The Salience Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Today on the Salience podcast we’re diving deep into the complex world of health systems—and the concept of synergy. As demands on health systems grow, leaders are often caught in the tension between delivering day-to-day services and driving systemic change. So how do they balance it all?

Joining us to unpack these challenges is Helena Harnik, co-founder and Program Executive Director at The Synergist. With a background spanning global corporations and a passion for collaborative innovation, Helena brings a unique lens to the conversation. She holds an international MBA from EM, Lyon in France, and a BA in English Literature from Williams College in the U.S.

Whether you’re a health professional, policy thinker, or just curious about how complex systems can evolve, this episode has something for you. 

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

In this episode of The Salience Podcast, we dive into the complex world of nutrition—where even the basics of what we should eat are hotly debated. From carnivore to vegan, low-fat to keto, the conflicting advice can be overwhelming, often driven by ideology or profit rather than science. The result? Declining health, rising chronic disease, and a society that still prefers quick fixes—like pills—over the simple (but not easy) work of eating real food.

Our guest today is Dr. Jessica Turton. Jessica is a nutrition scientist and clinician with a PhD from the University of Sydney, where she researched low-carb diets for diabetes management. Now the Director of Ellipse Health, she helps people cut through the noise to address the root causes of their health struggles—whether it is metabolic disease, gut issues, or disordered eating.

In this conversation, we explore flexible eating, eating for blood sugar control as well as a simple framework for choosing foods that actually nourish you. We also tackle bigger questions: Should governments prioritize personalized nutrition over one-size-fits-all guidelines? How can we teach kids to eat intuitively? And why is modern medicine so bad at addressing the foundations of health?

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

On This episode of the Salience Podcast, we explore risk and decision-making and consider what we can learn from fatal mistakes. In a number of our interviews, we have stressed the importance of safe to fail experimentation. This is of course the preferred way to learn. However, we can also learn from critical incidents that are not fatal to us. In today's interview we discuss one such profound experience that inspires me to remember some important aspects of human factors in decision making. 

Today's guest is Ken Wiley. Ken is a mounting guide by training, although he is known globally as an author, an engaging public speaker, and through his company Archetypal, he is an advisory and human hazard management educator. In 2003, Ken survived an avalanche that resulted in fatal consequences for seven guided clients.

In a very humble way, Ken acknowledges he was part of a professional team whose failure to communicate and work together with mutual respect resulted in the fatal avalanche. Ken has detailed the background to the tragedy in his best -selling book, Buried. I recently had the privilege of listening to Ken's story at an avalanche conference in New Zealand. There are many similarities with what we teach in Frontline Mind. So I was inspired to reach out to Ken to relay his story on the Salient's podcast and pass along some of the most important lessons to our listeners.

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

On this episode of the Salience Podcast , we are exploring feedback and feedforward in the complex space of policing and investigations. We are joined in this episode by Lou Hayes, who is a 26-year veteran Police Officer & Detective for a suburban Chicago police department. Some of his assignments have included: Patrol, Field Training Officer, Criminal Investigations, Firearms & Tactics Training Unit, Crisis Intervention Team, and SWAT. His current roles are with a regional homicide unit, with a passion for multi-agency intelligence & technology.

Lou has also developed and pioneered The Illinois Model - a non-linear, problem-solving process for police officers. The model prioritizes life, Constitutional objectives, incident strategy, and tactics in rapidly changing and high-stakes circumstances. Since its development, The Illinois Model has expanded greatly to serve as a pathway to human and organizational adaptability.

We chat with Lou about and feedforward loops, and how these are important when training teams and conducting investigations.

http://www.theillinoismodel.com/p/what-is-illinois-model.html
http://www.theillinoismodel.com/p/the-illinois-model-summary.html

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

On This episode of the Salience Podcast, we return to our origins unpacking the patterns of behaviour of extreme high performers, learning what we can to apply in everyday life work and the rest of life. 

We are joined by Sara Stone. Sara is a professional sailor, and has sailed everything from dinghies to ocean racing yachts. She is currently in Barcelona preparing for the women's americas cup later this year.

Our interest in Sara though is as much about her high level sailing as work experience - in a former life Sara was an epidemiologist and emergency response professional. 

So today I want to explore the similarities and differences between different facets of Sara’s experiences. 

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

On This episode of the Salience Podcast, we explore feedback and feedforward in the context of design and innovation. 

We are joined today by Tom Kerwin. Tom has 25 years of experience as a leader in design, research and innovation. He’s co-founded two successful startups and worked both agency-side and in-house, coaching cross-functional teams to innovate. Tom is also the author of Innovation Tactics, the deck of cards from Pip Decks that’s packed with pragmatic methods for making things people want. 
 
 Since running his first usability test in 1999, Tom has been obsessed with adaptive sense-making. To quote from Tom’s bio “how do we continuously make sense of the world so we can act more effectively in it?” And that’s really at the heart of feedback and feedback and what we are exploring in this season’s Salience Podcast. 

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

On this episode of the Salient podcast, we journey into the world of mapping and explore the role of feedback and feedforward in navigating complexity. We are joined by Marcus Guest. Marcus is originally from the UK and is one of the small number of people actively developing adaptive strategy using Wardley maps.

What's interesting about Marcus is his solid grounding in the science of complex adaptive systems. In his past life, Marcus worked in organisations in Europe and Asia, overseeing the rapid expansion of operations and as a strategy director in a leading consulting firm. In addition to the competitive use of Wardley maps, Marcus has a unique perspective on Eastern and Western approaches to strategy and complexity. Amongst all of these broad experiences,

I want to challenge myself in today's interview to really zero in on the role of feedback and feed-forward within a mapping and adaptive strategy approach in business.

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

On This episode of The Salience Podcast, we journey into the world of superyachts to continue our explorations of feedback and feedforward. 

We are joined by Amanda Hewson-Beaver. We met relatively recently after Amanda reached out to collaborate on Resilience training, and we’ve just started a joint venture together. 

Her story of adventure on the high seas reads like an inspirational novel. Amanda literally ran away to sea as a youngster, before sailing the 7-seas in everything from small dinghies to 200 ft super yachts.

Join us as we unpack the importance of feedback and forward in preparation at the elite end of Sailing.

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

On The Salience Podcast today, we continue our explorations of feedback and feedforward as a means of learning. 

Today I am joined by Joe Byerly. Joe has had a long career in the US Army, he’s an active duty Battalion Commander, he was a non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and has provided strategic advice on warfare. Joe is also Founder of From the Green Notebook, which is where I came across Joe.

The background to the green notebook idea came from Joe’s desire to create a place where leaders could share their experiences and help each other along the journey. He started looking in the place where he captured his own lessons and ideas for the future – his green notebook. That’s what I find inspirational, the discipline to keep a learning journal.

Each month, Joe Byerly shares his reading journey with other leaders who are interested in finding books that will help them become better leaders and better people, and he interviews prominent leaders, especially military commanders, for his podcast. 

My inspiration to interview for this season of the Salience Podcast was to tease out his learnings from all those great leaders he has interviewed. And the very concept of using a notebook to reflect on feedback and project into future action is both simple and effective.

https://fromthegreennotebook.com/podcast/?utm_content=cmp-true

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614 

On the Salience Podcast today, we are exploring feedback and feedforward in the complex space of international development. Joining us in this episode is Milica Begovic, the Head of Strategic Innovation at the United Nations Development Program

Millie and her colleagues are pioneering new ways of doing development that build countries’ capacity to deliver change at scale. She has been involved in a number of bold initiatives such as the Accelerator Labs (which recently grew to 90 countries globally).  And this on top of a number of ongoing activities at the corporate and the regional level. 

Today we will be learning more about what strategic innovation means, and the feedback and feedforward loops, as well as innovative monitoring, evaluation and learning approaches and critical competencies that are important for organisations who want to adopt this bold approach to social innovation and change that matters.

We learn from UNDP’s decade-long journey of strategic innovation that has been tested and scaled across 51 countries, whilst prioritising local impact, and transforming the organisation to create the right conditions to support beneficial impact for all partners involved.

UNDP Strategic Innovation Medium site

https://medium.com/@undp.innovation

Books mentioned in this podcast

Innovation in real places

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/innovation-in-real-places-9780197508114

Seeing like a State

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-state/

The Uncertainty Mindset

https://uncertaintymindset.org/

Organisations who inspired UNDP’s journey

https://www.climate-kic.org/

https://marianamazzucato.com/

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/ucl-institute-innovation-and-public-purpose

http://www.corafoundation.org/

https://ddc.dk/

https://www.agirrecenter.eus/way/

https://rodingenoff.com/

https://www.vinnova.se/

For more information about The Salience Podcast and Frontline Mind  please visit our website at https://www.frontlinemind.com/the-salience-podcast/  You can also sign up for our newsletter here https://frontlinemind.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ff181d12c77d7cea5f19a2c48&id=fd7357f614