Note: Voice to text transcriptions are about 90% accurate.
Scott Allen 0:04
Today on the program, I have Mike Hardy. And Mike Hardy is the Board Chair of the International leadership Association (ILA), who has a conference coming up, and we're going to explore that it's new, it's a new domain for the ILA. And he's also the professor and founding director. And he's also a professor, and the founding director of the Center for trust, peace, and social relations at Coventry University in the UK. Mike is an economist by training, and he is leading a leadership organization. I'm going to say that one more time and he is leading a leadership organization. He has extensive experience around the globe of trying to make a difference by actually engaging in the activity of leadership. And so this conversation today is going to be a wonderful one. Mike, what I would love to hear from you. Well, you could say a little bit about you. But then also, how does an economist end up leading a leadership Association?
Mike Hardy 1:06
Yes, it's partly your fault, Scott, you may or may well recall, I've been very fortunate in career terms of quite an eclectic journey from when I was a young economist through to joining the Foreign Service and spending a good few years as a diplomat in, in different countries, different places, different contexts. And during that journey, I think what came across is that what I had in my toolbox, my original economics training was simply not enough to explain the experiences and the observations I was making. I've been lucky in the sense that I've always been an inquisitive mind, I've always wanted to learn more. So I ended up really focus on society's main challenges the relationship between people. And that took me into all sorts of places, but one of the places it took me was to Arizona State University, to my good friend, Mansour Javidan who struck up a relationship he leads the global mindset Institute at ASU in the Thunderbird School. And he and I got off very well. And we're looking at some of the challenges facing and Mansour has done a lot of work in leadership. And he persuaded me to look at the International Leadership Association (ILA), as a new home as a new place for inspiration. And I joined about five years ago, and I ended up chair. So something went well. So not sure why we could look. But you know, man, so I said, I don't know anything about leadership. I'm not a scholar. I haven't read all that literature that I know has been developed. I'm not a practitioner in the sense that I don't help other people lead more effectively. But he interjected, he said, "No, Mike, but what I see in my experience with you is you are a leader." Well, and so there must be a relationship based upon that, that we could be exploring, I suppose we haven't looked back. We've absolutely right. The ILA (International Leadership Association) is an amazing organization because it is able to convene both the academy practitioners, policymakers, as well as those who are active leaders themselves.
Scott Allen 3:17
Exactly, exactly. And it's a wonderful organization. There's a couple, let's start there, actually, so what have your observations been? As you've kind of moved into this space? And I want to get to your experience, because you're experienced on the global stage. But what has your experience been as you've entered this space? What are some two or three observations you have about, about leadership maybe and that the academic side of this whole conversation, but then also the practitioners?
Mike Hardy 3:48
So I worried a lot initially that leadership was becoming a subject and a discipline, where, where there was one way, and there was one definition of good leadership. And indeed, there was a lack of real understanding of the difference between leadership and leaders. Yes, but worried about that. My observations were that the scholarship around leadership has been dominated in the West, and particularly in North America, that has a cultural consequence, for our general understanding of leadership, generally, because we frame leadership within the liberal democracies within accountable corporations within a huge NGO and charitable sectors. When Of course, the world is far more complex than that. And we're being led by tyrannical authoritarians in different places. We have people seeking out and looking for much more humane collaborative leadership in other places, we have divides in the world that I've lived through an experience that that that original model of leadership, you know, coming out from the Ivy League universities of North America, you may not fit. I mean, our work and now that I became fascinated and then I found within the leadership community represented by the ILA, far from this, there was an enormous understanding of the diversity of understanding that was required a huge scholarship around followership, yes. And around inclusive leadership around purposeful leadership, and humility in the sector, which I have to say, it's been hugely impressive, and very emotionally engaging humanity among those interested in more effective leadership, that is, for me, is a very positive thing moving forward. Without that humility, we'd be left with an arrogance of scholarship, which doesn't help anyone.
Scott Allen 5:53
I could not agree with you more. I mean, I think one thing I love about this topic is that it is so expansive, that horrible, atrocious, terrible, evil individuals have risen to positions of authority and leadership. And wonderful, great, well-intended individuals have served in those roles and engaged in that activity. And there's no one size fits all, and if each context is different, and then also the fact that we can look at this topic through so many different lenses, we probably can, we probably can equate some fundamental concepts from economics. I know I'm asking you that right on the top, kind of springing that question on you. But as you think about economics, and you think about looking at leadership through the lens of economics, are there some concepts that connect for you?
Mike Hardy 6:47
Well, I think the economics itself, of course, is a highly diverse scholarship in its own right. But the mainstream neoclassical economics suggests that relationships between variables can be measured and monitored. And the Austrians brought us algebra that allowed us to do the differential equations that I used to love and do lots of, but you know, there's a relationship also to leadership that there is some ingredients if we identify all the different components of successful leadership, and we tick off those, we can soon find those ingredients that are missing, that might help us explain why something's not functioning in the way that it should. So you talked about tyrannical authoritarian or bad leaders, bad people, sometimes they're very effective leaders. Yes, they're just leading in the wrong direction for our moral values for our Crusade for a champion of human rights or whatever. I think, this, I did bring from my economics, you know, I can be an expert and tell you the right thing to do. But will I at the same time, tell you the right way to do it. Okay, so let's do the right thing. But let's do it in the right way. That's a combination, of science and need, and humanity and need. So let me give an example. We know how important it is to grow wealthy economies so that we can achieve more as a society because so we can look after our population better. So we can provide more essential services. We know the importance of wealth creation, and the dignity that people who have jobs will have we know that so the right thing to do is to pursue wealth and to pursue the growth of the economy. But goodness me, there are so many wrong ways of doing that. Yeah, the ways which create more inequality, more exploitation, more child labor, more lack of health and safety legislation, more abuse through media. So it's an obvious example, isn't it, there's the right thing to do to grow our wealth. And, golly, there's the right way to do it, which, which focuses on some of the core values of human rights. I think that applies throughout the leadership, just as it does in economics. So we can look at some of the most successful leaders in the world. And they don't always deliver the potential. They're not always measured by their success in terms of the results. But they're measured by the success of the way in which they relate to their followers. Yeah, and it's quite interesting. And there are very few, I think, leaders who do the right thing in the right way and that stand out when they do their amazing role models. And you want to dismantle them and explore how they're made up and, and what chemistry has led to their achievements.
Scott Allen 9:39
Mike you've spent a career working around the globe, whether that's in the Middle East or elsewhere, helping perform negotiations, with parties with vastly different interests. You've been you've received awards for that work. And what you just said was very powerful. Do you have a story of a leader who stands out to you? Who in the process of maybe some of those negotiations stood up and did the right thing? The Sustainable decision, the right decision? You have a story that comes to mind for you and over the course of your experience.
Mike Hardy 10:18
Yeah, a few fear. There's always a risk of telling stories that somehow we're pointing to best practice store, or whatever. But I think sometimes stories are great, because narrative is the way you learn you explore and question but let me give you one that was quite controversial. Okay. That may be of interest. And my, my preface is that I'm not taking sides in telling the story. Okay. So I work for a year of my life as a young economist, I was an advisor in the Middle East peace process at a time between the following the Oslo Accords, the trial and the implementation of peace in the Palestinian territory. And I worked in Ramallah, in the bunker of the Palestinian National Authority in the same building as Yasser Arafat, who is the leader and the president, and I saw him almost on a daily basis. I was a young economist. I took no sides then and I take can't take sides personally, but I took no sides then in my role was as a somebody trying to enable tried to help to expertise, good ever. I saw a leader there and I learned a great deal from observation. He is a leader that some of us worry, some of our colleagues worry a terrorist, not a leader, he's not a state's person. Putting all that aside, yes, Arafat was a leader of his people who had an innate ability to do something that I hadn't seen before. That is someone who looks very clearly straight ahead. What he sees is what's in front of him. But Yasser Arafat did that in bucketloads, but also look peripherally, and looked around and occasionally looked over his shoulder to make sure that everyone was keeping up. He was an astonishing practice leader, he was someone who led very effectively, and mobilized the followership, which was quite remarkable, many of the followers in terrible circumstances with little hope and little future and little destination for their families, but nonetheless respected his leadership. Now, I also observed and in reality the most effective leader in the sense that his followers were going nowhere fast he was not achieving the steps forward that you and I would measure is probably a necessary thing to do. Sure. I was in my first overseas posting, I was a young economist, but I watched somebody who had this enormous rapport with his followers was a really strong leader, but got a little lost about where he was actually leading his people to. And this, you know, that the history books will write a lot about that time, and we've had lots of progress and lakhs of progress since then. But that's what I observed. What it's what it focused, in my mind was the importance through leadership, of caring about the security of your people, the safety of your people. And people ask me why you're why I'm now focused in peace studies, why you're looking at scholarship that points towards a positive peace for the world. Because ultimately, Scott, it's the peacefulness of our existence, our families, our neighborhoods, our communities that really matter. All the other stuff that goes on, if it gets in the way of peace, I get concerned. So I measure the effectiveness of relationships between leaders and followers, by how much peace and security follow their actions.
Scott Allen 13:54
What are you seeing, what are you seeing on the global on the global stage right now? What do you see from your perspective through that lens?
Mike Hardy 14:02
So I think we have some real difficulties, I think we have a leadership that doesn't really get it that doesn't really deliver on those aspects. I see a world that is less secure for ordinary people than it was not because of nation-states going to war with each other. We know that the conflicts of the past, but I see a very insecure existence for most people very precarious contracts of employment, huge inequality, amplified by the current pandemic and health situations, big gaps between the global south and the global north between finance, capital, and labor, you know, so we, something's wrong. And I and I look at the challenge of leadership in that context. And my current work is, looking at the big challenges facing the world and whether leadership's up for it or not. What kind of leadership do we want?
Scott Allen 14:58
Because a lot I think about I've done a lot I get in some conversations with colleagues. Well, I have two things I want to explore with you one, I'm going to say it before I forget, I said on a recent podcast, I was having a conversation with Dr. Tony Middlebrooks from the University of Delaware. He's an ILA member. And I was just I've been reflecting on this, and I don't have expertise in economics. But I intuitively I made the comment, how does the United States and in this case, us know, how does the US work? Without a strong middle class? No, I don't know. I don't know that it does. That's an assumption I have, I think I think things begin to fall apart. So so that's one, one avenue, I would love to explore. Does democracy does capitalism. Is it sustainable when a middle class is shrinking, and from a leadership perspective, here's the other thing...The other thought, I love what you just said, what type of leadership works above the noise, the noise of, at least in the States, Fox News, or CNN and the warring factions and the billions of dollars that are being spent to influence others, regardless of who is elected? What type of leadership works above that effective to help us advance, because it's very easy for us to default into a in the United States, a Republican versus democrat debate. But there are indicators that the system is unhealthy that the system is not achieving the results we want it to. So let's start with the middle class. I'd love to hear your opinion there. But then also, let's explore what type of leadership works above? Or is appropriate in this context, to move us forward? Because it feels like many aspects of the system are stuck. Hmm.
Mike Hardy 16:54
So there are two big issues there. On the first night,
Scott Allen 16:58
Mike, real quick, real quick, if you can fix those for us on this podcast right now. Yeah, we'll get a lot of lessons with wisdom here.
Mike Hardy 17:08
So I've been fortunate, I lived for 15 years of my life in countries where the middle class was emerging. So these were countries like Indonesia, like the Republic of Egypt, where the middle classes were fundamentally growing. And importantly, so because within the structure of global capitalism, middle classes are essential as you've highlighted, the problem we have in some of the more advanced and developed economies is that they're being dislocated from any sense of influence in any sense of perpetuity or longevity. So you're right, I think this is a challenge. I'm not sure that the prolongation of the of a class-based analysis will really help it. So I think there are more fundamentals play and let me go to the second because it helps with that first. I think, you know, one of the best questions I've heard asked at the moment, that 2020 is a pretty bad year, you know, generally speaking in all sorts of ways, yep. But when it finishes when we get out of all this, what sort of world we want to emerge into. And if we cannot take that opportunity we're in, we're in a pickle. But when this finishes when we come out of this pandemic, when we come out to this political populism and this polarization, what sort of world we want, I'm very clear about the sort of world I'd like and it's the sort of world you have to look then from my, my chair of leadership, organization, what sort of leaders to be one who are likely to develop that. So in order to answer the question, what sort of world you want, you have to really be clear about the nature of the world, we've got, how many of your politicians in mind, Scott talk about how quickly they want to return to normal? Wouldn't it be nice if we got back to normal? I don't, because the normal I experienced in 2019 was not a good place. So we'd hope, then we could define a future, which was slightly different, slightly recast recalibrated for the needs of ordinary people. So in that in looking at where we're at, we've got leaders that that don't seem to be able to cope political leaders, and some corporate leaders, but mainly political leaders, that don't seem to be able to cope with some of the mega changes taking place at pace. Now one of these there are many lists in many people's books, and you can go to the World Economic Forum to see the state of the world as we have it. But these for me, come down to four main things that we that leaders don't seem to better cope with. And if we want to get better leadership, we have to help them in this area, whether we're from the Academy of scholars, whether we're consultants or practitioners, or whether we're just role models as small scale small-town leaders, like I've been in the past. So the first is that I think we have a widening gap. How many times have we heard over the pandemic? Let the science lead? Yeah. But the gap between science and political leaders is huge. And leaders who can't cope with the advances in knowledge with new technologies with new ideas will not be effective leaders. Yes, we have health ministers who have no experience in health, we have transport ministers, who never have no expertise in transport. This is the problem of the modern age. So leaders have to find a way of relating to experts. And they don't do it. Well, at the moment, we can come back to how we can help them later. Secondly, we live in an age of disruptive technology. Yes, technology that supports some of your podcasts in the past and I listened to him talked about this. Yeah. So what disruption we have, we have huge disruption mainly from social media and from the use and abuse of the internet. We have leadership that can't cope with that some of our main political leaders tried to use social media. And not very successfully, I have to say, but social media itself influences democracy. It challenges Wall Street Journal's Wall Street capital numbers, I think we have a world in which complexity has removed linearity, from solving. So we no longer can go in a straight line at all. Certainly, you mentioned this a minute ago. And I think it's usually important, we have a total corruption of some of our simplest systems, which we expected would provide answers to some of our problems. So in 2007-2008, the financial crisis was an example of a failure of the financial system to look after our debt to look after our needs, our mortgages, our aspirations, the system didn't work health systems in 2020 have failed to deliver solutions to the pandemic or anticipate and there are many other systems we can so we live in a, in a, in a world in which systems and organizations are simply not fit for purpose. Yep. The consequence of that, Scott is that the users of those systems, the people who depend on them, start distrusting them. So it's what happens is that we don't trust the systems, even if they're okay. Yeah, we don't trust them anymore. So the banks let us down in 2007. I don't trust them now in 2020. Hmm. I don't trust the banks at all. I worry about my, my security and my pension, my family and so forth, in a way that I didn't before I took I took the banking system, the financial system, the regulated systems that we developed almost for granted that the final comment tonight, I'm sorry, if I'm, I'm going on two miles.
Scott Allen 23:12
This is this is wonderful. This is wonderful. I'm sitting here listening intently, because I love it. I love it.
Mike Hardy 23:18
So the final, I think big thing that's happened is change itself. So we're quite used to change and the management of change. You know, someone said to me recently, you know, what a leader does Mike leader makes sense of things. And managers change, they do those two things. And if they're a really good leader, they make good sense for their followers, and they manage the change in a productive and constructive way. But look at nature, it's not changed. That matters to me anymore. I think it's the pace of change. Hmm. There's a fascinating book by German sociologist called Hartmut Rosa, Rosa, called Social Acceleration, who says, look, what's happening is that change is accelerating, so that we have such complexity now, and you can't manage something that's continually moving. So when you go back to those, this is a very simplistic view of the world. But if you go back to my assessment, that there's a gap between leadership and science, yes, there's a problem with disruptive technologies that we can't seem to solve. We have a corruption of our basic systems that let us down and we have the pace of change at such a rate of knots. So what sort of leaders will make sense of all that? Is the question that you pose, I think it's got a lot to do with knowledge. It's got a lot to do with the way the Academy has to recalibrate itself to support leaders on lifelong learning and continuous professional development. A leader that becomes a leader shouldn't stop learning. They should continually be humble enough to say, I need help, they should surround themselves With neutral objective evidence, and even then it will be hard. But at the moment, we don't we have leaders that are more interested in, in propagating their, their length as leaders in single-minded sources of power, power relationships, and who generally speaking and not interested in some of the core values that I think we are as a society. And that's when you get into much more philosophical areas. But, you know, if we do have a gap between the science and decisions, we've got a problem. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the type of leadership we need, it's got to be agile, it's got to be humble. And it's got to embrace what my interest is in social capital, it's got to embrace the effective functioning of personal relations between people. Yeah. And it's got to be humble enough to look around for solutions and not be arrogant enough to think that it has them all, and not derive solutions from ideology either. You mentioned earlier in our conversation, the polarization between the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States, and we might use parallels between conservatives and labour in, in the UK political system, actually, at the fringes. This is a spectrum, a continuous spectrum. Yes. And you know, those on the left of the republicans are far to the right of those on the right of the democrats and so forth. We just need to remove the tribalism at that level, and focus more on the needs of our neighborhoods and communities.
Scott Allen 26:38
And it's such an interesting aspect of human nature, what you just mentioned that the tribalism, whether it's from the beginning of time, we have the other and, and we fail as human beings to see, the we, at times, I think suddenly do see we and make decisions based on we. But it's, it's a struggle. I don't know that that academia has kept pace as well, in my personal opinion, but I don't know that we are remaining relevant in this conversation. Because I think, I think to your point, if an academic institution was a place of lifelong learning, where individuals can go to be on the cutting edge of where, what even just the four elements you just described, came that, that space for someone over the course of their life, to keep their knowledge, skills and abilities on the cutting edge. I believe we have to reframe, rethink, and reimagine the role of higher education. And, and being an agent of change in and helping, because I think, too often we're in a mindset of, well, we have these people for four years, and then they leave and not we've got a few graduate students, and then they leave. And then we ask them for money. and invite them to reunions, we don't hide them back to engage, learn, explore, and continue their evolution. Because as you said, humility, it's required. It's absolutely required, because there's so much to have a command of you that we had the head of global innovation for KPMG. His name is Stephen Hill, he spoke at john Carroll, my university a few weeks ago, he calls it clock speed. He said the clock speed of change is increasing at a rapid rapid pace. And we even move from say cloud computing and analytics, you know, the small window of time to now artificial intelligence to then next will be quantum computing. And these spaces of rapid change and transformational change are decreasing and decreasing and decreasing. Right. And, and every one of these technologies, enabling disruption. There like any other tool humans have invented, there's a shadow side and it can be weaponized. Like we've social media, be weaponized, like we will see artificial intelligence be weaponized for the use for the use by bad actors, right? Mm hmm. How does the ILA we have a conference coming up? We have the conference first digital conference that ILA has ever, ever hosted, incredible organization, doing really, really good work. I love your four pillars. I love those because they're in there, they help us make sense of what's happening. They're some of the big pieces of the dialogue. They probably, of course, are not everything by any stretch of the imagination. But what's your vision, when you think about the ILA, how does ILA be a part of that solution and sparking that dialogue?
Mike Hardy 29:50
So, as you know, Scott, as well as the ILA is based upon a whole set of principles and fundamental values which matters. remembers and matters to the 20-year history and the gestation of the organization. This is quite an astonishing organization whose purpose and function is, is admirable. It's not based upon the propagation of tribalism that we talked about, it's based upon simple a simplicity that actually leadership in our complex societies can help create a better world can help create more security for families in our neighborhoods. And that's if you look at our mission statement, now, it's very, very simple. It's about that is working for a better world. And we don't even define a better world because it's, it's a banal sort to define what a better world is, we know it, it's we, we can emotionally feel it. Yeah. So the one major event a year of the many, that significant violators, it's global conference. And you know, this normally takes place around 12 1500. People assemble, which by itself is an astonishing grouping of people. Yeah, it's all driven by this need to enquire this continuous learning and this humility, and wanting desperately to share, practice, and share good their share and learn. But this year, we've were challenged, we would have been in San Francisco, the leadership at the edge, because we see the edginess of our contemporary context, as we've been discussing. And we can't do that. So instead of feeling sorry, and going into a corner and weeping, we decided to take the opportunity and continue in the tradition of ILA to just be positive. So we're doing two things. One is we're going virtual, yeah, we're not, we're not being hybrid, we're not trying to be clever, we're just going to go online, we're going to say we have a technology that can be mobilized positively. So we're going to do that. But we're going to go live. So we're not going to stage-manage this, it's not going to be studio created, it's going to have the same opportunity for imperfections, which is how we learn. And so alive digital event, which will be more accessible to more people globally than ever before people won't have to travel won't have to burn up carbon problems in coming to San Francisco is we're gonna miss the serendipitous bumping into each other in the corridors. That's going to be desperate. We're missing that all the time. Yeah. You know, we're hoping that we have three or 4000 people from around the world. We have registrations in excess of 1000 already from 47 different countries already. And this is a global conversation, the like of which we couldn't have expected. Yeah, without the lockdown without the closures. So it's converting the misery of lockdown into the potential of new conversations and new social interconnections. Then we have an amazing group of presenters, as I'm sure you see, we don't have to bring a lesson that because they can go when they registered to come, they'll see who they are, yes, including world leaders fighting our pandemics through two world leaders fighting for the preservation of our democratic systems and for the rights of many in the less privileged countries of the world. And we have hold strands of discussions about the quality of PhD supervision of continuous professional development and the role of the Academy. We have a strands looking at business and leadership, the power of purpose, the focus of effective leadership of small teams, as well as large teams. It's an amazing collection of things. And we also are looking at peace, which I'm very pleased about personally. So we're promoting a lot of discussion on the leadership for peace on how leaders can focus their attention. The importance of peacefulness, as a precondition for progress as a precondition for fighting pandemics for improving the world this year is a couple of years after we signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals. They're almost invisible in the media discussions, and yet these are a sign up by the civilized world for civilized conditions for all people. You look at the Sustainable Development Goals, it is to shame that they've slipped off our agenda. Yeah, in our race for other goals. And so I'm hoping that, you know, in between many sessions, which will stimulate and provoke that we're reminding each other, that there's a purpose to our concern about leadership. It's not about how well we feel. It's how, how much good we can project how much improvement we can make for The lives of ordinary people, that it's going to be an amazing conference, you have to be there, and your listeners have to be there. And we're going to help them be there. If they're still if they've missed the early days, lower fee, just get in touch with me and I can, I can give them an advantage, and a discount, but we want everybody there.
Scott Allen 35:21
I love it. I love it. And I love the mindset, you know, it's for each individual, you know, how do we reframe and for organizations? How do we reframe and how do we see the potential, see the potential opportunity in this difficult time? And if I la could use this, this experience to connect with three or 4000 people? What an incredible opportunity, to build awareness, promote education, and begin that movement. I think it's wonderful. Mike Hardy, Dr. Hardy, anything else on your mind right now because we're about ready to kind of close things down anything else you want to touch on or highlight now
Mike Hardy 36:03
I've really enjoyed this? I'm I apologize in advance or I can't in advance. But after talking too much I normally do. You know, the reason that I love working with the ILA is because they've because there are so many good people, yeah, that have so many positive things. And we live in a world where culture can be positive or negative where we have good and bad leaders. But generally speaking, I'm now in a community that cares about change for the better. And that's a good community to be in. Yes, because there are so many problems out there communities of interests, which are not focused on the greater good. And but this one is, and it's been a pleasure and a privilege to be associated. And I thank you for the early conversation. Yes, yes, you who recruited me. Funny organization, I thought, What am I doing? So. And just a final word for your listeners. And I know you have many, the staff in the ILA are just astonishing heroes, because that you and I, we have our day jobs, we have our world and our passions, we have our families, but our staff just do an amazing job. We have a tiny staff for the amount of noise they make. And I just always want to take the opportunity to celebrate the fact that we have them. And it's their work that is going to lead to the amazing conference next month.
Scott Allen 37:32
Well, you're exactly right. I mean, Debra, Shelly, Cyn, three of which have been there for four years and helped steer that.
Mike Hardy 37:41
On Bridgette, who is the last
Scott Allen 37:44
Oh, well, yes. Thank you for that. Because you're exactly right. I mean, when you think about the conference, and now her new, her new expertise in the digital realm.
Mike Hardy 37:56
We have Megan, I can't say enough about that. We could have spent the whole hour talking about their abilities and their competence, their enthusiasm, their passions. And here we are we left it right to the end.
Scott Allen 38:10
Well, when they listen, they'll they'll hear it. Mike, I always close these out with a quick question just about what you're reading, what you're streaming, what you're listening to. Is there anything that's on your desk right now that stands out for you that listeners might be interested in?
Mike Hardy 38:26
Well, I'm just I've just finished Amy Chua's book. A book called Political Tribes that looks at group instinct and the fate of nations, Amy's one of your academic she's, she's at Harvard, or sorry, at the Yale Law School. And it's, it's a really good read Political Tribes. So she talks about a lot of the things that I've observed in my travels, that humans love to belong, and that that is a good thing. And it creates challenges, because by belonging, we become inclusive, and we become self sort of resilient, but in many parts of the world belonging to one thing excludes people. Yes. So Amy talks about the world in framed around this notion of political tribes. So that's a great read. And I rarely recommend books so strongly as that.
Scott Allen 39:24
I will put it, I'll put it in the show notes. I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks. Mike at ILA, we will have a great experience. And I just love that vision of thousands of people gathering I think it's a wonderful Yeah. For those of you who are listening, you will be able to find out how to get involved, how to get engaged. By checking the show notes. We will have everything you need to know there. Please register please sign up. Join us join the conversation, and then more important act and help in your community and make a difference in your space. And practice the activity of leading others. Dr. Hardy Thank you, sir. Have a wonderful day.
Mike Hardy 40:07
Thank you very much, Scott. Goodbye.
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