Excellence Foresight with Nancy Nouaimeh

The Ten Permissions: A Framework for Adaptive Leadership with Jillian Reilly

• Nancy Nouaimeh • Season 3 • Episode 10

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What would happen if you gave yourself permission to adapt, create, and lead differently in our disruptive world? 

Jillian Reilly discovered the answer while tackling the world's largest HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe. Amid this immense social challenge, she recognized that while she could provide tools and resources, the one thing she couldn't give people was permission, the internal authorization to change their lives. This profound insight launched her twenty-year exploration into how self-permission shapes our capacity for meaningful transformation.

In this thought-provoking conversation, Jillian introduces us to her forthcoming book, "The Ten Permissions," presenting a framework that challenges conventional approaches to change. She reveals why the permission "to think small and forget about the future" might be exactly what change-makers need, embracing direction over destination in a world where long-term visibility has become nearly impossible. Similarly, her permission to "make believe" invites us to reclaim our creative capacities, acknowledging that in an AI-dominated future, our uniquely human ability to create will become our most valuable asset.

Jillian articulates how organizational systems often preserve the status quo rather than enabling adaptation. The solution? Engineering for responsiveness through continuous small experiments instead of waiting for major failures to trigger change. Perhaps most challenging for established leaders is her call to become "more explorer and less executive" – comfortable saying "I don't know" while developing stronger pattern recognition and question-asking capabilities.

As we navigate unprecedented disruption in our social systems, Rilley suggests the most radical permission might be to "be willful" – reconnecting with our desires and intentions after generations of suppressing them for security. This reconnection, she believes, could lead not just to better adaptation but to more fulfilling participation in a rapidly transforming world.

Pre-order "The Ten Permissions" (releasing September 16th) and discover how giving yourself permission might be the key to thriving in uncertainty. What permission will you give yourself today?

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Nancy Nouaimeh:

Hello and welcome to the Excellence Foresight, the podcast where we explore the mindset, models and strategies shaping the future of sustainable excellence in organizations. I'm your host, Nancy Nouaimeh, and today we're diving into a conversation that challenges how we think about change, not just as a process but as a deeply human experience. I'm thrilled to welcome Gillian Riley to the show. An internationally recognized author, speaker and change catalyst, whose work bridges leadership, strategy and global social development. From her TEDx talk to her Ford Foundation-backed Courageous Conversations, gillian has helped leaders and organizations navigate disruption with clarity and courage. Her upcoming book, the Ten Permissions, offers a bold new framework for embracing adaptability, letting go of outdated paradigms and leading with intention in uncertain times. Welcome, jillian. Oh, thank you, nancy. It's such a pleasure to be here with you today. Thank you very much for being our guest so.

Jillian Reilly:

I would like to start with some questions just to set the stage for our listeners to understand a little bit more about your book and what you do.

Jillian Reilly:

So can you tell us about the moment or insight that inspired the 10 Permissions on the fertile lands of Zimbabwe, where I was many, many years ago working on what was then the world's biggest HIV AIDS epidemic and sort of deep in social change, as you described in the introduction, and had been for some time, and sort of as I was trying to help people navigate this epidemic.

Jillian Reilly:

You know I kept coming up against sort of the unwillingness or the lack of desire to adapt and change behavior and it made me very curious about what it takes for people to really want to make new choices and changes in their lives and in other situations in their communities or their organizations. And I came to realize that, you know, I could give people tools and skills and knowledge and resources, but the one thing that I couldn't give them was permission, which was their own, you know desire and sort of self-authorization to make changes to their lives. So that really sparked this thinking in my mind of just you know how giving yourself permission is such a central part of any sort of change process. Self-authorization and agency is a critical piece of the change conversation that I think we often miss. So, yeah, that was many years ago, but I've spent, you know, probably the last 20 years exploring the theme, and now, of course, I'm diving into it much deeper in my book.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

That's very interesting, jillian, and I would like to ask you maybe just a question, and I don't want to like I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot, but when you talk about self-authorization, is this related to our own beliefs, the way we grew up, the way, the certain blockage we have from our education, that really makes people not necessarily have that authorization to change?

Jillian Reilly:

Yeah, and I think it's fairly universal. I think certain cultures and societies sort of are more conformist and prize compliance more than others. But one thing I talk about in my book is what I describe as the permissions paradigm, which is that we raise children to be permission seekers. You know, necessarily they need boundaries and they need guidance in terms of understanding. You know how to fit into families and cultures and what's approved of and what isn't. But what we don't do is support young people moving into adulthood to give themselves permission, so to sort of claim an appropriate amount of authority in adulthood to make some of their own decisions.

Jillian Reilly:

And I think what we're seeing right now is in a very disruptive world where there are so many choices that we have to make, so many changes that we're trying to make sense of Without that sense of self-permission. If you're always looking externally for someone to you know give you approval or give you the answer, you can find yourself feeling sort of frozen, unsure of what to do or unsure of what's right. So I think it's become in my mind an ever more important topic as we've moved into a world where self-direction is more critical than ever.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I think this is really. I think you're describing what we're living these days, I think, in a very accurate manner. So I think you gave us already the answer to why you chose days, I think, and in a very accurate manner. So I think you gave us already the answer to why you chose, I think, the permissions and your book to be around that. Can you walk us through one or two of the permissions that resonate most with change makers or leaders from your book, jillian?

Jillian Reilly:

Sure, I'm gonna. Well, I'm not sure if they'll resonate, but I think it will be quite interesting. So there's a couple of them that are about when I say permission to think small and to forget about the future. So I think for change makers, those two might be quite interesting because you know, historically we've always sort of worked in a deductive manner as it relates to change. We established a future vision and then we worked backwards to decide how we got there. And we often were encouraged to have big plans, big long-term plans, big ideas, and then figure out the ways to get there.

Jillian Reilly:

And part of this permission is acknowledging the fact that in a disruptive world we don't always have that long line of sight. We can't always see exactly where it is we want to get to. We might only have a general sense of direction. So the way I describe it in the book is to have a direction rather than a destination mindset. So you might not know exactly where you're going to go, but you might have a general sense of where you're headed. So permission to not know exactly you know what the final destination is, but to sit out and to learn as you go and to work in smaller steps. So again, I think a lot of us feel like we're supposed to know, you know, where we're going to be next year, what the plan is for two, three, four or five years, and I think, especially right now, we can all agree that that's almost impossible.

Jillian Reilly:

So allowing yourself, to work in smaller steps, to be a little bit more inductive rather than deductive, to learn actively and adapt as you go. I think that's a very different mindset to one that we've historically used, but to me it's more important than ever if we're going to navigate growth and change.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I think this resonates very well with me and I'm sure it resonates with other people. Since the pandemic, we've seen that we can't really take control over things. I'm someone who likes to control what I'm doing. I like to see where I'm going and how I'm going to go there. I'm a quality professional but I think, yeah, I've learned my lesson the last two, three years. So it's totally. I think I relate totally to what you're saying and I think, yes, we need to be prepared, be prepared to what's coming, but somehow have that open mindset that things are not going to go the way we want. But we need to have those baby steps, the small steps to be able to navigate what's coming and adapt, I think, as needed. No, I think a lot of people will resonate with what you said very well. Thank you for that, gillian Sure. Any other example you'd like to share from your book? Any other permission?

Jillian Reilly:

I'll go to the last one, which is what I call make believe, and that is make things that you believe in and believe that you can make things. So I think we are being called upon again to be ever more creative, ever more generative, both in our thinking and in our approach to our lives, our roles, our careers, and I think for most of us. You know, we were not brought up to believe that we were creative, that we could create. That was sort of for special people, whether they were artists or, you know, people we even called creatives. And I think, especially now, as we sit on the cusp of this AI revolution, I think one of the imperatives is that we give ourselves permission to explore our creative capabilities, to approach change, even with a kind of creative rather than a corrective mindset. And you know, and so many of us can point to that time at school when we decided that we weren't creative, when we couldn't do art, when we couldn't draw, when we couldn't do all the things that we attach to creativity in our own minds. But I think it's going to be absolutely critical, moving forward, that we give ourselves space and permission to explore how we create new things, because it isn't, you know, just about social content. It isn't just about art. It's about finding new solutions to old problems. It's about taking existing projects or programs or responses and finding a new twist on them.

Jillian Reilly:

The world is ripe for us to kind of use our creative talents, and I think podcasts are a wonderful example of that, where 10 years ago, if you told somebody that professionals would be podcast creators and hosts, they'd probably say what, why, why would people be doing this? Whereas now you know it's perfectly normal, acceptable, encouraged, the software exists to enable it, and so that's just one example, um of the ways in which I think people are allowing themselves to explore their ability to create new things and put value into the world, and then see, you know where that gets them, who that connects them to. So, um, yeah, for me that had to be the 10th one, because ultimately, for me, these 10 permissions are all about helping us to work out how we create the most value in our lives and in the world and then set out to offer it to others.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I like the fact that you've mentioned creativity. I think we a lot, like you said, a lot of people don't believe that they can be creative, and I think it's also part of the human being being always in their comfort zone, not necessarily willing to try new things. So the fact that someone believes he can be creative, I think he's going to get out of that comfort zone and try something new. And, being a problem solver myself, I know that you need to think out of the box to find good solutions to certain old problems, like you said. So I think that's a great advice for people to take forward, which is really find ways to do things differently. And, gillian, I mean continue with the permission framework but also link it a little bit to excellence.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

You talk about letting go of old ways In your experience. Experience how does organizational systems and standards become a barrier if too rigid? We need to be creative and we need to be coming up with new solutions inside organizations and also serve while serving our clients and and delivering new, new products and services. So where do you think organizational maybe systems are not supporting that?

Jillian Reilly:

Well, I think every one of us who's ever worked in an organization will know that organizations, systems, protect the status quo, right? They? They tend to return back to the way they've always done things because you know it's, it makes sense, it's a way of just ensuring continuity. To some extent, historically it was a way of ensuring productivity, and I think what we need to to sort of accept and this is part of the book's message is that in a disruptive world, in a high velocity change world, we need to engineer systems that will be more adaptive rather than systems that will, you know, replicate the status quo. So they've normally sort of kept people within boxes, defined how people should behave and not, and we haven't necessarily engaged with them in order to make them as responsive as they could be. So, I think, becoming exceptionally aware of whether and how our systems are adapting, again giving ourselves permission to engage with, is this working? Is this the best way? Is there another way that might suit this moment better, this problem better? We know that in the world that we're living in. So we need to kind of in some ways mimic that, both in our own behavior and in the systems and processes that we create. So, whereas, let's say, in a 20th century environment, a fixed system felt like it was protection against human error, against, you know, sort of a variety of different things that could go wrong.

Jillian Reilly:

I think now the imperative for leaders is to say you know, is the current way the best way to approach with curiosity and with openness the question of how do we continue to adapt and be intentional about the ways that we're working?

Jillian Reilly:

And so often, you know, we don't take the time to do that, we just keep going, we just keep, you know, waiting until there's a problem that sort of pushes us out of the status quo. But in fact, you know, small corrections, small adaptations. You know, one my um permissions is to experiment, so to not wait until something's going wrong to fix it, but to try new things routinely, to look for small adaptations, small experiments, as opposed to sort of periodic corrections and creations, is where I think the key is um. And that again, historically wasn't what we did. We had a yearly check-in or, as I said, we waited until something kind of broke in order to fix it. And I think having a mindset of just how do I continue to nurture a responsive, adaptive system continually over a period of time is really how we need to kind of look to the future.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I'm listening to you and I'm just looking back at what we teach, also at the Shingo model. We teach also like scientific thinking, and we try to tell leaders you need to look at the systems that work in these days, not just looking at the things that we know how to use them from before, but make sure that you are adaptable, make sure that you come up with new ways of doing things for your people to be able to also to deliver better results. So if systems don't work and if people are not doing that, I think it could be the system itself. So I think what you're describing here is a great picture of what organizations' leaders need to do to make sure that systems remain adaptive. So thank you, gillian, for your answer. Now, if we want to talk a little bit about the social change and system thinking, what do we need to unlearn as a society or as professionals to move forward more in a more equitable way towards adaptable futures?

Jillian Reilly:

Well, I think you know, when you were speaking earlier, we were talking about the crisis that comes with feeling like you're out of control, with feeling like you don't know, and I think that kind of captures where a lot of us are right now. And I think that captures where any individual is or any organization is when it's facing major change, which is, of course, where all of us are now. And I think, for me, there's the unlearning around, sort of the idea that you have to have all the answers in order to proceed, the idea that you're always working in a sort of if-then paradigm in your own head, that you will only act when there is certainty. I think learning to become more exploratory, to sort of switch on a lot of our natural exploratory capabilities, is something that's so critical and it's something that I talk about in the book. You know, the modern leader needs to be more explorer and a little less executive, needs to be willing to say I don't know, I don't have the answers, and that's very hard for people who occupy positions of power and authority. They expect themselves, if they are capable leaders, to have answers and then lead their people towards that answer.

Jillian Reilly:

And I think, sort of repositioning our understanding of what leadership looks like in very disruptive times means, you know, saying I don't know, I really don't know how this is going to unfold, but I'm willing to ask the best questions, I'm willing to be deeply curious, I'm willing to be a pattern spotter and a dot connector that's super tuned in to the environment and what it's telling me and what it's teaching me.

Jillian Reilly:

I'm willing to listen to my team and to my people. Those, for me, are the qualities of a really sound executive explorer who is willing to kind of bring people along with him or her through times of disruption and manage the discomfort of that, manage the uncertainty of that, so that you can find new ways of doing things. Because you know, I think there's great potential right now. I think this chaos is ripe with possibility. But if you treat the uncertainty and the unknown as a threat, then you will never optimize for all that uncertainty. You will simply sort of protect the status quo. And so I think allowing ourselves to kind of work in that more exploratory manner and unlearn the idea that leadership comes with having all the answers and knowing all the outcomes is is a critical foundational mindset shift that allows you to be more adaptive in your approach.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I totally agree with you, and this is where the collective knowledge will help really in decision making. And we talk about humble leaders who have these qualities of asking and saying I don't have all the answers. And I think this is what we really need, and I think this is a great message for all leaders across the globe that they really need to have that, because we see a lot. There's something I call the syndrome of a new CEO. A new CEO comes in. He always changes everything around without even asking what works, what doesn't work, and we see sometimes organizations going backward with the change of leadership rather than moving forward. So I think this is a great quality that people need to learn. Jen, related to social systems we have and you have a lot of experience in that, where do you see the collective responsibility for change in our social systems?

Jillian Reilly:

Well.

Jillian Reilly:

I think, as we face a leadership crisis around the world, you know where I think we've. I think it's been one of the most challenging aspects of the last decade and I talk about it a bit in the book as part of what I see as the unraveling which is our confidence and faith and trust in leaders to do the right things to look after the collective. I think it's incredibly challenging for us right now because we are desperate for good leadership and yet we look around and it's pretty hard to spot right now. So I actually think, as much as this is not something that probably most of us want to hear, we need to find some more of that within ourselves, within whatever form that takes to account. But I think we need to understand the leadership function, if you will, as being far more dispersed than those people who call themselves leaders.

Jillian Reilly:

I think there's so many young people in the world right now. I have two teenage boys who I think are full of a fresh sense of possibility and, frankly, I think one of the biggest imperatives of living in an adaptive world is letting go of the idea that age equals wisdom and this kind of idea that, in order to assume authority, you have to kind of be of a certain age. Actually, I think part of this fresh mindset that we need to adopt is that there's so much value in youthful approaches to things, there's so much value in fresh thinking. So I would really look to a younger generation to give themselves permission to lead and for us to get out of the way a little bit, because I think everything that we're seeing right now is kind of a desperate call for a fresh 21st century sort of mindset and approach to taking us all forward. So I think there's a collective call for leadership right now, and I think young people are in the perfect position to sort of fill that gap yeah, I have two kids myself.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I mean they're like 18 and 20 and I see a lot of potential and a lot of wisdom in in the way they think and the way they act. Do you think the education system needs to change somehow? That's a question I always ask myself. When I look at the education system we have, I see some of it is some of the education institutions are doing it differently and they're developing the new generation on certain values, maybe others not that much. So what do you think about the education system?

Jillian Reilly:

Oh yeah, 100%.

Jillian Reilly:

I think we need to shift our focus towards what I would describe as more agency-based education. I think, particularly now with AI I know we all are talking about it, but I don't think you can't talk about it when you're talking about education, because the idea that school was a time for absorbing information and learning certain knowledge sets. I think anybody who's a parent and anybody who's sort of alive and aware of the trajectory of what's required right now to thrive as an adult and as a human will understand that those things are becoming less and less important. But you know, knowing how to navigate, knowing how to kind of make good choices, work with others, think critically, think creatively a whole set of sort of human capabilities that gets almost no attention within traditional education systems is critical.

Jillian Reilly:

I think you see it already in a lot of what would be called non-mainstream schools that are moving away from you know student as passive recipient of information and teaching to you know student as evolving human who needs to be far more in charge of, far more directive in their own learning process, which, the minute you say it, people you know get afraid. They say we're raising these kind of entitled kids. But actually I think there's so many ways that we could embed greater degrees of choice, greater degrees of self-direction into education. That would go such a long way in spinning out kids who were more confident and courageous in how they're going to find their way forward in the world yeah, I hear what.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I think, julian, it's uh, I think there's a lot of changes that uh needs to be done in our systems education, social system and everything and it's a it's a lot of work, I think. I do hope that we'll be able to to do it right. But, yeah, we have challenges with existing leadership and we see more and more talks about certain elements which are important in organizational leaders and other types of leaders, which I think could be an eye-opener as we move forward if we become more and more conscious about these and the choices we make also. But I think there's a lot that our listeners could learn from your book. We covered only a few permissions here. Is there anything else, any other permission you would like to touch on briefly before we wrap up our session? Jill?

Jillian Reilly:

Well, I guess I'll just start with the first one, which is be willful, which feels like a good place to end and begin.

Jillian Reilly:

Yeah, because I think you know human desire, human will, human agency is for me such a foundational piece of all of this and it's where the real promise to me lies moving forward, I think, historically, you know, we've been told to sort of stifle our will and squash our desires in exchange for security, and I think you know that trade-off no longer pays off and people have, you know, sort of we've spun out a lot of people who filled a degree of jobs and roles, and when those cease to exist, in the same way I think there will be an imperative for people to tap into a little bit more of what it is they want, what they want to create, what they want to do, how they want to participate in the world.

Jillian Reilly:

So I think, to some extent, you know, a liberating factor around human desire could be if I've got my positive lenses on it, um, an upside of of this sort of period that we're moving into and and one that I think could have great promise for human growth and satisfaction yeah, exactly, I think that now we can really feel that the sky is the limit and we can do a lot of good work, but just we need to make sure that we start in the right place.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

So thank you very much for this, jillian. Um, where can our listeners learn more about your work and your book? When is it coming out?

Jillian Reilly:

it's it'll be published in the US on the 16th of September. Um, so I will, nancy. I will send you the pre-order link, because making the Amazon machine work is critically important for us authors. But they can also find out more about other things at my website, which is 10permissionscom. I'm very active on LinkedIn and I really kind of. One of the things I'm most looking forward to in the months ahead is people start to read the book and engage with the content is the conversations that I'm hoping it'll spawn, some of which will be with me. I would look forward to people reaching out, chatting to me about how they're making sense of it in their own lives, the permissions they're giving themselves and sort of the ways in which, hopefully, the book is is shaping their sense of what's possible for them moving forward.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I think this is a great uh gift for everyone. Thank you, jillian, and it's a gift for me before my birthday, couple of days before my birthday so I'm looking forward to reading wonderful, wonderful, an ideal birthday present.

Jillian Reilly:

Yes, exactly.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

Thank you. So, uh, with this, jillian, I would like to thank you a lot for sharing your thoughts, for sharing your, your, the lessons from your book, I think, then, from what you just told us about the permissions, this is these are great lessons for us, I think, to start focusing on and, as we wrap up today's conversation, I invite everyone listen, listening to the podcast, to reflect on one permission uh, you're ready to yourself, whether it's to pause, to pivot, to speak up or to let go. Change isn't just about strategy. It's about courage, connection and the willingness to reimagine what's possible and, like Gillian said, there's plenty of possibilities available for everyone with the current, I think, evolution of our world. Thank you for joining me, jillian. Thank you for sharing your book. This was the 10 Permissions Podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, share it with someone who's navigating their own transformation, and remember the path to adaptive leadership begins with the permissions we claim for ourselves. Until next time, stay curious, stay courageous and keep giving yourself permission to grow. Thank you, jillian. Thank you, nancy.

Jillian Reilly:

What a pleasure.

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Nancy Nouaimeh

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Jillian Reilly

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