Time to think the unthinkable

Nik Gowing, Chris Langdon

2020 English Organisational Culture & Governance

*This session will take place over Zoom so please be sure to register in advance*

With COVID-19, the unthinkable has happened. Public servants are struggling to grip the enormity of global disruption and the need to change multiple policies at high speed. Join us to share your insights on how you can transform and innovate at the speeds the public expect.

Our institutions and those who work in them are weighed down by conformity. To be ready for what lies ahead tomorrow, how do you break with the conformist leadership of today?

What have you achieved in this extra-ordinary year?
How have you changed the ways you work and lead?
What new lessons and ideas can you share for leading during radical uncertainty?

At this opening, dynamic, interactive brainstorming we want to hear your ideas and experiences on how to think the unthinkable.

This ‘Firecracker’ session is designed to listen to you. The session will help frame the five days of debate.

So, please come ready to contribute to a focussed but freewheeling debate. *PLEASE REGISTER TO FULLY PARTICIPATE*

Led by Nik Gowing (founder) and Chris Langdon, co-directors of Thinking the Unthinkable.

Nik Gowing

Co-Founder

In 2018 Nik Gowing co-authored (with Chris Langdon) “Thinking the Unthinkable”. In this era of a new disruption leaders reveal that they are ‘scared’, ‘confused’ and ‘overwhelmed’. Nik founded the ongoing, dynamic “Thinking the Unthinkable” project in 2014 on the new frailties for leadership, including from the new cyber realities. The huge global impacts of COVID-19 in 2020 have confirmed all the project’s warnings to leaders.

Nik was a main news presenter for BBC World News 1996-2014. He presented The Hub with Nik Gowing, BBC World Debates, Dateline London.

For 18 years he worked at ITN. He was bureau chief in Rome and Warsaw, and Diplomatic Editor for Channel Four News (1988-1996). He has been on the councils of Chatham House (1998–2004), the Royal United Services Institute (2005–present), the Overseas Development Institute (2007-2014), the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (1996-2005).

Nik has been a Visiting Professor at Kings College, London and Nanyang University (NTU), Singapore. In 2018 he advised the President of the UN General Assembly on leadership challenges.

Chris Langdon

Co-Founder

Chris Langdon is Co-Director of Thinking the Unthinkable. He co-wrote the book of the same name with Nik Gowing. Chris specialises in public policy and governance. He works with senior policy-makers, business leaders and heads of third sector organisations. His most recent clients include the two Directorates of European Commission.
Chris assists organisational transformation with a focus on culture, mindset and behaviour. Chris is also a speaker at public events on coping with radical uncertainty, drawing on the Thinking the Unthinkable research. Chris has overseen a research programme now totalling 5,000+ pages of interview transcripts of conversations with senior current leaders and with Next Gen leaders.
Chris has 20 years of experience in facilitating change, as MD of the Oxford Research Group from 2010-2014, and from 1997-2008 as Associate Director of the Foreign Office’s internationally renowned conference centre, Wilton Park. There his specialisms included digital transformation and international policy. He chaired over 50 high level international policy events. He has worked on European policy across Europe for the ESI thinktank, 2008-2010.
Chris has a strong interest in the impact of AI. He is a member of the Economic Singularity Group which includes many of the UK’s leading thinkers on AI. He is also a Fellow of the RSA.
Chris began his career in television; he was senior foreign affairs producer for BBC TV News during the fall of communism from 1989-1990.

Time to think the unthinkable
Nik Gowing, Chris Langdon

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