Series: The Other Eye Episode: You Can't Trojan Horse Your Way Into a Different Future

Most organizations spend huge amounts of energy and money solving the consequences of a worldview they've never examined. In the final episode of this series, Ryan gets practical about what to do instead.

He starts with risk. Most organizations look at it in silos, one or two pieces at a time. Ryan sees it as connected: ecological, economic, health, technological and geopolitical risk all tangled together. Seen that way, risk becomes opportunity. He takes on the pushback every leader raises ("This will cost more time and more money") with a simple answer: you can do it now, or you can do it later for more. Blockbuster chose later.

He also explains why he refuses to sneak these ideas in through the back door. He'd rather have lunch with someone who wants to have lunch with him. Then he walks through the four stages of his relational architecture process: building relational intelligence, immersive experiences for leaders, redesigning systems from values to virtues to systems, and long-term stewardship. He shares where it fits best (organizations between $25 million and $100 million) and closes with the one thing every leader has to do first. You can find Ryan here, here and here.

Three things you'll take away:

• The four stages of relational architecture, and why the goal is an organization that no longer needs outside help to keep doing the work
• Why siloed risk is exposure, and connected risk is opportunity
• Why honest entry beats the Trojan horse, and what happens to good ideas that try to sneak in

Have you checked out The Stewardship Table?

The 5Cs Podcast connects forward-thinking executives who are building sustainable competitive advantages while driving positive impact. Think of it as an exclusive network of leaders who understand that stewardship isn't just good ethics - it's good business. Becausing addressing business stewardship climate risk and leadership together is in the highest good for all.

Connect with Charlene Norman on LinkedIn, find her at her website, subscribe to our Substack for strategic insights, or download the full series on Spotify and Apple.

Introducing The Stewardship Table. It's Time I Put My Money Where My Mouth Is

For four years, this podcast has been about a better way to do business, climate and leadership. In this solo episode, Charlene stops talking about it and builds it.

Most of the tools that help people speak honestly, listen well and handle stress never reach business leaders. That's because most leaders would never walk into a therapist's office to fix a problem at work. Charlene shares the performance review where she stumbled onto one of those tools without knowing it, and the conversation with psychologist Deborah Borys, after their moral injury series on the show, that turned into a collaboration.

The result is The Stewardship Table: a small, private group of senior leaders who meet online twice a month to solve real business problems together. One session each month is all business. The second goes deeper, using tools from psychology and neuroscience adapted for business. There are no recordings. It's a place to experiment in private, so you can win in public.

Charlene also makes the case for something most leaders rarely get: time to think. Using a simple picture of a flat world that only ever sees slices, she explains why running a business on a share price or a quarterly target means mistaking the slice for the whole, and why sustainable business leadership starts with seeing differently.

Three things you'll take away:

• Why tools from other fields, including therapy, may be the missing piece in your leadership toolkit
• How The Stewardship Table works, who it's for, and what it is not
• Why the answer to a hard problem is sometimes not pushing harder, but seeing differently

Join the free introductory session: Monday, November 16, 3:00 to 5:00 pm ET, on Zoom. No cost. Membership begins December 3. Save your seat

The 5Cs Podcast connects forward-thinking executives who are building sustainable competitive advantages while driving positive impact. Think of it as an exclusive network of leaders who understand that stewardship isn't just good ethics - it's good business. Becausing addressing business stewardship climate risk and leadership together is in the highest good for all.

Connect with Charlene Norman on LinkedIn, find her at her website, subscribe to our Substack for strategic insights, or download the full series on Spotify and Apple.

Series: The Other Eye Episode: The Elephant Isn't the Problem. The Room Is.

Business runs on three-month cycles. Decisions, budgets, performance reviews. The problems we're facing run on centuries. That gap is why climate science hasn't moved most business leaders.

In this episode, Ryan gives his diagnosis. Everyone is studying the elephant in the room. Nobody is looking at the room itself: how it's designed, who is in it, and what language they're using to talk about the elephant. Until we look at the worldview we're working from, every new solution gets measured with the same ruler that created the problem. That, Ryan argues, is why so many transformation efforts stall.

He explains why systems thinker Donella Meadows named worldview as the most powerful lever for change. He uses a plum pit to show that change isn't something we force; it's a blueprint revealing itself. And he tells a story about the women in his family that shows how the past keeps living in the present. Charlene adds the business version: we haven't changed our operating model since the assembly line. Business runs on three-month cycles. Decisions, budgets, performance reviews. The problems we're facing run on centuries. That gap is why climate science hasn't moved most business leaders.

In this episode, Ryan gives his diagnosis. Everyone is studying the elephant in the room. Nobody is looking at the room itself: how it's designed, who is in it, and what language they're using to talk about the elephant. Until we look at the worldview we're working from, every new solution gets measured with the same ruler that created the problem. That, Ryan argues, is why so many transformation efforts stall.

He explains why systems thinker Donella Meadows named worldview as the most powerful lever for change. He uses a plum pit to show that change isn't something we force; it's a blueprint revealing itself. And he tells a story about the women in his family that shows how the past keeps living in the present. Charlene adds the business version: we haven't changed our operating model since the assembly line. You can find Ryan here, here and here.

Three things you'll take away:

• Why "our approach is the problem" and what that means for how organizations spend on change
• Worldview as the strongest lever for change, and why most systems work stops short of it
• How a family habit passed down through four generations explains why the future keeps looking like the past

The 5Cs Podcast connects forward-thinking executives who are building sustainable competitive advantages while driving positive impact. Think of it as an exclusive network of leaders who understand that stewardship isn't just good ethics - it's good business. Becausing addressing business stewardship climate risk and leadership together is in the highest good for all.

Connect with Charlene Norman on LinkedIn, find her at her website, subscribe to our Substack for strategic insights, or download the full series on Spotify and Apple.