Eight Questions With Featured Grey Swan Guild Member: Antonia Nicols
Bridging organizational development with large-scale tech, growth implementation, aligned cultures, healthier top & bottom lines, higher employee & customer retention.
Our Eight Questions is part of our ongoing series profiling some of the amazingly talented members of our global Grey Swan Guild and get behind the curtain of what makes them think and sense the world differently and more effectively than others.
Antonia Nicols — from Virginia to Los Angeles to Singapore to San Francisco Bay
Bio: Antonia is an expert generalist, traveling the world to guide and inspire clients, and to learn more about herself and people. As an organizational development consultant, she works with stakeholders to envision what can be, using storytelling to interest, inspire, and move actions forward.
Antonia is particularly interested in how artificial intelligence — and the ethical challenges it poses — will change organizational culture. She also knows a freakish amount about foreign and independent film, which used to be much more impressive before the Pandemic caused everyone to work their way through the entire Netflix catalog.
A Sensemaking Metaphorical Tool You Personify:
Magnifying Glass. I dive deep and look closely, and my scrutiny will burn a hole in something with the right kind of light. Unsurprisingly, I’m also an overthinker.
1. Who are you/ what makes you tick?
Curiosity (childlike and intellectual), making connections (conceptual and emotional), and contribution (being of and receiving). And play.
2. What are some of the important questions that you are making sense of nowadays?
- How will Artificial intelligence change the nature of work and work culture?
- How does — or could — the world define “value” in new and innovative ways?
- What role do ethics and values play in long term organizational sustainability?
3. How are some of the ways you go about making sense of the world?
Reading, taking classes, repeatedly putting myself into completely foreign situations to see what I learn, writing, and looking at art.
4. What is overhyped? What is underhyped?
- Overhyped: space exploration
- Underhyped: mental health
5. Who is at your sensemaker last supper? Four people?
- Alvin Toffler, American writer, futurist, and businessman, author of Future Shock, editor of Fortune magazine
- Jane Austen, 18th century author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
- P.G. Wodehouse, English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century.
- Sun Tzu, Chinese general, military strategist, writer, and philosopher, author of The Art of War
6. What big and small question would you love answered or solved?
- Big question: How can everyone have access to education who wants it?
- Small question: Where does an idea go when it’s forgotten?
7. When you are not thinking deeply about the world, what else are you passionate about in your day to day life?
- Exploring new places.
- Spiritual, physical, intellectual, intuitive and emotional balance.
- Listening to people’s stories. It’s always a privilege when people want to share their lives with you.
8. What do you enjoy about being in the Guild, Global League of Sensemakers and the News Wrap team?
- The opportunity to work and create with incredibly bright and talented people.
Find Antonia at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonianicols/
Her Company: https://futurestate.com/
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Interested in Joining the Grey Swan Guild:
Visit our website: https://www.greyswanguild.org/
Become a member: https://bit.ly/gsgsmemberform
Attend our next onboarding regatta: https://bit.ly/gsgregattaOct21
Join our Futures & Sensemaking Discussions: https://www.clubhouse.com/join/grey-swan-guild/ARKbvt4K/MOG7OeJE
