Using conversation to navigate uncertainty with Margaret Heffernan
The Future of Internal CommunicationShow Notes
Award-winning author and business executive Margaret Heffernan has written extensively about uncertainty. Her book Uncharted: How to map the future became an instant bestseller and featured on Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2021 list. Her most recent book Embracing Uncertainty: How writers, musicians and artists thrive in an unpredictable world outlines how creatives use ambiguity to stimulate innovation and novel ideas. In this episode, Jen, Dom and Cat chat with Margaret to her views on the power of conversation. In ambiguous and chaotic work landscapes, convening group discussions to hear diverse perspectives and harness collective intelligence is a new leadership meta-skill.
About Margaret Heffernan Dr. Margaret Heffernan produced programmes for the BBC for 13 years. She then moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the “Top 25” by Streaming Media magazine and one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter. The author of six books, Margaret’s third book, Willful Blindness : Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. In 2015, she was awarded the Transmission Prize for A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn’t Everything and How We Do Better, described as “meticulously researched…engagingly written…universally relevant and hard to fault.” Her TED talks have been seen by over 13 million people and in 2015 TED published Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. In 2020, she published Uncharted: How to map the future, which quickly became a bestseller and was nominated for the Financial Times Best Business Book award, was one of Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2021 and was chosen as the “Medium Best of the Best” business book. 2025 saw the publication of Embracing Uncertainty: How Writers, Musicians and Artists Thrive in an Unpredictable World, described as ‘a timely, insightful book….Heffernan highlights what it takes to excel in turbulent times.’ In 2024, she was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, in recognition of her lasting impact on management thinking. She is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath, Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. She chairs the board of DACS and is a parish councillor.
Find Margaret on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-heffernan-ab5205/ Margaret’s website: https://www.mheffernan.com/ Margaret on Substack: https://heffernanm.substack.com/ Margaret’s TED talks: https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_the_human_skills_we_need_in_an_unpredictable_world https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_the_dangers_of_willful_blindness
More from The Future of Internal Communication
As the pace of business accelerates and the wider operating environment becomes ever-more complex, organisations are struggling to maintain cohesion and focus. Endless cycles of change, continuous restructuring and a lack of clarity cause engagement and goodwill to flatline. Now more than ever, internal communication is a mission-critical business function. For all this, its scope – and therefore its impact – regularly remains hard to pin down. This episode, we welcome Chris Coburn, one of the module leaders for the IOIC’s Master’s in Internal Communication management programme. He shares his thoughts on what good internal communication looks like and why it can be so challenging to define.
Gallup’s 2026 research shows global engagement has flatlined at 20%. Stress, anxiety and burnout are rife. This has a hugely detrimental effect on business performance, at precisely the time organisations need motivated colleagues to deliver innovation and transformation outcomes. This episode, Jen, Cat and Dom chat with Ellen Griley, former head of global employee communications at Cisco. With master’s degrees in communication and leadership studies and Trauma-Informed Leadership, Ellen advises on and offer trauma-informed internal communication. They discuss the rising pressure to create work cultures where people's emotional and psychological needs are recognised and how internal communication can be adapted to meet people where they are.
One area where AI is failing to deliver impact is recruitment and hiring. If anything, AI has made already inadequate processes worse. Algorithmic bias is rife and only cookie-cutter candidates seem to make it to the shortlist. This is leading to age discrimination, with people in their forties and fifties struggling to secure new job opportunities. Years of accumulated deep experience, knowledge and wisdom get overlooked and disregarded as they are impossible to whittle down in the overly standardised CV structure recruitment algorithms demand. In an already shrinking labour market, this is a disaster. In this episode, Jen, Dom and Cat chat with Victoria Tomlinson about why tapping into the talents of the over-fifties is one of the biggest opportunities in business today.
Having completed an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, leadership development coach Ian Pettigrew wanted to share his findings. His studies have identified hope as an essential feature of any leadership communication endeavour and a linchpin of successful and lasting change. And yet it’s no mean feat to instil a sense of hope when the external operating landscape throws up persistent challenge, complexity and ambiguity. But as a recent Harvard Business Impact article noted, leaders “have astonishing influence over the internal performance environment, including employee engagement, morale, and productivity.” This episode, Jen, Cat, Dom and Ian explore the link between trust and hope and the role internal communication plays in helping build hopeful, high-performing operating environments About Ian Pettigrew Ian B Pettigrew is a coach and leadership development consultant focused on helping leaders inspire hope. He’s a Gallup-certified strengths coach, a Fellow Member of the Association for Coaching, and a member of the Association for Business Psychology. He has an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, has twice been named by HR Magazine (in 2023 and 2026) as one of HR’s Most Influential Thinkers, and his debut book – Hope is a Strategy – is a finalist for the Business Book Awards Leadership book of the year. Ian is the founder of a skills-based volunteering initiative called Connecting HR Africa. Outside of work, Ian competes in Agility with his Border Collie, Buddy, and is currently training for an Everesting cycling challenge to raise money for charity.
Good quality, meaningful work is vital for mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. This is even more important for young people entering the labour market for the first time. US research shows university graduates entering the workforce during a recession experience lower earnings for at least 10-15 years longer than those who start work when economies are doing well. But what is good work and why does it matter? As pathways into working life face their biggest challenge in decades, creating high-quality apprenticeships matters more than ever. In this final episode of series 16, Anna Ambrose, CEO of Workwhile, shares her insights on the importance of creating work and career opportunities that deliver meaning and purpose for young people.