CHRIS MARSHALL TRANSITIONAL MATTERS PODCAST - FEBRUARY 2023
'If you’re someone interested in how the world is changing around us and new to Transitional Matters, then you should definitely check out the most recent episodes diving into innovation, disruption, and human progress with Nicole Yershon'
Thank you Chris Marshall #podcast #podcastshow #business #leaders #leadership #transformation #innovation #innovativethinking #intrapreneurship #entrepreneurship #commonsense #ceos #disruption #progress #beinghuman #culturechange
Are you ready for the change that‘s coming? This monthly podcast, Transitional Matters looks at trends, megatrends and transitions going on around us, inviting some of the greatest thinkers of our time to give their views of change and transformations and how they might play out in the future.
Transitional Matters Podcast with Nicole Yershon
Impermanence, Disruption & Rough Diamonds
14th Dec 2022 @ noon (UK)
Main talking points for the show
Background/intro: who is Nicole Yershon and what is NYC?
OK - First Question - Nicole Yershon. I’m a grateful human on an incredible journey. Continually thankful for every single experience I’ve had. It’s been challenging, but also I’ve been so lucky. My father always was and still is an incredible inspiration to me. He turned the media industry on its head.
As a result, I went into the creative (Advertising) industry and learned the hard way about what creativity is AND isn’t. I learned my trade with the greats - Dave Trott - etc. Later I founded the Ogilvy Innovation Lab. Realised that the Ad Industry is in the Financial Services sector, so when they realised how creative I was, they fired me so that I could get back into the creative sector.
And Second Question - NYC - The NYC is a collective that I've created to turn everything I’ve learned into goodness for the world I bump into or, more likely, bumps into me.
Add these two together, and I’m
Mother
Traveller
Babyfaced Assassin
Author 'Rough Diamond'
Speaker
Team builder
Solution finder
Semester of Learning program builder
Black book exploiter
Maverick
Brief taker
Experience developer
Bullshit destroyer
Plain language speaker
Educationalist
Talent coach
Researcher
Mischief maker
Connector
Convener
Empath
Seeker of leading-edge technologies that work to improve humanity
Fixer
Maker
Coordinator
Making the impossible happen
I spend my life turning disruption into an advantage in my life and for my clients!
2. The importance of innovators. We sometimes forget to stop, look back, and see how far we’ve come.
Yes, quite right. It’s a paradox.
These are the core realities:
UNDERSTAND THE HISTORY - Those trying to drag our clients into the future also need to know what happened before - but not be slaves to it.
IGNORE THE HISTORY - The worst place to design a future is from where we are now.
MAKE HISTORY - Factor in what already occurred, honour it - accept the truth that because something didn’t work in previous times; it won’t work now. Think hard about a strategy that will work. Make smart mistakes. Go hard.
Innovators have quite a responsibility.
Innovators have to make the business case that radical change isn’t radical.
Innovators have to convince the decision-makers that investment has to go to places they haven’t been
Radical change requires courage that many leaders just don't have.
Long-term thinking isn’t even close to the shareholder return on investment mindset.
The innovator has to change mindsets.
Leadership is key to innovation - but leaders find it hard to support innovation even when they've insisted on it (hand hits head!)
3. Understanding the world around us is understanding change. The status quo is a (comfortable) illusion. Progress means impermanence
I talk about perpetual reinvention. This simply honours the truth. Change happens over time. So we must change accordingly.
Figure out how to get the best out of the people when there is chaos and confusion, shifting dynamics and pressure everywhere - you know - real life.
Making a team that works in such circumstances isn’t easy. (Crack the code of how people work with each other - EQ allowed us to make it work at Ogilvy)
Get over yourself - find ways that work for the people doing the work
Shift working patterns to suit and collaborate with the team so the team figures out how best to make the team work - work.
4. Hyper-specialists vs generalists (expert humans) in a rapidly changing world
It’s a tough world. Not long back what we believed in were experts.
To the exclusion of pretty much anything.
Don’t get me wrong I still do believe in experts but they tend to specialise.
There’s a great and very true line - “Marketing is too important to be left to marketing people.” It’s never been more true. And you can replace the word marketing with every function of a business.
We now need practitioners - people that have real cross-functional skills and expertise/experience. And once they have determined the focus required in a given area and then bring in the deep expertise.
5. Diversity & the Rough Diamond program
I noticed something a long time ago - creativity came from crazy
Crazy meant people who didn't fit the norm.
The norm wasn’t what was needed if we wanted to be distinctive or unique.
The leaders kept hiring the norm
No matter how often you told them this made no sense the more they kept hiring them.
I clearly wasn’t normal.
Then I noticed my own son getting into trouble as he didn’t fit the norm.
The rest is history. The Book, The Courses, The School, and The Ogilvy Program. The results now sitting as Innovation Officers in blue-chip companies.
6. Embracing ‘new’. The Fearless Manifesto & getting ‘people comfortable with doing things that are uncomfortable
Starts with a Why? Why are we doing this like that? Perhaps there is another way? I met someone ten years ago who had another way. Perhaps I’ll connect with them and see.
It’s important to Ignite The Tribe - (Inspire, include, immerse equip, support - repeat)
Developing Nerve (Courage, dogged determination with charm)
Create Simplicity (KISS)
The Dawning of An Alchemist - (Connect, make mutual value, win, do it again, create ingenuity everywhere you go… Innovation +Creativity)
Take A Breath - (Reflect so as to realise what actually happened)
Work-Life Balance (There isn’t one)
7. What happens when you get out of your comfort zone?
It’s a Class A Drug
Try and keep it a secret
You assume people think you are nuts.
That’s a good tactic because they will leave you alone.
Magic happens.
You get used to everything being new.
That makes you uncertain but in a good way.
Learn how to seek forgiveness, not permission.
