Jim Kouzes is the co-author of the award-winning, best-selling book The Leadership Challenge and more than a dozen other books on leadership including the 2021 book Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership. He is also a Fellow of the Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University. The Wall Street Journal named Jim one of the ten best executive educators in the U.S. and he has received the Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance Award from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) among many other professional honors.
Quotes from This Episode
Jim's Website
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
Connect with Scott Allen
Jim Kouzes is the co-author of the award-winning, best-selling book The Leadership Challenge and more than a dozen other books on leadership including the 2021 book Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership. He is also a Fellow of the Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University. The Wall Street Journal named Jim one of the ten best executive educators in the U.S. and he has received the Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance Award from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) among many other professional honors.
Quotes from This Episode
Jim's Website
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
Connect with Scott Allen
Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate.
Scott Allen 0:01
Hello, everybody, this is Scott Allen. Today I have Jim Kouzes. And Jim, you know, Jim is at the best-selling leadership book of all time. Is that is that accurate?
Jim Kouzes 0:14
It's up there. I don't know if I have comparative figures the best selling but we've been the first edition was published in 1987. And it's continued to sell since then. So it has a lot of long legs to it.
Scott Allen 0:30
Long, long legs. Well, I have a story I'm going to share with you in a moment. But Jim Kouzes, everybody, award-winning, best-selling author, co-author of the leadership challenge with Barry Posner, over a dozen other books on leadership including the latest work that they put out everyday people extraordinary leadership. And that's really where we're going to spend a lot of our time today. He's also a fellow, and is it Doer Institute?
Jim Kouzes 0:58
Yes, John Doerr and his wife funded the Institute at Rice University in Houston. It's named after him.
Scott Allen 1:10
Okay. He's also a fellow of the door Institute for new leaders at Rice University, The Wall Street Journal named Jim one of the 10 best executive educators in the US. He's received the distinguished contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance award from ASTD. And so many other professional honors. Now, Jim, I told you, I was going to tell you a little bit of a story. Your work with Barry fundamentally shifted the trajectory of my life. So I know that when you begin these works, and you put it out into the world, you have, no idea how that's going to impact other people. And here I am, this guy in Cleveland, Ohio that you've never met. And your work impacted the trajectory of my career in very, very wonderful ways. My first supervisor held a book club at 7 am, on Thursdays.
Jim Kouzes 2:07
A little early!
Scott Allen 2:08
We read the leadership challenge. Now, this is a little bit of an odd story, I was working for a fraternity. And it was in Oxford, Ohio. And every Thursday, we met, and we talked about the leadership challenge. And we struggled, and we argued, and we were working to challenge the process because what our organization was, was not living up to the values of what it was intended to be. And we had a number of people in the system who weren't modeling the way. And your book served as this impetus for not only transformational change within that organization. But it was the first time that I understood that leadership could be this thing that you would study that you would do research on and that it was something I could learn and I could get degrees in, I had no clue. So that was the start. That was the first leadership book I ever read. And that was the beginning of my trajectory in this whole space as a professor, etc. And for that, I thank you.
Jim Kouzes 3:14
It is our pleasure. Thank you for sharing that story. Scott, you made my day. In my week,
Scott Allen 3:19
You made my last 30 years!
Jim Kouzes 3:26
Well, we've been at it for a long time. So it's, it's a delight to be able to talk with you about our most recent work.
Scott Allen 3:35
Tell me real quick, if you would tell me the impetus of the original book, what really sparked your enthusiasm for this topic of leadership? Because at the time this book is coming out with some of the work by Bernard bass and Transformational Leadership, it's coming out with some of the works by Conger at the time, talk a little bit about the impetus of leadership challenge. And then I'd love to jump to the latest work.
Jim Kouzes 4:03
Well, thanks for asking that it is a rather long-ish story, but let me give you the short version, very nice, Barry Posner and I met at Santa Clara University. And we began to work together. I was a director of the Executive Development Center work with the management department to staff a number of our programs Barry was one of the most popular faculty members among the executive community that we served and he and I discovered we had some common interests. So in looking at those common interests, one of the things was on managerial values, we wrote our first paper together. And we started a series of seminars on corporate culture, a very popular topic at the time, as you can recall, Theory Z. A lot of Japanese management literature was coming out at that time and one of the things that resulted from that was a talk about excellent companies. barina I had this notion that we should also be talking about excellent leaders. But as we began to explore that topic, and Bass was one of those we were very familiar with, of course, and Conger, Jay Conger, and others who Warren Bennis writing at the time. But what we were reading was mostly about senior executives in corporations or historical famous leaders. And we said to ourselves, you know, there are leaders everywhere, and not just an excellent company. Let's take a look at middle-level managers, for the most part, inside organizations who are leading, but maybe people aren't even recognizing they're leading because it's always about CEOs and senior executives in the C suite. So we took a look at the top and we asked ourselves, well, how are we going to research this? What are we going to do? So because we started out initially, as an exploratory study, we said, Why don't we ask people to tell us their personal best leadership experience, it just so happened that around the time we were talking about this, there was an Olympics, and we kept hearing the personal best Olympic performance or the personal best time for somebody to meet a track meet? And so he said, why don't we ask leaders about their personal best, that would be an interesting study. And as we began to gather case study, after case study, after case study, and story after story, we noticed, as did other people who were in seminars with us, who were sharing their stories, that there were some common themes. And it was that 'aha' experience of seeing common themes emerge from just one question - "Tell us about a time when you were at your best, what were you doing when you were at your best as a leader?" that people shared these common themes, which ended up after many iterations, the five practices of exemplary leadership? And we published the book, the Leadership Challenge based on that research?
Scott Allen 7:03
And I remember what was beautiful about that work, and you just alluded to it. And that's where we're going to start as we transition to everyday people, extraordinary leadership. It was, it was a book where I could see myself in it, even though I didn't necessarily have a formal title or position of authority. I wasn't a manager, quote, unquote. But I, internalized the concept that I could inspire a shared vision that I could model the way that I could embody each of the five practices without position or authority, that I could make a difference. And that was a shift, that was a huge shift because before reading that, I'd had this notion that, you know, well, you have to have the title, you have to have the position before you can do anything. And I think that that was so wonderful. And it gets a little bit to the heart of this current work. And where so where I want to start with that is really this. You said, you come out and say it "leadership is not a position, it's a relationship." So talk about that say some more, sir.
Jim Kouzes 8:13
In looking at this topic, as you were back that many years ago, 1980. It started really, in 83. Everybody was referring to leadership as if it were a position or title. And as we explored this story, particularly with middle-level managers in organizations, they began to tell us stories about times, when they were coaches of teams. It wasn't necessarily inside an organization, although most of the stories were...we heard stories when people were parents and things that they did with their kids. And it just dawned on us that leadership is not about somebody with a title and authority. It's about a set of skills and beliefs of actions that you take things that you do, based on a relationship you have with other people. Leadership is not a solo act, it isn't something you do with others. And so it just after hearing the story, so many times it was really about relationships, and the quality of the relationship you had with your constituents - how well you knew them how well they knew you - whether you had a belief that they could do extraordinary things and communicated that to other people, whether you trusted them and they trusted you. And so it was the quality of that relationship, which ended up being really the focus of the five practices - it is about what leaders do, but it's about what leaders do to build and sustain relationships with constituents. So that constituents WANT to follow them and that was an important part of our definition of leadership. People want To follow you not because you hold the title because you are the boss, but because they are internally motivated to want to do something extraordinary. And that you believe that they can.
Scott Allen 10:17
Well, and you also frame it upright in the beginning. Look, credibility is foundational. Its relationships are foundational. It's a relationship. It's not necessarily a title. But credibility. Would you unpack that?
Jim Kouzes 10:32
So it's part of this initial study, we did - actually, prior to writing about the five practices we were looking at, at the qualities that people expected and wanted from their leaders. And we so we asked the question, "what do you look for and admire new leader, someone whose direction you would willingly follow?" And that was the question. And we listed 20 keywords. Things like cooperative, honest, supportive. Somebody who shows respect, I mean, those were some keywords, and then some, three or four synonyms to go with each. So because honesty and integrity and tell the truth, and I fall into the same bucket, we gave people a list. And they began that we asked them to select the top seven from the 20. And what happened, repeatedly, and we just did this, during the pandemic, to make sure the pandemic didn't change anything significant was that those qualities which were desired by more than 50% of the respondents. So in other words, if you're running an election based on qualities, not on a person, these were the ones that would win, if you will, and the number one quality was honesty. And the number two quality or characteristic people look forward to desired and leader was competent. Well, honest, and competence, are the two most important ingredients. And what's called in the research source credibility, you believe in the source of information. And so honest and competent. Even as, most recently as last week, when I did a seminar with about 20 people, 100% selected honest, as an example, overall, about 85% of people want to have a leader who's honest, and about 66, select competent. So, as we looked at what people said they looked for and admired in the leader, and we compared it to other research that had been done on this topic. Again, we saw that in the research on source credibility. That was the one word with, which explained at all that it was 'credibility' is as the foundation of leadership. You know, it's got one of the things that this reminds me of, is when you do research, as you know, you don't you have hypotheses about what you're going to find, but some of the most interesting things you find or what you don't expect. And we initially had no idea what people would pick when they selected the seven of 20. And because two qualities in particular, and two others, in addition, forward-looking in and inspiring. were selected by 51% or more of people. We, of course, had to repeat that a number of times to make sure it wasn't biased of them a particular sample. And to find it continuously just reminds us of what really is the most important foundational element and leading others who 'want to' follow.
Scott Allen 13:57
So it's remained pretty durable over time.
Jim Kouzes 14:00
Very durable
Scott Allen 14:04
I think sometimes there's a really famous TED talk, and I know you've seen it. But there's a famous TED talk by drew Dudley where it's called everyday leadership. And he really, the primary message of this is, I think we times make leadership bigger than us. We talk about Lincoln, we talk about Gandhi or Mandela or people on the global stage. When each one of us in whether it's within our family, or in our community, or in our place of worship, or an association, whatever it is for you, we can make a difference. And regardless of the level, we can make a difference. We can challenge the process, we can model the way we can inspire a shared vision. We can encourage the heart. So it breaks that down. that leadership is not this gigantic, massive entity that is not accessible to all of us. It can happen to your point on the ballfield, as a coach in t-ball.
Jim Kouzes 15:02
Absolutely. So, again, going because some of them are interesting things are things you don't expect to get, we did a study of leader role models. You know, speaking of people like Gandhi, and Mandela, and Lincoln and others who would end up being on that list. We asked people to think about leaders that they looked for and admired. Who was your number one person on the list that you would say was your leader role model. And we provided categories for people to respond to categories of a business leader, or a co-worker, or a religious leader, a political leader, an athlete or an entertainer, a family member, or a teacher or coach. And again, over time, every time we repeat this study, to make sure that what we're reporting is current family member ends up being at the top of the list, particularly parents of that one leader that people would look to as a leader role model. Individuals under 25. So people who have not yet started a career or only a couple years into a career 62% select a family member, at work, people then terms of ages over 25 where people are, in their early years or been in a career for a long time, 47% select a family member, so it's still far out-paces any other category, in terms of where people look for a leader role model. Teachers and coaches are second on the list for those under 25, they're third on the list for those still at work. So we still remember that teacher or that coach, whether in grade school, high school, or university that worked with us, and taught us that's, that's second for those younger, the those at work, it's third on the list. And interestingly, the third preferred second person on the list for those that work is their immediate manager, not the CEO, not a famous business person that gets all the press, not a political leader, but their immediate manager, their immediate supervisor, and colleagues are also up there in the top five sources of leader role models. So what this data tells us, you add it all up, and you say, Yes, sure, we can write about CEOs. And we can write about famous leaders. But those aren't the most important people, individuals look to as a model for how they would lead. The most important leaders are those people who are closest to us, whether it's a parent, or a teacher, or coach when we're younger, and in school, or whether it's an immediate supervisor at work. And that's really important for people to keep in mind that when you're leading, and you're someone's immediate manager, you could be their role model for leadership. The same goes for parents,
Scott Allen 18:24
you know, everyday people, extraordinary leadership. Because just because I'm in charge of this team of five, don't doesn't mean I can't be that person that crosses their path. That is that person, they think of 30 years down the road as the incredible leader that they worked for. And so that's liberating, in a sense, because all of us can practice all day long, whether that's in our family, whether again, I can go through that list of settings. But we can all practice, right?
Jim Kouzes 18:57
Absolutely. You know, if we're on a committee of a local religious organization, or in a, your local town where you're doing some fundraising for an event coming up, you can practice these five practices of exemplary leadership that we write about. You can model the way for other people, you can inspire them to share a vision of what your community could become. You can challenge them to try new things and innovate and create you. You can also make sure that they build trust with each other and they work collaboratively, collaboratively together and you can encourage them to recognize them. You can do all those things. without some fancy title.
Scott Allen 19:45
Yep. And it's that's a such a liberating concept. It just is. Because it means all of us can engage in the activity of leading others. And all of us can practice that work each and every day. And each one of us can learn develop and grow, especially if we have that mindset. Right? Especially if you have that mindset. Well, you also the two of you really explored another foundational piece of this text is just clarifying your values. Talk a little bit about that, Jim.
Jim Kouzes 20:20
Well, as you know, from working in a Jesuit institution, as, as you and I and Barry, where we Barry and I met, share that background. That experience, it's very important in those institutions' values - and so Barry and I first met each other. When we first met each other, we've we found that we had a common interest in values. And our actual first paper together was written about values called Shared Values Make a Difference. And what we've found in that research is that the more individuals are clear about their personal values, the more committed they are to the organization, even more so than if they are very aware of what the organizational values are. But not aware of what their own values are. Personal values drive commitment. And so it became an important part of our work. Because if you don't know what you believe in, it's hard to set an example for other people of what the standards values, the principles of beliefs are that we should be upholding. You can't do what you say, if you don't have something to say, you know, do what you say you will do is sort of the popular definition of what credibility is put your money where your mouth is 'walk the talk,' well, if you don't have the talk, how can you walk it? And so, because values are so foundational, that's when we do leadership development, that's among the first things we ask people to do. And to make sure that they not only do that for themselves but have their teams do that with each other and talk openly about personal values. And then take a look at the organizational values. And where is there alignment or not alignment? Is there fit or no fit? Doesn't have to be the exact same words that you could say cooperative and teamwork and means the same thing. But they have to look at a Venn diagram, they have to merge.
Scott Allen 22:35
There's overlap, or there has to be overlap, we're in the same space.
Jim Kouzes 22:39
Exactly.
Scott Allen 22:42
And inspire the shared vision. I loved how you all framed up this, this whole notion of listening deeply and inspiring a shared vision. Because I think at times, and I know it's not embedded in these words, but Inspire a Shared Vision. I think, at times people can read that as in, "you need to now speak your vision to the whole team, and they will just buy-in and be very, very excited." But no, you're saying, look, you're underscoring this shared component. And have you listened? Have you done the work? And are you really really investigating what it is that we value? What it is that we could become? And are you listening deeply to what others are thinking?
Jim Kouzes 23:23
Absolutely another? That's another, I think myth, is one more to come to mind. But maybe misunderstanding is another that that leaders are the ones who have to come up with a vision. Well, it's true that leaders need to be able to articulate a vision of the future in such a way that other people want to go to that place that leaders are talking about. But if it's going to be something that people want to go to want to follow, then they have to see themselves in the picture. What one of the analogies we use, is, is to think about a jigsaw puzzle. And if I were to bring 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle into a room and have a team of people and put it on the table, and take the box away and walk away with the box, what is the first thing that people want to see one to ask me as the leader?
Scott Allen 24:22
What's the picture?
Jim Kouzes 24:24
Hey, boss. What's the end result supposed to look like? The way the backstop that's the first impulse people have they want to see the end result? Then they begin to put their pieces in place as a group. But we give people what we call a job or a task and we say, Okay, put this piece in the right place. Oh, well, okay, maybe I could do that over time. If I can figure out what the heck it looks like. But it'd be a lot easier if you tell me what it looks like or show me the picture. So analogously, leaders need to show people the box top? So they can say, "Oh now I can see what we're trying to create together. That makes a lot of sense to me. Yes, I want to do that!" And so to do that, we also need to understand that their values, their vision of the future, where they're coming from, what their aspirations, hopes, dreams, and hopes and dreams are. And then when people hear that they are nodding their heads and saying, Yes, I can see myself in that picture.
Scott Allen 25:31
And I have fuel for that future state. And I'm excited and enthused by that notion...
Jim Kouzes 25:37
I got the energy for it. And, hey, because I wanted so much, if need be during a tough time, I'm willing to put in extra effort, discretionary effort to make that happen.
Scott Allen 25:52
So Jim, I really am interested in knowing as you reflect on this work for 30 years, 30 plus years. What are some things that as you think about this work still confuse you frustrates you? What keeps you intrigued? What's on your mind these days as you're thinking about this topic?
Jim Kouzes 26:20
Well, Scott, we're now working on the seventh edition of The Leadership Challenge. Barry and I and so we had a conversation just like last week about, you know, what's current, what's new right now, that's challenging us that we need to be writing about, that we weren't writing about five years ago when the last edition came out. And so we're always curious about those new contextual issues people are facing right now, of course, it's been the pandemic and remote work and work from anywhere, and also social justice issues, diversity, equity, inclusion, those are at the top of everyone's list right now. How do leaders respond to those issues? how did the five practices fit into, this context? And there are a few others, you know, trust is declined? How are we going to trust is such an important ingredient in everything - in innovation and teamwork and, and productivity? How are we going to deal with that issue? So those intrigued me always intrigued me. What's, what is current? And how, how can leaders respond to that, in ways that look at these adversities as opportunities to do new and significant things that work? What inspires me is, how many people are coming to realize that leadership is everyone's business, that everyday people can be extraordinary leaders, and beginning to say to themselves, "yes, I can lead in this initiative, I can do something to help make the deal with the issues that we're talking about." And during the pandemic, we gathered some wonderful stories about what or, you know, ordinary people did to get extraordinary things done. So that inspires me to see more and more people assume that they can become better leaders. Because what confuses me right now is, you know, just as earlier today, you know, listening to the news, and just shaking my head wondering - how leaders who are honest and tell the truth can be who don't, you know, exhibit that honesty, quality, who aren't truthful, can continue to have a large percentage of people want to follow them. It's a very confusing message one, hard to get your head around. And we're trying to unpack that one. A little bit for this, this coming edition.
Scott Allen 29:18
I mean, when when you have an individual who's been elevated to, again, a position of authority, who blatantly isn't modeling the way, blatantly isn't inspiring a shared vision, and how is that? how is it that they, in that context, were elevated to the role that they were, and then some of the great damage that can do, and just damage?
Jim Kouzes 29:44
Yes, that part is true, Scott. And it's also true that if, if a large percentage of people want to follow that person, then at some level, they must believe in that person. That person has credibility. So we need to begin to ask ourselves, how we can help people who may not understand the facts, the truth, the science, to better understand it. That's what's confusing about this is why are people believing someone who doesn't get the facts straight, if you will, doesn't tell the truth about what's really going on, and outright lies about it.
Scott Allen 30:38
or have their best interests at heart in some cases, right?
Jim Kouzes 30:41
Well, I think they think that he was talking about Trump here that they think he does. And they believe in him. And how is it that that people can come to believe in someone who lies and believe in someone who doesn't get the facts straight? And what is our responsibility as educators? What is our responsibility as citizens to help others understand without getting into high conflict? What Amanda Ripley, in her new book, high conflict call, talks about that? How do we avoid getting into high conflict? We can still have differences, but how do we get to a place where we can have a conversation about those differences? And come to some common understanding?
Scott Allen 31:34
Because, again, there are large factions of people that would perceive or experience that individual, as challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision, modeling the way encouraging others to act. And, you know, it's, but when it's misguided, or when it lacks truth, it's that I'm amazed by that as well. It's confusing,
Jim Kouzes 32:03
it is very confusing. That's why it's so difficult, to get your head around it and unpack it. And, that's been probably the most challenging test that we're facing right now is, as people who write about this topic is to try to explain this, but even more than just explained it, how do we create unity when there is such high conflict in our society, and it's not just the US, this is a global problem, as you know, from your own work, looking at, at studies of trust, right now, trust is globally has diminished, particularly in large institutions like government. And so we have got a lot of work to do. to bridge that gap.
Scott Allen 32:54
Big, it's big business, the media, and it's multibillion-dollar industries that are fueling and fanning the flames at times. And on either side, right. I mean, that could be late-night TV, and those comedians or it could be Rush Limbaugh on the right. I mean, there's people making good money "othering the other," and to your point, that then causes resentment, and that causes frustration and anger. And then we don't get to a conversation, which is ultimately where we need to be right?
Jim Kouzes 33:32
If we can come to some common understanding about the needs and aspirations and hopes and dreams of all of us. My guess is that if we started talking about what we want, in our lives, we'd find there's more commonality. And we get into a high conflict when we make someone "the other," and we start to see them as the enemy rather than citizen or neighbor. And if we can begin to have conversations that are about what we all hope and dream for in our lives - yes, there'll be differences. There'll be people who don't want to associate with certain kinds of other individuals, they, they don't, they, they are afraid that their values are being attacked, their way of life is going to be lost on both sides of this conflict. But if we can begin to talk more about those things, that we share, the aspirations that we share. I think we can make some progress, but it's it is a huge challenge. The good news, the or the silver lining for organizational leaders, is that right now, people see their Leaders inside organizations as more credible than those outside, and if so as we talk and train and develop leaders inside organizations or those who are in our local communities to display more understanding and empathy and receptiveness to issues of diversity, equity inclusion or issues of the kinds of challenges that people are facing in their lives of post-pandemic and the kinds of, of difficulties that they're facing, the more we can begin to talk about those things, and will start to at least have a conversation. I think they can be productive.
Scott Allen 35:57
Well, I was just reflecting as you were talking about just those last couple of issues, it must be really interesting to reflect back on the different editions and to look at your model through the lens of what was happening at that time. Right? I mean, it has to be really interesting to look back through what was happening in the context that you were writing about. And then looking at those events through the lens of your model.
Jim Kouzes 36:27
Yes Scott, and thank you for reminding me that one of the things that have been consistent over time, and actually, there's a lot that's been consistent over time, because we keep testing the five practices against current reality, and ask the question, do these still matter? Do they make a difference, and what we find is, the more frequently people engage in model, inspire, challenge, enable, and encourage, the more likely it is they'll have highly engaged employees and be more productive in the organization. That's one of the commonalities. And another is that there's a difference between content and context. So context has changed dramatically in the last 18 months. And that's being played out. And that's heightened the level of tension that people are experiencing in their personal lives and organizational lives. So but the content of leadership, the five practices has remained as viable today, as it was when we first started. The other thing that's quite interesting is when we look at personal-best leadership's stories that people tell us, they're all about adversity difficulty, and challenge, every one of them, there's not one story where somebody says, "Well, I did my best by keeping everything the same."
Scott Allen 37:47
That's when I was at my best
Jim Kouzes 37:48
I was at my best I just did kind of a moderately good job and didn't really stretch myself, and didn't challenge other people to do better. Everything's about adversity, difficulty, challenge. And so if people can look at the current situation, as these challenges or opportunities for us to try some new things that can, can make, make the world a better place. I mean, just look at the development of the vaccine as an example, when there is a significant challenge to everyone on the planet. And people need some kind of intervention that's going to help us become to prevent illness and, and, and to improve our chances of survival. They'll do great things, you know, get businesses to cooperate with each other and develop a vaccine when they in the past, we just compete and never share information. Well, we need to look at these other challenges in a similar way. This is important to our growth, development, and survival. It's important to our kids, that we do something about this situation, let's figure out a way we can work together and do our best as leaders so that we can make extraordinary things happen.
Scott Allen 39:14
Well said. Jim, I always close out the podcast by asking guests, what they've been listening to streaming or watching. It may have something to do with leadership could have nothing to do with leadership. But what are you consuming that's caught your eye in recent months?
Jim Kouzes 39:33
Well, I mentioned a book which I do recommend now it's just out this month and it's Amanda Ripley's book called High Conflict. I think she does an amazing job of talking about these issues in a way that we can all learn from and I've just high regard for her work. I on a regular basis listened to a couple of podcasts I just find fun and entertaining and but also on-topic, ones called no stupid questions, which is with Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth. The two of them talk about a question that a reader asked. And they bring some of our applied behavioral science to that. And then, Stephen Dubner's podcast Freakonomics I, I love to listen to that too. And I do listen to occasionally TED Talks, Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell's, podcast and Adam Grant's podcast. So I, I probably listened more to podcasts that are related to, you know, my interests. These may not be for everyone. But if you're interested in this kind of work, No Stupid Questions and Freakonomics are a couple of those that I like to stream and
Scott Allen 40:59
So much to learn. Watch and learn.
Jim Kouzes 41:00
There's so much to learn.
Scott Allen 41:02
There are so many just wonderful resources out there. And I listen to a conversation the other day, a podcast with Sam Harris and Neil deGrasse Tyson. And you can just go to you have access to these experts, these global thinkers, like yourself, and you know, it's 45 minutes and you see the world in a new way you have an opportunity to learn so I have really just loved the medium and I've learned so much since I've engaged Jim, thank you, sir. Thank you for the good work that you do. It's changed my life. I know that it's I it's changed my life. I know that that it has changed many other's lives as well. Just even the framing of how you all think about leadership. It's a game-changer.
Jim Kouzes 41:47
Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you. It's been it's fun talking about this and I look forward to more conversations.
Scott Allen 41:55
Awesome. Awesome. Okay, sir. Be well, thanks.
Jim Kouzes 41:58
Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai