The Solutionists

In conversation with the OG Punk, Greg Larkin. In this episode the Solutionists get stuck into where we’re getting stuck with automation, value and values with Punks and Pinstripes founder, Greg Larkin. Warning : sacred cows were slaughtered. If your organisation is overwhelmed by AI hype, struggling to tell real value from slop, or watching transformation efforts die before they start, this episode is for you. Bronwyn Williams and Sharon Pearce are joined by Greg Larkin, CEO of Punks and Pinstripes and veteran of 34 Fortune 500 product launches, for a frank conversation about why AI is not the problem, the slop was always there, and what courageous leadership actually looks like in practice. Greg, Bronwyn and Sharon dismantle the myth that AI is taking your job, arguing instead that most of the work being automated should never have existed in the first place. They use call centres, investment banking, and the Zappos customer-moment-of-truth model to show the difference between automating dysfunction and genuinely solving problems. Greg's three-part filter for evaluating any AI investment (grow sales, minimise costs, mitigate risk) cuts through the hype cycle noise and gives leaders a practical lens that survives every bubble. The conversation goes deep on why transformation really fails inside large organisations: not because the technology is wrong, but because innovation always starts a civil war, and political survival determines outcomes more than technical merit ever does. Greg introduces the first mountain versus second mountain leadership framework to explain why cultural transformation trusted to the wrong leader will fail every time, and what the tell-tale signs are from the outside looking in. Bronwyn and Sharon bring their own hard-won perspective from South Africa and global corporate transformation work, connecting Greg's frameworks to graduate unemployment, the structural gap between education and the labour market (via Harvard economist Claudia Goldin), and the urgent need for a solutionist movement that develops contextual, integrative human judgment rather than single-track specialisation. This is the episode that shows what Bronwyn Williams and Sharon Pearce can bring to organisations that are ready to stop marking their own homework and start solving the right problems. www.linkedin.com · www.punksandpinstripes.com · scholar.harvard.edu · Survive the AI Apocalypse website · Connect with Bronwyn on LinkedIn · Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn · Follow Bronwyn on Instagram · Follow Sharon on Instagram

On the future of human work and worth. In this episode, The Solutionists talk to Siya Mnyanda from Workday about the future (or lack thereof) of jobs. Is a job the best unit of human worth? Is life better in or out the box? Are we ready for life and work out the box? And what will it take for us to develop a more human future of work that rewards value and citizenship rather than compliance and conformity? Survive the AI Apocalypse website · Connect with Bronwyn on LinkedIn · Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn · Follow Bronwyn on Instagram · Follow Sharon on Instagram

On the future (or lack thereof) of education Schools are failing students, employers are failing graduates, and parents are failing to ask the right questions - this episode is for business leaders worried about their talent pipeline, HR professionals frustrated by grad programs, educators fighting the system from within, and anyone who has ever wondered whether the money poured into education is producing any real return. Bronwyn Williams and Sharon Pierce sit down with teacher and educational philosopher Esme Van Deventer to diagnose exactly how schools, systems, and societies are producing the wrong kind of human for the world of work. They examine the product problem (wrong skills, siloed thinking, format compliance over real understanding), the pricing problem (education as a status game rather than a value-generating investment), and the parent problem (helicopter parenting, homework battles, and Gen Z bringing mom and dad to job interviews). Esme shares her hands-on classroom experiments in integrated, phenomenon-based learning: a 10-week Charlie and the Chocolate Factory curriculum that teaches geography, ethics, science, economics, and writing as one interconnected system rather than separate hour-long silos. She explains why she has never believed in homework, how she sets Bloom's Taxonomy Level 4 and 5 exams for remedial boys and gets a 54% class average, and how a classroom fiat economy complete with wages, tax, UIF, desk rent, and a restorative justice court is teaching financial literacy and democratic thinking to 12-year-olds. The conversation covers the CAPS curriculum and its arrested development, Montessori and Reggio Emilia philosophy versus jug-and-mug pedagogy, the commercialisation of private schooling, AI slop and critical digital literacy, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus and fake sources, and why a degree is now just a country club membership rather than a signal of genuine capability. It ends with a clear argument: the solutionist mindset - contextualise, diagnose, empathise, solution, operationalise, digitise, relearn - must be embedded from cradle to career, and that work and learning should never have been separated in the first place. Montessori education overview - American Montessori Society · Reggio Emilia Approach - official overview · Connect with Esme on LinkedIn · Survive the AI Apocalypse website · Connect with Bronwyn on LinkedIn · Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn · Follow Bronwyn on Instagram · Follow Sharon on Instagram

Transformation is a process, not a product. In this episode Bronwyn and Sharon talk about when therapy doesn’t work, how culture is not a commodity, why transformation fails, and why what you do matters more than what you say (however much you paid an internal branding consultancy to tell you otherwise). Stay tuned for: - PowerPoint wastelands - Unicorn mysteries - Weaponised mediocrity - Where to find missing motivation - and more. If you hope to “transform” anything or anyone, listen up, before you waste your shareholders’ money - and your own precious time. Speaking of culture (watch this) · Survive the AI Apocalypse website · Connect with Bronwyn on LinkedIn · Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn · Follow Bronwyn on Instagram · Follow Sharon on Instagram

In this episode The Solutionists dive deep into the productivity paradox and why measuring what does not really matter is killing your business - and your value. We also follow two brave economists into the woods, slay bullshit and buzzwords, have a quick physics lesson, and give you some solid solutions to start applying to your work place to shift from measuring metrics to delivering results. This test helps you & your team reflect honestly on your BS & blind spots · Survive the AI Apocalypse website · Connect with Bronwyn on LinkedIn · Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn · Follow Bronwyn on Instagram · Follow Sharon on Instagram

The therapy session your workplace didn’t know it needed. Bronwyn Williams and Sharon Pearce, the co-authors of Survive the AI Apocalypse, a guide for solutionists, are tired of treading in BS everywhere in the world of work and business. Bloat, bureaucracy, make work disguised as "efficiency", pointless meetings, overstuffed organograms, corporate cholesterol is everywhere - but everyone, from CEOs , CTOs and CHROs through to middle management and new hires seems too afraid (or too invested) to call the BS for what it is : Bullshit. - or to seem to know what to do about it. So they started this podcast, The solutionists - to be the therapy session your workplace didn’t know it needed, to uncover all your corporate dirty laundry - all those naughty little secrets - and help you clean it up with real talk - and most importantly - real solutions you can apply right now to stop wasting time, talent and money and start the process of REAL business transformation. If you’re tired of the BS and ready to get to work - and if you have a dirty little corporate challenge of your own you'd like help to solve, you’re in the right place. [email protected] Survive the AI Apocalypse website · Connect with Bronwyn on LinkedIn · Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn · Follow Bronwyn on Instagram · Follow Sharon on Instagram