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.

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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.

Perhaps a better way to move from Thought to Thing?

In this episode of The Independent Minds, host Michael Millward sits down with entrepreneur and author David Carson to explore a counterintuitive idea: sometimes the smartest way to solve a problem is to think dumb.

Drawing on examples from history like Ignaz-Semmelweis, innovative businesses and his own career building design‑led media businesses — and from the mental models behind his book Dummify: How Ridiculous Thinking Can Solve Big Problems — David explains why unconventional, naïve, even “ridiculous” ideas often outperform the polished, over‑engineered ones. As he puts it: “The things that felt silly or counterintuitive tended to be the things that worked more often than not.”

Together, Michael and David unpack why workplaces suppress these ideas, how fear and conditioning make people hide their curiosity, and what leaders can do to build cultures where “dumb thinking” becomes a powerful creative tool. From Airbnb’s air mattress origins to the accidental invention of the chocolate chip cookie, the conversation shows how breakthroughs often come from mistakes, missteps, and moments most people would dismiss.

This episode is for anyone interested in innovation, organisational culture, or simply rethinking how ideas become reality. As Michael notes, “We won’t be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.”

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.

Fix the root cause, not the symptoms: a smarter way to train.

Most workplace training doesn’t fail quietly — it fails expensively. In this explosive episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds, learning architect Dr. Carrie Graham and host Michael Millward identify why organisations keep pouring money into training that never changes behaviour, never fixes the real problem, and never delivers the results leaders expect.

Carrie brings the precision of a healthcare diagnostician and the insight of a seasoned professor to expose the hidden mistakes companies make: treating symptoms instead of causes, forcing everyone through “sheep‑dip” learning, ignoring how people actually learn, and preaching values they don’t live.

If your training feels like theatre, if your people aren’t improving, or if your organisation keeps repeating the same mistakes, this conversation will hit uncomfortably close to home — and offer a smarter, more strategic way forward.

Bold, honest, and packed with practical insight, this episode is a wake‑up call for employer that wants employee training that actually works.

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.

How to prepare for what you don’t see coming - Marketing Edition

Like most entrepreneurs there came a time in Brady Dahmer career as a business owner when he looked back and relived the trauma of the mistakes he had made in building his business Tropoly a brand studio.

Brady lamented that there had not been a way for him to learn how to avoid the mistakes he knew he had made. So, Brady decided to create the Blind Spots Handbook: How to prepare for what you don’t see coming - Marketing Edition.

In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds, Brady discusses his book with host Michael Millward.

Sharing their experience prompts frank exchanges that make for an informative and entertaining conversation about the marketing blind spots that can stop a business from scaling.

They discuss

• What a blind spot really is, and how they can impact a business
• Accepting that the problems blind spots cause, do not just happen to other people
• Real case studies that highlight how easily mistakes can be made, when you assume
• Accepting that you cannot learn everything and identifying what you really need to learn.
• The value that an expert can provide
• How to deal with someone who says that they know

This episode of The Independent Minds delivers implemental communication solutions for new and experienced leaders.

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.

Untangling Communication So Teams Can Get Things Done

Maria Garaitonandia is a leadership communication strategist, which means that she helps leaders in any organisation plan how they are going to communicate with their teams. The outcome is, in many ways, that team members can answer the ‘what’s in it for me question’.

In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds, Maria discusses her book Untangling Communication with host Michael Millward.

They explore the elements of communications that create a team that gets things done and those that make it more difficult for teams to function.

Their conversation covers

• The different interpretations that a word can have in different places
• The problems of not understanding cultural, generational, geographic and socio-demographic differences
• How different body language can be interpreted differently
• How humour does not always travel well
• The role of emotional intelligence
• Applying situational communication theory

Maria mentions how understanding the Johari Window might help leaders to build stronger communication strategies.

They also discuss Maria’s Four Pillars of communication and her C.L.E.A.R approach to delivery.

This episode of The Independent Minds delivers implemental communication solutions for new and experienced leaders.

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.

A conversation about leading consciously at work and in life

Being led and being a leader can be something that happens to you; when it should be an activity that happens for you.

In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Diane Taylor from GLOW Leadership explains the difference to host Michael Millward.

During their conversation Diane and Michael discuss

• How she helps leaders to lead consciously
• Why leaders need to understand themselves better
• How lived experience can be something that happens to you; or it can be something that makes you a better leader.
• What really happens when a leader points the finger of blame at a team member

Diane Taylor is the author of ELEVATE POTENTIAL: A Conscious Approach To SUCCESS a book that she describes as being for high achievers who want more success and balance in their career and personal life.

This podcast is essential listening for leader who wants more from every aspect of their life.

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.