Regrowth: How Organizations Can Overcome Stalling by Unlocking Their People’s Potential

When experienced HR professionals like Ernesto Gómez and Michael Millward start a conversation about work, they quickly get into one of the most insightful explorations of modern HR thinking you’ll hear this year.

Host Michael Millward speaks with Ernesto Gómez, author of Regrowth: How Organizations Can Overcome Stalling by Unlocking Their People’s Potential, about why people, not products, processes, or technology, are the true engine of organizational renewal.

⭐ What’s Inside This Episode

Ernesto’s unconventional path from serial entrepreneur to leading operations worth $1.3 billion, and eventually to becoming the HR leader of a 45,000‑person global company.

The shock of moving into HR—and why he discovered it’s one of the most intellectually demanding functions in business.

Why organizations stall, and how stagnation is rarely caused by people themselves but by self‑inflicted structural and cultural barriers.

The three pillars of regrowth:

1. Talent density — ensuring mission‑critical roles are filled with truly exceptional people.
2. Culture — the scaffolding that allows talent to shine rather than suffocate.
3. Mindset — the collective beliefs that determine whether people feel able to innovate, pivot, and grow.

A powerful discussion on why most employees operate at only 50–60% of their potential, and how leaders can remove the obstacles that hold them back.

The importance of hiring for values first, then attitude, then skills—because skills can be taught, but values cannot.

🎧 Why This Episode Matters

If you work in HR, lead teams, or simply care about how organizations evolve, this conversation will make you rethink how growth really happens. Ernesto argues that companies don’t stagnate because markets change—they stagnate because their people aren’t given the conditions to adapt, experiment, and flourish.

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Fit For Work – The Annual Health Test from York Test; assesses 39-health markers. Use discount code MIND25.

Being a Guest

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Figuring out what you’re here to do, and working so that you can do it

Eloise Skinner joins host Michael Millward for a thoughtful, quietly provocative chat about what it means to step outside of modern life and into a year‑long monastic experience, whilst maintaining a busy legal career.

Eloise reflects on how monastic values—intentionality, community, discipline, and the stripping‑back of identity—can reshape a person’s understanding of purpose and self.

Eloise explains the traditions that informed her experience, noting that monasticism “transcends particular religions… showing up in different cultures and representing different values” . The program she joined at Lambeth Palace, is part of the “new monastic movement,” which adapts ancient practices for contemporary life. Rather than withdrawing entirely from society, Eloise continued her demanding legal career while committing to weekly community life, silent retreats, and a shared rule of life.

The conversation explores the tension between monastic ideals and corporate culture, especially the challenge of disentangling personal identity from professional status. Eloise describes the gradual shifting of her priorities: “finding a different sense of self… then looking back at everything… and choosing differently”. Ultimately Eloise left law and built a portfolio career centred on meaning, purpose, and therapeutic work.

Eloise is a successful author

• But Are You Alive?: How to Design a Life Worth Living
• The Purpose Handbook
• Junior Lawyers Handbook

You will gain insights into:

• What monastic values look like in practice
• How intentional living affects habits, diet, and community
• The difficulty—and liberation—of redefining identity beyond job titles
• Why deep personal change often unfolds slowly, long after an experience ends

This episode invites reflection rather than prescription.

Audience Offers – listings include links that may create a small commission for The Independent Minds

Books by Eloise Skinner available from Amazon

The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, the all-in-one podcasting platform, Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.

Travel – With discounted membership of the Ultimate Travel Club, you can travel anywhere at trade prices.

Visit Three for information about business and personal telecom solutions from Three, and the special offers available when you quote my referral code WPFNUQHU.

Fit For Work – The Annual Health Test from York Test; assesses 39-health markers.

Use our discount code MIND25.

Being a Guest

We recommend the podcasting guest training programmes available from Work Place Learning Centre.

Matchmaker.fm is where great guests and great hosts are matched and great podcasts are hatched. Use our offer code MILW10 for a discount on membership.

We appreciate every like, download, and subscriber.

Thank you for listening.

Changing a manager’s behaviour isn’t just good leadership — it’s the fastest way to rescue a failing culture and unlock real profitability.

In this episode of The Independent Minds, host Michael Millward meets revenue strategist Debbie Longo, from Life in Bloom NY, to explore a deceptively simple idea: if you change the behaviour of managers, you can change the profitability of the entire organisation.

Debbie began her career in criminology before moving into commercial coaching, and she brings that sharp behavioural insight into the boardroom. She explains how negativity, ego, control, and manipulation quietly erode trust, damage team cohesion, and ultimately drive good employees away. As she puts it, even small moments of frustration can snowball into major organisational problems — “I drop a pen… the ink goes all over the floor…” — and unless leaders learn to interrupt these patterns, the business pays the price.

Michael and Debbie unpack why managers often cling to past successes, how ego distorts decision‑making, and why one person leaving can trigger a domino effect across a team. Debbie shares her practical method for breaking the cycle: a behavioural audit that helps leaders see their own actions clearly, often for the first time. She argues that sustained positivity isn’t naïve — it’s strategic — and that the most successful companies are those whose leaders continually examine and adjust their own behaviour.

Audience Offers – listings include links that may create a small commission for The Independent Minds

The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, because as the all-in-one podcasting platform, Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.

Travel – With discounted membership of the Ultimate Travel Club, you can travel anywhere at trade prices.

Visit Three for information about business and personal telecom solutions from Three, and the special offers available when you quote my referral code WPFNUQHU.

Fit For Work – The Annual Health Test from York Test; assesses 39-health markers.

Use our discount code MIND25.

Being a Guest

We recommend the podcasting guest training programmes available from Work Place Learning Centre.

Matchmaker.fm is where great guests and great hosts are matched and great podcasts are hatched. Use our offer code MILW10 for a discount on membership.

We appreciate every like, download, and subscriber.

Thank you for listening.