Ed Gillespie: What can we do in these powerful times?
10:08AM Dec 1, 2021
Speakers:
David Bent-Hazelwood
Ed Gillespie
Keywords:
people
uncertainty
problem
podcasts
organisation
work
important
called
led
felt
incredibly
greenpeace
programme
regenerative farming
increasingly
senior leaders
question
big
years
businesses
In this interview series in 20 minute bytes, I asked some brilliant people what are they doing now and why? Or to inspire and enable the audience which may just turn out to be me through stories grounded in experience. Today's guest is Ed Gillespie. His Twitter bio says Father, inspirational keynote speaker and futurist, author and CO presenter of the podcasts, the great humbling and John Richardson in the future notes so welcome it. Pleased to be here. So, the first question is, what are you doing now? And how did you get there?
Quick, quick answer to a very long question. What am I doing now? So I mean, as you said, from the bio, you know, I do a couple of podcasts, one with Dougald Hind time from a dark mountain fame, and that was called called home and homage to the future notes, which is we call the Book of Revelations which is sort of trying to expose systemic problems in a pub conversation style away. I'm also a director of Greenpeace UK, trying to help radicalise the organisation which has increasingly started to feel like it's the moderate flank rather than the edge of nonviolent direct action, which always historically has been over its previous 50 years because of new emergent movements like extinction rebellion. I'm also facilitated with the Forward Institute on responsible leadership where I work with them very senior leaders, you know, one or two levels below C suite in 40, of the UK biggest institutions. also hoping to sort of try and radicalise and coach those people in a way that's very different to perhaps my historical career as a consultant. I often sort of jokingly referred to myself as a recovering sustainability consultant these days. Because I got here through a whole series of sort of humps and bumps because so So the third thing I also do is, you know, I'm involved in a dozen also different, ethical environmental startup businesses, that sort of entrepreneurial edge, sort of facilitation, activism, and investment in businesses which might help shape a better future. Got here, I guess through the usual trials of life.
An old friend said to me, a year or so ago, because he always had such a charmed life, always wondered if the wheels would come off at some point. And for me, that all sort of began. I lost my dad very suddenly in 2016. The IPCC report in 2018 in September that year, completely knocked me for six. I did some deep reflection on that and going, Oh, am I actually involved in changing anything?
And it sort of creeping, nagging doubt that actually what was going on was, I felt I was actually in defence of the status quo, despite my public, protestations to the contrary. And then, I said, essentially fell out with my business partner of 18 years over that kind of quite fundamental disagreement about whether we're actually moving the dial or whether we were part of the problem. And I wrote a big piece which you probably read, you know, on the numerator of consultancy sort of code and silence. That means we're not shifting things and
and then I lost my brother and I think that's the thing that hit me even harder. And for me that process of grief and transition led me into embracing a far more profound sense of uncertainty and being more comfortable with that. Not flogging myself in the way that many activists and sustainability strategist can end up doing like you know, if I'm not doing this work, then the whole world's going to hell in a handcart which is, you know, probably an ego lead type of statement. And to be a bit more comfortable with the uncertainty and trusting what is and so, I've sort of found myself in that classic, slightly wonky portfolio career of doing multiple different things. But I guess my approach these days is sort of to trust my heart and gut a lot more rather than the overriding logic and rationale of the head and to focus on like emergence and the and the awkwardness and sometimes the discomfort of uncertainty is an absolutely critical part of that.
So because you couldn't even a slot there, which is the history in that then there's there's three identities you gave us which was facilitator, activist and investor and then the last part of your answer was about the houses are about emergence. And resting in that uncertainty and not assuming that you're the hero of the story. Can you give us more about the house like because part of the thing here is on answering what can we do in these powerful times is how to discover what we can do in these powerful times. So I suppose I'm interested in how you rested in that uncertainty and came up with or discovered these three strands of your portfolio.
Yeah, and in a way, I'm not sure. It wasn't necessarily to do with any direct conscious planning on my part. You know, I think the how, I mean, that is the emergence piece, you know, perhaps I had to do the 25 years of work before that in order to have the foundation on which these other things could could propagate. But I think all of those roles have become more important to me as I've engaged with them. So if you like they've sort of grown and flourished. I mean, I've been on the board of Greenpeace for five years, but it's never felt more important than now. You know, the podcasts have literally come from conversations. You know, the great humbling was dougald and I still never been in the same room together. Because yeah, and has been aware of each other's work for a very long time. Finally, got on a call, and had such an extraordinary conversation together with that we were pretty much like I should probably record some of these because we're coming at things from such different worlds and also the Forward Institute. has become increasingly radical radicalised, I would say, you know, in some ways, it's a quite a sort of small c conservative type of organisation, trying to enable and facilitate change. But I've been pushing them, you know, to declare a climate emergency to focus on climate and ecological crisis as one of their major themes of work. And so it like classically, it's like from small seeds, big things grow. And so recycling back I wouldn't say necessarily, it's been a massive conscious how India has been trusting that these things will reach, you know, the point of efficacy.
It does sound as though one important part of that journey. had was I mean, a lot of work in sustainability and a lot of work in the world in general. Has this tension between improving the current and exploring the next. Yeah, that will replace the current and requires to some extent with the current status quo to be hospitalised into some kind of managed decline. And it sounds like in the last few years, you've made a choice to explore the next and replace the status quo, not be part of the problem. And I suppose I'm interested in how you found places where that can be a live conversation and live action, live activity.
Yes, really good point. I mean, no, absolutely thinking you know, it is about hospice thing. As Vanessa Andreotti would say, have some elements with that. I want to remember Vinnie Gupta saying something similar goes there's some businesses which are going to have to die and others which are going to have to kill which is not perhaps quite in the hospice, same territory. People kind of sort of thinking the task business sort of managed retreat. It's it's hard to have a read again, this is the sort of clarity piece. This is a clarity piece that I always come back to and I have very much focused on what's next. And also trying to dig down into the essence of what is wrong, so I'm not sort of dealing with the surface wind chop of different tactical elements. I'm going to give a TED X Talk on Monday night, where under the banner of you know how we're going to solve climate change, which was the theme of the event. And I essentially stood up and said, Well, if you think fixing and solving this is the approach then that's part of the problem, because it's not about that, you know, this is all these are all symptoms of an underlying malaise. And that can seem very obvious, but actually, it's very profound when you get into that failure of relationship at the deepest level, where it's all about power over one another or power over nature, and the perpetuation of, you know, individualistic, exploitative, extractive, industrial, colonial type of behaviours, and that's not to sort of get into some massive woke explosion, but it is to understand that unless you start to shift that bedrock of a sort of slightly decomposing culture, then we're not going to get the profound changes we need. And then the The analogy I used, I said, you know, if your solutions are often like telling loan women on the streets of London late at night when approached by a single police officer that they should flag down a bus or putting, you know, lids on the drinks in nightclubs to prevent spiking. You know, those are tactics, but they're not addressing the deeply problematic aspects of a culture that are actually the root of the problem. And I feel like that's where I'm at. It's I don't want to do the tactical stuff, as well intentioned, and as superficially satisfying there might be a you know, I want to I want to dig down
deeper so if we have a culture today, which is based on unhealthy relationships, between power between different people within the world between people and nature, do you have a guiding light or guiding star on the future you're trying to create?
Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm just been ploughing through David gravers new book with with David Wingrove. You know, the thought of everything. And I think what I'm feeling is they do a brilliant job of spiking this very reductionist, simplistic narrative that existing power structures and the way we organise ourselves and the inequalities and aspects that result or some kind of inevitable outcome or or consequence of human progress, that it's very linear and predictable, and that this is the the maturation of all of those things coming together. And what they sort of unpick in their book is going That's bollocks with that. It's just absolute bollocks when you look at history, you know, there are multiple examples on multiple continents have societies and cultures which have organised themselves in incredibly different ways without, you know, authoritarianism without monarchies, without even massive systems of centralised control, and they have often been very healthy and happy cultures now, Graber always obviously comes at it with this lovely, funny and acoustic anthropological view, but it's incredibly compelling. And I think that's where I am, is is like, there is no inherent need to accept this status quo. And the problems that arise from it as being the only model of organisation and possibility. And I guess I'm getting increasingly radicalised in my old age. Because I think this is about exploding people's sense of the possibility. I mean, that's what I always say, as a futurist, you know, my job is not to analyse and predict existing trends and, and tell you where we might be going. My job is to stretch the imagination of the possible and to say, I mean, very similar to your wonderful rallying cry from Your late wife. Go look over there, follow me. You know, it's like, I'd say, insight. And I think that's what Graber went to doing and what the truly radical thinkers now are doing and going I'm sick and tired of the sort of urgent pragmatism that says there is no time for moral awakenings or moral imaginings, because that headlong rush to sort of low carbon technical solutions is just a perpetuation of the same problems which doesn't address the kind of Maya beneath
so and then an interesting thing for me about what you just said that was it was clear on the problems of today's set up and want to explore over there and something different and perhaps inspired by some past examples. But when it comes to that stance to the future, one kind of stance is saying I can describe the future that we should be heading towards, follow me, or I can describe what I don't like about today, let's explore all the different possible futures and you're seem to be without necessarily, perhaps there's some values as some aspects and qualities that you can describe, but not much, much detail, and it seems to be that second stance that you're taking. Well,
that's true. I mean, I have the privilege and good fortune to be able to engage with a lot of big thinkers on this stuff. And we did an amazing interview with a guy called James Plunkett has a book out called end state, you know, nine ways society is broken and how to fix it and we joked about it on the podcast going, you know, sometimes those books arrive on your desk and you can't be bothered to pick that because that's the day job and it's a bit exhausting. But I opened it up. And you know, it's an incredibly inspiring book. Because what he did historically was going back and from his own sort of sanity, I think, is look at all of the intractable intractable problems of history and see how they were and understand how they were resolved, and also how they came to be, which is very similar to our sort of three questions on the podcast, you know, it's like, how fat are we why are we fighting tide? We unfuck ourselves. And you've been James's book and you come out of it going? Yes, because it doesn't matter whether you're talking about you know, sewerage in London or the invention of the weekend. Every single thing that we've been told was a brilliant idea in hindsight was essentially resisted as being unworkable, impractical, unaffordable, impossible. beforehand. And, and I think that's why like flagging these visionary possibilities, is so important. Because otherwise we end up with this sort of resigned acceptance and relative fatalism that this is the best of all possible worlds, and we should just lump it with all of real, all of the problems that come along with it. And I just don't think that's true. And certainly the last 18 months has been, I think, largely a missed opportunity for for re galvanising people into a better sense of what could be
Yeah. And but it is very much looking at all the possibilities we can get to from here, rather than we should definitely had an only this one direction.
No, no I think it is the many flowers bloom option coming off and sort of paraphrase William Gibson, who said, you know, the future is out there. It's not evenly distributed. Yeah. Someone like mendaciously tweet that say the collapse is out there. It's just not evenly distributed yet. But I think it's true. I, you know, again, you and I both David I have obviously been lucky enough to be able to see all sorts of little IP eautiful islands of possibility and projects and initiatives and things which, which do demonstrate and illustrate things very different ways. of doing things. I was involved in an event. I'm trying to get back involved in my in my local community where I've returned, you know, to my roots after 30 years away. I went to extraordinary event on last Friday night called reimagining the Waverly Valley, led by a sort of regenerative farming guru guy called Josiah Meldrum, you know, 100 people it sold out instantly. There was a total appetite for people to understand new ways of doing things new restorative and regenerative agricultural techniques producing better food. Locally more nutritious you know, more balanced, creating greater ecological resilience. And there was extraordinary energy in the room, you know, and it's moments like that, that you just go this is doable, you know, in all my kind of bitter hard won cynicism. You know, you go into an evening like that you think, actually, this is not always about the top down leadership. This is total grassroots emergence of people wanting to do things on the ground beneath their feet in a hyperlocal way. And all all of these are old tropes, you know, the kind of Think global act local, but I think they becoming increasingly important right now, in what is essentially the absolute dearth of any decent political leadership.
Yeah, I mean, I think I mean, it seems to me that there's pent up demand pent up energy which people don't know how to channel. That's one of the reasons why extinction rebellion was so successful. Coming out of the pandemic as people come as we're now moving into. Well, it's not really post pandemic but as we move into not being in lockdown as a necessary measure, I hope that energy can be released. So thinking a little bit more into the future then and also there's different aspects of your work facilitation activism, investing. What are your priorities for the next few years?
Well, I'm I don't have any money to invest anymore. That's done. So the inverse is working with those, that existing group of businesses and the facilitation pieces really is really interesting because, you know, there are now we're on cohort seven of the Ford Institute, which now means there are literally 400 or so senior leaders who have been through our programme and remain part of the fellowship. And I do believe that is, hopefully a sort of responsible leadership mafia that will start to be reaching incredibly senior positions of influence. And so that is a transformative agenda. And it's a big number of people. You know, and I think there is because it's across government, business and third sector. And we're bringing these unusual partnerships together. You know, by knocking people together who have been incredibly institutionalised and inward looking, but by stretching them out. I mean, for example, one of UK's biggest banks when he goes bigger supermarkets brought together you know, one is the biggest Lender of agricultural finance the other is the biggest purchaser of agricultural produce, not working together on inspiring and incentivizing regenerative farming, you know, two ways that money goes in and out and farm. Bringing those bodies together could actually be incredibly powerful. Yeah, because you know, those things weren't happening. So, I'm really excited about that. Those kinds of unusual unexpected partnerships and collaborations. And equally that applies to activism. I think, you know, we've still, we've still got a lack of coordination and collective endeavour. Across NGOs, in the climate and ecological space. And there's perhaps some good historical reasons for that, but I think the ally ship that needs to emerge now, and which is unfill I'm really interested in is, you know, how do you fund the support and accelerate lots of small nascent grassroots type groups in conjunction and in alliance with some of the more mainstream organisations, as I say, you know, Greenpeace Carver made a moderate flank. We have 200,000 active supporters, you know, but we also need to be working much more closely with with other more radical elements perhaps. And I think that's exciting. So, yeah, for me, it's always about stepping it up, but also focusing on this sort of this, the core elements of justice and restoration of healthy relationships underpinning them.
It sounds like also, you have a working hypothesis that there's gonna be more radicalization, that as the circumstances become more clear, that more and more people more and more institutions will become more radicalised, more or less wanting to protect the status quo more wanting to explore what's next. And then there's a second priority I hear in your work as well, which is about stretching people's imaginations on what's possible. And then there's that third thing the ally ship which is connecting between perhaps people who wouldn't normally get together whether it because they don't know each other or because they've traditionally been rivals, in what is it we can achieve by being analysed rather than being in conflict?
Yeah, oh, people are just too bloody busy. You know, certainly working with senior leaders. Most of our leaders are completely addled, overwhelmed, overworked, no reflection time, no ability to step out into something else. They've just got too much on all the time. And you know, that in itself is an inherent problem. So one of the things you know we do in the Ford issues is create those sort of Likud I have reflection and connection, you know, so to create that space, which is, which is very fertile when it happens. But, you know, we even have problems with that, you know, I can't come to a residential, it's like, you can't make time to come on the residential, you shouldn't be on the programme, because the whole point is we're going to have to do things which are not like specifically delineated by our data.
Yes. And so, in our last few minutes last few questions. If someone was inspired to follow your priorities, what would what should they do? Next?
I wouldn't recommend anyone that was inspired to follow my priorities. No, I mean, seriously, and I've had this conversation several times or two in the last week. My advice to people and it sounds corny, but it is follow your heart and gut. I tried something for my old school recently, you know that in that awful way, they get you to say, you know, what do you wish you'd known that that you know, now? You know, and I read so be quite provocative and saying, you know, school actually did me a massive disservice apart. From, you know, some of the qualities of my education but, you know, like most of us, they tried to stuffed me into a pigeonhole. I did our biology and chemistry a level and the school was adamant that that was insane, to try and do arts and science as a combination, but I mean, credit to my earlier self, I've dug my heels in and said, No, that's what I want to do. I want to keep the science and art working together. So I'm really glad I followed my heart. And increasingly, that is my that is my compass. Now, and I certainly don't mean that in a cheesy way, but you know, we don't use that embodied intuition anywhere near enough. And certainly, I see this in the responsible leaders I work with as well. You know, they're so cognitively sharp, because those are the strengths that have been favoured within their organisations. But something extraordinary emerges when you take them into a more embodied sense of thinking and doing and it's that heart and gut led intuition and compassion, which I think is going to be fundamental.
So that slightly preempts my next question, which was if your younger self was starting their career now, so it's a slightly different question. If they were starting now. What advice would you give them so there's follow your heart or have that embodied knowledge but is there anything else anything specific about what topics to work on what institutions to work in or to or whatever like, is there like how to get started, I
suppose, yeah, to get started. trumping what I would have done differently. I mean, again, I think this is about, you know, embracing the uncertainty, but also, you know, the world needs generalists. You know, I think, we're always told you know, find your specialisation find the thing that you've got a unique position for your own personal purpose, you know, the real specific value. I mean, I have been a jack of all trades Master of None for most of my life. And I you know, and I think having that insight across multiple sectors by chewing through different topics on my podcasts from working in Charles bought to food, you know, to to housing to finance it. That's the thing is it's the ability to weave a very different weft from your systemic understandings, which is absolutely critical. So, I guess, you know, the advice to younger, younger folk starting out is like, don't be afraid to experiment in multiple different sectors. You know, I think the notion of a so called career that follows a traditional linear pathway is not going to be helpful. So you know, jump around, experiment, try different things, move. You know, perhaps following that heart and gut intuition. But you know, get as much experience and insight as you possibly can, because it's that is that weaving in wefting, which is good, which is going to be important.
Great. And in our last two minutes last two questions. So who do you admire? Who do you think is brilliant and therefore I should ask these questions of, yeah,
I mean, one of my favourite people at the moment. Sam Conniff, he may know is the author of BMO pirates, who is running a whole programme around uncertainty and engaging with uncertainty experts. And trying to take us into, you know, a more comfortable relationship with uncertainty. And I think the work he's doing is incredibly powerful. And he's also experienced, you know, the absolutely implicit uncertainty and doing that work. Yeah, like, it's ironic. It's quite self reflexive. But I think that's quite
cool. Thank you. And then finally, is there anything else important around this topic of what can we do in powerful times that you'd like to say?
I was very struck by a conversation I had at the weekend with Barbara Patton, who's been a sort of xr strategist for the oil company communications guy with lots of hats. And he put forward a frame which was, you know, we always talk about the urgency of our task on on the climate and ecological crisis as it being five to midnight. It always seems to be five to midnight and never seems to move. We always sit down enough time. You know, we've felt like it's five to midnight in Copenhagen 10 years ago, and it's still five to midnight now. And he said, you know, something really provocative around, we're always claw back and to cling on to imagine salvation. And I don't necessarily agree with his position but as a kind of intellectual exercise in terms of challenging our own thinking. He said, Well, what if we accepted it was fine past midnight, and add to some of these things, you know, and certainly where the IPCC takes us in terms of inevitability and a degree of irreversibility, then would we act in a different way would that lead to a resign fatalism or would it galvanised us to have a very different relationship with the challenges in front of us? I said, I am still digesting that. But I found that a very, very powerful thought to reflect on Yeah.
Great. Well, thank you very much for that and thank you for being my first firstly, degree in the pilot for that was Ed Gillespie, and he was talking to what can we do in these powerful times. Thank you very much for listening. And I hope you'll join us next time.
