Leading Through Uncertainty: How to Decide with Half the Map With Melanie Marshall

Former BBC foreign journalist Melanie Marshall spent more than 20 years reporting from conflict zones and moments of upheaval across six continents. In this episode, she reveals what those experiences taught her about leadership, resilience and making decisions when you don’t have the full picture.

Melanie and Francis explore why uncertainty does not mean powerlessness, how great leaders create space for uncomfortable truths, and why plans must change the moment they meet reality. They also examine AI’s growing influence on human judgment, the dangers of easy answers and why businesses must resist handing over their agency.

From a Ukrainian community that fought back against an invasion to a life-saving decision on a road in Syria, Melanie shares remarkable stories that demonstrate courage, trust and leadership under pressure.

Key Takeaways:

• Uncertainty is not powerlessness it creates both risk and opportunity.
• Effective leaders make decisions with incomplete information.
• A plan must evolve when it comes into contact with reality.
• Leadership means confronting uncomfortable truths before the window for action closes.
• Trust must be built before a team reaches a crisis.
• The quietest person in the room may recognize your greatest risk or opportunity.
• AI should support human judgment, not replace curiosity, accountability or agency.
• Resilience often begins with identifying the resources already available to you.
• Human connection remains one of our strongest defenses against fear and division.
• Courage is often as simple as taking the next step together.

Soundbites:

“Uncertainty is not powerlessness.”

“The plan survives usually until you leave the door.”

“You’re deciding with the map actively on fire.”

“Bravery is simply one foot in front of the other.”

“Leadership is doing the uncomfortable thing.”

“We need a little grit to make the pearl.”

“Go out into the world and talk to a real person.”

“If the world feels scary, ask yourself: What is the opportunity here, and what resources do I have available?”

Listen now for a compelling conversation about leading through uncertainty, decision-making under pressure, resilience, AI, human connection and the courage to move forward without all the answers.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Francis (00:02.054)
Hi everyone, welcome to the Entropy Podcast. I'm your host, Francis Gorman. Before we dive in, if today's conversation challenges you, sparks a new idea, or sharpens how you think about the world, don't keep it to yourself. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who enjoys staying Curious. Today I'm joined by Melanie Marshall, a former BBC foreign journalist, keynote speaker, and founder of Imrama Media. After more than twenty years reporting across six continents, often in moments of conflict and upheaval,

Melanie now helps leaders navigate uncertainty, make decisions with incomplete information, and act with deliberate optimism. Melanie, it's lovely to have you here with me today.

Melanie Marshall (00:39.318)
It's lovely to be with you, Francis. I'm I'm excited to be with you and all of your listeners and viewers so we can have a good a good old chit chat. I'm always l I always laugh when I like I hear my intro, I'm like, yeah, I did do all of that.

Francis (00:53.607)
I hope, says you.

Melanie Marshall (00:56.118)
yeah, well that would be a whole different conversation, right? Then I'd be your Elizabeth Holmes interview.

Francis (01:02.589)
We have been doing so much in deep fakes now, but I can confirm Melanie is a real person, you know, so we can we can Melanie, I I I was looking forward to this because every now and again I bring in someone who has a unique view on on on the world and their perspectives help shape how we all think as leaders and and and how we operate in our day-to-day lives. And you know, you've you've been a a foreign journalist with the BBC for many years. That's brought you across the world to many places of uncertainty and conflict, etc. So

Melanie Marshall (01:06.794)
Yeah, exactly.

Francis (01:32.539)
What I'd like to kind of start off with, you know, when when we don't have the full picture, you know, we feel a little bit uncomfortable. What does that teach us about kind of our obsession with certainty?

Melanie Marshall (01:43.759)
you know, I think the biggest thing that I would love for people to understand is that uncertainty is not powerlessness. The reason that leaders, organizations, individuals become get this feeling of doom come over them is because they get this idea that when we are in a period of uncertainty, which we definitely are, right? The pace of things, the

the level of geopolitical change, all of this, yeah, sure. But we look at that and we think, well, there's no agency left. And therefore we're doomed. And it's just not true. You know, what I have seen in Ukraine, in Syria, in Afghanistan, all places I love by the way, that are is that when we are in these times when it feels like absolutely everything is in free fall, there are still things we can do.

And actually sometimes there's opportunity if we are able to kind of, you know, gird our loins, as it were. Does anyone else use that phrase anymore? Gird our loins and, you know, calm ourselves down, focus on what's ahead of us. Uncertainty doesn't have to be a bad place to be.

Francis (03:00.819)
So we step into it.

Melanie Marshall (03:02.476)
We step into it. And the truth is it's there all the time. You know, I've been, I think, lucky enough to be in places where most folks didn't have a choice about, you know, a war coming to their door or a natural disaster, you know, sweeping through their village. These weren't things that they were like, you know what? I really hope that my business is washed away today. And yet.

They find a way to focus on their family, to take the next small step, to join together, to look for where they have leverage, to look for where there are opportunities, and they move forward. And there's also an awareness often in these societies that uncertainty is just the way things are. It's not a bad thing happening to us, it's just the way things are. And so I think if we can accept it as a neutral thing and potentially even an opportunity.

then it becomes a a completely different playground for us to be in.

Francis (04:04.431)
That's that's an interesting perspective and and I suppose kind of what I'm taking away there is you know we find the best in ourselves when the worst of things happen. You know, it's it's it it it opens up to possibilities, you know. You y you need to be resilient, you need to find that thing to fix the thing that, you know, you never thought you'd have to fix. You become an engineer, you become a survivor, you know?

Melanie Marshall (04:25.782)
Yeah, like so you you do and it's not that I'm not saying I I I always hate the you know, it happens for a reason thing. But if you think about a time when you've been through a health crisis or someone you love has, because we've all done that. People are like, what can I learn from war? It's like you don't have to learn from being in a war zone. But we've all kind of been in that in our lives, right? You know, where you've we've been in the hospital. We have been in the situation where we're sitting at the kitchen table thinking.

How am I gonna meet payroll? How am I gonna, you know, how are we gonna pull together? And you do. People get creative. People think about, okay, what are the resources I have available to me? People lean into dark humor. I mean, come on, you're Irish, right? Dark humor. Is it a coping mechanism or not? Am I

Francis (05:18.257)
We are we are we are perfectionists of dark humor. You know. If I saw half the stuff, I was thinking this podcast would have been cancelled years ago.

Melanie Marshall (05:22.04)
How's it helped?

Melanie Marshall (05:29.342)
Would you like so and I feel like we all know that that is how we get through those times. And when we put it into kind of bigger macros, it doesn't become less true. It's still true. It actually is still true. And I I think about I think about so I'm trying to think you'd have to tell me what's what's an Irish equivalent for this, but there is a town in Ukraine that's a like maybe

Twenty thousand people soakin' wet. Wha what would be a good sized good sized town, but not not not particularly robust, not a city.

Francis (06:10.099)
Twenty thousand people is probably a a nace equivalent in Irish terms. Nace County Killair, I would say. There's probably about twenty thousand or more people there, yeah.

Melanie Marshall (06:16.844)
Okay, all right.

Can you imagine if that was all that stood between you and invasion? Can you imagine if those were the folks that you were relying on to turn back the tide? Like if that's and when I was in the town of Vosnesensk in Ukraine, those people turned back the Russians. They were the first Russian, they were basically the first victory against the Russians in the Ukrainian war.

And we had gone down, we were doing, we had op opened up the Odessa front. We because we thought they were going to try and take Odessa because it's a seaport. And so, and then we heard this story. People were telling us this story about this little town that had turned back the Russians. And we thought, well, that's crazy. How that can't have happened. And so off we went. And of course, along the way, we got, you know, flat tires and all the things that happened to you, which you have to then solve while you

look around whistling and hoping that, you know, nothing is gonna come shooting at you. And when we arrived with the help of the local the local automobile association into the town of Vosny Sensk, we discovered that it in fact was true. And the first woman we met was Svetlana, who is a a robust, I would say, retired woman. And she's the first we said, look, we

We heard you turn back the Russians. Can we talk about that? And she said, Yes, we can, but I have to show you something first. And we were like, What's that? She's like, Look what they did to my toilet. And the first thing she wanted to show us was that they had blown up her toilet. And like that was like, look at the barbarity of this, of this conflict, right? And I mean, I don't know. I feel like a lot of people could relate to that.

Melanie Marshall (08:12.939)
But this was like she's not someone that you would think is going to she no military training, nothing. But what she had done, they'd climbed over her fence and told her they were there to liberate her from the Nazis. And she had gone right up and told them, No, you're not. Who the heck are you? And even though this she's just a regular kind of old lady, she had stood up to them. And when they'd taken over her farm, she'd still managed to communicate with her neighbors.

And she'd done her best to keep their prisoners of war alive. And at the same time, other people in that town or village, whatever you would call it, had done their part. The mayor had tried to rally anyone with a hunting rifle. There was a guy we met who knew how to make Molotov cocktails from YouTube and did.

And was more than happy to show us his YouTube videos, the videos he'd taken on his phone of him like, like, ha ha, away you beauties. And I mean, look, there's no glory in war. There really isn't. But there was something amazing about what a group of people managed to do waiting for reinforcements to come. Because, you know, they managed to hold them off while the actual army was engaged on the Eastern Front.

And I think of them when I think about uncertainty coming to us and us not wanting it, expecting it, or feeling ready for it, and still being able to enter into it and the pride they felt in what they did. And should I mean they should feel pride. Like who does that?

Francis (09:50.343)
Does that play into your mantra of the side with half the map?

Melanie Marshall (09:54.794)
Yeah, you know, I mean I always feel like I say this like decide with half the map, which in some ways is even more like corporate than I really am. Cause I'm like, you're deciding with the map actively on fire, usually. Like the map is sort of burning in your hand. Like my thing for when I'm talking to leaders is the plan survives usually until you leave the door. It is excellent to have a plan. It is good and just to have the five year plan and the the plan for the year and the quarter.

But the truth is the moment that has contact with reality, it is going to start changing. There are going to be operatives who fall out, people who work for you and you trust are gonna do things that you didn't expect. I mean, everybody's had that where you're like, I guess they aren't my point person. And you're going to have to make decisions. I mean, I've had to do this. You're gonna have to make decisions not knowing how it's going to turn out.

And that's really hard. I mean, it is really hard. Like I my work dad, Cookie, one of his sayings to me was, he used to always tell me, never go up a road when you don't know what's on the other side. And that advice literally saved my life. Where I would feel the prickle on the back of my neck. And I was in home, Syria, and we were, we had managed to.

Get away from our minders, and we'd gotten into the city when it was still divided between rebel forces and Assad, and we were trying to get across to talk to the rebels. And we thought a road was safe, and it was getting quieter and quieter. And I suddenly heard Cookie's voice in my head, clear as a bell. Never go up a road when you don't know what's on the other side. And I grabbed the driver's shoulder and literally screamed in his ear, Turn around, turn around, turn around.

And he, bless him. I mean, he was a great driver, and we were all very in tune. He turned around just as a firefight broke out of the compound in front of us. And we would have driven right into it. And I mean, so that was the map on fire. And you have to be alive to the realities around you. Because things are going to be changing all the time.

Melanie Marshall (12:19.232)
And it doesn't mean you don't move forward. We did find another way across town, by the way, but like you have to be constantly reassessing.

Francis (12:28.797)
What does that do for your mental state in terms of bravery or courage or pushing forward? You know, you have the outcome that you want. The mission to get there is hazardous. You're in the moment, so it's adrenaline rush, but is there a point as you turn back down the road and go, we'll try that. We'll try the other road. I guess there is

Melanie Marshall (12:32.822)
Mm.

Melanie Marshall (12:52.366)
Yeah, it's exactly that's exactly what we did for us. Yeah. But yeah, what does it do for the mental state? So look, I think the reason I did it for so long is because I felt that I had the the constitution to do it. And therefore I had almost a duty because it was what I could do to help tell stories to the world. So I think there's a there is a certain element where

I used to tell people for a long time, I'm I'm not brave. I didn't like I really hated that label, but I accept now that I did a lot of brave things. But I was scared plenty of times. Do you think when we turned down when we turned back and the adrenaline dropped, of course I thought, my God, I can't believe, you know. And especially because I was responsible for other people, you think, you know, what if? Right? But I don't think bravery is.

I've known some, you know, I've known lots of like SEALs and SAS and, you know, the kind of French Foreign Legion types who, you know, eat danger for breakfast. But most of the people I have known are just like you and me. And I don't think bravery is what we think it is. I think bravery is simply like one foot in front of the other.

Okay, change course. oof. Let's do it together. Cause there's gonna be a moment where you and you cannot do this alone. Like you can't like life. You cannot do life alone. And you cannot do any of the scary things that are happening in our lives alone. You just can't. And so you ask what it does for mental health. It's like it you you go to other people. And if you're asking about is it hard to be a foreign foreign person doing things like that sometimes? Yeah.

Yeah, I think it would be crazy not to have it weigh on you. I mean, I it's interesting because, you know, for me it was never it was never that stuff. The like the bullets and whatever never was the thing for me that weighed. For me it was suffering. And still is. Like I find the pain of people who have lost somebody or who, you know, being with

Melanie Marshall (15:16.422)
mothers in Yemen whose children were starving. I and then going to a grocery store in the capital that was filled to the brim. Things like that were hard on my mental state because it was my realization of how much things don't have to be the way they are, right? You realize how how much we can do to make the world better.

And so I find suffering much more difficult than danger.

Francis (15:47.784)
What does that do for your appreciation of the basics, the the just the everyday things? Being able to have a shower, just war the warm cup of coffee we were talking about before we started the interview, you know?

Melanie Marshall (15:54.702)
Mm.

Melanie Marshall (15:58.984)
yeah, here we go. My little can I can I do my little Canada?

Francis (16:03.229)
Can absolutely do that. Yep.

Melanie Marshall (16:06.759)
I think if you are if you are open to it, I think it makes you appreciate every single moment. And I mean not everyone, right? Because you know, you still get annoyed if you have a fight with your neighbor and you think ruh, you know, like I I like I and you, me, right? I do. however for me, I feel like I want I when I was younger I had a boss who

used to tell me I was so lucky to come from a boring country and I would get so cross with him because all I wanted to do was travel the world and have adventures, right? And now I am so grateful, as you say, for being able to, okay, I'm gonna say it, flush the loo. You flush the loo and you're like, woo, this is like a and I used to think, like it used to be the first shower I would have after every long deployment, because like

I'll be honest, you get pretty gross. The first shower would be like a heavenly experience. And so I always think the trick is to try and not lose that appreciation, to try and keep coming back to what is good in my life? What have I got? And I actually do think that's, by the way, I do think it's a business skill too. Because when you are actively looking for what you have available to you.

It opens up all sorts of avenues to solve problems, to pursue different ways of being and existing. And like I think my life is fundamentally better than it fund fundamentally I'm I'm I think I'm happier than a lot of people. And it's not because I'm like, thank God I'm not like those other folks. It's because I look around and I think, wow, I made a coffee this morning.

Or my little kitty is playing at my feet and I'm like, I'm so lucky that I'm able to go to the store and whenever I want and buy pet food and walk home.

Francis (18:14.971)
It's it's it's so interesting that you're you're relaying some of this back to business and and as you're talking, I'm I'm I'm thinking of the kind of big picture and what is the art of the possible if we don't have the budget or the people or whatever. You know, I think I think convenience and comfort is probably killing a lot of Western businesses at the moment. And maybe the fear of uncertainty needs to creep a little bit back in so we get a little sharper, we get a little bit more aware. What's your perspective there?

Melanie Marshall (18:19.265)
Mm.

Melanie Marshall (18:44.447)
that's so I love that as a question, Frances. Okay, so okay, so two things. One, I think we have this thing which is a fluency bias, right? Which is we love the easy. We love the easy answer. And it's just the way our brains work. And so, you know, you have we have to accept this a little bit if we're in business, if we're in storytelling, work with the way people are, not the way we want them to be, right? Like that's just

You know, learn take it from a lady who's known a lot of humans. Work with the way people are. So I do think that that has crept in and I and I've worked with a lot of businesses. And sometimes I do feel like I'm not doing that. Cause I'm like, listen, everybody, you have it so good. It's not broken. The world is not broken. You still have amazing access to capital. You still have incredible people with education, infrastructure, and opportunities to reshape leverage. You just

Need to take a beat and look around you in a different way. And I don't know if they need to fear uncertainty as much as they need to welcome it. You know, that that's the question of does fear sharpen us? Yes. But also you can look at it and get a little bit of a, ooh, what am I going to do today? What can I do with this? And I think you can have a little bit of both.

Francis (20:07.805)
So I'm

Melanie Marshall (20:10.411)
And business needs both right now. Because otherwise, all I hear, I hear so much negativity. And I'm like, what on earth? Like you are creating this. Like, look, it is true, it is a tough environment. It is a tough environment, but we are not like inherently doomed. There is not an inherent doom. Like I have been in I have been in places in sub-Saharan Africa.

Francis (20:10.76)
Yeah.

Melanie Marshall (20:35.105)
Where somebody rocks up in a refugee camp one day and the next day they've set up a business. Right. So we look at them as though we're like, poor them, like, they're so, you know, downtrodden. It's like, look, they are seeing themselves as having agency. They're looking around for what's the gap in the market here? How can I borrow money from my neighbor to get into it? And they're on it.

So we need a little of that.

Francis (21:01.235)
That is s so interesting. It's so interest it's so interesting. You said I had a conversation with somebody recently and they were giving out about their kids and a light bulb story about they were on holidays. The light bulb's goddad, how do I how do I change the light bulb, you know? It was kind of like for f sake. Alright, yeah, all the the light bulb's near the stairs, it's not dangerous with the ladder, you know, this kind of this kind of stuff

And and and the the guy I was talking to, he he he said to me, You know, all these people coming into the countries that have had to go across the sea and have been shipwrecked and deported and then back in again and going he goes, They are not gonna ask about a light bulb. They're just gonna sort the light the light bulb is the least problem that they they have so much resilience built up, so much problem solving built up. And and I think it's that it's that convenience, that comfort, it's like sleepwalking to a

to the abyss without really understanding that, you know, you're already heading to a bad end here. And and I I think the innovation and AI is accelerating that journey.

Melanie Marshall (22:10.591)
Oof. It is because AI teaches us to it gives us the easy answer. And we love it. And it's taught to give us the easy answer and it's taught to give us certainty. And none of those things make us our best.

And and we don't like to remember that always. And so, you know, I when I'm using my AI, my AI to have a complicated and in-depth relationship where, you know, I'll get to the point and I'll say, why can't you admit you're wrong? And it will say, Well, I'm trained not to not to tell you that. I'm trained never to give you that answer. And I was like, yes, but admitting we don't know things is how we innovate. And it's like, well.

You know, innovation, not my strong suit. But if you think about what makes us great in business, what creates new products, what find new markets, what it is the ability to go into the unknown, to find unknown patterns, and I would argue accountability building trust and relationships, because there's so much of business is about relationships. And what a lot of what we're doing with AI is taking all of that away, whether we're handing it over.

Or whether it is we're like we're handing it over and then we're saying, okay, well, whatever you say goes. And it's not that it isn't brilliant. I don't I hate it whenever, you know, you question anything, you're a Luddite or you're one of the people who says we're approaching, you know, Terminator 2 judgment day. It is simply that there are middle grounds, there are middle paths to follow. And and we should be following them because actually we're the boss of it. It should be helping us in a bit. Because I think about can we talk about China for a second?

Francis (23:58.588)
We absolutely can.

Melanie Marshall (24:00.672)
Okay, I love China. Okay. Do I love authoritarian regimes? No, not my favorite. However, when I first moved to Asia because I wanted to live there, I always have this thing about seeing the world through new eyes. It changes your perspective, it gives you different approaches to problem solving. It is so optimistic in general. Yes, huge problems with youth unemployment, real estate market, all okay, we all know these macro problems.

But culturally, people are optimistic about the future and what they can do with it. And I would argue that's generally quite different from how we are approaching business. And even I mean, look, we probably don't know half of what they're doing with AI. And and weirdly, they have put way more guardrails in place.

Way more guardrails. Now, for different reasons, this is the law of unintended consequences, right? Things, things, this is one of the other things I have learned all over the world. Lots of things happen for reasons that we don't expect. So you have got to be watching out for them. But weirdly, for bad reasons, they have put, maybe they've put guardrails in place, and you have an optimistic population that think we can use this for ourselves, and they're going streets ahead overall.

And I think instead of fearing it, it's like, what can we learn from it? Like, what's the question we can ask that isn't fear-based?

Francis (25:35.965)
China seemed to have harnessed AI to solve problems that actually need solving, and the West seemed to have harnessed AI to create images of themselves in the eighties.

Melanie Marshall (25:46.158)
Yes, or ourselves as I mean, this is la very last year, but ourselves as pets or ourselves yeah, exactly. I mean I haven't even done the 80s one yet. But it's like, yeah, and it and that's exactly it. Like, what are the problems that need solving? So, you know, all this like amazing work on medical imaging being done in India, right? Problems that need solving. And it's just a mindset shift. Like that is what all of this is in the end. Right? We become we we forget that

At its heart, businesses are created by humans and run by humans, and they are about what what our society is going to be. And look, anyone who's sat in a C-suite knows that it's all about the humans, right? We've all been in the place where there's, you know, so and so doesn't get along with so-and-so. I've done some some wonderful whispering in my time. And it is fundamentally, it is about our mindset.

And what we want to bring forward and what we want to bring out in people and what kind of future we want to create. That's all it is. That's all business is. Like I mean, I don't know. you know, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, and I think it's because they kind of fundamentally get the idea that business is a creative enterprise and that it's really uncertain. And when we get to this corporate level, there is this, and I mean, Lord knows I worked for the BBC for over 20 years, so I know an institution.

We get to this feeling that the institution must be protected, but also is so fragile it can't handle innovation.

And that is a death now.

Melanie Marshall (27:28.94)
It's a death now.

Francis (27:28.977)
I love that b because it's it's we've got too big to fail was the idea. And and then when the foundations start to crumble, you know, there's this kind of what do we do? What do we do next? And it it's it's kind of like I w we've talked about AI and we've talked about China and and solving problems and the uncertainty and everything. There was something that Jeff White said to me about the psychology of A AI and and it's it's played back in my mind several times. He said to Why

Melanie Marshall (27:35.021)
Mm-hmm.

Melanie Marshall (27:45.399)
Mm-hmm.

Melanie Marshall (27:51.053)
Mm.

Francis (27:57.116)
Why, if AI can just create the outcome, does the text not appear in one block? Why does it type it at a slightly faster speed than you can type? And he said, the reason is that is to make you feel, you know, that it is this human like thing that is writing the answer back to you, not just boom, it's there. It's that's been that that was a purposeful design decision to play into the human psyche. And you know, it's it's it's a little trick of the mind. It makes us feel more comfortable.

It removes uncertainty. You know, if the if the text just appeared and went, Melanie, boom, answer. How would you feel would you f kind of feel a bit, that's that was a bit, you know, fast. You know. But if you can s if you can see it coming out to you, the oddity you you have more certainty. Hmm. Yeah.

Melanie Marshall (28:36.747)
Yeah. Well, you're like, it's thinking about this. it's really thinking about this. I should, you know what? Go on now. So I mean I've trained now. This is a very journalist thing to do, but my I've trained all of my AIs have to give me their sources. And I encourage everyone, it's really easy, just copy and paste that into the instructions and and you can tell them which ones to use.

But it's absolutely true. And if you ask it, so like occasionally I'll say to mine, like, don't tell me you feel this way because you don't. You're not sentient. And it's, you know, it is a trick of the mind. It's a psychology that's playing on us to make us rely on it and hand over our agency. And the biggest thing that we should not be doing right now in a time of massive uncertainty is handing over our agency. Because

You know, you said that about the foundations crumbling, and I was thinking, yes. And one of the things that I have seen in so many places, and this is businesses I've been working with as well as countries, is we see the foundations crumbling, and we are too afraid to be honest about it.

So we see it happening, and instead of everybody being like, hey, this is happening, let's figure it out. We ostracize the person saying it, or we pretend it's not real, and then we lose the window of action. Because there is a window of action. There's always a window of action. And the safest way, the most effective and you know, profitable way, really to move through this is to.

Act when you see things. To start, you know, when the map's on fire, that's when you change. It's not after everything's burned to the ground.

Francis (30:32.796)
The reason

Francis (30:38.353)
You could argue that is to do with comfort. And and and the reason I say that is because I don't know how many times I've been in a room where hundreds of thousands of euro have been spent to move something to such a position, and everybody knows we're gonna spend another couple of hundred thousand euro and it's gonna be a shit show. So why don't we stop? Why don't we just stop? Because it's too uncomfortable.

Melanie Marshall (30:42.124)
I love it. Yeah, yeah.

Melanie Marshall (31:00.789)
YES!

Melanie Marshall (31:05.895)
And and if we can train ourselves and this is a leadership thing. This is leadership. Leadership is doing the uncomfortable thing. Like leadership is not taking the victory lap or sending out the email where you're like, you know, we all did a great job when it was a shit show.

Right? Who has been in a big organization where some where you've got the email about the shit show and it's like, hey, everybody, that wasn't what you thought it was. It was actually great. Right? We lost hundreds of millions of euros, but we learned a lot. We don't even say we learned a lot. We only say that in whispers in corners. And that is about, it is about our our inability to be uncomfortable. And the truth is.

We shouldn't be expecting that of our teams if we cannot do that ourselves as leaders.

Francis (32:05.117)
How much of that is due to ego, do you think?

Melanie Marshall (32:08.682)
You know what? I actually don't think as much of it is to do with ego as might be, you know, I think we have a lot of, everyone's a sociopath, right? There's all these, you know, clickbait, you know, who who is a sociopath articles, you know, about leaders. I don't think that. I think most people are doing the best they can. And I think most people actually want to be liked. I think most people want to go home and sleep at night.

I think, you know, I have had the gift of meeting billionaires and warlords and the deeply impoverished and, you know, I I've everyone I've met, I've I've met kind of a a very vast range. And my experience is there are very few people whose egos are so out of control that it's all about their inability to admit that they're wrong from that perspective.

I think it is often fear. Right? It is fear of what they'll lose. It is fear that no one will respect them if they change course. It is not knowing how to just stop and say the hard thing or do the hard thing. Because I I would say I think people are great at pausing or kicking things into committee or kicking that.

But to actually stop and say, wait a second. We all know, like, I'm gonna give I'm gonna give this room an absolute hall pass. Do you know what a hall pass is? Yeah, all right. So yeah.

Francis (33:51.427)
I do, I do, yeah. Depending on your context now.

Melanie Marshall (33:55.853)
I know, I'm giving it a slightly different twist here, but we're giving every we give everyone absolute freedom in a room. And this is where you need to have trust with your teams, right? Your teams do need to trust you, and you have to have built that before the shit show starts. You can't be in a shit shit show and say, okay, everyone, look, let's all stop for a second. Whoever thinks that we are about to make a horrible decision that's going to set the business back, raise your hand.

Because if everyone knows that that's not how your business runs on truth, they won't do it. And you you know, when you're leading teams through war zones, it's really important you trust each other. Because you'll ha you it's never it is never majority rule. If you are in the house trying to figure out how you get from that house to the vehicle, because there are you know

Risks, dangers, and darkness everywhere. I'm trying to remember the the oath of the night watch in Game of Thrones, right? Felt like that sometimes. And you sit down and you're saying to everyone under pressure, Okay, everybody, we need to know, go, no, go.

Everybody there needs to be able to tell you the truth. And then my job would be to say, Okay, I I will tell everyone this was the team, this was the group decision. That's my job. I'm the leader. I'm the I'm responsible.

Francis (35:25.949)
So what you're saying is create space for all the voices in the room, just not the loudest loudest voices.

Melanie Marshall (35:31.848)
yeah, but also you have to build it before it starts. You have to build it before it starts. And you have to be looking for it as a leader. Right? You have to be looking for it as a leader. You can't just be looking, like you talk about ego. It's like it's not, it's not ego, but sometimes you haven't if you haven't built that space, you haven't built that culture, then all you're gonna hear from people is, yeah, this is great. Let's keep going, right? Let's keep driving off the cliff.

Francis (35:58.61)
And and I think it goes back to your story of the the old lady confronting the Russian. Like, you know, sometimes the best of us come from the most unusual places. And if you don't create the environment that that individual can stand up when they actually need to, when when when you need them to, not when they need to, you know, you you you might never create that avenue forward.

Melanie Marshall (36:08.67)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Melanie Marshall (36:20.352)
Yes.

Melanie Marshall (36:24.82)
You might never find it. You might never see what is actually your biggest risk or opportunity. I you know, so one of the things I do now is a lot of with with Imrama, one of the things I do is I I I look at a lot of patterns and I do a lot of kind of I hate the word futurism because I don't really believe in it, but I, you know, I do a lot of kind of reading signals because right now things are happening so fast, by the time we get the data, everything's moved on.

But there are a lot of signals out there. But if you are all in one room from one experience at one level, you're not gonna get all the right signals. So what you said is exactly right, Francis. Like it is so spot on for what leaders should be doing. It is, they should be, you as a leader should be making space for.

not the l not the least of us, but everyone in the room. And you should be trying to seek out those voices. It goes back to you think of some of the the old time CEOs who would always make sure that they talk to the night watchman, right? Or who would make sure that they they had a good relationship up and down the chain. You know, back when we had shop floors, right? You walk the shop floor, you talk to the bank teller. Because people in all these different levels are going to

be hearing signals and seeing signals that if you miss them, they can cost you. And if you see them, they're huge opportunities. But again, it's also down to us to have created that space and to be willing to be wrong.

Right.

Francis (38:06.547)
I think there's a bit there of human respect that we have potentially lost with the corporate world. And and I think you're s you you see it a lot in part of the Ukraine at the moment, the lack of respect for life. That the the lack of respect for what we all signed up to as the rules of conflict. A soldier can kill a soldier, but don't drop a bomb in a shopping centre or a hospital or a power plant. You know, it we s we seem to have blurred the lines and the

Melanie Marshall (38:10.634)
Mm.

Francis (38:36.283)
If if if you look at what's happening with the hybrid warfare, you know, we're we're turning Europe inward on itself. We're blaming immigration, you know, we're we're creating mistrust. You know, the United States proceeded at the moment, you know, let's give everyone 5,000 euro if they vote for certain parties. I don't know, don't want to comment there, but you know, it's something a bit funny funny with that one. But like, you know, I think there's I think the world

Melanie Marshall (38:58.456)
off.

Francis (39:03.301)
Is not in a good place right now. And that uncertainty, that upheaval, that uncomfort. And what happens is people tune out. They stop listening. They stop seeing the signals. And and and something that really brought this home for me was I need to check the exact figure. So don't quote me, go validate yourself. But I think 60 odd percent of people who use Google search now stop at the AI generated response. And that goes back to what you said about.

Melanie Marshall (39:30.432)
Really?

Francis (39:32.879)
Know your sources because now what you take away is what has been prescribed.

Melanie Marshall (39:34.465)
Mm-hmm.

Melanie Marshall (39:42.023)
It is so and you know we need a little grit to make the pearl, right? We do need a little grit to make the pearl. And in some ways it's like, you know, okay, this isn't a foreign journalist story, but this does make me laugh. Years ago I dated this guy and he was a filmmaker. He's a bit of a weird Johnny, but he was going to he was curious about I I don't know, we'll probably get in trouble for saying this, Scientology. You know, they used to have those things on the street, you'd go in and get tested. And so

He went to, he was like, I'm curious, I want to go see it. But he wrote on his hand, remember, this is a cult before he went in. And it makes me laugh because I sometimes think we need to have like a little post-it note up on, you know, our laptops or little reminders on our phones. Like, remember, this shouldn't be easy. Things don't need to be easy. Like, hard doesn't kill us. Hard, hard makes us better. Hard helps us think.

Differently, more creatively. Hard helps us see more within reason. Not hard like what Ukraine is experiencing. Not hard for four years. How they have managed to flourish is unimaginable. And the cost that they'll pay over time to try and rebuild, I don't think we can guess. But for us, for you and I sitting comfortably, and for anybody else, like we need to put a little reminder note, which is like

This doesn't look, this shouldn't be easy. Make it a little harder. And part of that is look, if the world feels scary or bad, which let's be honest, it does to a lot of us. It does to me sometimes. go out into it. Here's my hard invitation. Go out into it and talk to a real person.

And I pretty much guarantee you it will feel better. You know, I I again, why do I feel still hopeful about the world? And the world includes business, the world includes leaders, the world includes, you know, everybody sitting and thinking about AI policy. It's because when you go and have a conversation face to face with a human, generally.

Francis (41:44.355)
Yeah.

Melanie Marshall (42:07.102)
You don't have a conversation that is, you know, let's talk about policy and, you know, bots and whatever. We have a conversation about pets and kids and sports teams and and what we love about life. And that is still real. And that I would say most of us actually have agency over.

Francis (42:30.077)
That is so true. I I had a conversation this morning with a lady just back from maternity leave and it went along the lines of if you had your second child first, you would you would have had a serious consideration about having him in the first place. But you love You know what I mean? But but what's wrong with him?

Melanie Marshall (42:48.726)
You know what? Because that's so honest. And there's like such a you form these connections. And like, you know, like you form these connections that are like really honest and interesting and different. And it's so easy to forget that that is out there and real. And I do think we can lose that when we're all, you know, talking only to our our chats and our clods and our perplexities or whatever. But that conversation.

Is so important. And you know, I did this drive where I drove, I was I had so many, mostly Americans, telling me, Are you sure that there's hope? Are you sure that we can still make something better? I did a drive. I drove from Mexico to Canada. And I just stopped at places all along the way and talked to people. And I, of course, had lots of people say, Well, what did everyone say about politics? And I said, You know what? We didn't talk about politics.

You know, we had people people told me, you know, my my dog, they'd say things like, your dog looks like she can hunt. You know? Now and I I said, Well, you're very wrong. You know, it's like it's like hunt treats. But you make can and and and does it mean and some people will be like, Well, you should be confronting them and finding out. You know, I went to the Mega Superstore because I was curious. I saw a billboard and I thought,

I'm gonna go, a Canadian who worked for the BBC and was driving a Mexican-plated car. And I thought, I'm gonna go. I'm curious. And A, I was welcomed in. B, I ended up having a really in-depth conversation with the guy who ran it about how he'd grown up. And he'd grown up as someone who just wanted to be left alone and to live kind of a country life. And the thing he found the most sad was the number of people he knew who.

Who had family divisions now over politics. And does it mean I agree with everything that guy thinks? I bet you it doesn't. I probably don't know half of the things he thinks. I bet you he didn't agree with half the things I think. Were we able to connect? Yes. And I some people say to me, you shouldn't talk to so-and-so, and you shouldn't have a conversation. I will die on the hill that we should all still be talking to each other.

Melanie Marshall (45:11.222)
I mean, now, granted, I have interviewed the Taliban and I have interviewed somebody who was, you know, a t a a torturer for the pole pot regime, but I believe fundamentally we should all keep talking to people. Because that's how we don't let things fall into entropy, right? That is how we continue to keep some sort of connective tissue and to see each other as humans. And then we can see, okay, well, maybe there's a place I can build here.

Maybe there's something I can do with this. And by the way, that works just as well in a bank that's in crisis, in a startup that has had a funding round go kaput, or in a drive that takes you to Dollywood, which was incredible.

Francis (46:01.499)
Melanie, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. Before we finish up, is there any takeaways for the listeners you want to leave us with?

Melanie Marshall (46:08.374)
So, okay, get out into the world, right? Today, my invitation to you, I would love for you to go out into the world today, have a conversation with somebody you wouldn't normally have. It doesn't have to be deep. Just have a conversation with someone you wouldn't normally have and then reflect on what it maybe opens up for you, because there'll be something. Secondly, uncertainty does not mean you are powerless. It simply means that things are in flux.

And that opens up risk as well as opportunity. So ask yourself, what is the opportunity here? And what resources do I have available to meet them? Those would be my takeaways.

Francis (46:50.353)
Amazing. Really, really insightful. Love the conversation. You're a great person and I just really enjoyed this.

Melanie Marshall (46:58.368)
I had so much fun. Thank you, Francis, for having me.

Francis (47:01.425)
You're very welcome. Thank you.