Thomas Hubl: There is a systemic elephant in the room. Collective trauma affects our organisations, our societal systems, our NGOs, our governments. Collectively, if we heal some of the fragmentation, we will enable global collaboration. Andrew White: Hello, and welcome to this edition of the Leadership 2050 Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew White. In this episode, I'm talking to Thomas Hubl, a contemporary spiritual teacher of modern mysticism and inner science. For me, he's one of the people who is at the forefront of understanding how spirituality comes together with leadership, and together, how that makes an impact on the world. Andrew White: I really wanted a couple of things in the podcast series, which were about how leadership might look in the decades to come, and I think Thomas really does speak to this. I first met Thomas a number of years ago, and since then, I've seen his work deepen in terms of its impact, but also broaden in terms of the number of people who are listening to him and allowing this work to have an impact on their lives. Andrew White: I really feel that he has something that is speaking to the future of leadership and where leadership will go in the coming decades. I kicked off by asking Thomas, when he looked at the world of leadership today and what leaders are facing, what do they need to do in terms of the impact they have on the world? Thomas Hubl: First of all, I think as leaders, we are challenged in a positive way by the fast-rising complexity of our world. And in a way also by the evolutionary update through technology, that the ever increasing speed of data creates a much more complex environment we operate in. I think that we understand it like what was true yesterday might not be true anymore today. And the ability to adjust and adapt and be also open, not only intellectually, but also sensing wise, be open to that change, like be immersed in the movement of life, I think is a very powerful function nowadays because the world's becoming more rapid. It's becoming faster. Thomas Hubl: Our capacity to really swim in the river is important. And if we resist swimming or if we get stuck somewhere, the pressure of the water will be palpable. And with it comes the capacity to change, that I'm willing to let go of things that I developed yesterday, or structures that I developed a year ago in order to change them and replace them through better, suitable, or fitting structures that support our businesses, our world, our teams much better. Thomas Hubl: If I get too hung up in my own personality, and if I am getting too identified with my achievements or my own personal preferences, I might not be able to do that. So that inner fluidity, I think inner fluidity is a strong word now that I think is important for our time. That requires being centred. What does it mean that I can be in an environment that sometimes will be very pleasant and comfortable and lovely, and sometimes it will be very challenging. Who am I in challenges and who am I when it's lovely? Thomas Hubl: Can I be in both? Because I see both as my mission as a leader, not only the beautiful parts, also the challenging parts are my purpose. Signing up for the entirety of life, like a 360 degree experience adds to the necessity of inner fluidity, and that I'm willing also. I think another one that is important, I'm a fan of mentorship. I'm a fan of growing together, learning together, and also having guides on the way, maybe different guides at times, but having reflections that help me to see what I can see myself clearly. Thomas Hubl: I think if I'm open to get feedback from a person or some people that reflect back to me what I can see, that's my highway to grow. That's another thing that I can... I don't have to. That's the point. I need to sign up for it. I need to volunteer to bring somebody into my life with a certain amount of clarity, with a certain amount of skill to support me to become a better leader. So I'm interested in my own growth and I do something for it and I support my own development. I think that's important too. Thomas Hubl: Also, given my work, I strongly believe that there is a systemic elephant in the room that is not very well explored yet, and that is becoming more pressing or it's that invisible elephant shows up more and more like a ghost in our systems. I think that the fact that trauma is not just a personal experience, it's a painful, personal experience for many of us, but there's a systemic underlying trauma because trauma has been going on for thousands of years. Thomas Hubl: We're not the first one living in a time that maybe has traumatising events happen and some large scale woundings, like for example, colonialism, like a second world war, Holocaust, 400 years of racism, genocides, natural catastrophes, nature catastrophes. I think these are all very strong impacts that many or all of us, we were born into this world that is partly fragmented. Thomas Hubl: In order to understand fragmentation and coherence building, unification and separation, I think these are very important topics too, because we might misunderstand the symptoms of that systemic traumatization and call it all kinds of things without really exploring the root cause, how collective trauma affects our organisations, our societal systems, our NGOs, our governments, different groups. We just see now with COVID, we see an enormous fragmentation in this society. Thomas Hubl: Many people say, "We have a COVID crisis." And I would say, "No, there is a pandemic. The crisis is what it lands on in us, like how we deal with the pandemic." There is a pandemic. There is a virus, obviously, and it does whatever it does, but how we process it and how much fragmentation shows up, not even it causes, because many people say it causes fragmentation. I would say there is a preexisting fragmentation, and when the stress factor grows, when the stressor gets higher, that fragmentation comes much more to the surface and is much more visible. Andrew White: Yeah. And I think for me, when I listen to you, what I find really interesting is that you put a spotlight on I think what happens to someone when they enter into or step into a leadership role. We often think it's about being appointed, it's about the money they get paid, it's about the title. But the elephant in the room, as we're calling it, is that they're stepping into a system, and that system has trauma in it. It has individual trauma. It has collective trauma. Andrew White: Whether they like it or not, they become almost a focal point or they have responsibility for dealing with that trauma. It's where that sense of... You described the word, whether it's difficult or lovely, becomes much more harder to stay grounded when those things are coming up within you from your own trauma, but also coming at you from the systemic trauma that your organisation is part of, which may have been a hundred years ago. It may have been 50 years ago. It may be things that the organisation in its current form didn't do, but nevertheless has inherited a role within. Thomas Hubl: Absolutely. You said it so beautifully. It's like I often called it, somebody takes on the CEO's suit, but the CEO's suit is a role, and a lot of energy of the system gets projected towards that role, that suit. So it's me, still Thomas, but I'm having the suit of a CEO. And the more I'm fluid and open inside, so I won't be that affected by all that impact. But where I'm not clear inside myself, it will trigger my own preexisting unconscious topics. Thomas Hubl: And so, I think that that's why it's so important that I grow as a human being as I grow as a professional person in whatever field I'm working, that that goes hand in hand. Sometimes it's a little bit referred to as soft skills, but I think that doesn't pay justice to the enormity of what our human capacity and capacity as human beings, as leaders really means. I think that that's why human development and growth and maturation and trauma integration, and maybe also contemplative practises that help me to be more centred, more regulated, less reactive, more connected, being able to listen more, and take in and resonate with, these are all functions I think that also people in our organisations deeply appreciate and trust. Thomas Hubl: What is trustworthy? When somebody is authentic, when somebody can listen to me, when somebody really cares, when I feel what the person says, that the word and the action is the same. If you feel that somebody says things, but doesn't live it, it already creates consciously or unconsciously a little bit of mistrust. And if I'm anyway somebody that has trust issues, and I have somebody in authority or a leader in my organisation that is not fully congruent, then of course it projects into the system and amplify all the trust issues in the system. Thomas Hubl: It will immediately create human dynamics in the system, and we are also as leaders part of triggering them. But the more we are congruent, those trust issues might still be in our organisation, but we trigger them less. So that's I think a healing effect that leaders have on their organisation. That's also I think what we want. We look up to leaders where we feel they walk their talk, they feel like they're an example for how we want leaders to be. I think every one of us has certain values that we would love our leaders to embody, for it to be an example. Andrew White: I think what I see as a major challenge here is that most people get promoted into a big job, a big leadership job, because they knew how to sell. They knew how to read a profit and loss account, a balance sheet. They knew how to deliver a big project. They knew how to think about IT. I think what we're saying is all of those things are, let's call it the left hand, but then there's another right hand that you put on this cloak. And all of a sudden, you've got in your organisation, whether it's Black Lives Matter and the things that are coming to the surface about systemic racism, you may have other issues around the fact that women have been excluded from leadership roles for centuries, and the trauma that that's caused. Andrew White: You may have individual trauma in a member of your team. You may have historic trauma in terms of the impact your company's had on parts of the world or indigenous people. Nobody gets trained to deal with this, and yet it's coming to the surface more and more. And so, the things you're talking about, listening, spiritual practises to keep you centred, are things that many people are having to learn on the fly or having to find a way into themselves, but isn't part of the normal way in which people are trained, developed, promoted. I think it's changing, but I think that's the legacy that we're living with in many ways. Thomas Hubl: Exactly. Exactly. The few things that you mentioned, patriarchal structures and violence against women and the inequality that is still in our society, racism, antisemitism, or colonialism, or like the second world war, wars, civil war in the US, is still resurfacing again and again as massive splits in the society. And so, the thing is that with trauma, as long as we don't look at it, we repeat it or it repeats itself unconsciously. Freud called this the repetition compulsion. Thomas Hubl: It's like a recurrent experience, to surface something that needs to be detoxed, needs to be integrated. Just as a leader, because the topics that you mentioned, every big organisation has that insight. Even if we say we changed the role of women in organisations and it's more equal, but still the trauma that preexisted the latest changes and the latest in the last decades is still within us. It sits within our bodies, within our emotions, within our systems, and raising our awareness that there is such an invisible systemic factor, that whatever is absent impacts our systems, at least as much as what's present. Thomas Hubl: And then I try to control those, when in fact healing trauma is a win-win-win for the system. It's a win for the individual, it's a win relationally between people, and it's a win for the entire system, because trauma is split off fragmented experience. So when I was overwhelmed and I couldn't experience it at that time, it still lingers around somewhere in my body, in my nervous system, in my psyche, in my emotions. And integration means I harvest that which has been split off. I integrate it into the fullness of who I am. Thomas Hubl: So it makes me more alive. It makes me more related. It makes me more creative and innovative. It makes me more connected to the ecosystem that I'm a part of. And so, when we just look at... Because I worked on this, like the after effects of the Holocaust in Europe, or the second world war in Europe and the Holocaust between Germany and Israel or the Jewish population around the world. And when we just look, major companies in Germany that are global players, I think having sufficiently dealt with the after effects of what it means to have forced war camps, forced labour, many things that happened in the second world war time that haven't been integrated yet. Thomas Hubl: I think there is kind of a legacy, and I believe that underneath all the trauma, healing is like an ethical restoration. That ethical restoration is part of an individual and collective wellbeing. If we dare as leaders to go to that place of restoration, systems restoration, I think that's where the.... What I often call, that's where the self-healing mechanism of an individual, but also the system, an organisation or a society, when flourishing can start again. Thomas Hubl: So if there are trauma layers or traumatizations in organisations, I think to go for it and restore it will be an initial investment, but it has a tremendous return. Andrew White: It strikes me, as we're talking, that climate change brings all of this together, that there's something on the one hand about historic almost a sense of frozen structures that have to unfreeze. There's trauma in there in terms of the impact that those structures are having on parts of the world. And if we are to move forward, there needs to be an unfreezing and the development of solutions. That's when we get into strategy. That's when we get into new technologies. Andrew White: So these things are not unrelated. Even though in many ways, they've come out of different worlds, we see them coming together. I think it's in the head and at the hearts of leaders is where they're really manifesting. Thomas Hubl: Exactly. And they're not at all not related. They're deeply related, because trauma structures are frozen, non emergent, repetitive structures. This is the part of life where we often say, "That's how life is. Oh, that's how people are." And I would often say, "No, that's not how life is. That's how life is when it's hurt, but we don't call it that way." So then it looks like, because we grew up in that... Like when I grew up as a boy, nobody told me that what I saw in my grandfather, that what I saw between my parents, or with teachers, or in society, that these are trauma symptoms. Thomas Hubl: Today, I look at those things with very different eyes. I can recognise the symptoms and I can also recognise the root. They need to be healed. They cannot be pushed into development. Also with climate change. I think the slow response to climate change is a lot also due to collective trauma. But we don't see it that way because we don't see and feel it. That's why we don't regard it as a major player. But I think collective trauma is a much bigger player than most of the people see, because it's the frozenness. It's that part of our society that cannot really evolve until we heal and integrate the trauma. Thomas Hubl: You cannot push a traumatised person into development. I will just contract even more. You can create the space for healing and then development will follow. I think climate activism is good for changing habits, but it's not good for changing trauma. That's not the right tool for it. And I think we need to get it because it will speed up the process. Thomas Hubl: The other thing I wanted to say why they're related, because in the frozenness... What is frozen in there? Tremendous amount of energy. In the frozenness of trauma, there's a lot of creative developmental and human energy frozen. And if we release it, once we integrate it, we liberate that energy and it becomes also post-traumatic learning, which means we have many insights, seemingly from the unintegrated past, and we have insights through innovation. Thomas Hubl: So we have a double learning system, and if we integrate the historical wounds, we also get the ethical updates that we need to use the technology that we're coming up with today. Like there's a tremendous need to be able to deal with AI. But the ethical skillset that we need for it is partly frozen in the eyes. So if we don't integrate the fact, how we got to a Holocaust, or how we got to slavery, or how we got to... Thomas Hubl: Until we integrate those experiences and turn it into learning, we definitely don't have the maturity to deal with nuclear weapons or to deal with like artificial intelligence or genetic engineering or some of the leading sciences that pose also critical questions that we have. I think why we are asking so much about the ethical questions around those innovations is because we didn't learn them yet. Andrew White: So if I'm a leader and I'm listening to this podcast, and I recognise these things, I see how the company that I run needs to change in order to address climate change. I see the mental health crisis in my staff. I recognise that the gender parity is not what it should be and that there are continuing tensions. I see how racism has played out in our culture, and all of these things, Thomas, where do I start? Thomas Hubl: Yeah, that's a beautiful question. It starts, of course, with me because am I willing to step, as a leader, into unknown territory? To enter a territory where I need to be also part of the learning. I need to expand my universe. Am I willing to do that? Even if I don't know how it works, I can bring in resources. I can bring in guidance, how to turn my organisation and make it more trauma aware or trauma informed. We need to make a good research and find the right people that can really help us. Thomas Hubl: But the first step is, am I willing to who open that up? Because it's much more... On the short term, it's much more convenient to keep it together and keep running, to look for the profit and the marks that we want to hit, and that's great. But on the long term, it's not a sustainable way of living. We need to know that responsibility is the ability to respond to the current life situation. This [inaudible 00:21:57] very close in my family, in my business, in the closer community, my country, the globe, or beyond the globe. Thomas Hubl: And so, my ability to respond to the horizontal challenges, but also to the vertical, what does this mean? That my ancestry and where I'm coming from has a meaning. That's not just gone. That's still alive in us, some of this, as positive resilience, for example, or intelligence, or gifts, competencies, but also as the trauma we carry and inherited from our ancestors. Thomas Hubl: But responsibility means also that I'm able to respond to the future, which means to the next generations. And as a leader, I need to see, do I really want to continue to play the game of short-term gains, which are on expense of the next generations? I need to know that. And then I can say, "Yes, I want to do that," because I will make more money. I will get more bonuses. I will get more whatever. Or I say, "Yes, I want also to have a decent income, but I will change the course of how we did things so far because it's not responsible." Andrew White: I mean, it's interesting. As you're talking, I was thinking about many of our listeners will have been in executive team meetings where the ground is frozen, where it's about the trauma or the conflict that's manifesting from the trauma, that's stopping them having the conversation around the strategy, around the future, around where they need to go, around addressing some of the major challenges they face. And so, it's very practical in how this manifests in terms of the conversation that executive teams are able or not able to have, which are so pertinent to their future. Thomas Hubl: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's where all the relational mindfulness also comes in, and the openness to have clear conversations, and how we listen to each other, and how that lands, and where it doesn't, and that we develop more awareness around it. That's right. I think that's very true. I believe that trauma fragments our internal nervous system systems that we create through fragmented nervous systems and societies that we create like that. Thomas Hubl: But if we integrate trauma, we create more coherence. It means a much higher processor capacity, much more data streaming. Within this, the human networks, within the biosphere, more data is flowing in all directions. That's what you said. A team would express this as a higher coherence, as a higher functionality. An organisation would express that. So when we defragment human systems through integration, then we up-level the intelligence. Thomas Hubl: We need that intelligence, also that collective intelligence, in order to meet the current tech development, because we're lay... Right now, I believe in human evolution, we're opening a door into a completely new world. Technology and the consciousness development, if they go hand in hand, they actually are... Then it's amazing. Then it becomes a blessing. But it doesn't necessarily have to become a blessing. But it's in our hands right now. Thomas Hubl: That's why I think what we're talking about today, also for many CEOs or leaders in organisations that are at the leading edge of the development, I think our conversation is very, very important. I mean, for everybody, but especially there, I think, it's crucial. Andrew White: If I could take you to the practises, so we've seen meditation and we've seen mindfulness practises become almost mainstream in a lot of organisations. And a lot more people have experience of perhaps trying something on one of the apps that are available. But I don't see a lot about, in a sense, where meditation takes you. In my own experience, and I think from your experience and what I've heard you teach, meditation is a much more powerful mechanism, particularly in being a resource for leaders in these kinds of situations, which can, as we said, move us into some difficult places emotionally. Can you just talk more about the tools, the resources that are available? Thomas Hubl: Yeah. Let's come to the first, meditation. It's like often we try to change and fix things outside or develop things in the outer world. But there's an equivalent inner world that I can get to know. Meditation is a way to detox. Meditation also supports what I call space, which is, it gives me the ability to reflect. If I only run and I don't have time to reflect, I'm completely identified with my running and I won't have a lot of space for changes, for new things, for seeing also parts that I need to correct, and I need to change, and that need to be restored. Thomas Hubl: I call it reflect, digest, and integrate. Reflect means that I have spaces where I can reflect, I can learn, I can digest, because many people do understand that a good digestion is an important part of our physical health, but that our psyche also needs digestion in order to integrate the experience that we have and turn that into learning. And then integrate means that I can integrate my experiences, also my challenges, into my growth, as my growth. Then I'm growing all the time because I'm constantly willing to learn and adapt my way if it's needed. Thomas Hubl: Contemplation creates inner space, creates the capacity to listen, to allow my inner world to detox itself. It's like taking an inner shower every day. Even if you sit just for 20 minutes or 30 minutes, but we do it regularly, then it becomes a quality in my life. So integrating those helps me to create a much more rich and intimate experience for myself. So I become a happier person, but I also become a more inspiring leader because I'm genuinely more happy. Thomas Hubl: That will spread into my organisation. That really creates a trustworthy leadership, because people feel they can land here. We listen and then we develop solutions together. I think that creates a social network in the organisation that is more and more stable, trustworthy, warm, intimate, open, and promotes health, basically, and deescalates stress. Andrew White: Thomas, we're coming towards the end of our time together. I can't thank you enough for what you brought to this podcast series. It feels as though we've described, in a sense, the leadership curriculum for the next, I don't know, few decades, and we're all on a journey really to understand the process that we need to go through in order to lead and address the things we've been talking about today. Andrew White: If we could end with seven questions, which I'm using with all my guests, it is my attempt to try and put a red thread, given that people are coming with many different perspectives. So the first question is, which leader from history inspires you most? Thomas Hubl: I think somebody that inspired me a lot was Gandhi. Andrew White: And then when you look at today, who inspires you? Thomas Hubl: Yeah. Jacqueline Novogratz, the leader or the CEO of Acumen. Yeah. I love her. I interviewed her for one of our summits and I think she does great work with her organisation. Andrew White: The book that has made the most impact on you? Thomas Hubl: The Dao de Jing, Laozi. Andrew White: What do you look for in the individuals that you trust, as a leader with in your organisation? Thomas Hubl: I think most of all, I'm looking for a deep resonant motivation to be part of my organisations. Like when I feel there's a deep resonance with the main intention or the main purpose, I think that driving engine is what I'm looking for. Andrew White: The younger generation, when you see them coming through, what inspires you most about what they're bringing to this work? Thomas Hubl: Me listening to the evolutionary updates of the younger generation, me being willing to learn something new and be open to be surprised. I love the surprise. If anything surprises me in life, I love it because it opens my space. So the mutual learning. And then I think what I'm also looking for is the openness to learn, that there's a mutual flow in between the generations to learn from each other. I think if that channel is open, that's a very powerful contribution to society. Andrew White: And then, the next question, when you think about the future, what makes you hopeful? Thomas Hubl: The sacredness of life, and that that power is pulsing through all of us like a conductor. It has the function of a conductor within all of us. That makes me the most hopeful. Andrew White: And then, finally, where do you go for rest and renewal? Thomas Hubl: I practised meditation for 30 years. It's like diving into deep spaces, even if it's... It's not connected to time. It doesn't need to be long. But the depth of resting inside, and turning insides, and also finding inspiration in the stillness, that's a deep part of my renewal. Andrew White: My thanks to Thomas Hubl. You've been listening to Leadership 2050, a podcast from Said Business School at the University of Oxford. Leadership 2050 is produced by eve streeter. Original music is by [inaudible 00:32:08]. Our executive producer is David McGuire for Stable Productions. We're taking a short break now, but we'll be back soon with a brand new series. Andrew White: We have some amazing guests lined up, including Timo Boldt, who set up the company, Gousto, who will be talking bout how the food and retail industry is going through a major transformation. And Pinky Lilani, who's done some incredible work promoting women in leadership. Subscribe now and you'll be the first to know when the new series is out. Andrew White: Until then, don't forget to check out our library of past episodes wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to hear more from Said Business School, exploring leadership, please visit oxfordanswers.org. My name is Andrew White. Many thanks for listening.