The Salience Podcast

Today on the Salience podcast we’re diving deep into the complex world of health systems—and the concept of synergy . As demands on health systems grow, leaders are often caught in the tension between delivering day-to-day services and driving systemic change. So how do they balance it all? Joining us to unpack these challenges is Helena Harnik, co-founder and Program Executive Director at The Syn...

In this episode of The Salience Podcast , we dive into the complex world of nutrition—where even the basics of what we should eat are hotly debated. From carnivore to vegan, low-fat to keto, the conflicting advice can be overwhelming, often driven by ideology or profit rather than science. The result? Declining health, rising chronic disease, and a society that still prefers quick fixes—like pills...

In this episode of the  Salience Podcast, we explore health and the relationships between personal agency and systems. As a society, we under-invest in preventative health in favor of big pharma and a medical model that focuses too much on remedies. Many people would rather take a pill than make the effort to eat healthy whole food and move well. Our guest today is Dr. Anita Shankar from John Hopk...

On this week’s Salience Podcast, we explore the benefits and pitfalls of role clarity through the lens of the Chief of Staff. A Chief of Staff is a relatively new addition to the C-Suite, with an express function to enable the rest of the C-suite to shine.  Our guest is David Hesse, who until recently was Chief of Staff at Kitman Labs. David describes how a Chief of Staff can unblock bottle necks...

On this week’s Salience Podcast, we explore safety through the intersection of human factors and systems. Our guest is Gareth Lock, founder of The Human Diver and bestselling author of the book Under Pressure: diving deeper with human factors. Before becoming a safety educator with a focus on diving, Gareth had a 25-year career in the RAF. As he started diving more and more, Gareth recognized he c...

On todays episode, we will be discussing what it is like to support the transformation of a 100 year-old institution with close to 100,000 employees across different countries. With me today is my friend Ian Macdonald. On top of being an amazing person to work with, Ian has over 25 years of experience in areas spanning entrepreneurship, communication, leadership development and strategy. He also h...

In this episode, we will be discussing what it means to facilitate strategic dialogue to work on intractable problems. With me today is practitioner of strategic dialogic methods, Marco Valente.  Marco is currently a Consultant and member of the executive team at Cultivating Leadership. In this role, he is working primarily as a coach with both individuals and teams, and as a facilitator of execut...

On this week’s Salience Podcast, we explore anthropology, sensemaking and complexity. Our guest is Ellie Snowden. For those familiar with the Cynefin framework and its developer Dave Snowden, well Ellie is his daughter. Apart from an enormous requirement for personal resilience being Dave’s daughter, Ellie has developed her own deep competency in the field of anthro-complexity and sensemaking.  El...

On this episode of the Salience Podcast, we turn our attention to the relationship between human factors, systems, and analysis of safety incidents and accidents. As you might imagine, a company with a name like Frontline Mind is intimately involved with frontline action. The agencies and people we specialize in work in fast-paced, complex, and at times high-risk environments. Inevitably, there ar...

On this episode of the Salience Podcast we return to cross-domain mapping, exploring how tactical leadership and decision-making taught in the military can be applied to start-up and scale-up challenges for business and as a way to accelerate change in frontline agencies. One of the biggest challenges for military-trained leaders is adapting to the radically different power structure of civilian o...

On This episode of the Salience Podcast, we explore risk and decision-making and consider what we can learn from fatal mistakes. In a number of our interviews, we have stressed the importance of safe to fail experimentation. This is of course the preferred way to learn. However, we can also learn from critical incidents that are not fatal to us. In today's interview we discuss one such profou...

On this episode of the Salience Podcast , we are exploring feedback and feedforward in the complex space of policing and investigations. We are joined in this episode by Lou Hayes, who is a 26-year veteran Police Officer & Detective for a suburban Chicago police department. Some of his assignments have included: Patrol, Field Training Officer, Criminal Investigations, Firearms & Tactics Tr...

On This episode of the Salience Podcast, we return to our origins unpacking the patterns of behaviour of extreme high performers, learning what we can to apply in everyday life work and the rest of life.  We are joined by Sara Stone. Sara is a professional sailor, and has sailed everything from dinghies to ocean racing yachts. She is currently in Barcelona preparing for the women's americas c...

On This episode of the Salience Podcast, we explore feedback and feedforward in the context of design and innovation.  We are joined today by Tom Kerwin. Tom has 25 years of experience as a leader in design, research and innovation. He’s co-founded two successful startups and worked both agency-side and in-house, coaching cross-functional teams to innovate. Tom is also the author of Innovation Tac...

On this episode of the Salient podcast, we journey into the world of mapping and explore the role of feedback and feedforward in navigating complexity. We are joined by Marcus Guest. Marcus is originally from the UK and is one of the small number of people actively developing adaptive strategy using Wardley maps. What's interesting about Marcus is his solid grounding in the science of complex...

On This episode of The Salience Podcast, we journey into the world of superyachts to continue our explorations of feedback and feedforward.  We are joined by Amanda Hewson-Beaver. We met relatively recently after Amanda reached out to collaborate on Resilience training, and we’ve just started a joint venture together.  Her story of adventure on the high seas reads like an inspirational novel. Aman...

On The Salience Podcast today, we continue our explorations of feedback and feedforward as a means of learning.  Today I am joined by Joe Byerly. Joe has had a long career in the US Army, he’s an active duty Battalion Commander, he was a non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and has provided strategic advice on warfare. Joe is also Founder of From the Green Notebook, which...

On the Salience Podcast today, we are exploring feedback and feedforward in the complex space of international development. Joining us in this episode is Milica Begovic, the Head of Strategic Innovation at the United Nations Development Program Millie and her colleagues are pioneering new ways of doing development that build countries’ capacity to deliver change at scale. She has been involved in...

On this episode of the salience podcast, we continue to explore feedback and feedforward.  Feedback is the flow of information about past events. It is the opportunity to review and learn from decisions and actions.  Feedforward is the anticipatory preparation for future events, it is the opportunity to orient ahead of time and to set up to test assumptions and biases through observations in real-...

On this episode of the salience podcast, we continue to explore feedback and feedforward. There are several different ways to create an effective feedback-feedforward loop, especially using different patterns of visualisation, with deliberate use of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person perspectives. As I started reaching out to various experts to interview for this season, I realised that no one uses 1st, 2nd...

On this episode of the salience podcast, we explore feedforward. A form of preemptive scenario testing and preparation to avoid events going wrong and to develop systemic resilience ahead of events going wrong.  In a return to learning from military leadership, I am joined by retired Navy Commander, Brady Turnage. Brady had a 20-year aviation career that culminated as the Commanding Officer of a c...

Today, on The Salience Podcast we begin Season 3 with an in depth exploration of feedback and feedforward. Feedback is the flow of information about past events. It is the opportunity to review and learn from decisions and actions. Feedforward is the anticipatory preparation for future events, it is the opportunity to orient ahead of time and to test assumptions and biases through observations in...

On this episode of The Salience Podcast, we conclude Season 2 with a deep dive into quitting. Our guest today is Annie Duke. Annie is a former world champion poker player and the best-selling author of Thinking in Bets , How to Decide , and her most recent book, Quit, the Power to Know When to Walk Away .  Tune in as we discuss managing exit risk from sticky or downright deadly situations when att...

In today’s episode of The Salience Podcast, we explore more of the tough topics of surviving workplaces with a deep dive into office politics. Our guest is bestselling author Niven Postma. Niven is an expert in organisational politics and the author of “ If you don’t do politics, politics will do you – A guide to navigating office politics ethically and successfully ”.She is a visiting lecturer at...

In this episode of The Salience Podcast we explore risk and culture and consider what we can all learn from the avalanche forecast industry.. Our guest today is Drew Hardesty. Drew has over 20 years experience as a backcountry avalanche forecaster at the Utah Avalanche Center, and 15 years experience as a Climbing Ranger in Grand Teton National Park. Drew is widely regarded as a thought leader in...