The Waggle Room

The Waggle Room is a space for sensemaking. Inspired by the way honeybees share signals through the waggle dance, this channel explores how meaning forms in complex, real-world systems — long before certainty, plans, or tidy conclusions appear. Each conversation focuses on the signals people are noticing but struggling to name. The patterns, tensions, half-formed ideas, and early shifts that don’t always make it into headlines, dashboards, or strategies — but matter all the same. Guests come from many walks of life: technology, leadership, policy, creativity, science, organisations, and bey

The Waggle Room is a society podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 26 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts The Waggle Room, a society show with 26 episodes published.

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  Episode #26

  The Waggle Room - Ep 26 - Sam Steele - The Squiggly Route

  Sep 27, 20261h 2mS1

  In this episode, Mick is joined by Sam Steele — senior visiting fellow at Bayes Business School, executive coach, entrepreneur, and fractional marketing director — for a wide-ranging conversation about creativity, leadership, and the real risks hiding inside AI adoption. Sam's squiggly career — from music journalism at the NME to Radio One producer, Olympic caterer, and AI research centre lead — gives her a genuinely unusual lens on how organisations communicate, innovate, and change. The conversation covers cognitive evolution, patriarchal bias in large language models, and why the signal we are failing to see may be hiding in plain sight inside the tools we trust most. Key Topics - How Sam's career in music journalism, TV production, and Radio One shaped her thinking on communication, culture, and organisational change - The entrepreneur as jet engine: why visionary founders need process and culture to harness their energy effectively - The 100,000-year arc of cognitive technology — from theory of mind to language, writing, logic, and now AI — and why the speed of change is the real challenge - Human-plus-AI versus human-minus-AI: why AI is a tool to help us think, not a replacement for human judgement and creativity - The patriarchal and Western bias embedded in large language models, and what it means for the homogenisation of thinking globally - Lessons from a live hackathon at Bayes Business School: why the richest ideas still came from people in a room with Post-it notes and pens Where to Listen Website: https://thewaggleroom.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102 Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian Guest Info Sam Steele is a senior visiting fellow at Bayes Business School, executive coach, NED, and fractional marketing director at Design House. She works at the intersection of creativity, business innovation, and AI adoption. Find Sam on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/samlsteele

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  Episode #25

  The Waggle Room - Ep 25 - Alex Vohr - Speed Kills. John Boyd and the OODA Loop.

  Aug 15, 202656 minS1

  In this episode, Mick speaks with Alex Vohr — former US Marine Corps officer, veteran of the Second Battle of Fallujah, and author of Speed Kills — about John Boyd's OODA Loop and how it applies to modern organisations. They explore why most people get the OODA Loop wrong, why orientation is the true centre of gravity for any decision-making system, and what military experience really teaches you about leadership, accountability, and strategy. Alex brings rare depth to a concept that is often flattened into a consultant's shorthand, and the conversation covers everything from startup agility to AI's unknown trajectory — with bees making a welcome appearance along the way. Key Topics - Why the OODA Loop is a theoretical model, not a checklist — and why that distinction matters - The danger of focusing on speed alone: how going too fast destroys coherence and learning - Orientation as the centre of gravity: closing the gap between perception and reality - How organisations can deliberately build better observation, orientation, decision, and action processes - What military veterans bring to the commercial world — and what they have to unlearn - The destruction and creation cycle in organisations, and why interrupting it is dangerous - AI's uncertain role inside the OODA Loop: powerful tool, serious risk if we outsource judgement Where to Listen Website: https://thewaggleroom.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102 Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian Guest Info Alex Vohr is a Strategy, Operations and Logistics Professional at OneLng Inc. and author of Speed Kills: Leveraging Boyd's OODA Loop for Organisational Success. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-vohr-83b38767 Schwerpunkt Leaders: https://www.schwerpunktleaders.com/ Book (Amazon UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Speed-Kills-Leveraging-Boyds-Organizations/dp/B0FYTCG95T

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  Episode #24

  The Waggle Room - Ep 24 - Chris Oldfield - War, Trauma & the Signals We're Blocking

  Jul 22, 20261h 11mS1

  ## Episode Overview Mick sits down with former Royal Engineers soldier Chris Oldfield — a man he served alongside in 2-4 Field Squadron in the late 80s and early 90s — for one of the most honest conversations The Waggle Room has ever hosted. Chris opens up about 23 years of service, the accumulation of combat trauma across Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and how the near-collapse of his own life led him to a radical re-reading of war, power, and generational trauma. Now living in Finland and speaking in schools about peace, Chris brings hard-won clarity to questions that matter far beyond the military. ## Key Topics - Generational trauma and the military recruiting pipeline — why broken communities and impoverished backgrounds produce the ideal recruit, and how trauma is passed across generations, even through DNA - High-risk search in Iraq and Afghanistan — the realities of IED threat, command decisions under pressure, and the death of Sapper Jordan - The trauma puzzle — how compartmentalised experiences from South Georgia to Sangin eventually forced a catastrophic breakdown, and what brought Chris back from the edge of suicide - Management in extremis vs. office management — what leading men in lethal environments reveals about the word we throw around in boardrooms - War as a system — Chris's research-driven conclusion that wars are produced for profit, sustained by broken communities, and cleaned up by charities rather than governments - Searching for peace — how Chris now delivers presentations in schools across Finland, and why changing one young person's next decision makes 23 years of service worthwhile ## Where to Listen - Website: https://thewaggleroom.com - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102 - Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian ## Guest Info Chris Oldfield — Former Professional Soldier (Royal Engineers, 23 years), public speaker and advocate for peace, currently based in Finland. Chris is working on a book titled Searching for Peace . - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/chris-oldfield-eng-tech-minst-re-2507432b4 - Email: oldfield465@yahoo.co.uk

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  Episode #23

  The Waggle Room - Ep 23 - Paul Blair - A Soldier's Gut Feel in an Entrepreneur's World

  Jul 13, 202646 minS1

  ## Episode Overview Mick sits down with Paul Blair — veteran, exited founder, and CEO of ArcX — to explore what it really takes to back yourself when the data says stop. From Dragon's Den rejections to 9 million units sold, and from Afghan patrols to wearable tech startups, Paul shares the signals he nearly missed, the ones he acted on, and what turning 50 taught him about paying attention. ## Key Topics - Entrepreneurial risk and confirmation bias — why Paul remortgaged his house, ignored Dragon's Den, and flew to Florida to prove everyone wrong - Gut instinct vs. data — how reading the environment in Afghanistan translates directly to startup decision-making - The swarming founder — serial venturing, knowing when to kill a failing business, and the cost of stubbornness - Corporate vs. startup decision-making — why consensus culture stalls organisations, and what skunkworks models get right - Mission command in practice — why military leadership training doesn't transplant easily into corporate life - Signals we fail to see — from Fangio at Monaco 1950 to the quiet streets of Helmand: spotting the obvious before it's too late ## Where to Listen - Website: https://thewaggleroom.com - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102 - Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian ## Guest Info Paul Blair DSO — CEO of ArcX, exited founder, veteran, and mentor at Heropreneurs. - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/paul-blair-dso - ArcX: https://arcx.fit - Kong Company: https://kongcompany.com - AFFS: https://affs.co.uk - Email: paul@arcx.fit

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  Episode #22

  The Waggle Room - Ep22 - Ed Pike - Once You See It, You Can't Unsee It

  Jul 4, 202652 minS1

  Episode Overview Mick sits down with Ed Pike — behaviouralist, applied scientist, and founder of Irrational Change — for a sharp, unfiltered conversation about why humans are predictably irrational at work, and what that means for leaders, change agents, and organisations trying to actually get things done. Drawing on 30 years inside large corporates, Ed makes a compelling case that safety — not purpose, not values — is the primary driver of human behaviour at work. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Key Topics - Safety as the master motivator — why financial security drives more organisational behaviour than any engagement survey will tell you, and how VW Dieselgate and EY's ethics exam scandal prove it - Tribal dynamics over team dynamics — how tribes form, how leaders are expected to keep them safe, and why individuals sacrifice their ethics to preserve belonging - Why traditional change management is broken — the critical mistake of focusing on the change itself rather than the system around it, and why the profession has trained leaders badly for decades - Self-discovery over entertainment — Ed's three killer questions technique, the IKEA bias, and why asking is more powerful than telling - Cognitive surrender and AI — how AI risks becoming a tool for intellectual abdication, and how Ed's team deliberately reintroduces friction to drive genuine thinking - Leaders get the outcomes they deserve — why the signal most organisations are failing to see is that leaders' behaviours are producing exactly the results they're getting — and nobody is telling them Where to Listen - Website: https://thewaggleroom.com - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWaggleRoom - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/TheWaggleRoom - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-waggle-room/id1879089102 - Substack: https://substack.com/@mickbrian Guest Info Ed Pike is a behaviouralist and applied behavioural scientist with 30 years of experience advising large corporates on complex tribal and behavioural change. She is the founder of Irrational Change and B-Site AI. - Irrational Change: https://irrationalchange.com - B-Site AI: https://bsiteai.com

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