Does Your Workplace Walk Its Talk? with Warren Nilsson

Warren Nilsson is an associate professor of social innovation at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and the faculty associate of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation. He’s also the co-founder of Organisation Unbounded, an international community of inquiry and experimentation, exploring how social purpose organizations can more closely align their internal practices and cultures with their external social change goals. Warren has worked with social purpose organizations in North America, Africa, and South Asia connecting his academic research with practitioner-driven social initiatives.

In this week’s podcast, we explore what any workplace can learn from social change organizations about the two unique steps they take to create positive change inside and outside of their workplaces.

Connect with Warren Nilsson:

• https://organizationunbound.org/

You’ll Learn:

• [03:08] - Warren explains how learning to successfully create social change can help to transform any organization.
• [05:22] - Warren shares what his research has been finding to help any workplace create more positive change in the world.
• [07:42] - Warren outlines why workplaces need to work more in the social field if they want to have a positive impact on the world.
• [12:53] - Warren shares how psychological safety and high-quality connections offer practical insights and tools to help us create social fields that help to create social change.
• [15:33] - Warren offers some tips on what the best social purpose organizations do to align their external purpose with the internal ways they bring out the best in their staff.
• [22:54] - Warren explains how workplaces can create cultures of listening and connecting people to what they are feeling.
• [29:17] - Warren explains why scaling questions rather than scaling solutions often offers a more effective pathway for creating social change.
• [35:01] - Warren enters the lightning round.

Your Resources:

• MPPW Podcast on Facebook Group
• Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux
• I & Thou by Martin Buber
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Thanks for listening! 

Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.

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Until next time, take care!  Thank you, Warren!