Episode 96
From Control to Collaboration: Five Mindset Shifts Leaders Need for the Age of AI
We chat with Eleanor Gibson, Agile and Innovation Coach and Founder of Tilt
This week we chat to Eleanor Gibson, founder of Tilt, who has helped over 40 charities rethink not just what they do, but how they work. Eleanor shares her five mindset shifts model for leaders — from outputs to outcomes, hierarchies to networks, controlling to empowering, predicting to experimenting, and isolation to transparency — and explains why these shifts are more urgent than ever as AI reshapes the way organisations operate.
We caught Eleanor just before she went on maternity leave — congrats, Eleanor! — and had a brilliant conversation about why discomfort is a sign you're doing change right, how smaller charities can leapfrog larger ones by moving faster with AI, and why being intentional about how you work is the single most important thing leaders can do right now.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
Eleanor's five mindset shifts for adaptable, resilient leadership
Why focusing on how your organisation works can unlock huge potential — especially with AI
The risks AI poses to institutional knowledge and collaboration, and what to do about them
How to build resilience and confidence when change feels uncomfortable
Why smaller, more agile charities are seizing the AI opportunity faster than larger ones
Before our chat with Eleanor, Zoe and Paul discuss the human side of AI — from the Royal Observatory's warning about outsourcing our thinking, to a Stanford student's account of graduating from the first "AI era" college class, to what happens to real human connection when AI gets so good at performing empathy.
Show Notes & Links
Tilt's "Where to Start with Agile Ways of Working" workbook — available via teamtilt.co.uk
Find Eleanor on LinkedIn
Zoe and Paul discussed:
Royal Observatory Greenwich on AI and critical thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2023l60370o
Theo Baker, New York Times — graduating from the first AI era college class https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/opinion/chatgpt-ai-college-school-graduation.html
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Editing and production - Paul Thomas
Music by Joseph McDade - https://josephmcdade.com/music
Full transcript of this episode (srt file)
Full transcript of this episode (.txt file)
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