Dr Margaret Heffernan

Alex Barker (0:02)

Hello, and welcome to Be More Pirate, the show that explores what it takes to rewrite the rules. I'm Alex Barker.

Sam Conniff (0:09)

And I'm Sam Conniff. And we're here to speak with modern mutineers who are willing to stick their head above the parapet for the greater good. We started this movement almost 10 years ago, inspired by the unlikely heroes of the golden age of piracy. And our mission ever since has been to inspire people to stand up to the status quo and find purpose and power in an uncertain world.

Alex Barker (0:33)

We'll be asking our guests how they've managed to sustain their self-belief while charting a different course, how they've built crews committed to their cause, and how they figured out which risks were worth taking. We know the world feels pretty tough right now. So let us introduce you to some pirates who are changing the game. It only seems right that we end the season with the godmother of uncertainty, Dr. Margaret Heffernan, an entrepreneur, professor and the multi award-winning author of seven books, including Salmon Mine's absolute favorite, Uncharted. But it seems somewhat wrong to introduce her by way of books, titles and accolades. Because as you'll hear in this episode, Margaret intentionally lives her life at the edges of the map in pursuit of anomalies.

Margaret Heffernan (1:16)

Everything we do depends on our creative capability. Strategy is an imaginative act. It's imagining what an organization or an economy or a society could be like.

Alex Barker (1:31)

Uninterested in fashion or fads, she mentors her students on how to effectively question and disobey norms. In this conversation, we discuss what she's learned about embracing uncertainty, the title of her latest book, and whether willful blindness has now become strategic denial. Margaret pulls no punches when it comes to leaders peddling outdated ideas. So, if you want to know how to live and lead well in an uncertain world, this is a conversation you'll definitely enjoy.

Welcome to our podcast. Really nice to have you here.

Margaret Heffernan (2:02)

Thank you. It's very nice to be with you guys.

Sam Conniff (2:04)

It's a total privilege for me too. I've always really looked up to your work. I referred to you as my spirit adult, because it seems to me each time I have what I've thought was a really good idea, I turn around and realize that you've already thought of it in a much more structured and really convincing way as well. So I certainly found that reading your work on Uncertainty recently, it's like, oh yeah, I wish I'd thought of that. This is just so well said, so it's lovely to get the chance to talk about all of these things properly.

Margaret Heffernan (2:28)

Well, thank you.

Alex Barker (2:29)

For me, it was really listening to you on a couple of other podcasts, I think, over the last few years, hearing how you had, for reasons I think we can explore, always been slightly ahead of the curve with different topic areas. That's a nervous space to be, but you've always been willing to put out an idea before the mainstream is caught on. Obviously, for us in our Be More Pirate world, Uncharted spoke exactly our language. It's been so good because I've been able to quote so many studies and things. When people want a bit more legitimacy to the pirate idea, I'm like, well, Margaret Heffernan has all of that. So that's really good.

Margaret Heffernan (3:02)

Good. I'm glad. Well, that's why I write books, to share my thinking. So I want it to be used.

Sam Conniff (3:08)

What do you think has enabled you to have the level of foresight that we and many others all agree, you do seem to consistently be very ahead of the curve?

Margaret Heffernan (3:16)

I mean, it's interesting. It's a curse and a blessing. And it's been true of every single book I've ever written, which is that initially people thought, now there's nothing there. And then I've eventually persuaded somebody, they want to publish it. And they sort of see it. And then the book comes out and something happens that makes it the book of the moment. So I think I have a kind of track record now, which encourages people to think, well, we don't get it, but if Margaret says so, maybe we should at least give her the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with exactly the stuff I write about in Embracing Uncertainty. I hang out with a very, very broad cross-section of people and disciplines. I have a very broad and energetic curiosity. If I'm interested in something, I'll just go down all sorts of ratholes to explore it. And I'm very happy doing that, not knowing where it's going to lead. And I don't particularly keep track of the ones that led nowhere, but I can assure you there have been many. I mean, interestingly, I spent about a year, I think about 2007, writing a huge, I like to think rigorously well, researched book on the topic of resilience, personal resilience and organizational resilience. And my agent could not persuade anybody that we needed such a book. I mean, we clearly conquered Boom and Bust, and everything in the Garden was rosy.