Ep. 26 — Jason Barnwell — How To Build an Innovation Machine

Today on the podcast, I speak with Amba Gale, the owner of Gale Leadership Development. She has run leadership development programs for some of the world's biggest companies for the past four decades—something I find incredibly impressive. 

A previous podcast guest, Bill Weymer, recommended that I speak to Amba, who has worked with Bill and his team at Town & Country Markets. If you listen to my interview with Bill, you’ll gain a sense of how Town & Country Markets has built a culture of participation, sharing, creativity, and collaboration—and Bill told me that Amba was instrumental in creating a cohort of leaders there who grew that culture. 

In our conversation, Amba shares her thoughts about leadership (particularly the nature of leadership in the modern world) and talks about how to support leaders and transform organizations in an intuitive, human-centered way. We also talk a lot about vulnerability and the art of listening (really listening). 

I felt very present and grounded in this conversation, and it was an impactful conversation for me. I hope you take something from it, too. 

Find more about Amba Gale at https://galeleadership.com/. 
You can register for her free course that introduces her work:  https://galeleadership.com/next-opening-intro/.  
Read about her upcoming class called Crossing Thresholds: A Conversational Bridge to Your Next Opening: https://galeleadership.com/the-next-opening/.

Ep. 27 — Amba Gale — The Heart of Leadership

Today's guest on the podcast is Diane Chadwick-Jones, a safety executive who recently retired from her position as BP’s Human Performance Director after 30 years at the company. She was appointed the Director of Leadership and Culture at BP just days before the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. 

Regular listeners and those who have read Meltdown know that Deepwater Horizon was pivotal for me. Before it, I tended to think about complexity in the context of financial systems and global markets. After it, I saw clearly what kind of impact complexity can wreak on the wider world.

Diane and I don't talk about the Deepwater Horizon accident, and that's very intentional. 

But we did get a chance to talk about her approach to safety, what it means to be a systems thinker, the problem with (some) incentives, and building a culture of learning without scaring people off. 

Listen to the interview here.

The Breakdown with Chris Clearfield