Inside the Collective | EP01 | Saul Betmead de Chasteigner |The Conversations Leaders Avoid

Saul Betmead de Chasteigner has worked across agencies, Oxford, the United Nations and leadership programmes designed to help people think more clearly.

In this conversation, he reflects on the deeply personal experience that first drew him to psychology, why he believes every business problem hides a human one, and what it takes to create the kind of trust where people finally say the thing they have been avoiding. 

He talks about leadership as earned authority rather than status, why so many organisations get trapped by their own success, what culture does to the way people interpret the world, and how becoming a parent radically sharpened his sense of what actually matters. 

It is a rich episode about change, assumptions, perspective and the hard work of helping people see differently.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Inside the Collective, the show where we explore how people rethink the way we work, lead, and create. Today's guest is someone I haven't spoken to in far too many years, but whose brain and energy I remember well from our Sachi Sydney days, Saul Betneed de Chestinier. Hopefully I've pronounced that right. Saul is now an associate fellow at Oxford, Said Business School, a former CMO of the United Nations World Food Program, and the founder of All Things Considered, where he helps leaders see more clearly and think more boldly. He's worked across agencies, humanitarian missions, innovation labs, and in true Saul fashion, once ran the life-saving uh club at North Bondi to keep things interesting. He spent his career helping people shift perspective in all the right ways. Saul, it's really great to have you here. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Well, thank you for those kind words. That's very that's very sweet of you to sum up my life like that. Uh it makes me sound much more impressive than I am.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Having known you as long as I have, I disagree, but I love the I love the humility. All right, so we're gonna ease into this with a quick round of this or that. Oxford tea or Bondi coffee.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Oh, that's not fair. You can't start with I'll have to go with Oxford tea.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

And that's why you haven't been back to Australia.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm from Cambridge though, which is very confusing. We could talk about that another time if you want to cover it.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

All right, uh deep work morning or long reflective walk. Oh, could you say that again? Deep work morning or long reflective walk. Deep work morning. Coaching leaders or challenging assumptions. Challenging assumptions. Surf rescue or boardroom rescue.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Uh surf rescue. Nice. All right.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Easy ditch over saw. Let's now dig into the uh more challenging questions. Very good.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

That's very good. They're very they're very that's very difficult. They're very difficult. Hopefully the rest are easier than that.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Uh well, yeah, but we'll see. We'll see how they go with it. So when you rewind right back, what first pulled you towards psychology and what part of that still guides how you see people today?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Uh a friend of mine killed herself when I was 19. Oh, and it was no no no no. It was it was a very I was talking to one of my best friends about it last night that and it really um it really affected me. Um I I'd done a lot of um, I've always done, I've always been quite altruistic. I did lots of voluntary work in the local, um, it's called a mental hospital, then I you don't call it that now. But um I just I remember just realizing that I at some deep level that that was the frame through which we see the world is is just how we think about how we believe about things. And yeah, and my friend, all of us thought she was fine, and then she she wasn't. And I just remember just having this just revelation about what's going on inside of us is actually quite different from what's going outside of us. And I and I remember just thinking I I need to understand this better. And that's why I ended up studying psychology, and it's it's the red thread to everything, and it's um you know, you can't really. I have this, I have this notion that you behind every business problem and opportunity lies a human one. You you know, they're the ones that start companies, they're the ones that keep them alive, they're the ones that buy from companies. It's always very easy to get to get blindsided by the business and the technology. It's actually people. And so I keep coming back to psychology, even though it was a kind of sad start to that. It's a fascinating, it's a fascinating world because it's just we don't really understand ourselves very well. We we barely understand others. Um, and it's one of those, it's the problem that you'll never really understand. So for me, yeah, I'm quite an intellectually curious person, I'm quite a restless person, and it's just a a problem that just keeps, it's a puzzle. That just keeps on giving. I every day I read another paper and I I didn't realize that. Or I have a you know, I'm running a leadership session in Oxford and I get I just hadn't thought about that before. Um you know for me that's why that's why it's it's stayed with me for so long, is because it's just it's the most challenging thing you can do, really, to try and understand people and how they tick.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Absolutely. Um, you started your career in the thick of agency life. What did those early Saatchi Sydney years teach you about people, pressure, and performance?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I'm a big fan of of that time in my life. Um uh it for me, I know there's a debate about this, but I I feel it felt like a family to me. And the leaders, and we had good and bad leaders, as you remember. The leaders who were really good, you felt like they were they were on your side and they understood you, as well as being very competent and visionary, whatever you want to call those, that that thing. They were inspiring, they were inspiring. But I I I remember I remember feeling quite um quite excited by that time, but also just my notion of leadership has changed quite a lot over time. Perhaps we can talk about that. But yeah, that there was very much um this guy called Mark Green, if you remember him, who's gone on to amazing things. Um we worked for a new business together, and and he he he described pitching as a benevolent dictatorship, which I think is quite an interesting way of thinking about it. But I always felt like we were always we were in we were always together as a group. You know, we a lot of people drank together, they went out together a lot. There was a cohesion that I haven't really had many times in my life at the work. And so that the question you ask is a really good one because the the performance aspect of it came from that cohesion and that that understanding between each other. And I think when I or if I if I reflect on different leadership coming in at different times, you you you you know when it you you become very aware when it's not there. And somebody's trying to tell you what to do without you respecting them. I think that's at the essence of of leadership in one level, is it just you just have to respect and trust the the other, however senior they are. And I always got the feeling that that's that's what it was, especially at Saarchi and Saarchi Sydney at that particular time, which was doing really well as well. There was a sense of trust and compassion as well as a lot of really fucking good people, and they really knew what they were doing. But it was that cohesion. I don't know, actually, don't know whether you found the same thing. It's just there was a sense of family, which I I don't think I've experienced many times since.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

You spend a lot of your time helping leaders create better futures. When you strip the theory away, what does that actually look like in the room?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

It's it's about having meaningful conversations about stuff that people generally either don't notice or don't want to have. So um I will after quite a lot of warm-up, it takes quite a long time to get trust. I'll usually get to things like and there's different ways of interpreting this, but you it's personal, but also uh at a commercial level. What are your elements in the room? What's it what what what would you have meetings where people don't talk about the stuff they should be talking about and talk about everything else? Um where are you lying to yourself? And often though, and you get I get people to work on their own first, and then they get people to work in pairs, and then I get people to share if they want to. I never pause for to share. And once you've built up a trusted environment, the the stuff comes up. Uh I was working with a with a Middle East company um a couple of weeks ago, and you know, it it's it's a four-day program, so I'd spent four days with these people, and I asked those questions later in the week, and it was it, it was it was lovely. You could feel the the bubble burst, and they just go, Oh my god, and they all said something very similar. It's a lot of nodding when they start talking about those things, but it takes quite a lot of effort to surface that stuff, and it takes quite a lot of trust because those are questions that most of the time in the commercial reality of any organization, and actually I'd argue in life, we're just on go, we're going, we're moving forward, and we don't stop and pause and have a look. And it's only when you do that that you you start to see patterns and you start to see what's really going on with either team dynamic or a company strategy. That's when the stuff comes up. Um, I think it's uh Warren Buffett, it's a the you know, the biggest challenge for companies is is complacency. So I call them anti-complacency weapons. But you just get people just to check their assumption. I mean, I obviously work a lot on assumptions, but it's often difficult to know what you mean by that. Just assuming that what you've been doing is right, um, and that that that what you could be doing is wrong. Getting people to talk about that sort of stuff is actually very difficult, but it can be very cathartic and very useful for companies. It's just very difficult to get there often.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Ask people to test their ideas against reality. How do you help a group let go of something that no longer fits?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

So I've got a I'm a I'm a framework monkey, as my wife says. I I I've got models I use, I've got a thing I call five sites. Um, and so so that that that's essentially a structure that makes you just forces you to step outside and have a look, which is the essence of your question, which is like what hindsight, so you're looking back, looking back at what worked before, what assumptions, what the conventions of your thinking or the category, then foresight, which is actually what do you believe about the future that others don't. What you know, what's what's your foresight? What do you what's your prediction? And then um insight, which is what makes you interesting and capable and special, outsight, which is what do you need to grow. Often that isn't what you've got inside the company, it's what got outside the company, and then oversight, which is how do you structure yourself? Usually the reason I use those five things is it tends to tease out your belief systems and your thinking systems in a way that allows you to see what you to see a clearer picture of what you think you understand an idea, is what you understand your current uh mental model is of the world. And once you do that, I mean I I I I wrote uh uh an essay on this in the other day of the ad industry, and just how actually isn't able to see different ideas because it's stuck in its own it's called exploit, you're exploiting what you're currently good at rather than exploring what you need to be good at. I I use that as a system because it just tends to just separate out things that you kind of bundle together, and it's very easy to bundle them together because again, you're you're you're trying to make money, you're in the business of work at any given moment. It's just really hard to step outside that sort of stuff. So I tend to use things like that. Also, it it people find it quite when you have a system and you've proved you've used it before, people trust the system a bit. Okay, this person knows what it they're doing. Um, I can see the benefit in that. And you I often give them a case study or uh an example from somebody else just to say, okay, this is how it works. So to give an example to what I mean. That's how I that's how I usually try and do that. Um I use systems to unpack things.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

I'm a huge fan of systems. Um, it makes things a lot easier to get to where you want to go. Yeah. Um, you've worked in political, creative, and hand and humanitarian environments. What surprised you most about stepping into the UN?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Uh it's very bureaucratic, which wasn't surprising. It it's it's very political. Um again, that's not really surprising, but I imagined it being much flatter and much less political because it's full of really, really well-intentioned, capable people. It really is. But it's enormous, like any large organization, it's very complicated. You know, I was only there for a couple of years, but it it's just it's just it's it's just a very complicated, politically orientated system. Again, I think I was only surprised because I'd I think my my belief of what it was was different from from what what I believed any other organization was. It's just like any other organization. Big diversified organization with layers, with legacy assumptions, with legacy systems, dealing with the worst stuff in the world. Even the dub well-proof program where I work, you know, I think it feeds 140 million people a year. And it's also got that's a humanitarian, but it's also got development work, which is helping fix the underlying problems. Uh, you know, you just take one look at the development goals and you realize how incredibly complicated and inter interconnected the system is, and then you try and think about all these different organizations. They come under one banner, but there's lots of different organizations with there's a lot of overlap between them. I just had I just I think if I thought about it properly, I would have it wouldn't have been surprising because it's like a big organization. Um but it was it was it was very I I found it very surprising because I hadn't really understood what I was going into. Um City.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

You've you've talked about I'm sure we could talk about that all n all night, and I would just keep asking more and more questions about it. It's very intriguing. Um talking about organizations, um, and and you've mentioned that they can develop success, a success syndrome. What does that look like in real life?

SPEAKER_01 14:52

I mean, the the the success syndrome is uh is a is a concept um created by a couple of Harvard academics to explain why companies in the long run struggle to adopt um and find new technologies. I mean there's it it's it it we can debate that. Um there's lots of interesting things about that, but essentially they said, look, there is there's a thing called the success route there where all of the all of the systems are designed to exploit what you're currently good at, not explore what you might be good at in the future. And that those are your operating system, your culture, which is probably the argument, the strongest one, KPIs, everything. It's it's not a surprise, especially when a company is listed, it's got quarterly targets, it's just you're designed to do one thing, and uh it just shows up because they're just it's all of the stuff that they do, it's about optimization, it's about efficiency. It's all often never about the big stuff that might be interesting, but it's just it's really hard for them to get their head around. Um and and then you you often see when companies like that, you see um how would I describe it? It's like a nominal creative, nominal exploration of activity. I mean, ad agencies do it quite a lot, they have like a um like a hub that that's just looking at new ideas, like creating an IP, but they don't really take it very seriously. Um so the the when you when it but what what's it what does it feel like? It feels like this is an efficiency engine optimization is about how much money can we make, what our margins are, and then occasional um token explorative ideas that look quite sexy, good PR, but aren't particularly um relevant to the core business. And then when you ask when you ask leaders in the meeting, go, well, what's how seriously you're taking that? What would that look like if it was if you took to take it seriously often? Those are those are difficult conversations because I'm not being my KPIs aren't about um exploring, they're not really about challenging our business model because that's our business model, that's how we make our money now. Very difficult to balance those two things together, in my in my in my experience.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Um I just want to do a time check. We're coming up on a half hour. Um, are you okay for a few minutes?

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah, no, I'm I'm okay. No, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Um when you teach at Oxford, what's the shift you most often see when people suddenly get it?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Um it depends what I I get I'm involved in quite a few different things. But with in the leadership work, it is it can be very it can be very personal, it can be very um collect, it can be very collective. It depends on the program, but uh the the the the way programs are designed at the business school is lots of really interesting perspectives from interesting people. So you might have one day you might have um a negotiation session, so you're you're forced to think differently about negotiation. So the Oxford way of doing it is to not see us versus them, but us plus you versus the situation. So you'll do that. You also do like half a day on scenario planning, what does the future look like? Or you'll get um uh have a one of the other associate fellows in uh is a an orchestra um conductor, and he gets them to gets them to interact with an orchestra. It's it's it's a combination of these things, and it depends on the group and it depends on the person, but one of those things or a combination of things we go, I just hadn't thought about it like that. I I just hadn't thought about it like that at all. It's just these false perspectives, or it might be, you know, going to the to a museum or or meeting uh there's a guy I was in a session the other day, but it's a guy who's a he's a specialist in spiderweb technology, so he uses threads to create new fabrics. It's like yeah, completely outside my domain of skill, but it just it makes you think differently about what you know about things, and um that's that's what's really good about that whole system, is it's just it but it but it often is a number of different things, or it can be one thing where you go, I just wow, that would there's um there's a session that is about finding your voice and about role-playing and putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. And because most people don't like doing that, it's embarrassing. Um, and it's a professional actor who does it, but that often waits you go, oh god, I haven't, oh my god, that's I didn't realize that's what I was like. Um I didn't realise that what I was like. So so it's a combination of things, but ultimately be one thing that's built from the other thing. So it'll just make people go, oh my god, I just haven't. That's changed my view of how that is, what that's about. Um the great things about those sort of programs is they can be very uh very revealing and very, very disturbing on one level, but really, really profoundly positively disturbing on another. Oh my job is to help them navigate that.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Um you work across democracy, peace building, innovation, and leadership. What ties those worlds together for you?

SPEAKER_01 20:35

I struggle to explain what I do sometimes, I've got quite a few hats, but I but there's something that sits at the center, which is I think I'm in the business of transformative thinking. And getting people to reassess what they think they know, give them tools and systems to get them to step in and outside of themselves and then try and imagine what else they could be. That is a pretty much pretty much everything I do, even when I dip back into marketing, which I do occasionally, it's still the same stuff. It's still the same stuff. I suspect the people on in the carrot collective, they do that at some level in some way. I mean it's it's for me that's what that's what binds all of that stuff together. What I find so interesting is it's very difficult to do, and change is very difficult to imagine on lots of depth, and we can I can talk about that for hours. The psychology of change is fascinating, very difficult to do. But to get people to to find things that allow people to do that is very rewarding, but it's also very difficult. Probably my own expertise. That's probably the one thing I I excel at now. Um if I'm gonna pat myself on the back, as you should.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Um you've lived And worked across cultures. Um, how has that shaped the way you interpret what people mean and intend?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Uh it's it's interesting. They're just when we're talking about Australia at the beginning. I mean, the the there's so, for example, British and Australian culture looks very similar, but it's quite different. And and and and I mean at the Surf Club is a one of the things I loved about my time at the Surf Club was I I'm quite a posh English person. I'm from Cambridge, so I sound quite posh. Nobody gave a shit about my accent, other than I was a I was a POM. I often I met people there, and I think this I think there's a sort of a lens to Australia. I met people there who were from all walks of life. I kind of said new a surgeon, all the way down to a garbage collector and electrician. They're friends still. I wouldn't have met them. I wouldn't have had those can those connections, those conversations. Because it wasn't about it wasn't about where which school I went to, how I talked, which is very British. I found that weird point going back. So that's one one part of it. I mean, I now I now live in France, I'm married to a French woman, which is why I've got a very strange name. Um you know, you the the the the the the the cultural differences are more obvious. Um perhaps we can go into that another time, but uh for me the the the you know the the culture eat strategy for breakfast, I I always thought that was book bollocks, but I think it's probably true because the the the culture the culture that surrounds people often defines the the lens through which they understand things, you know, those assumptions again, their belief systems. It's it's it's incredibly powerful because it the culture you live in pretty much defines what you think about things to a very large extent. And I was listening to uh I was listening to a um a podcast on Churchill, who I'm a big fan of. You know, but his his his points of view on certain things are very strange to us now, but it's it's a cultural thing. I suspect if he was in if he was brought up in our culture, he'd have very different views. And I think that's really important. Culture is a filter, it's just it's it's the art primary filter for lots of things.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Um you you've mentioned the surf life saving, and it that feels really far from boardrooms. What did the world of surf life saving teach you about teamwork and staying calm when it counts?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

I I was talking about this uh on an interview the other day. I I I um I realized that my model of leadership um well, when you when I was the captain of the Surf Club, so I was it's like two two and a half thousand people, all volunteers. Uh lots of people with a huge amount of experience. It was it was about nurturing and understanding other people's points of views and then helping them make decisions rather than making decisions uh myself. Um because uh I I talk about uh earned authority versus executive authority. I had to earn I had to earn the authority. I was known, I got elected, but ultimately you're only as good as the ability to make decisions in the moment. And and and the the the the second part of your question, which is just you get trained, especially on the beach, you just get trained over and over again to deal with situations that are can be very difficult. You have to resuscitate or not resuscitate somebody. You have to read a read a um a surf situation so you can actually make sure that somebody gets rescued or prevent them from being hurt. Those are much easier decisions on the beach because you kind of you've trained, you know what to do. There are systems. When you get into into the politics of surf clubs, it comes much, much harder, which is much more about there isn't it isn't binary what you should be doing. It's not obvious what you should be doing. It's much more uh it's much uh softer skill where you're just you're trying to you're trying to shape people's opinions and move people in a certain direction. There are two almost completely different operating systems. One's more like the army, the other one's more like a like um like a family structure where you're you're you're just trying to trying to use your use your persuasion skills to to move people in a certain direction. I never thought about it, I've never been asked that before. That's a really good question.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

I'll take it as a comment. Um becoming a parent resets everything. What's shifted in how you think about time, ambition, and what matters?

SPEAKER_01 26:45

I mean um I I mean it's it's the ultimate leveler in terms of prioritization. I'm quite an efficient person. I just you know, for for three months how many I didn't Yeah, we we we barely had time to kind of do normal things like try and eat. It was yeah, and then so so when I then re-engaged with work, it may it's the ultimate filter, what is actually important? What's really important, and that you start to ask questions like what's the what do I if I did this, what else would be much easier? It forces you to find fulcrum, like key maximum leverage leaders, and and and you there's just no time to do anything else. So it just forces you to go, look, my is the most important thing, then Amelie is the most important thing, then me, and then work. So you've got these. I've I've just never had that before. We just get there. It's hard to get to the basics, let alone the stuff that is important to your career or to your reputation. I I've I've never experienced anything like that, where it just you just you just drop down, all of that stuff drops down because it's just not important, not really. Uh and it made me realize the stuff that I used to worry about, I don't worry about anymore. And I I do I do a lot of stuff now that is very, very focused on that I think is going to get a maximum traction or maximum bang for its buck, whereas I just I would have done lots of other things. Um yeah, I mean it's the ultimate, the ultimate prioritization weapon at a very, very deep level. I know other people have got kids. It's like I just hadn't understood it before. I didn't understand. I do I write a lot about prioritization and I didn't really understand it before. Not really.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

So but what is it that you hope your child sees and how you move through the world?

SPEAKER_01 28:44

I I that is a very profound question. I I'd like to think that they they see me as being a kind, thoughtful man who um is respectful of other others' opinions and who made the best use of what he was given. You know, I I was yeah, I struggled academically as a kid, I really struggled. That's partly context because I was in Cambridge surrounded by kids of academics, but I I really struggled. So I I I I I the one thing I'm most proud of is my ability to take what is kind of like an average engine and make it into something that is quite impressive. But that's because of the work I've done, the work ethic. Um so I think those things kindness, thoughtful, and also try to make the best use of what you're giving what you're giving what you're given. You know, some people are given a Ferrari, I wasn't. Um so I I I think I think that's what I'm gonna actually we've just done a lot of videos for more for for for for Maya's first birthday. And uh we've I've got to do my video. So that's one of the things I'm gonna that's a good practice for that.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Two last questions for you. Um, what's one idea you wish more leaders would sit with a little longer?

SPEAKER_01 30:02

The theory of why their business works. Do they understand what it is? And do they understand are there moments what what what do they need to understand? What do they need to understand about that theory to know whether it's right or wrong or whether it's changing? So I I have a fundamental assumption that strategies about theory, so you've got a theory about a situation. I find it really helpful. Do you have a sense of what that is? Can you explain it? What assumptions are it's based on, and do you know, how do you know when those assumptions might be wrong? Then that's that that's that's that's yeah, that's the question I'd ask um our traditional closing question.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

What would you do if you were not afraid? Speak more French.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

I got functional French, I but I don't don't do in French what I do in English, and I I the fear is the thing that holds me back. Because I could be I'm quite a good I'm quite good in English. Um and I don't have that in French and I it it's it's fear. I I I think I I pretty much attack most of the other things I'm terrified of, but that's the one thing I struggle with every day.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Nice. Um, I just want to say thank you so much. It's been a pleasure seeing you reconnecting after 20 years. Um, and it's conversations like this that help us work together. So thank you so much for sharing your story and your thinking. And we look forward to seeing what you shape next.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Thank you very much. And uh uh fantastic questions. Really made me think. I've written a few of them down. Actually, I need to make how to think about them more. But thank you.