Making the case for spaciousness with Megan Reitz and John Higgins

As time hurtles by at lighting pace, there is scarcely a second to take stock and breathe. Across the world, work seems increasingly harried and fraught and it’s taking its toll on engagement and organisational performance.

In this episode, Dom, Jen and Cat talk with Megan Reitz and John Higgins about their most recent research report, Permission to pause: Rediscovering spaciousness at work. They look at what it is, and why it’s a business-critical issue.

Against a rising tide of stress anxiety and burnout, spaciousness is the one permission we should all be granting ourselves, not least if we stand any chance of resolving society’s most pressing challenges.

To find out more go to www.johnhigginsresearch.com, www.radicalod.org, and www.meganreitz.com

About Megan Reitz

Megan is Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford University and Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Dialogue at Hult International Business School. She focuses on how we create the conditions for transformative dialogue at work and her research is at the intersection of leadership, change, dialogue and mindfulness. She is on the Thinkers50 ranking of global business thinkers and is ranked in HR Magazine’s Most Influential Thinkers listing.

Megan has written a number of books, most recently Speak Out, Listen Up which is the second edition of her bestselling book Speak Up, with Financial Times Publishing. Speak Up was shortlisted for the CMI Management Book of the Year 2020.

Megan is a contributor to Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. She has presented her research on the BBC and CNBC. Her TED talk on the topic of employee activism has been viewed more than one and a half million times.

She is mother to two wonderful teenage daughters who test her regularly on her powers of mindfulness and dialogue.

Find Megan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganreitz/

Megan’s website: https://www.meganreitz.com/

About John Higgins

John is a widely published researcher and author who for many years has been exploring, with Megan Reitz, what it takes for truth to be spoken to power at work – and how this shapes workplace activism. Their work has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review and the European Business Review – and on various public platforms, from Radio 4’s ‘The Bottom Line’ to Brene Brown’s ‘Dare to Lead’ podcast.

For the last year and a half, John and Megan have been looking at the concept of spaciousness, and what it takes for organisations to marry a more spacious mode to enrich an over-focus on tasks and busy doing.

Alongside this John has written two books, alongside Mark Cole, which critique the taken for granted assumptions about what counts as good organisational management and leadership.

John’s website: http://www.johnhigginsresearch.com

The report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/597729cbcf81e0f87c7f6c61/t/677b9b9a26a22a7351dce717/1736154022120/SpaciousnessREPORT_90pp_FULL.pdf

Articles: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/create-mental-space-to-be-a-wiser-leader/

https://hbr.org/2025/02/how-to-give-yourself-more-space-to-think