What We Don't Know with Matt Brittin & Hayaatun Sillem

What Negotiating With Putin & Gaddafi Taught Me About Leadership | Lord John Browne

Lord John Browne on Engineering Thinking, Leading BP, Climate Risk, Negotiating Putin & Coming Out in Business | What We Don’t Know Welcome to What We Don't Know with Matt Brittin & Hayaatun Sillem.  Matt Brittin is the former President at Google EMEA. After 18 years at one of the world's biggest companies, he stepped down, took a gap year, and recently became the Director General of the BBC. Dr. Hayaatun Sillem spent a few years leading the Royal Academy of Engineering and was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.  This is the show about better leadership in a truly chaotic world.  Across the series, episodes are joined a range of other leading figures, bringing different perspectives to each conversation. Subscribe to not miss an episode! ▶️ ⚡️ Powered by Boxlight.io https://www.boxlight.io/ ------ In this episode of What We Don’t Know, Hayaatun and Matt sit down with Lord John Browne. He discusses how he describes himself as a businessman, author, and above all an engineer, explaining how engineering training shaped his systematic approach from writing to boardrooms and science.  He reflects on childhood habits of dismantling clocks, the importance of proper tools, and his early life at King’s School Ely and Cambridge, influenced by a soldier father and a Holocaust-survivor mother who stressed self-sufficiency and looking forward.  Browne recounts joining BP in 1966, learning about unions and refinery work, and formative engineering experience on Alaska’s North Slope, including early computer optimization work. He describes leadership lessons from Stanford Business School—purpose, inclusion, listening, and negotiation—and his path to becoming BP CEO in 1994, reorganizing BP around customer-oriented business units, and addressing climate risk through internal analysis, methane reduction, carbon pricing, and renewables. He shares negotiation insights from dealings with leaders including Putin, Gaddafi, and others, then explains writing The Glass Closet after being outed in 2007 and arguing for workplace environments where people can be themselves, with safety and pragmatism.  00:00 Intro 01:38 Taking Things Apart 02:50 Joining BP in 1966 03:15 School and Rowing Days 05:06 Parents and Upbringing 07:41 Lessons From His Mother 09:22 Early BP Apprenticeship 11:41 Alaska and First Big Break 15:10 Stanford and Learning Leadership 19:50 Becoming BP CEO 24:18 Rebuilding BP and Climate Wakeup 28:51 Oil And Climate Reality 29:44 Speaking Up On Climate 31:10 Negotiating With Putin 35:39 Hard Lessons In Dealmaking 37:19 Writing The Glass Closet 39:09 Being Outed As CEO 44:05 Inclusion With Pragmatism 45:48 Resilience And Reinvention 50:25 Optimism And Future Tech 52:44 Speed Round And Farewell Credits: Producer: Sunny Winter Producer: Thuy Dong Producer: Jimmy McLoughlin OBE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Why The Best Leaders Make Wrong Decisions | What We Don't Know with Matt Brittin & Hayaatun Sillem

Leading Through Uncertainty: Clarity, Vulnerability & Decision-Making in a Chaotic World | What We Don’t Know Welcome to What We Don't Know with Matt Brittin & Hayaatun Sillem. The show about better leadership in a truly chaotic world. Across the series, episodes are joined a range of other leading figures, bringing different perspectives to each conversation. Subscribe to not miss an episode! ▶️ ⚡️ Powered by Boxlight.io https://www.boxlight.io/ ------ In this episode of What We Don’t Know, Hayaatun and Matt explore how leadership must evolve to meet chronic uncertainty, shifting from alpha certainty to humility, adaptability, and earned trust. They discuss why clarity of purpose matters more than false certainty, how strategy can provide agency while leaving room for flexibility, and why leaders need faster shared learning cycles and better “intel” from across their networks. Hayaatun shares how the pandemic forced her to blend personal and professional life, show vulnerability, and finally ask for help when she felt close to unraveling, reframing self-monitoring as being “safe to drive the bus.” Matt Brittin reflects on learning decisiveness in ambiguous choices and describes leading Google’s response in Russia after the Ukraine invasion, prioritizing people’s safety and values. Matt and Hayaatun also answer audience questions on fear, decisiveness, resilience, and admitting “I don’t know.” 00:00 Welcome and theme 01:21 Leadership playbook shifts 02:35 Pandemic as pivot 05:02 Strategy under pressure 06:56 Clarity and agency 09:50 Collaboration and intel 12:59 Sandstorm metaphor 13:57 Vulnerability in public 16:09 Asking for help 19:19 Decisiveness lesson 23:35 Russia Ukraine crisis 27:44 Chronic uncertainty stamina 29:41 Personal boardroom 30:31 Cognitive diversity 31:28 Facing Worst Cases 32:59 Welcoming Dissent 34:06 Admitting Not Okay 35:26 Peer Support Breakthrough 39:18 Safe to Drive Bus 40:18 Asking for Help 41:21 Leadership Inspiration 42:23 Learning Model Mentors 44:03 Books Beyond Leadership 45:07 Zak Brown Authenticity 47:51 Dystopian Leadership Lessons 50:25 Sleep as Leadership Fuel 51:57 Audience Questions Rapidfire 53:21 Decisive Versus Right 54:33 Resilience Not Denial 55:17 Leading Without Answers 56:43 Beyond Crisis Identity Credits: Producer: Sunny Winter Producer: Thuy Dong Producer: Jimmy McLoughlin OBE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Co-CEOs, Devil Wears Prada 2, AI Creativity, Brian Chesky's Hiring | What We Don't Know: Watercooler

Awards, AI, Co-CEOs & Loyalty | What We Don't Know Watercooler Hayaatun and Jimmy pull up a chair at the coffee machine to catch up on what's been catching their eye - the City AM Awards, The Devil Wears Prada 2, a controversial Airbnb CEO interview, and your questions on noise, loyalty, and whether AI will swamp the best human ideas. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome to the coffee machine 00:45 Are awards overrated, or do we actually need them? 02:00 The UK startups that got away: why the post-pandemic story isn't as bleak as you think 04:00 The Devil Wears Prada 2 and what pop culture gets right about loving hard work 05:30 Brian Chesky personally hires Airbnb's top 200 — genius or quietly disempowering? 08:30 Co-CEOs: bold leadership model or recipe for confusion? 12:00 Q from Flora: how do you find the signal in the noise? 16:30 Q from the comments: how long should you stay loyal to an organisation? 19:30 Q from Ken: will a billion AI ideas drown out the one great human one? 22:30 See you next time Resource: 🎙️ Brian Chesky: AI Founder Mode — Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy — https://colossus.com/episode/ai-founder-mode/ 📰 Pilita Clark: Why co-CEOs might suit our tumultuous times (FT / Irish Times) — https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/05/04/why-co-ceos-might-suit-our-tumultuous-times/ 📖 Reid Hoffman: Tours of Duty — The New Employer-Employee Compact (HBR) — https://hbr.org/2013/06/tours-of-duty-the-new-employer-employee-compact Episodes mentioned: ▶️ Mark Read — Leading 22,000 Employees Who Bet Against You: https://youtu.be/O6oWoVf5X3I ▶️ Natasha Frangos — The Imposter Feeling Every Leader Faces: https://youtu.be/a9AHf_pMHgg ▶️ Sharon White — Why The Best Leaders Are Impossible to Read: https://youtu.be/JluTfnfJYD4 📧 Send us thoughts and questions at whatwedontknow@boxlight.io 💼 Follow us on socials!: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatwedontknow.pod/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/what-we-dont-know-podcast/ Jimmy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmy-mcloughlin-obe/ Hayaatun's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayaatun/ Credits: Producer: Sunny Winter Producer: Thuy Dong Producer: Jimmy McLoughlin OBE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Ex John Lewis Boss: Why The Best Leaders Are Impossible to Read | Sharon White

Welcome to What We Don't Know with Matt Brittin & Hayaatun Sillem. The show about better leadership in a truly chaotic world. Across the series, episodes are joined a range of other leading figures, bringing different perspectives to each conversation. Subscribe to not miss an episode! ▶️ ⚡️ Powered by Boxlight.io https://www.boxlight.io/ ------ This week, Hayaatun is joined by Jimmy McLoughlin OBE, host of ⁨@jimmysjobs⁩ , to welcome Baroness Sharon White. Sharon White traces her journey from a working-class East London childhood — daughter of Windrush generation parents who left school at 11 and 14 — through 26 years as one of Whitehall's most senior but deliberately invisible civil servants, to leading OFCOM and later the John Lewis Partnership through COVID and financial turbulence. She shares why being impossible to read became a strategic asset, how the insider/outsider experience of growing up as a minority shaped her willingness to hold unpopular positions, and why she believes the problems facing political leaders today are categorically harder than a generation ago. She reflects on what it takes to lead 80,000 partners through a democratic business structure unlike anything in the private sector, why a reluctant regulator is a better regulator, and how to tell the difference between noise and what's actually real when everything feels urgent. She also discusses building crisis-ready teams before the crisis hits, the leadership skill she thinks nobody talks about enough — and what her teenage son taught her about inclusion. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:38 Introducing Sharon White 03:56 What To Expect Today 04:30 Backstage At Number 10 06:53 Politics In The Social Media Age 08:36 Childhood And Immigrant Roots 13:43 Finding Her Voice 20:02 Purpose Across Career Switches 29:03 Earning Trust In New Worlds 32:50 Becoming Public Facing 36:40 Reluctant Regulator Mindset 40:28 Partnership Democracy Model 41:12 Customer Love and Stakeholders 43:20 Employee Ownership Pride 45:25 Resilience and Gratitude Mindset 47:30 Growth Needs Brave Leadership 51:12 Leading Through Constant Crises 53:07 Parenthood and Inclusion Lessons 56:18 Bravery and De Klerk Story 59:05 Quickfire Leadership Questions 01:01:33 Hosts Reflect on Key Takeaways 01:07:33 Duolingo Taxi Hiring Test 01:11:54 Meta AI Leader Avatars Debate 01:14:12 Wrap Up and Stay Connected Credits: Producer: Sunny Winter Producer: Thuy Dong Producer: Jimmy McLoughlin OBE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Mandela’s Secret Weapon: How Empathy Can Topple a Dictator

From Apartheid to Ubuntu: Paul’s Journey with Mandela, Tutu & the Truth Commission Welcome to What We Don't Know with Matt Brittin & Hayaatun Sillem. The show about better leadership in a truly chaotic world. Across the series, episodes are hosted by Matt and Hayaatun as well as a range of other leading figures, bringing different perspectives to each conversation. Subscribe to not miss an episode! ▶️ ⚡️ Powered by Boxlight.io https://www.boxlight.io/ ------ Paul recounts growing up white in apartheid South Africa with parents who opposed the regime, joining the anti-apartheid student movement, working on death penalty cases for a young black lawyer who was assassinated, and helping victims’ families build Kule Manni. At 26 he helped develop the Truth and Reconciliation Commission law and became its executive secretary under Archbishop Tutu, sharing leadership lessons about preserving opponents’ dignity and Mandela’s openness to hearing testimony about ANC abuses. He discusses empathy and Ubuntu as foundations for resilient societies, the role of information ecosystems and economic breakdown in modern polarization, and ways to embed Ubuntu in organizational culture. He describes the personal toll of trauma, later scaling transitional justice support globally by offering comparative experience rather than prescriptions, and founding London’s Conduit to convene coalitions tackling complex challenges like UK flooding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]