, you know, when you're running a business as a founder, the assumption that you, you have all the answers. And so as I got older and I started working with other organizations, particularly working with some startups, I realized that founders didn't really have many places to go for that kind of work. And I found that that sort of combination of mentoring and coaching was valuable to those organizations. And so I've been developing a practice in that area. We'll see how successful that is in time. But I mean, back to the point about can we help leaders think about the, the world differently? I mean, I think they already are, and I think what I do is, is to help them in that process, but as I say, find the answers within them.

Yeah, someone described it really nicely to me, the idea that the complex problems that we just see everywhere they can't be solved by individuals. So that idea that you are looked to as a founder of a company for all the answers, that may have been legitimate X number of years ago, but now looking around, you know, the problems that organizations face or that we face socially will never be solved by individuals with the idea or the solution. They will only be co-created as a collaborative effort and therefore by definition you have to support a team to collaborate and be able to give and listen and share and build together. That strikes me as, again, as a connection to that way of working in terms of coaching and enabling, because you need everybody. There is no one individual with the answers anymore.

Well, I don't think there ever was though. I mean, I think the myth of the lone innovator The skill of people like Steve Jobs, for example, was to bring together incredible teams and have a certain sense of connoisseurship. I think this idea that all of the ideas came from him was not true. And you could go back to Edison or any of the people that we think of as the great innovators to know that those things happened as a result of teams and collaborative work. So collaboration isn't a new thing. Collaboration has always been necessary. For any endeavor. And I think that it plays out well, doesn't it, in Hollywood movies and Wired magazine, the lone genius, you know, but that isn't really how things happen. I mean, that's not how, you know, new ideas, new innovations occur. I mean, there was the photograph recently of the black hole, wasn't there? But it wasn't just one person. And also it was interesting as it wasn't an AI that did that. Do you know what I mean? AIs don't make scientific discoveries, do they? But, you know, we work with AIs to make scientific discoveries, so we work together. I mean, it's like 40, 50 people in creating that photograph, wasn't there? It was a massive endeavor. But that's the point, isn't it?

But I would still say that there is a shift in this, isn't it? I mean, I've been coaching now for about, what, 20 years? From all people from all walks of life, from CEOs of big companies and first-tier companies up to housewives and all kinds of people. But what I felt over the, over the last 20 years is that in the beginning when I started, CEOs would ask me how they can get better with themselves, but over the years now they are starting to ask how they can influence their team and guide their team in a different way. So I think that there is a clear shift, at least from my perspective, when working with the people.

Yes, I think that's, that's absolutely right. I think we're seeing, you know, the command and control approach to, to leadership, I think, is, is hopefully being diminished. You know, I think the coaching approach to leadership, I think, is certainly one that's becoming far more popular and certainly lends to better results when we're looking at leading as opposed to managing.

Yeah, but I would also hope that it's a gentler approach that also then feeds into a deeper kind of shift around, you know, maybe we can't just force things anymore, we can't command and control and push. Actually, we're repeating this pattern that that just has not worked, and maybe, you know, how can we find a more responsive and sensitive way to pull or enable conditions that allow things to grow in a more connected or regenerative or whatever word you want to use to describe it way.

Well, I think regenerative— we've used that term a lot. I've used it a lot in this conversation, and it's like organizations are sort of like fractals, Mandelbrot sets. You zoom in and you zoom out and they remain the same. I think that the idea of, you know, regenerative leadership is an interesting idea, which is— which creates more, which creates the conditions for growth. So you could use that term regenerative. I mean, it's like if you're producing a regenerative economy and creating products that design waste and pollution out and keep the resources in circulation and maybe add some more. We just think about the product there, but actually if you run an organization like that, which generates more and creates conditions for growth, I think that's an interesting idea as to how to achieve that. I mean, I'm not sure I have the answer, but it's, I think, as a goal, And I think that's also the thing about coaching, is a form of regeneration. Yeah, it's, you know, that's why in a coaching and a relational coaching situation, it's a, it's a shared space, it's a co-created space, it's the space that we create together within that session to explore things. I think that's the, the value of a coaching relationship. I think that's, you know, that having that space within the leadership scenario is actually very important. And maybe that's the difference.

Yeah, very nice. Thank you so much, Graham. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Just to be able to connect and talk about ideas is what this is about for me.

I mean, it's brilliant. So hopefully this will be the first of many conversations.

Well, thank you very much. Yeah, no, I would, I would love that.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Have a lovely day, both of you.

Thank you so much, Graham.

Cheers. Cheers.

Bye. Thank you.

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