Thriving in Complexity with Jennifer Berger

OutsideVoices with Mark Bidwell

My guest in this episode is Jennifer Berger, the CEO of Cultivating Leadership, an organization that helps leaders use complexity as the key that unlocks new possibilities for a better future.

Jennifer has worked with senior leaders in companies like Google, KPMG, Lion, Microsoft and Wikimedia. She is the author of three books, the latest one being Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How to Thrive in Complexity which we talk about in this interview.

She speaks at leadership and coaching conferences, and offers occasional courses for coaches at Harvard University, the University of Sydney, and Oxford Brookes University.

Read the full article HERE. What was covered:

• What is unique about complexity today that many leaders are experiencing in their world
• Five key mindtraps to recognize and avoid in dealing with complexity: the desire for simple stories, the sense of rightness, the need for agreement, the need for control, and protecting our egos
• Useful practices to engage with, and questions to ask, in order to overcome these mindtraps

Key Takeaways and Learnings:

• Harnessing complexity as a force and a competitive advantage in today’s world
• The rewards of looking at situations from multiple perspectives and learning to disagree better
• Everyone is subjected to mind traps - the more you feel certain about something, the more likely you are falling into a mind trap

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How to Thrive in Complexity, a book by Jennifer Garvey Berger
• Cultivating Leadership
• Get in touch with Jennifer via LinkedIn and Twitter
• Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World, a book by Jennifer Garvey Berger
• Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders, a book by Jennifer Garvey Berger
• Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, a book by Kathryn Schulz
• On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, a book by Robert Burton
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a book by Yuval Noah Harari
• Lisa Bodell: Killing Companies, Creating Space, the Not-To-Do List - OutsideVoices Podcast