About this episode

The episode discusses a management training experiment from the Thatcher era and its modern revival by educator Steve Thomas.

Back in the heyday of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a very interesting experiment in management training took place. Darrell and I were among the guinea pigs. The lessons learned lasted a lifetime. A few years later, our guest today, Steve Thomas (http://www.grassroutes.co.uk/), a very wise, principled, and incredibly brave, visionary educator, resurrected this protocol and added the guardrails that were so gratuitously missing from the first instantiation. Three stories, complete with wisdom from Shana the Oracle.

People in this episode

Host: Mike Conroy

Guest: Steve Thomas

Topics covered

• management training
• education
• leadership
• experimentation
• wisdom

Keywords

• management training
• Margaret Thatcher
• Steve Thomas
• education
• leadership
• experimentation
• wisdom

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Grass Routes

More episodes of DangerMouth: The Innovation Station

• S3E15: Story Weaving: Why There Are No Shortcuts to Insight w. Olly Hawes · April 8, 2026 · 1h 7m
• S3E14: The Value Equation with Per Lindstedt · April 7, 2026 · 1h 10m
• S3E13: The Transformation Economy with Joe Pine · April 6, 2026 · 1h 8m
• S3E12 The System Decides · March 25, 2026 · 1h 6m
• S311 Wiles of the Devil: The 48 Laws of Power · March 22, 2026 · 1h 27m
• S3E10 The FEP A Tool for Understanding and Modelling Complex Systems with Daniel Friedman · March 21, 2026 · 1h 34m

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the DangerMouth: The Innovation Station podcast page.