Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
Jeff Dewing
Welcome to Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors.
CEO of Cloudfm Group Jeff Dewing talks to entrepreneurs, business leaders and outliers about times they have "Done the opposite" by rejecting commonly held beliefs in their business or profession. They discuss the birth of the idea, the push back and revolutions that ensued.
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Top 10 Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
A panel discussion - Strengths and Strategies for Neurodiverse Workforces
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
11/29/23 • 48 min
Imagine working in an environment where your neurodiversity is not only recognised, but celebrated. That's the world we're envisioning in this special panel episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, where Jeff is joined by three experts in the field of neurodiversity:
Dr Jasmine Virhia is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Behavioural Science at The Inclusion Initiative, a research centre at The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Angela Pretner-Smith is MD of This is Milk and Founder of Neve Learning; a platform helps training providers and large organisations manage and deliver professional learning in a way that includes neurodiversity and is aligned with a future-focused education framework. Angela identifies as autistic and has dyspraxia.
Dan Maudsley is Senior Producer at the BBC who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and writes about his challenges as a neurodiverse employee.
Our panellists explore what neurodiversity may look like in the workplace; how it may present itself and how you, as a leader, can embrace the skills and opportunities that come with it. Jasmine highlights the benefits that neurodivergent staff can bring to your team such as the ability to hyper-focus, or the ability to identify creative solutions to business problems that someone else may not necessarily come up with.
Dan reveals the struggles he faced as an adult before his diagnosis and how the discovery of his ADHD changed his life at work and at home. “It was a real moment of clarity. I was suddenly able to do things I never, ever, thought I would be able to do.
Angela takes us through the variety of ways in which all people (not just neurodivergent people) learn. What accommodations can we make to maximise people’s ability to learn and how can we reduce stress that some may feel in trying to learn?
The traditional recruitment process for many workplaces doesn’t necessarily cater to neurodiverse applicants; interviews can cause stress and are often not an effective way of determining how well a neurodivergent person might perform in the job role. Jasmine offers some fantastic advice about how we could tweak the process to be more inclusive.“If you have an understanding of how their autism manifests for them in the workplace, you'll have a better idea of how you can really assess their skills in an equitable way, rather than judging them against other candidates or a skill set that actually isn't really measuring what they need to do”.
A common thread that runs through the advice from all our panellists is that adapting workplace culture to support neurodivergent people will benefit everybody. “These people that are underrepresented will perform to a level where they can excel; they're more likely to collaborate, they're more likely to communicate and they're more likely to show up with authenticity”.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors - The Best of Season 3
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
08/24/23 • 6 min
SEASON FOUR IS COMING VERY SOON
In the mean time, here's a little taster of some of the fabulous guests and insightful discussion with business leaders and game changers from throughout Season 3.
Featuring:
Sue Fennessey - Founder and CEO of WeAre8
Nazir Afzal - Chancellor of the University of Manchester, and former Chief Crown Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service
Simone Roche MBE - Founder of Northern Power Women
Sheila Callaham - Co-founder, Executive Director, and Board Chair for Age Equity Alliance
Dr. Vikas Shah - Entrepreneur, investor & philanthropist
John Mullins - Associate Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Entrepreneurship at London Business School
Season 4 will be launching very soon, so follow for free so you never miss an episode.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
Celynn Morin – Creating mental margin by listening to our bodies
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
04/19/23 • 29 min
In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Your Wellbeing Whisperer Celynn Morin. Celynn is a registered health practitioner, professional speaker and workplace wellbeing consultant who works with business leaders, entrepreneurs and their teams, sharing practical techniques and strategies on managing energy, health, performance and improving resilience.
Our bodies are constantly whispering to us and Celynn says we need to hear those whispers and respond to them so problems don’t build up and the whispers don’t turn to shouts or screams. This is why she calls herself the Wellbeing Whisperer. We should never underestimate our bodies ability to tell us that something isn’t quite right.
Celynn explains how she became an expert in workplace wellbeing, starting at a time when not many people were prepared to listen. She persisted in her vision and has seen a complete culture shift where now wellness and wellbeing are conversations being had in every workplace, and rightly so.
Celynn marvels at the brilliance of the human body as she discusses our three intelligence centres – the head, the heart and the gut. She also explains how looking after one of those centres can impact the others. Small lifestyle changes to improve your health can have massive effects in improving your overall wellbeing.
Jeff and Celynn also discuss the power and importance of downtime and reflection. Celynn explains how giving ourselves time to relax engages our parasympathetic nervous system, which enables us to discover powerful insights and reflections into what you need for your life personally and professionally.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
Rob Stephenson – Removing the stigma around mental ill health
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
07/29/22 • 33 min
In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Rob Stephenson, founder of the InsideOut Leaderboard and champion for improved understanding of mental health issues. Rob is an international keynote speaker and mental health campaigner who is on a mission to help create happier, healthier and higher performing workplaces.
When he was 30 Rob was diagnosed as Bipolar. Rob tells the story of how mental ill health affected him earlier in his life and how a former boss encouraged him to seek help, ultimately leading to a diagnosis. From a very dark time in his life, Rob reveals how the support of his friends and family helped him through it and how he now manages his wellbeing better through strategies such as exercise, ensuring good quality sleep and prioritising connections.
Rob and Jeff consider the importance of personal and social connections. With interaction with other people being such an important factor in maintaining good mental health, how can businesses and workplaces maintain those connections whilst embracing a more remote or hybrid way of working.
Rob is also the CEO of FormScore, a revolutionary technology start-up helping employees become more intentional about their wellbeing and helping employers with real-time wellbeing analytics. Rob reveals the story behind it, and how scoring your wellbeing out of 10 can be a simple, non-threatening way to share how you’re feeling and allow people around you to offer support when needed.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
Mandy Hickson – Failure fuelling change
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
01/24/22 • 18 min
In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Royal Air Force pilot Mandy Hickson.
Mandy was the first female fast jet pilot in a Tornado squadron. She’s amassed over thirty years experience in aviation, completing three tours of duty and 45 missions over Iraq during that time.
In this episode Mandy describes how failing at a critical point in her career empowered her to change the system of recruitment in the Royal Air Force.
She reflects on how her hand was forced into choosing a career path with no chance of promotion after the birth of her children and discusses the changing attitude to work / life balance in the workplace.
Mandy also shares what she’s most grateful for in her life and career, and her key mantra for success.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
Simon Alexander Ong – Mastering your Energy to Achieve Personal and Professional Growth
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
04/17/24 • 34 min
In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Simon Alexander Ong. Simon is an international Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author of Energize and Award Winning Life Coach. Through his coaching Simon helps leaders, entrepreneurs, organisations and celebrities to transcend perceived limitations and experience extraordinary transformations through the power of insight, perspective and energy management.
Simon shares his career journey, candidly explaining that he began by running someone else’s race. He started a career in finance as that felt like what society expected him to do. Alongside his job he discovered he had a natural passion for helping people in their day-to-day lives; a passion which ultimately led him to becoming a professional coach. His success led to TV work and the publication of his book. Simon reflects that ‘when you pursue the path that lights you up, that brings you joy you begin to open opportunities that weren't there before.’
Simon argues that energy management, not time management, is the key to productivity, and that there are four dimensions of energy: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Mental energy is about your mindset, emotional energy is about how you relate to yourself and others, and spiritual energy is about meaning and purpose. Simon explains that if you are energy rich, even if you are time poor, you are going to get far more done in those hours and days than others might in months or years. Energy gives you the momentum to be truly productive.
Simon discusses the impact of surrounding yourself with positive energy and inspiration: ‘the fastest way to make meaningful progress in any area of your life is literally to design an environment around you that makes it impossible not to succeed’. He goes on to describe how you can achieve this and enhance your workflow.
Simon shared the story of the Energise cocktail, created at the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair to compliment his book. You can see the cocktail being mixed here.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
David Allison – Demographics are Nonsense! Values are Key in Properly Understanding People
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
04/03/24 • 35 min
In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Human Values Expert David Allison. David is focused on changing how we understand ourselves, the people around us, and those we hope to engage with in our work. As the founder of the Valuegraphics Project – the first global inventory of core human values – he has transformed human values into measurable data and created an entirely new type of human-centric insights.
To what extent does your business or organisation rely on profiling your customer based on demographics? Are demographics an effective way of grouping people, or are factors such as age, race, gender etc broadly irrelevant when it comes to spending choices? David Allison discusses the limitations of demographic targeting and the importance of understanding and leveraging values in business and personal life.
David shares his journey from working in an ad agency to founding the Valuegraphics Project, which profiles target audiences based on core human values. David emphasises that values are the driving force behind decision-making and that demographics are an ineffective way to understand people.
Data can be incredibly powerful when it comes to deciding upon values. Values drive our every day decision making – if your business is struggling with staff retention, for example, the data could help you understand why. It’s very likely that your organisation’s values are not closely aligned with those of the staff who are choosing to leave.
David also makes the case that an organisation can’t have values. “The conversation needs to be shifted away from pretending that this inanimate legal entity called a corporation can somehow have values. It can't”, David says. “It can have a set of behaviours that we all adhere to”.
David’s book ‘The Death of Demographics’ is available now.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
Matt Alder – Levelling up your recruitment practices to benefit both the organisation and the candidates
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
03/20/24 • 48 min
In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Matt Alder. Matt is a podcaster, author, speaker and consultant focusing on innovation and technology in HR and Talent Acquisition. He is the host of Recruiting Future, one of the world's most popular talent acquisition podcasts, and over the last 20 years has built a reputation as a global thought leader, working with employers to optimise their talent technology strategies.
Matt explains how he discovered his passion for recruitment, and how he strives to utilise new technologies to make the recruitment process better for everyone – both businesses and candidates.
Matt shares his wisdom and expertise on the subject of recruitment, talent acquisition and retention. How can businesses find and keep the best people in order to grow? Matt and Jeff discuss the bad practice in the recruitment industry, from scattergun approaches to repeatedly replacing a single candidate. Matt explains how have these practices have become prevalent and how is the industry changing.
Matt offers a new approach when it comes to approaching recruitment. Matt suggests you shouldn’t hire a candidate purely on the basis of their skills or past experience, but also their ability to learn. “The shelf life of some technical skills is very short. So, if you're employing someone for the long term, it's their ability to fit in the context of that business, but also their ability to learn new skills and then grow within that business.” Furthermore, Matt highlights the importance of hiring people whose values align with that of the company.
Matt gives examples of businesses who have taken revolutionary approaches to hiring. Timpsons, for example, hired people straight out of prison to give them an opportunity, whilst also filling positions in frontline retail which are notoriously hard to recruit for. It was a win-win, and studies have shown that people employed through an open-hiring program were at least as good as the people who went through a process filtering by skills or experience.
Matt and Jeff also discuss retention – how business can better retain talent. One key area here is giving staff autonomy and flexibility when it comes to completing their tasks. Matt explains that many concepts surrounding our perception of work – such as the five day week – are old concepts that no longer apply. “We need a new operating system for work because we're working off something that may not be relevant for the world we now live in.”
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
Richard Medcalf – How to combine opportunity, inspiration and empathy into a positive lasting legacy
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
03/06/24 • 44 min
In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Richard Medcalf, Founder and CEO of Xquadrant, which works to help elite leaders scale and create exponentially greater impact, enabling them to make a positive dent in the world without anxiety and frustration. Richard has advised business owners and C-level execs for over 25 years.
Richard is all about strategy in business; helping leaders to achieve personally, professionally and for a greater good, ultimately leaving a lasting positive legacy. “If we have the opportunities, the resources, the skills, the ambition, the energy, - let's go and make a difference. You only live life once” Richard says. Richard is a firm believer that we should make the most of any opportunities we are given – not everyone will receive equal opportunity so you should make the most of whatever may arise. He tells the story of how he cared for his disabled sister, and how she became an inspiration and the motivation for him to achieve professionally.
Richard discusses the three games of leadership: playing not to lose, playing to win, and playing to play. He highlights the need for leaders to be strategic and magnetic, inspiring their teams and creating a culture of collaboration. Medcalf also emphasises the importance of seeking feedback and continuously improving as a leader. He encourages leaders to do the opposite and challenge the status quo to drive positive change.
Jeff and Richard discuss inspiration; how you can inspire your team and how you can become inspired yourself. You need to understand what moves YOU in order to be able to move others. Without being truly inspired yourself, you won’t be able to inspire your team.
Richard’s book ‘Making TIME for Strategy’ is out now. You can also listen to Richard’s podcast ‘The Impact Multiplier CEO’.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
Dr Mark Goulston - Transforming Pain into HOPE (healing, optimism, perspective, and excitement)
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors
11/01/23 • 47 min
In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Dr Mark Goulston, former UCLA Professor of Psychiatry, a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a former FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer. Mark is the inventor of of ‘Surgical Empathy’, an approach that enabled him during his psychiatric career to reach highly depressed and suicidal people during which time none of them died by suicide.
Dr Mark outlines the process involved in ‘Deep Coaching’; a method for people who have high amounts of potential, but something's holding them back. The process involves revisiting an extremely traumatic experience and using that to discover a breakthrough – changing your perspective on life with a dose of ‘healing optimism’.
Mark also reflects on a campaign he started during the pandemic: #WMYST – What Made You Smile Today? Next time you have an interaction with someone, ask them what the highlight of their day has been. That interaction alone will make them smile and feel seen.
Hear Dr Mark’s incredible stories about his time as a death and dying specialist, doing house calls to dying patients and helping them to make peace with their lives. The strategies he used led to some very powerful outcomes; strategies that can be applied to all of our lives. Jeff and Mark also consider the importance of healthy conflict and perceiving conflict as a powerful force for good.
Hosted by Jeff Dewing
Discover Cloudfm Group
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FAQ
How many episodes does Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors have?
Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors currently has 56 episodes available.
What topics does Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors cover?
The podcast is about Leadership, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Podcasts, Ceo, Leader, Business and Careers.
What is the most popular episode on Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors?
The episode title 'David Allison – Demographics are Nonsense! Values are Key in Properly Understanding People' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors?
The average episode length on Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors is 32 minutes.
How often are episodes of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors released?
Episodes of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors?
The first episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors was released on Nov 5, 2021.
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