Have we actually learned anything new about leadership in the past 4000 years?

In a world increasingly looking backwards (Make Leadership Great Again!)1, Randal and David thought perhaps they too should look way back for inspiration. So they invited leading international leadership and coaching psychologist, Gaj Ravichandra to discuss leadership through the lens of Eastern philosophies, particularly the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. 

As expected, the Gita proved to be a great starting point for a wide-ranging discussion of leadership development. This included the role of self-awareness, storytelling, cultural contexts, kindness, and particularly, the contribution of the scientific process to the advancement of our understanding of the efficacy of leadership development.  This last point proved to be a bit of a trigger for a “vigorous” discussion between Gaj and David - who jointly proposed that our knowledge and practice of leadership has not really progressed much in 4000 years - and Randal, who vehemently defended the contribution of modern science. Have a listen and see which side you come down on. 

1 Too soon? Or just not funny in the first place?

Being good evidence based practitioners, we are seeking feedback from our audience on our podcasts. So please tell us all the things we are doing well as well as pandering to your innate drive to criticise the work of others. 
We may listen and adjust or we may just continue to be ourselves and do things our own way, dammit. 

Transcript

David (00:02)
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Nonsense Dialogues. Once again, I'll be your host, David Heap, joined by your other host, Randal Tame. And our guest this evening is my very good friend, Gaj Ravichandra. Now, Gaj, do you to just introduce yourself? And perhaps we can just start by how we know each other.

Gaj Ravichandra (00:28)
Yeah, absolutely. Good to be here, David and Randal. I actually met David 23 years ago when I was an intern psych. And so over that time, David obviously played an instrumental role in me learning the fundamentals of organisational psychology,during that time, which was fantastic.

Since then, we have been in touch. So this is a relationship over almost two and a half decades, which has been terrific.

David (01:00)
It makes both of us sound old, doesn't it Gaj?

Gaj Ravichandra (01:03)
It does. At least you have your hair. I think it's impressive.

David (01:12)
Do you know why? I don't use shampoo. You guys used shampoo and all your hair fell out. So that's the secret. No unnatural chemicals. But since then, and I think I remember Gaj, one of the workshops down in Canberra that we co-hosted, I made some comment that the pupil has exceeded the master.

Gaj Ravichandra (01:14)
Fair enough.

Was that what it is?

Randal (01:21)
Yeah, yep, yep, yep. Kind of have hair and brains too, they say.

David (01:41)
Tell our listener what you've been doing, particularly in the last 10, 15 years or so with your international career.

Gaj Ravichandra (01:43)

Yeah, sure. I think probably about 16 years ago now, moved the family to the Middle East and set up shop in Dubai, which has been super exciting. And since then, about 11 years ago now, we set up Compass, which is a coaching business. And so the idea was that we do two main things. provide coaching services to people around leadership, performance and career. And we also train people to become coaches.

So that is the two arms of our business. So it's based out of five, but we operate across five continents now. Kind of North America into Europe, Asia, Middle East and Australasia. So that's been fun.

David (02:31)
Mmm.

Yeah, yeah, I think you I think you started off certainly during the rapid growth phase, you're doing a lot of work with universities, particularly some big name unis, weren't you?

Gaj Ravichandra (02:49)
Yeah, so we got very fortunate, you sometimes you cross paths with people and luck plays a massive role in these things. And I think for me, we started working with INSEAD and London Business School and Harvard Education. And so that opened up, I think, some really great doors for us, whether corporate clients, but also individuals and sort of sovereign wealth firms. that was, it was a wonderful experience.

Randal (03:17)
Nice. So we should say what we've got Gaj on to talk about tonight.

David (03:22)
Okay, who would like to go? Randal, you haven't said much for a change. Do want to just talk about what you think Gaj is going to talk about and then we can get on with what he's really going to talk about.

Randal (03:37)
Well, I Gaj is probably going to talk a bunch of nonsense and David, you'll come in with your usual shite. Yeah. So tonight, what we talked about with Gaj is pretty much everything we've talked about so far around leadership has been a very kind of Western dialogue about leadership, a Western perspective, a Western view on these things.

Randal (04:05)
Gaj came in with the idea that, well, maybe that the Eastern philosophies of leadership and the Eastern views of leadership, kind of pretty robust and well and truly predate any other kind of thinking we've got about leadership today. I think Gaj said at the time, we've learned nothing over the years, that what came out of the Bhagavad Gita is pretty much still what everybody else is saying. 

So we thought it would be really interesting to explore that. I should also say I'm currently working with a group in Asia at the moment. And I'm talking around the ideas of persuasion and rhetoric and just exploring how the differences in terms of rhetoric and storytelling between a Western audience and an Asian audience, the cultural differences in terms of the status, the ideas of how you go about communicating across cultures and so on, which I think is really interesting. So, I think it'd be a really interesting discussion to have that kind of cross-cultural leadership discussion.

David (05:16)
Okay, well you might have to rewrite your program after tonight then, Randal.

Randal (05:19)
Well, we might. We also might need to assume that maybe the Americans don't know and American universities like Harvard actually don't know everything.

David (05:32)
That's a stunning and radical thought, Randal. Make leadership studies great again.

Randal (05:34)
I anticipated, it? I think I'll get a call.

Gaj Ravichandra (05:41)
There goes your grants from Harvard, Randal. I don't know, mate. I think you might have just stubbed your foot.

David (05:43)
You'll never get tenure now buddy. All right. Okay, cool. Now, Gaj, would you like to perhaps enlighten us on what you're actually going to talk about?

Gaj Ravichandra (05:55)
Well, I think Randal was pretty spot on in lots of ways. think I'll tell you where this sort of ideology came from. It was about 18 months ago and I was delivering a workshop and you guys both know that I sort of deliver workshops on topics around that sort of mental toughness resilience piece around performance. And as part of that workshop, I thought I'd look at various ways in which confidence is managed, particularly around leadership.

Of course, one of those elements of confidence that comes up a lot is imposter episodes, imposter syndrome. So interestingly, I wanted to find out when was the first documented indication of imposter syndrome. And probably the most popular one that I could come up with, or maybe the easiest to find, to be honest, was written 4,000 years ago. In the Bhagavad Gita when King Arjuna was standing on the battlefield and he started having self-doubts about whether he was the right person to wage war against his family on the ancient battlefield of Kalakshetra. And in that moment, he looks up into the heavens and an avatar of Lord Vishnu, which is Krishna, comes down onto his chariot and they have a discussion. And this is what the Bhagavad Gita, one of the 18 chapters of this epic Mahabharatham story from ancient Hinduism is all about this conversation with God. And in that conversation with God, he overcomes this lack of confidence and believes that he is the right person to lead this massive army against his family and to wage war. So it got me thinking, right? That was written millennia ago. Since then, if you were to look at virtually any industry, from technology to healthcare to agriculture to the environment through to transportation, it is literally unrecognizable, right? From 4,000 years ago. And if I was to look at leadership and what we've come up with over 4,000 years, I think we've done a really bad job. I just don't think that we've really progressed. And even quite frankly, if you look at it in the 1970s, where transformational leadership or situational leadership and a lot of these theories have come, is it really that different? Have we really made massive steps in how leadership has been discussed, how it's been developed, how it's been framed in that time? 

Gaj Ravichandra (08:43)
And it's not just necessarily the Eastern, but it's also even Roman times. I we talk a lot about Stoicism and we don't have to go that far. It's actually two and a half thousand years ago when it was really founded, but what's changed? Why is it Ryan Halliday is selling 3 million copies on this topic? There is something that is becoming much more pertinent, I think, to leadership.

For me, I'm gonna shut up soon, because I wanna hear your thoughts on this and I respect your views on this guys. For me, it's who you are is how you lead, right? As opposed to picking a leadership framework and saying, this is what I'm gonna implement in this moment, right? Not that that's wrong, but I think if we don't understand who we are first, how are we going to lead in any sort of genuine way? And I hate using that word authentic, but there's an element of that.

Randal (09:45)
So this sounds to me like a, this sounds to me like a coach's perspective, if I can say. Pretty much every coach I've ever met believes that self-awareness is the route to greatness, to all the world's goods will come to you if you are only just more self-aware. I think that's bullshit.

Gaj Ravichandra (09:54)

Well, I think it's the first step.

David (10:07)
Okay, so first controversy, we were predicting Randal was going to be a grumpy old bugger and I think we've just hit that on the table, on the head. 

Randal (10:14)
Right.

David (10:23)
The other thing I like Gaj that just struck me about that story in terms of being just perhaps a little bit self-serving towards management and leadership coaches was that you basically said the leadership coaches are manifestations of God. 

Gaj Ravichandra (10:41)
And what's the point?

Randal (10:44)
So,I should kind of resolve a little bit about what I've said, because I think we've just seen some great self awareness from David there in terms of his own ego perspective. Yeah. Your own hubris. So, and I don't, by saying that I think that that self awareness stuff is, is kind of bullshit. I'm not saying that what everything else you said about the history and the thinking around leadership and so on, the philosophies that come down through the millennia are necessarily wrong or necessarily incorrect. And I also, I think, agree with you that we've spent a lot of time talking and writing and lecturing about leadership over the centuries. And things really haven't progressed much. And part of the problem here is that when we're talking about leadership, we're not just talking about a function of human interaction or an aspect of human interaction. There are leadership discourses, some which are moralistic and that comes from a religious perspective and so on and from different religions or from a values basis. And there is leadership as a practice. There is leadership as a characteristic of an individual. There's a whole range of different discourses about leadership. And so we end up getting, I think, very confused about what it is. So people, I think, actually do choose to actually lead the way they want to choose. They choose the thing that is most appropriate or the way of doing it that they think is right for their particular perspective. And then they progress out. And then once what happens then is we get confirmation bias because we never actually do have self-awareness properly as a leader, because we always think that once we're a leader, we're up the top of the heap and everything we do is great.

Gaj Ravichandra (12:32)

And I'm glad that you've managed to talk yourself into actually agreeing with me on self awareness, Randal. That was beautiful to watch actually.

David (12:56)
Yeah, his adrenaline levels came down a bit. And the monkey brain receded. I think it's a little bit more nuanced than self awareness bad.

Randal (12:59)
It's possibly true.

David (13:18)
I think in terms of have things changed, have things not? I think some things have remained constant over time. And I think that the nature of people and basically how we're wired, what works in terms of being able to influence and persuade people and to communicate between people in a purposeful way has not.

And I think this is where the wisdom of the ancients still has a lot to teach us because 4000 years is not that long, really. And people haven't changed that much. Genetically, we probably stabilized 50,000 years ago and then societies, civilizations have grown. there was quite a few very sophisticated civilizations 5 and 4,000 years ago. So people have been people for quite some time. And the ancients were just as clever as we are. And they had insights that they built up both through direct observation and by talking amongst themselves. So whoever was writing the Bhagavad Gita, I think there's a series of authors, not just one. This was the result of maybe hundreds, if not thousands of years of thought and reflection, scholarship, experience and observation. And the same with the Sumerians and the Greeks and then the Romans and everyone else piling into these different areas.

And so there's still a lot of wisdom from those people because they're just like us. So they're talking about us still. That's remained the same. Values influencing, reflecting, all that, still the same. I think the thing that has happened more recently is I think the scientific revolution and that we don't just think and talk about things; we actually now can test them. So, I think one of the things that's changed is we can not just suggest things, we can see if that's true or not in a systematic way. 

But maybe, okay, so then there's another thing is that maybe science and leadership don't go well together because it's too complex and exactly what's going on doesn't actually fit well with conventional scientific methods or the type of science that we have to do to get published in academic papers.

Randal (16:25)

Have you been listening to Jordan Peterson?

David (16:33)
He's a great man. He's a great man. get a lot of guidance from him. (/S) I'm also sponsored by the Russian Foreign Service, by the way. So I’d just like to be transparent there.

Randal (16:34)
Okay.

So, Elon, Jordan, David, yeah, did you just say that science can't deal with complexity?

David (16:51)
Yep, yep. All my buddies and heroes.

Well, one of the things I remember in that conversation with a professor friend of mine, because they're the circles I hang out with, we were also saying how it's really interesting how, okay, trigger warning Randal, I'm about to talk about personality, is that we've been able to pin down the big five of personality for over 30 years now. And it just keeps getting replicated study after study and everyone agrees with it. However, there is no similar model for leadership that everyone agrees with. And this guy, let's call him Mark, because that's his name, said that that's because leadership is too complex. There's all the differences in people's personalities. There's all the differences in situation about social groups, about how people interact together. There's just too many variables. And well, it depends to be able to pin it down with a great deal of certainty in terms of just saying this is the one simple universal approach that we can say is effective as leadership. I can see Randal bristling as I speak. 

Randal (18:20)
What a lot of nonsense. Yeah.

David (18:26)
But there may be some limitations to understanding humans in terms of how we do science at the moment. That's what I'm saying.

Randal (18:31)
You've got to have faith, You've got to have faith. Just believe. So let's go back to faith. Unlike us, we've digressed, Gaj. Let's go back to…

David (18:45)
No, we're circling around the topic. Yeah. I do great weaves. I do the best weaves. They're great weaves. We'll come back to you, Gaj.

Randal (18:47)
It's a weave. So tell me about tell me about the Eastern philosophy. Tell me about the Bhagavad Gita’s ideas and philosophy about leadership. What does leadership look like in the Bhagavad Gita? And how does that has that translated perhaps into the way Indian society has structured itself.

Gaj Ravichandra (19:22)
So definitely, I think if you looked at how there are elements of Indian society and structure that are not necessarily in alignment. So you look at the caste system, right, which very much plays a role of differentiating people. And that would go against what was written in the Bhagavad Gita around equanimity, right, the sense of inclusion, equity, diversity, and so forth as well. Right. And so I think that…

Randal (19:50)
It's also patriarchal society as well. mean, it's women do not have the sort of status, particularly in the traditional societies - it may be very different in the cities now, but certainly in traditional societies.

David (20:03)
Gaj, I've very much noticed that in your relationship with your wife. 

Gaj Ravichandra (20:07)
Yeah, I absolutely dominate her. I mean, in the house, it's horrendous, right? You only have to go to any sort of Sri Lankan or Indian home and to see the disheveled appearance of any man, any husband in that house. And you can make a decision on how that stands. Look, I think in reality, a number of things stand out for me, right? So one of the key lessons is around this sense of courage and conviction, right? That was the idea that sometimes you're going to be put into situations that you don't want to make decisions on, but you have to do it for the greater good. The sense of vision or purpose,that was talked about, right back then 4000 years ago, clearly. And so therefore, if I'm going to do something that is virtuous, right, if I'm going to be a leader, that I need to do something that is built on more than myself and my individual needs. And I thin maybe you could see elements of that coming through transformational leadership, you'll see elements of that coming through servant leadership, you'll see elements of that coming through, you know, sort of authentic or adaptive leadership.  Then there are things around leading with right conduct. Dharma, right? Which is what, you know, righteousness or right conduct is. Now, do you need a science experiment to tell you, that kindness builds a connection between you and your followers? You can have a correlational study. You can do it. It's testable. You could work through SPSS and come up with some sort of frame of reference around that. And I wonder sometimes whether these are the kinds of examples where science has a role to play. There's no doubt. 

And I think science has been one of the greatest, you know, sort of inventions, right over time. It's one of the greatest stories that we have told. That's why it's stuck. But there are some basic things that I think we have put to the side. And that's what concerns me that if we were to look at politics around the world, where it's probably the easiest way to look at leadership, right? In lots of ways. And I look at where I am today, I'm sitting in Dubai, talking to you from what would be a non democratic type state. And I think about the progress that is being made. And I think about the level of equality that we might see across different cultures. You we've got 180 different nationalities living in this city. And it is actually illegal, to talk about another person's religion in a derogatory way.

And yet when you go to America and you go listen to what the Islamic countries, right, preach and talk about, right. It's quite a different story. Now, some stories sell better than other stories. And I think that's where what's really interesting to me is that the Eastern stories have perhaps not been told as well as the Western story.

David (23:01)
Well, we certainly haven't heard them in the West as clearly or for as long as we've heard the Judeo-Christian, Romanic stories, Latin stories. 

Randal (23:39)
I am troubled by this idea that we can put science aside. The old trope that science can't explain everything, which is, I think, a lack of reason to thinking. I think it's one of those cop outs. When you say that you don't need science to tell you that kindness between one and another is an important thing and has positive effects. Well, that's quite obvious. And it's probably something that you don't really would worry about having to put a scientific ruler across. But if you think about the various effects that we would hope that leadership might have in terms of group cohesion, in terms of group performance, in terms of being able to grow our society to something better, then that's where we can start to actually put, I think, going back to complexity, we can start to do the kind of analytical work that says, okay, well, we've got enough data, we've got a lot of data that says, if you do this, you get this outcome, if you do that, you get that outcome. And sometimes that's not necessarily what common sense would say. Sometimes it's contrary to common sense. Which is what science does, I think, really, really well. It actually gives us, it exposes our presumptions. It exposes our old kind of tropes and says, okay, this is the way you've always thought it has been. But when you really look at it, when you really study it, and we put a scientific comb through it, we can find that maybe it's a little different. And that's how we progress. That's how we get change.

David (25:15)
Hmm.

I think there's contributions made by quantitative and qualitative analysis. And I think the old stories are really, if you like, an earlier form of qualitative science and analysis, where you've got some very clever people trying to work out how the universe works, how people work.

Gaj Ravichandra (25:42)
Hmm.

David (26:02)
And they didn't have the modern scientific method. So they did the best they could with the raw material of logic and discourse, and conversation, talking it through in the town square. And it's been my experience in doing surveys and looking at 360 degree reports and things like that is that you understand the person, the organisation or whatever it is you're trying to study in the survey, if you have a mix of quantitative and qualitative. It's very hard to just understand or certainly communicate the quantitative numerical analysis without having some stories, some words, some insights from people about what do the numbers actually mean. So I think this applies at the micro level with a 360 with a person, medium level with an organisational culture change survey. And I think it also works at this very meta level where we're just talking about models of how human beings work.

Gaj Ravichandra (27:24)
Hmm.

And I agree that on one end as being too extreme, right? Which on one side, which I'm not advocating for, I'm a psychologist, I'm not advocating for an arty farty view on leadership. But having a Richard Dawkins version, right? Which is that the only lens through which to look at the world is through science. That there's no other lens through which we look at anything, I think is slightly, it is blindsided to a large extent, because there are a lot of things we may not need science to prove things to us. And like you've said, David, this sense of the qualitative element, and I think, you know, whenever I've done 360s in the past, and please, gentlemen, correct me if I'm wrong, where a lot of people want to spend their time is on the comments, and through the comments and the stories that sit underneath and the experiences that resonated.

David (28:26)
Exactly. Again, just talking about science again, when they've looked at what influences people, and I'm thinking of a specific experiment where we're looking at the prescribing behaviour of clinicians, pharmacists, I think they were, and they gave both groups quantitative data around the efficacy of a particular compound. Then they had the scientific condition was two story conditions. One was where the story was consistent with the data, and the other, where the story was inconsistent with the data. And I guess you know where I'm going in terms of what was the most influential. It was the story. The clinicians, the pharmacists, made prescribing decisions based more upon the story they were told. Even if it was contrary to the data that are presented. So I think, and this is indeed what we're talking about, the book, the Bhagavad Gita, is a story to influence and educate people and to shape them.

Randal (29:30)

So one of the things about science is that the same lessons should come out of the scientific study. If it's a good study, it should come out, no matter who the observer is, right? It wouldn't matter who told the story, the data should tell the story and it should be relatively objective. 

To counter your story, David, there was a study done at University of California,Santa Barbara by Diane Mackey. She gave a set of students at Santa Barbara, a survey on their perceptions, a story about the standardized testing of students at universities. And there was a couple of tests there. One was to assess whether strong arguments or weak arguments were most effective.

The hypothesis was that strong arguments would be effective and they were, they took more account of that. But then she divided the group into half. One group she said was getting this story from people from UC Santa Barbara. The other half of UC Santa Barbara students were being told that their story came from people in the University of New Hampshire. And what she found was when they thought it was from the University of New Hampshire, it didn't matter whether it was a strong or weak argument. In fact, they didn't pay any attention to the strong or weak argument. They just disregarded it straight away because it came from an outgroup source. It came from somebody that they didn't trust. So there's something else going on here in terms of what it's not just that stories work. It's who's telling the story has an important part of this, this factor. And so if you're in India and you're listening to the Bhagavad Gita and it's in Sanskrit or it's in Hindi, it's in the language that you know, it's part of your group identity over a period of time, it's a valid source. It's an appropriate source. Judeo-Christians for many years have been taking the work of the Romans and the Latins and the Judeo-Christian ethics and have been taking that source. So we don't just take in data. We actually interpret data when it comes in.

Gaj Ravichandra (32:02)
Yeah. So can I ask a question on that Randal? Because I mean, it's an exceptionally valid point. My sort of challenge around this is why has it taken us so long? You know, because probably 4000 years ago, someone coming from a different village telling you something is probably going to be not as reliable or you wouldn't pay as much attention, right? To someone coming for your own internal village. Yes, I'm glad that
that researcher got funding for a million dollars and went and did this research and found out this information. That's wonderful, right? And kept a tenure. However, you got a grant to do it, right? Probably tenure out of that wonderful piece of research. And look, it is helpful because it helps guide, you know, more questioning? On certain things, which I get. Why has it taken us 4,000 years to get to this point? 

Randal (32:35)
I doubt that it was a million, but yeah. Not in the university sector,

Gaj Ravichandra (32:56)
When you look at the other things that have advanced so much more and so much more deeper than what leadership has advanced to. I'm just wondering why it has taken so long. What are we missing? Are we missing something? Are we not doing something to explore or expand this further?

Randal (33:12)
So I'm not sure I understand, I really understand the question because if you look at science in general and the scientific method, we're really talking about 3 to 400 years of that kind of process. 3 or 400 years ago, we didn't know what gravity, how gravity worked. There was no kind of theory around that. When it comes to leadership development, well, we can kind of trace that back. We know in business, for instance, that leadership wasn't discussed at all over 100 years ago. That was something that happened in government and in military. It wasn't something that happened in business, we had managers, but we didn't have leaders.

Gaj Ravichandra (33:52)
Well, that's not completely true either, right? I think we've been told that story and we believe that story. But then if you go and look at the Mahabharata, again 4,000 years ago, you will hear stories of people running villages and towns and municipalities. And how they needed to make sure things happened. That was leadership. That was 4,000 years ago. You don't need a business. 

Randal (34:14)
But the thing is that people might have been conducting what we think is leadership, but it wasn't something that was actually seen as an important discourse, an important way of interpreting the behavior in business until theoreticians, primarily from the University of Harvard, came in and started to write journal articles about why it's important for us to get grants on studying leadership in business.

David (34:40)
Isn't the Bhagavad Gita an example of early leadership development through storytelling?

Gaj Ravichandra (34:47)
It's getting worse, David, every time.

Randal (34:51)
Yeah, I'd really interested hearing a bit more and what the lessons are for leadership from that as well.

David (34:57)
Well, first of all, you need a very expensive coach. think that's the thing. Godlike. But I think that perhaps where science has really accelerated and changed things is in the physical sciences. So the industrial revolution and the scientific reformation was really… it wasn't the scientific reformation, there's a different word… the enlightenment… was able to make massive changes in our society through physics, chemistry, hard science. Whereas the kind of science we have which has not been very effective and really hasn't added much value, as Gaj you're suggesting, is in the human sciences. Our science is kind of autistic. 

Randal (36:12)
I'd agree with that.

David (36:15)
It's really good at things and stuff. We can fly to the moon.  It’s like Elon. He's great at making rockets and cars and technology and stuff like that. The moment he verges into people, he's a complete disaster, completely dysfunctional and is becoming a repulsive human being. 

Gaj Ravichandra (36:38)
And yet, David, he's been the most rewarded by the globe.

David (36:42)
Yes, he's the richest, but his relationships are horrible. I don't think he's very happy. Anyway, get, you know, what's, what's important to you in life. But what is, do you think we're any better as a society or world at leadership now, a week away from the US presidential elections, than we were perhaps 4,000 years ago? 

Gaj Ravichandra (37:14)
Well, I'm kind of talking to you from a place that is in the midst of turmoil, right? So I would say if you were living here and around this area, you would probably say no to that question. That we probably haven't learned our lessons and that we're probably still in a space where there isn't a sense of empathy and connection and compassion for each other. I would say, yeah.

David (37:40)
And I, sorry, dude, you go.

Gaj Ravichandra (37:44)
That's all right, go for it.

David (37:45)
I was just going to say, and look around the world. The American election is a complete shit show. I cannot understand what's going on there really. And the political debate in Australia today, when, the scientists are releasing studies showing that the world's going to basically burn and melt down and get flooded. The political debate in Australia is whether or not the Prime Minister accepted upgrades from Qantas. That's what the political discourse is about at the moment, not the fact that the whole world's going to probably end in 50 years.

Randal (38:33)
So I feel like I've just landed myself in the middle of a Joe Rogan podcast …

David (38:38)
Well, excellent. He's got like a billion followers. Yay.

Gaj Ravichandra (38:39)
That's good news. Yeah.

Randal (38:40)

…because, yeah, I know, know, it'd be nice. Yeah, it'd be nice. So there's a whole bunch of things to say about all of those views. they tend to be, and I agree that many people think about that, but many people in my parents' generation and then grandparents' generation and going back generations, have been saying this kind of the same thing for a long, time. When 4,000 years ago, we were slaughtering each other with great aplomb. We still do so, but we're not as much as we used to. Science and capital has brought the majority of humans out of poverty. We see an authoritarian leadership in China, but that authoritarian leadership has also in the period of 30 years has lifted the majority of that country out of poverty and into a modern society, into a relatively modern society. Where women don't die of childbirth. Somebody will correct me on the numbers, but it's science and it's leadership. So you were saying that things are a lot worse today. And what I'm saying is, on everything you can think about….

David (39:42)
That's not leadership, sorry, but that's not leadership. 

Gaj Ravichandra (39:43)
Yeah, that's the science. It's healthcare,

Gaj Ravichandra (39:59)
In the Bhagavad Gita, I think they talk about listening, listening skills as well. think listening is in here somewhere. I think that's one of the...

David (40:04)
Okay. I did not say that. So all the things you cited there were on the technology side of science where things have progressed massively.

Randal (40:16)
and political side.

Absolutely on a political side.

David (40:20)
What about, has leadership, do we have better leaders now than we did in earlier days, perhaps going, looking back through history?

Gaj Ravichandra (40:32)
Do we have more courageous leaders, do you think, now than we did, say, 50 years ago?

Why is that? Why are we going backwards? Because I would agree with that statement. I think there'd be a lot of research that would back that statement. Why are we going backwards?

Randal (40:50)
So can I just get some definitions around here so I get it a real sense. When we're talking about courageous leadership, what does that actually look like? Courage about what?

Gaj Ravichandra (41:01)
That's about, I think for me, the definition is about your own conviction. So the sense that you are standing up for what you believe in, right? And I think the sense that, in fact, it was interesting. was looking at something on this the other day, within that particular story of the Bhagavad Gita, this idea that King Arjuna had this reluctance, right, to go ahead and have that courage to fight. And that sense of sometimes you have to make difficult choices.

David (41:23)
Yes.

Gaj Ravichandra (41:30)
For the greater good, right? And almost to have this vision of what you want to achieve. I feel like sometimes we've shot ourselves in the foot around this, right? So leaders have a, I don't know, in most democracies, a four year life cycle? Before they start, you know, going to re-election cycles, you're not able to actually commit to something and then see it through. You've got to keep pandering to everybody else around you. And so this idea that, you know, why, for example, in China you're able to get massive progress. Courage and conviction to go and do what you believe is the right thing to do for your country, whether it's right or wrong, right? Is a very subjective answer. Why in the Middle Eas if you want to build an airport, it'll just happen. As opposed to what we saw in Sydney for 30 years. Trying to argue about the location of where this particular airport or the runway is gonna go. So I would argue that we are less courageous from a leadership perspective over the last 50 years. And that is actually, the same amount of time where most of these modern leadership theories have evolved, that time frame.

Randal (42:44)
So I would counter that to say, based on that definition, I would argue that Kamala Harris is courageous. I would argue that Netanyahu is courageous. Both of them are acting in ways that they think are in the best interests of their people and are acting with great courage to do that. Whether we agree with their actions or not is a moral perspective that we need to take.

Gaj Ravichandra (42:46)
Yes, yes, I would agree.

Randal (43:12)
But then we look at it from that perspective, then we could argue that Stalin was courageous and Hitler was courageous and any authoritarian you like is courageous. And building an airport without having to deal with all the various stakeholders and the broader interests of your society is an authoritarian play. To be able to say, yep, we're going to build it there. And whether you like it or not, doesn't matter. We're just going to acquire the land, going to kick you out.
You're have to find your own place. We don't care because it's in the better interest of all of us. That's a very authoritarian way of going about leadership. And is that what you're arguing? And is that what the Bhagavad Gita is kind of presupposing? Is that it's an authoritarian perspective?

Gaj Ravichandra (43:53)
No, I don't think this is about saying that something is ethically or morally right. You have to believe that for yourself when you stand up for something as a leader. I talk about it from this sense of, as a leader, you have to put a stake in the ground. 

And this is the challenge with leadership. You don't get to move too far from that stake, but everyone else can move wherever they want around you. That's what makes leadership difficult. Not this, I'm going to put my stake here. Plus I'm going to put a stake here. I'm going to put a stake over here. And depending on who I'm pandering to, I can make some decisions on where I'm going. Someone say that Netanyahu is pandering to the Zionist group in the Knesset. And he wants to get re-elected. He doesn't want to go to jail. He doesn't want to be in prison. And that's why he's doing that. I don't know. Right. I don't know what the argument to that is.

David (44:46)
I think there's a combination of at least courage and virtue in effective leaders. A large part of leadership is doing the right thing and having the courage to pursue it. I think the distinguishing characteristic of leaders is being able to get their followers to support them and to also take to demonstrate, I guess, courage and virtue through the example of their leadership. So when you were talking before Gaj about getting airports built quickly, it made me think about some research from AGSM by Doug Stace and Dexter Dunphy, I think it was, around how the centralization of power in organisations interacted with the need for rapid change. And so in these organisations, what Doug found was that when organisations  had plenty of time to change, they could be democratic and disperse the power, decision making throughout the organisation. There was lots of consultation and da-di-da. Things took time. That was OK. They had years to restructure and adapt. However, when they're in situations where it was urgent and important, and decisions and actions had to be taken quickly, the organisations  that responded effectively those situations drew the power back to the centre in order to make rapid – in more modern language, agile - decisions and actions because you just don't have time to consult with everyone, to make sure everyone's happy. You've got like six months before the bad thing happens.

So I think that's often the contextual factor that determines whether or not leadership is democratic or just a little bit fascist. And I remember around Randal telling me that in the social identity approach, good leadership is, it depends. It can be either very directive, or it can be very inclusive depending on the situation, the context, the norms of the group, all these sorts of things. Whether or not Netanyahu is an effective leader or not, think still remains to be seen because he's got a lot of opposition inside Israel against him and some of the people who are in his cabinet have left and said it's quite possible there's going to be not so much a coup but you know there's going to be whatever the mechanism is to get Bibi out and to get some more moderate leaders in. Same with Kamala. Let's see how she goes.

Gaj Ravichandra (49:21)
My sort of sense also is that, know, going back to sort of Randal's point around the, you know, authoritative leadership style. I think ultimately with the leader, authoritarian leader - ultimately when a decision has to be made, just because we don't like the decision, doesn't mean that the decision shouldn't be made. And I think sometimes that is the curse of leadership in lots of ways. And so you can consult with people for 30 years, right? And eventually not ever make a decision. Is that right or wrong? I don't know. But the courage to then make a decision, whether it's right or wrong. And that's kind of the point that I've been trying to make. 

David (49:52)
Yes, and in a lot of organisational leadership, the organisation is structured so that the final decision making element of a system is a person in that role. So, you know, with the President, the buck stops here. And in a lot of organisations , if you are the person who has to make that decision that's when the personal qualities of courage, fortitude, and acting according to your these comes in. 

Randal (50:46)
Bullshit.
Dear, dear, dear. Whoa, God. You guys are coaching leaders.
 

David (50:52)

It's true. It's true. I don't want to pump up my own tires here, but there was times when I was Chair of a College and I had to make decisions because I was the person in the role. 

Gaj Ravichandra (50:56)
Yeah, the science tells us, science tells us Randal, you can't hide from the science.

Randal (51:13)
So yeah, I'm not denying that an important role of any leader is to make decisions. What we're conflating here, or what we're confusing rather, is, and this is the last podcast with Andrew Frayne, the difference between authority and influence, the difference between power and influence. You as a manager are given authority. You as a prime minister or a president are given authority.

David (51:40)
Yes.

Randal (51:42)
It's an agreement that we have in our society amongst ourselves that you can have that authority. And with that authority, there are certain things that we expect that you should do and that we will allow you to do. Sometimes we understand that that may not be in our best interests in the short term, but we hope that it will be in our best interest in the long term. That's authority. And every manager and every president has authority. When it comes to, say, Netanyahu or Kamala Harris, she wins, or Donald Trump, if he wins. They get there by the will of the people. They get there because people have said, yes, I think this person can help me to achieve what I want to achieve. And so where leaders get their followers is because they see them as firstly normative. They're like me. They're somebody that I can say, yep, they understand me. They get me because they like me. And secondly, they're pursuing goals and interests that are similar to my goals and interests. And so therefore I can support that and I can say that I'm going to do better as a result of following that leader. But as soon as I stopped doing that, as soon as I start pursuing their own self-interest, as soon as I put a stake in the ground and say, this is what I want rather than what we want, that's when they lose leadership. That's when they lose the influence. That's when the president or Netanyahu, well, the president's every four years, but Netanyahu might be stood down by the Knesset as the prime minister of Israel if he's not delivering for them for what they want for the majority. But as you can also see, there are protests in Tel Aviv every single day by anti-Zionist Israelis who are saying this is not what we see as being important in our interests.

David (53:24)
Yeah. But that's all true, Randal, but it doesn't negate the statements that when you're in a leadership position, you as an individual person have to make decisions.

Randal (53:41)
But that's obvious. And I said, I didn't, but it does negate that if I'm making the decisions based on my own interests, on my own will, then that is where I'm going to get myself into trouble. It's not just about making the hard decisions. I mean, we're really starting to sound like a bunch of GRP people here. It's not about just making the hard decisions. It's about making decisions that are genuinely in the best interests of my followers, whoever those followers might be.

Gaj Ravichandra (53:43)
Luckily we have science to tell us that too.

David (53:46)
So what were you objecting to in that?

David (54:11)
Is it the followers or is it the cause? Is it about virtue and an idea? About doing the right thing?

Gaj Ravichandra (54:22)
Don't people follow ideas?

Randal (54:24)
Of course they do, but they follow the ideas that are appropriate, normative and aspirational for them. And that cause or that aspiration might be true for me, but it may not be true for you. And so you're not going to follow that leader. You'll go and follow another leader who actually has those. And that's why you have partisanship in the United States, because there is a part of of Americans, the society says, we want a father figure, we want a dominant tough guy, we want a guy who's going to make life difficult for all those perceived enemies. And then there's the other one that says, we're going to, we're going to talk about a greater future, a vision for us all, it's going to be fair and caring, and so on. And the society split right down the middle between the mother and the father.

Gaj Ravichandra (55:20)
Stakes in the ground, right? So in some of the ancient texts, they have this concept of Nishkarma.  Which is the idea of selfless leadership.  And I think that goes to your point there around the fact that if you are doing it for an individual gain, and I think you've seen some leaders around the world who have made that choice. I mean, a classic example is Brexit, right? When David Cameron agreed to go Brexit, he genuinely believed that it was not going to happen and that he was safe and we could just move on from the argument. It kind of backfired on him, right? Based on what happened. And so as a result of that, this idea of selfless action.  Are we doing things for the perceived greater good as opposed to ourselves? I completely agree with you. I think it's that that's been there, you know, in those ancient texts.

David (56:03)
Mm.

And I think that's an ideal of leadership. And I think if you're seen not to do that, then that's a real derailer for anyone's leadership. Bronwyn and helicopters, for example.

Randal (56:32)
Alan Joyce and bonuses on fraudulent flights.

Gaj Ravichandra (56:44)
Can I ask a question to both of you? I've always been interested to get both your perspectives on this. And how do we make leadership theory or leadership more impactful? I feel like there's something, I don't want to use the term the soul of leadership because Randal's eyes are going to roll, right? So I want to talk a little bit about more the idea of there's science that backs a lot of the stuff we do. 
And that's obviously an important part of what this is. But there's also this element of how to push the agenda of leadership forward in a way that can get some consensus on things. I feel like every three, four years, there's a new framework that comes out that someone's pushing to sell some books, some workshops, coming onto CNN or whatever podcast they need to come onto.

David (57:44)
So are you asking for a grand unified theory of leadership, something that ties it all together?  Like, sorry Randal, the big five and personality so that everyone can agree on what leadership is, how we do it and how do we improve leadership?

David (58:11)
Because I think that's the real missing thing is coming back to I don't think corporate leadership has been particularly effective. I don't think political leadership is particularly effective. And I don't think leadership development is particularly effective. you look at, if you take an outcomes focus at making better leaders now in whatever context than we have before. I see Randal about to arc up here.

Randal (58:52)
Yeah, I'm wondering whether I should swear or find a more reasonable approach.

David (58:56)
You can swear - we edit in post.

Gaj Ravichandra (58:56)
Please do. The only reason I'm suggesting this question is because I think we have seen a massive uplift in people abandoning modern leadership theory and flying away back to ancient theories, whether it's Stoicism, whether it's... whatever. But why are we going back there? What is it about modern leadership theory that it's not giving us meat on the bone? Like, are we missing something?

Randal (59:24)
So I think you said it, I think you gave one of the reasons for it before. I think one of the biggest problems for the practice of leadership and understanding what leadership is all about is organisational psychologists. And particularly those who don't have a great deal of schooling, but know how to actually put together a bit of a book or are able to go out there with their license for Hogan and test everybody in the world. And so they become the the hero of the moment because they have to pay a license for a test. What they're doing every week, there's a new leadership book out on the airport bookshelves and they say nothing different. They're all the same and they're all basically selling the same perfume for the same noses. What I think is if you look at the science, there is more embedded in the science. It may not necessarily be in the popular literature because it doesn't serve political or normative ends, particularly within the business world and the capitalist business world. But I think there are certainly some good signs out there about what effective leadership should be. And I think when you say leaders are less effective now than they have been, we've got to really talk about what we mean by effective and what we think leaders are supposed to do and to achieve. And so when I was talking about the fact that human life now is better than it's ever been in the history of the human species, that is in a range of different things. Much of that goes down to the leadership we've seen within our species. They may not necessarily hold positions of authority either. They may come from a range of different fields and so on. So I think one of the things we've got to say is if we look at effectiveness and we look at the fact that we live longer, we're healthier, we've never been richer. We as a species don't die in childbirth as frequently as we used to, that there is generally around the world, better equality. The leadership, you take it from those measures has been effective. What we are seeing though also Gaj as you point out is that there is a bit of a backslide going on at the moment. There is a group of people who have been disenfranchised by this new way, this more effective, sustainable approach to leadership. You're saying, no, I like the old authoritarian model. I liked it when I was on top of the heap. I liked it when people did what I told them to do. I liked it when I, I'll like it much better when I get generals like Hitler had, who will just be obedient to my stake in the ground. So we are seeing some backsliding, but I think generally, think leadership has developed. think leaders have become better. We're more democratic throughout the world now, even in places like the Middle East that weren't democratic, much more democratic in their processes, much more consultative with their societies, even if they're not necessarily open to voting. So I think that we have seen a growth and a change in leadership and the way leadership is viewed in society. I think one thing that is healthy that's come out of all of this rubbish that comes out in the leadership literature particularly from organisational psychologists with not much training, but can write a book, is that people become much more skeptical about letters and much more questioning than they used to be. It was at one stage the Raj, because they were the Raj, we just did what the Raj told us to do. And we didn't question that because that was God's plan. He was there, generally he, he was there because that was what God's will. And I can't argue with God, I just need to follow them.
We've gone past that. Even if you look at India now, going back as far as Gandhi and this possession of the Raj in India, there was a scepticism. This is not working for us. This authoritarian model, this old way of doing things, this leader with a stake in the ground who is unshakable in their conviction and their courage for their own perspective. We're not buying that any longer.
We want freedom, we want the democratic approach. We want to able to choose our life and the way we live. And we want our leaders to help to organize us around that, to bring us together so that we can work together to be much more effective as a society rather than just have some individuals do well and others not. 

End of the sermon, sorry.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:03:58)
Yeah, I think there's a couple of things on that. one is that, you know, it's interesting that a lot of these things that have happened, when we talk about leadership around, you know, health, influenza, and so forth, these are all random breakthroughs, by the way, these accidents that happened across many, many centuries, resulted in improvements in the quality of life. And you looked at penicillin and various things, these are all accidents, right? It was not leadership necessarily. It was actually that people were researching, they were passionate about something and they stumbled upon something that was... 

Randal (1:04:35)
So all science is just serendipity?

Gaj Ravichandra (1:04:52)
No, but there has been a lot of that in the past, right? A lot of these massive breakthroughs, … I'll send you a bunch of books that talk about this…I'm not saying everything, we don't have to put everything into a black and white box, it's not binary, right? But I think there's an element that a lot of these breakthroughs were not necessarily about leadership, but they were about brilliance, individual brilliance, right, from people that were actually experts in what they did. Yes, how you then take an influenza vaccine and then roll it out systemically across the planet, yes, requires some leadership. I agree, right, with that, absolutely. But the other thing is also just by putting a stake in the ground doesn't make you an authoritarian.
Right? Because other people have to buy into that stake in the ground. That's their choice. In modern life, if Trump wants to put a stake in the ground and no one cares to listen to him, Trump's voice will go away.

Randal (1:05:34)
So maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but I was hearing stake in the ground as being an unshakable belief and an unmoving leader who will not move away from their stake in the ground.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:05:45)
which every person is entitled to do, right? I mean, no one can really claim that if I believe...

Randal (1:05:50)
So why be a coach? Just say to you, you've put a stake in the ground with your mess, you're stuck. You're gonna have to stay there. That's courage. Just live with it.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:05:53)
Correct, it's courage. And I believe in self-awareness, right? So that's my stake in the ground.

David (1:06:01)
The stake in the ground is often about a value, a belief, or a movement, an idea.

Randal (1:06:17)
Stakes in the ground don't move. But anyway.

David (1:06:20)
Floods, earthquakes, the earth is spinning and traveling around the galaxy. Everything's moving, Randal. Nothing is static. The other thing, just to back Gaj up with systems theory, is that with something as complex as society, science, all that…leadership is often about the future, trying to predict the future and take people in a particular direction over time. Whereas in something as complex about science and advancement in society, these things are more emergent. They come together in an unpredictable way through the N-factors coming together and producing something unpredictable.
So you can't actually predict or control the future because it's a fizzy mass of emergent properties. And the best you can do is maybe anticipate it, be lucky and react to it and to pick it up as Gaj says. You get penicillin. And leadership is about recognizing it, picking it up, and then taking the initiative to then distribute it amongst the population. But penicillin, as I understand the urban myth, is it was basically someone saw some mold on a piece of bread and somehow or other, I'll check this out and see what it does. Anyhow. 

Randal (1:08:19)
That's not the way that happened, by the way, but anyway...

David (1:08:23)
Do you mean all urban myths aren’t true? 

Gaj Ravichandra (1:08:23)
The stronger story wins.

David (1:08:35)
Anything to do with humans at the individual level is complicated. Anything to do with humans en masse is complex to the power of complex. And it's really hard to actually work out exactly how all that happens. We can approximate it. We can simplify the universe down to seven plus or minus two factors that our primitive monkey brains can understand. And maybe leadership is more complicated than seven plus or minus two factors. And so we're always going to be grappling with the idea because it is too complex for our rational brains, at least, to understand. And it requires our subconscious, which is capable of handling more than seven plus or minus two factors at once. Of course, it

Randal (1:09:53)
particularly if you've got some crystals.

David (1:09:56)
The brain is a neural network, Randal. It's a learning network and it's not bound by our short-term memory, which...

Randal (1:09:58)
I'm seriously excited.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:10:07)
Yeah, I think the term is dreamcatcher. I think that's what we need to get. I think that's pretty.

Randal (1:10:07)
Yeah.

David (1:10:12)
Yeah, anyhow, what I'm saying is that maybe leadership is an intuitive thing. And to really pin it down, we're going to have to enlist AI in this that's not bound by the primitive neural structure of our brains and is able to understand complex multifactorial systems.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:10:17)
Mm.

David (1:10:42)
I think it's getting late, I've had a long day and I think my shite to rationality ratio is rising rapidly.

Randal (1:10:46)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I'm sorry we didn't give Gaj more time to talk about the Indian philosophies of leadership. I would have, I was really looking forward to hearing a bit more. We have a talk again. 

Gaj Ravichandra (1:11:02)
Yeah. No, I think it would have been actually, I think there's, there's a bunch of stuff I'll send through to you guys anyway, afterwards, a bunch of things on sort of, I was using chat GPT as a bit of a guide to try and find this sort of relationship between sort of modern day theories versus sort of that ancient leadership is quite interesting, actually, in terms of some of the stuff that came up with. So I'll send you some stuff through.

Randal (1:11:26)
Hmm.

So good social science, that makes sense to me because good social science should be descriptive. It should be able to explore what actually happens to interpret the kind of rules or laws. is the stuff of science is what science does. Richard Dawkins, who you raised before, is not just blinded by science. takes a scientific perspective, I think, and says, these are the rules or the laws.
That the hypotheses we have that are really robust because of the evidence that is supporting those hypotheses at the moment. But if there is data that comes along that properly disconfirms that hypothesis, then we come up with a new law. We come up with a new set of rules. We come up with a new hypothesis and we explore that. In other words, there's movement available. A faith-based approach is one which says nothing's changed in 4,000 years and nothing will change in the next 4,000 years because I have faith and God doesn't change and faith doesn't change. We don't reinterpret, we don't review our data. We just accept it as the way it has always been. So I think good leadership should be one that says, I have hypotheses about my people, about the effects, about the outcomes, about the way I may behave and I'm open to evidence to change.
And I'm open to coming up with a new set of rules. I think, David, we deal with complexity. So if you think about astrophysics, for example, we deal with complexity by trying to find a set of mathematical rules or laws that help us to describe what those complex issues might be. And so good psychology, if it's going to ever have any merit as a science, should be pursuing that angle, that should be pursuing that kind of approach to science.
But what I'm starting to hear and what I'm seeing more occurring these days is a drift by psychology back into philosophy, a move away from science back into philosophies and theories of epistemologies, if you like, faith. We don't understand, so we just have to work through it.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:13:29)
Yeah. And I'm wondering if there's a space for both, right? Where science doesn't explain, is there a space for some element of faith?

Randal (1:13:55)
What, the God of the Gaps kind of idea?

Gaj Ravichandra (1:13:57)
Well, no, just to keep your mind open to that possibility, right?

David (1:14:00)
It's, I think if you've, as you've told me many times, Randal, theatre sports is the answer. It's yes and…. And I think there is room for science, but I think there's also room for intuition and alternate ways of seeing the world and understanding the world rather than just a Western restricted view of what science is. 

Gaj Ravichandra (1:14:35)
Your next podcast should have a priest, rabbi and a monk. Is that what you need?

David (1:14:40)
Isn't that what we've got now?

Randal (1:14:42)
Pretty close, pretty close. Yeah.

David (1:14:45)
Pretty close. Look, I think that I find all this interesting and I'm kind of regretful, Gaj, we've hijacked your talk on ancient philosophies to be a debate around the place of science in psychology. But I think there is merit in your proposition that there's a lot to be learned. There's a lot of truth and wisdom in the ancient texts, be they Jewish, Hindu, Sumerian, whatever. They play a complimentary role to the numerical analysis, the strict Western idea of science, which is very, very good at making rocket ships and improving medicine and things like that. I'm not sure if it writes better poetry though.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:16:12)
How to get an algorithm right for that.
And we call this podcast the Nonsense Dialogues and we've just, in David's last comment there, shown why it's called the Nonsense Dialogues.

David (1:16:28)
I'm not going to invite you to any more theatre, Randal.

Randal (1:16:29)
Yeah, look, I think this is a really interesting discussion. It is the Jordan Peterson Sam Harris discussion that you can pick up on YouTube.  And by the way, I think they have a much better quality of argument. I think Sam Harris does much better than I do. And I think Jordan Peterson does a lot better than you do, David. But maybe we can send our listeners off to a few of those and we can come back to it.

David (1:17:03)
So Gaj, final words, what's your hope that the listener who has an interest in leadership and perhaps psychology, the psychology of leadership, the development of leadership, what lessons would you like them to take away from your perspective about receiving ancient wisdom? 

Gaj Ravichandra (1:17:37)
I would say that as in any profession, even if you look at software engineers creating code for AI, they would tell you that there is as much art as there is science in writing code. And I think if we, from that extreme level, if you were to look at how we look holistically at any topic, that we can't just desert the idea of art in how we might creatively look at leadership as well. And that science plays a massive role. There is no doubt you're not going to find someone stronger than an advocate in me in science. In terms of the importance of science and how it's played a role. But I think if we can maybe go back to look at some of these ancient texts and even use them as inspiration for some of the research that we want to look into around leadership.
I would ask people who are interested in the psychology of leadership to look at some of those texts and to say, how can we start to draw some parallels, even find some opportunities for us to research into these areas a little bit more deeply? Because I think there is a place for art and science in this.

David (1:18:50)
So one thing I'll ask you to do Gaj is perhaps if you can just leave, we can get from you and we can put it in the description under the podcast is just what to read. But besides the actual translation of Bhagavad Gita, are there nice and easy introductions to this? Maybe you've got a book you'd like to plug.

David (1:19:22)
Where should our listener go next in their journey of discovery?

And yeah, think that's the thing. Where can they go next? Randal, have you got some closing thoughts?

Randal (1:19:45)
Well, despite what I might have said, I don't think they should go next to a Joe Rogan podcast or start reading anything or listening to anything Jordan Peterson's had to say, except for a bit of entertainment, perhaps. Look, I think I don't disagree with Gaj on that. The idea of art in this is as well as science. And to go back to ancient texts, Aristotle talked about that the success came from what was called technique, was the combination of art, skill and technique in whatever process to achieve your goal. Technique is learned, skill comes from practice. Art is what you bring to it yourself.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:20:32)
Beautiful

David (1:20:32)
Randal, my god, I think you're agreeing with us now. We've circled around and we've ended, boys and girls, we've ended once again in furious agreement. Well done, chaps.

Randal (1:20:37)
Not really. Not really.

Randal (1:20:46)
Yeah, but Gaj, great having you on. I'm sorry we didn't listen more and hear more of what you had to say about the ancient wisdoms.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:20:52)
Well, it's super entertaining for me. So thank you. I appreciate it. It was great to be hearing you guys and it's wonderful what you're contributing through these discussions, actually.

Randal (1:21:02)
And maybe I haven't offended you too much and you'll come back and join us another time. We can actually have part two of this.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:21:09)
That'd be great. Thank you so much.

David (1:21:10)
I think it'd be interesting for us to talk about part two, see where we go next. And I think what we'll do, Randal's, we'll have talking sticks. Whoever has the talking stick gets to talk and everyone else has to shut up until they're handed the talking stick.

Like a presidential debate where we can mute the microphones. You can do that, yeah.

David (1:21:34)
Yeah, actually, I can do that. I'm disappointed in myself. Didn't do so. Never mind. 

All right. OK, everyone, thank you for listening once again. And sorry for the delay. We're terribly busy and important and disorganized. So hopefully, our next podcast of the Nonsenses will come sooner. 

Randal (1:22:07)
So if we get thousands of listeners and some significant sponsors where we can make millions of dollars a year, we can do this full time and produce more.

David (1:22:15)
We should have a version that goes on Twitter, a YouTube version, a TikTok. We just gotta think big Randal. All right. Okay. It's goodnight from me. And it's goodnight from him. Goodnight.

Randal (1:22:25)
Yep. All right. Thanks guys. Cheers. Thanks guys. Cheers, David. Thanks, mate. Bye.

Gaj Ravichandra (1:22:29)
Thank you guys.