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What Duncan talks about

Ready-to-book episode angles — each one field-tested on stages and in the studio. Pick a direction, or bring your own.

AuthorExecutive CoachLeadership
01
The real gap at work is not skills, but the space between being treated like a person and being managed like an employee

Duncan explores why so many people feel disconnected at work even inside organisations that look successful from the outside. He unpacks the gap between companies saying people matter and leading them…

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02
The leadership advice most companies use was built for factories, not for AI-era work

Duncan discusses why so much management training still rests on assumptions that made sense when work was repetitive, tightly controlled, and designed around compliance rather than thinking. His persp…

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03
The problem is not that great performers become managers, but that nobody asks whether they should lead people at all

Duncan brings a grounded and highly usable challenge to one of the most common habits in business: promoting technically excellent people into leadership roles without ever exploring whether they have…

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04
AI is not the thing making people disengage, but it will expose the companies that already lost them

Duncan’s take on AI is more nuanced than either techno-optimism or panic. He argues that AI itself is not the core threat to work; the bigger risk is that organisations are trying to build an AI-enabl…

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05
What leading through the financial crisis and COVID taught me about how quickly leadership breaks when control disappears

Duncan has a rare lens on leadership under pressure because he worked at the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis and in healthcare during COVID, two environments where predictable systems coll…

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