Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen, Ph.D.

Learning in Public: How a Leadership Podcast Changed My World with Dr. Scott J. Allen

• Scott J. Allen • Season 1 • Episode 275

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Scott J. Allen, Ph.D., is an award-winning educator passionate about working with people at all levels and across industries. He serves as an instructor in SMU’s Cox School of Business Executive Education and spent more than 18 years as a professor of management. Allen’s areas of expertise include leader development, the future of work, and executive communication.

Scott has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He’s the co-author of several books and hosts Practical Wisdom for Leaders, ranked among the world's top 2.5% of podcasts. Along with the podcast, he publishes a weekly newsletter.

Scott frequently serves as a keynote speaker. In addition, he consults, facilitates workshops, and leads retreats across industries. Recent engagements include Catholic Charities, Cleveland Leadership Center, Key Bank, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Progressive, Nestle, EY, Siegfried Group, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Sherwin Williams, Whiting-Turner, Builder’s FirstSource, Vocon, CID Design Group, Toyota Motor North America, Lexus, Crestron, NASA-Glenn, Sam’s Club, Elbit America, Oatey, Lubrizol, Enbridge (Dominion), Endeavor Energy Resources, Scout Energy Partners, First Energy, TransAlta, FedEx Custom Critical, Thompson Hine LLP, Nordson, Beacon Oral Specialists, and Cleveland Clinic.

Scott served on the board of the International Leadership Association, Association of Leadership Educators, and Management and Organizational Behavior Teaching Society. He was named an ILA Fellow by the International Leadership Association in 2021.

Thanks to Martin Gutmann for interviewing! 

A Few Quotes From This Episode

  • “If you’d asked me in 2020, I would’ve said I knew a lot about leadership. But now I see just how much I didn’t—and still don’t—know."
  • "This podcast has systematized my learning. Every week, I’m talking with someone who knows more than I do."
  • "Maybe I’ve reached base camp, but Everest is still ahead."

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

About  Scott J. Allen

My Approach to Hosting

  • The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your


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Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.

Scott Allen  0:00 

Okay, everybody, welcome to Practical Wisdom for Leaders. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. This is episode 275, and a friend, we've never met in person, maybe we will this summer, but a friend reached out and said, “Hey, I want to turn the tables and I want to interview you.” And so, today, I'm so excited to have a conversation with Martin Gutmann. And, as many of you know, he has been on the podcast twice, authored an incredible book, ‘Reluctant Leader,’ has a TED Talk that has just done incredible work. We will put links to that in the show notes. We are actively working on a project or two, which has been a lot of fun to explore and kind of co-create. So, Martin, A) so good to be with you again. And, B) Thank you for this idea. I'm excited to see where the conversation takes us. I don't know that I'll have much wisdom. I don't know that it'll be practical, but we'll try.

 

Martin Gutmann  0:55 

Well, Scott, it's great to be here. And if nothing else, at least now you will know what it feels like to be on your show.

 

Scott Allen  1:02 

(Laughs) Exactly. I love it. I love it. 

 

Martin Gutmann  1:05 

No, Phronesis is such an amazing resource, and I know that I speak for many people, listeners and guests, that we appreciate it. So, I think many of us just want to hear from you. A little bit more about the show, and how you got into it, and what insights you've gained from this incredible repository of knowledge that you've built up. So, yeah. If you're ready, let's do it.

 

Scott Allen  1:27 

Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited. Let's jump in. 

 

Martin Gutmann  1:30 

Okay. So, here's the first question. What inspired you to start Phronesis? 

 

Scott Allen  1:35 

Martin, I think it was March 2020, and I had a lot of nervous energy because the world is shutting down. It's the pandemic. I'm thinking about how we're going to do class, and that class is likely going to be online on some level. And so, how do I introduce new ways for my students? At the time, I was teaching at John Carroll. And so, trying to think of different ways where we could get good content to them, and it had been a little bit in the back of my mind. So, I was jogging on the treadmill, and I just turned on this video from this resource called Buzzsprout. They are podcasting hosting services. And they had these videos, and I watched them a couple of days in a row, about five of them. And walked upstairs and told my wife, I said, “Hey, I think I'm going to start a podcast.” And she was like, “Cool, what do you need for that?” And I said, “I think I need a microphone.” So, we ordered that on Amazon. And then with my kids, I said, “Hey, you want to make a theme song for a show?” And they said, “Yeah.” And so, that's the source of the girls and the original theme song, which was just kind of… Because I didn't think it was going to be anything more. I didn't think it would be going five years from then. And so, then I reached out to a good friend, Dave Rush, and I said, “Hey, you want to be in a podcast?” And he said, “Sure.” So, it was kind of off and running. And then, Martin, I've met you. Even though we've never shared space, and, again, hopefully, this summer, we will, there's probably been seven or eight benefits, wins, like, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, because of this project. And I'm happy to share some of those, but the impetus was a pandemic project.

 

Martin Gutmann  3:10 

Wow. And so, how can we imagine from this run where you had this idea until the first podcast was online? What are we talking, a couple of weeks here, or…?

 

Scott Allen  3:18 

Probably three or four weeks. And I needed to learn GarageBand, and I needed to have Dave Rush come on the podcast. And I made a lot of decisions that I probably would make differently now, but, again, a lot of what they were saying on these videos was, “Don't worry about your artwork being perfect. Don't worry about it being the perfect name or the perfect music, that stalls people and they never go. So just go and build and create and learn.” So, it's kind of like it's me learning in public because I just got off another podcast recording with Barbara Kellerman, and I'm learning. Literally learning. I was on a podcast recording last evening with a gentleman from Australia who is a world expert in climate change and sustainability leadership, and I'm learning. So, not only am I kind of learning the content of leadership and leader development in this whole space and nooks and crannies of that -- you are much more of an expert in history than I will ever be, so I'm learning -- but I'm also learning this whole space of creating in public, and marketing, and titling episodes so that anyone will want to listen. And so, that's been fun too, in a certain way, just to learn that space a little bit more. As an academic, I just released an episode about John Hume. And the original title was ‘Leadership and John Hume.’ That's not very sexy, so I changed that up a little bit, but the academic in me just wanted to be very… 

 

Martin Gutmann  4:56 

Wow, brilliant. And this is Episode 275, so looking back on the previous 274 episodes, are there some moments that stand out? Maybe things behind the scenes, like you said, something you really realized or changed how you view the world, or leadership, or something like that? 

 

Scott Allen  5:18 

Yeah. Well, bottom line, the Roman numeral one is this has helped me, similar to when you're doing your PhD, you're kind of confronted with just how little you know. And if you had said to me in March 2020, “You know a lot about leadership,” I would have said, “Yeah, I'm good. I got a lot.” And I am continually amazed at these nooks and crannies of this conversation that I didn't know existed, that I don't know well enough, that I need to understand better. So, that's been just observation number one, is that I feel like, still, I'm at the base camp. Maybe I've gotten to base camp of Everest, and we still have Everest, and there's months to climb it, and a lot of skill that needs to be developed, and some luck, and all that good stuff. Because, ultimately, my vision, or my personal mission is, how do we better prepare people to serve in these roles? Because they're really challenging roles in organizational life, and I don't think we're there yet. I think we can do this work better. I think we can get much better at preparing people to truly be successful in serving in these roles. And if you look at the Gallup numbers, which suggest, “Hey, 70% of how I experience the organization is my direct supervisor.” And you know what it feels like to be in the presence of a person who does that work well and someone who struggles to do that work. And so, I'm fascinated by that question of how we do that work better. And ultimately, better prepare some of those individuals to be successful because these roles are difficult. And moving from a phlebotomist or an architect to leading a studio now, or an English professor to now being the provost, it's a totally new job. And oftentimes, we aren't preparing people to be successful. So, how little I know and tapping into my mission, those are the couple of things that really stand out for me. 

 

Martin Gutmann  7:11 

And you're talking about this challenge of taking on a leadership role. Is that really the deficit, if we can call it that? Is that why we struggle collectively to truly prepare people because we underestimate how challenging it is, or do we not have the proper tools yet to train people to become effective and impactful leaders when they enter these roles? Where are the problems here in the leadership development journey?

 

Scott Allen  7:39 

I just got done with a conversation with Barbara Kellerman about this. That's where we kind of oriented. She's so incredible because you can just take the conversation in a thousand directions with her,  but we honed in on leader development. I think some decisions or non-decisions were made at a certain point. To be a CPA, you have to sit for the exam. An attorney, you have to pass the bar. To be a surgeon, cardiac surgeon, it's going to take you 20 years. And so, there's an element of time in this that do we actually have the time to truly prepare an individual to be successful? If we're going to develop a master carpenter, that's going to take some time, and they're going to go through… And that learning is scaffolded in a very clear and coherent way. Just like someone who wants to learn karate, or Jiu Jitsu, that learning has been scaffolded. And there's agreement on what the person sitting for the CPA needs to know, what they need to be able to do. And so, I don't think we as a entity have come to any level of agreement on even some core foundational definitions. I don't think we've come to some clarity around how we would scaffold that learning. I don't think we have the time in some cases, or the resources, because, oftentimes, the context in which this is happening is organizational life. So, I was trained to be a surgeon, and now I'm leading the department or the Institute, and now in real-time trying to learn. I think you reposted it. I put a post on LinkedIn a few weeks ago that was like, “Hey, congratulations, you're a leader. Here's all the new stuff that you have to be skilled at and knowledgeable about to be successful; negotiation, conflict management, building teams, influencing others, political skill.” We can just go down the list. And so, it's fascinating to me that we're elevating people into positions of authority like this, both the management, managing a P&L, project management, just all of those types of management-oriented tasks, but then all the leadership-oriented tasks, it's monumental. So, it's almost like I think we have this collective, no one wants to think about it. No one wants to say, “Oh, jeez, that is so much stuff. We're not going to kind of tell you.” (Laughs) The person assuming this new rule kind of doesn't want to think about it and so. But again, I feel like sometimes I'm taking crazy pills because it's just asinine to think about what we're putting into motion. It's like asking me to go work on cars. “You've studied leadership for 20 years, you have a podcast, go work on that car.” Like, “No, I'll kill people. I will destroy that car.” I might learn it over time. I might learn it over seven years. I think I probably could, and I'll do a lot of damage in the process. 

 

Martin Gutmann  10:36 

Yeah. I have the highest respect for you, but I'm not going to ask you to fix my brakes.

 

Scott Allen  10:40 

Exactly. Don't.

 

Martin Gutmann  10:44 

All right. So, let's switch gears here just a little bit. So, you started in 2020 early on in the pandemic. Now we're in 2025, the world looks very different. And I would say very generally here that many people might agree that there's some aspects, some principles to leadership that kind of remain constant no matter what the context. But there are others, or perhaps, different things we need to highlight when speaking about leadership in different times. So, how have you seen the leadership conversation change and develop in these five years, six years?

 

Scott Allen  11:19 

Oh, that's awesome. That's a great question. I think, yeah, some of those Nathan Eva, who's in Australia, he posted a blog article, and then he had also written an academic paper. And the punchline is, look, there's all this research, and that's great, but kind of it comes down to relationships. And what is the relationship you have with your direct supervisor? And if your supervisor is skilled at building solid, authentic relationships, and you know that they care about you, that's probably a good place to start. And so, it wasn't exactly phrased that way, Nathan, if you're listening, but that's kind of what I took from it. That is it just really that simple? And so, I think there's some timeless things that, yes, you're building solid relationships with the people with whom you're working, and you're navigating polarities. There's this polarity management, these tensions of, “I want to have my subordinates feel like I'm empathetic and I care about them, and I need to hold them accountable.” You can't get away from either one of those, but if you get out of balance with those, well, that's problematic. So, you're managing these tensions always as a leader. I think some of the biggest things we've seen shift is the context. So, the murder of George Floyd is a contextual shift, and we saw this huge wave of focus on DEI. And depending on where you are in the world, different letters are used; D, E, I, B. So, that was a contextual shift. We have this huge contextual shift around COVID-19. You have, in the last year or so, year and a half, you've got the Large Language Models, which are just taking us by storm. And you have this artificial intelligence revolution that is now moving into kind of an agentic AI. Like these AI agents. And so that's going to be this huge contextual shift. Supply chain challenges around the world. We have globalization, and then the shrinking of globalization as the US discovered that we were overly reliant on certain countries for certain products, and so how do we bring some of… So you've got all of these, and that's what I love about Barbara's work is that she talks about the leader, the followers, and the context. So, I think there's some core elements. Adult development, are you a mature human being? Are you a leader? Well, you're a learner, then I hope and are you learning about leadership and everything else you need to learn in this new role as a way of being? There's some things that are foundational, but I think that context is always shifting around us. The geopolitical shifts that we're seeing right now. The leadership. Some of the challenges with democracy around the world we're seeing. And so it's ever-shifting, that context. And so I think that's the really, really interesting piece of all of this, is that leaders seem to be surprised, that I'm engaging with. Whether it's work from home, or Gen Z's, or digitization, or supply chain challenges, there's always going to be something that is this new element and this new contextual shift that we're going to have to navigate, that wasn't what we expected, but it is. So, do you have the mindset, the growth mindset to tackle that and say, “Okay, here we are.” “This is work from home? Okay, how are we going to figure that out?” And I had an incredible conversation with a woman who leads a design firm in Naples, and they fully embraced that, they call it work well anywhere. And they've fully embraced it, and they're thriving as an organization with that as their approach. So, I think some things stay the same pretty constant, and other things are just shifting rapidly all around us, and I don't think that's going to change. I think that is one of those constants. Now, I don't know, it's kind of a trope to say, “You're the historian, are we living in the most complex time in history?” You hear that all the time. I don't know, is it true? 

 

Martin Gutmann  15:17 

You do, but I don't know if we can answer that question because I think part of it is not just about the changes and the circumstances of someone's life. And it's hard to put ourselves in the shoes of somebody who was alive at the start of the  first World War, or some other occasion, but even harder than understanding the things that were going on is really what impact did this have on people's lives? And I think we're definitely, compared to 10 years ago, living through a period of more rapid change and more uncertainty, and I think that's really unnerving, but it's certainly not the first time that we've been through such a period in this century or the last. 

 

Scott Allen  15:56 

Yeah. It is. It's very, very interesting, but I think that that whole conversation… And I think another shift, back to that question a little bit, is that there is a greater and greater acknowledgment of like, look, we tend to center on the leader and the followers are a part of this dynamic -- this is Barbara's system, and her context, as she would say, is part of that dynamic. And we need to do a better job of exploring that whole system and understanding that system, versus just being solely focused on that leader-centric kind of perspective. 

 

Martin Gutmann  16:30 

Yeah. No, I think that's been a fantastic shift in leadership studies and how we talk about leadership in the last couple of years. 

 

Scott Allen  16:38 

Yeah, because, out of history, we've talked about this a little bit. Historians tend to center the context, don't they? But the individuals have very little agency, individual agency, or, I should say, that's maybe not the right word. It would be impact, that individuals have lesser of an impact than the larger context that's in place. 

 

Martin Gutmann  16:59 

Well, I would say they definitely have less agency than we assume they do looking back. We kind of assume, “Well, if he decided this way, then that's what would have happened. And if he had decided plan B, then something else would happen.” And, very often, people are really constrained in the choices they have, and there's trends pulling in certain directions that are very difficult for any individuals to counteract. But I think there are definitely these moments in history, kind of inflection points, where a person finds themselves really with a lever in their hand where they can make a decision that has a monumental impact for years to come. But again, that's the context. You’ve got to understand the context first, and then you can understand what impact the person had or could have had, etc. But let's get back to… I feel like you're getting into your host role here a bit again, I need to make sure you don't hijack the mic here, the host mic.

 

Scott Allen  18:01  

(Laughs)

 

Martin Gutmann  18:00

So, let me pose another question here for you. So, we talked a bit about changes in how people talk about leadership. What about you, Scott? So, you've done this now for many years, how has hosting the podcast changed you, changed your life, changed your perspective on things? 

 

Scott Allen  18:17 

Oh, well, it's changed me in so many ways. I've had the opportunity to practice communication. I've had an opportunity to practice rejection because you're putting yourself out there and asking people to participate, and sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they say no. I've had an opportunity to build relationships, like with you, and sometimes even meet some of these folks around the world in person. And then, it has changed me because of the knowledge that I've gained. Whether it's our first conversation about Roald Edmondson, and that was one of the first times where I was like, “How have I never heard of this person?” And changed the world in a lot of ways, did incredible things, and I'd never heard of them. And so, that was one of those first times where, again, I'm kind of continually confronted with the limitations of my knowledge. So, it's changed me in that way, and it's changed me in other very tangible ways. I've had co-authors because of this podcast. I have engaged in client work because of the podcast. So, it has been -- and this gets into I was alluding a little bit ago to some of those win, win, win, win, win, wins. It's just people say really cool things on this podcast, and I can grab that nugget and just put it into a presentation. And so, it's changed how I present and how I talk about leadership when I'm in front of groups because they had a really beautiful way of saying it that just captures it and makes it super clear. And so, probably every four or five episodes, someone says something, and I'm just like, “Wow, that is incredible.” So, it's changed me in so many ways, and it's also helped me tap into… And Martin, I don't know that I've ever said this, but I reflect on this sometimes. I am not the world's best scholar. I am not Bruce Avoglio, or Ron Riggio, or David Day, or Barbara Kellerman, or Susan Komives, Joanne Ciulla. I am not those individuals. Keith Grint. I've published in good, solid, globally ranked journals -- good, solid, US-ranked journals -- but by no means am I the scholar. But this has been one way to contribute, I think. My way to contribute and provide some type of service to the field. And it wasn't one that I ever expected to kind of play that role, but I think I hear consistently from folks, “Hey, I really have loved the series on adult development, it really helped me kind of better tune into that topic. And thank you for that resource.” So, it was just a different way to contribute, which has also changed me in a really, really nice way because it gave me a source of pride. And not because I'm being egotistical or overly proud, but, hey, it's, oh, okay, this is how I could contribute. It's like it helped me find my little space in this larger ecosystem because it wasn't going to be writing article after article in Leadership Quarterly. That wasn't going to be my path.

 

Martin Gutmann  21:22 

And there's enough people doing that. 

 

Scott Allen  21:25

Yes.  

 

Martin Gutmann  21:26

Who do a great job of it.

 

Scott Allen  21:27 

Exactly. And they get a ton of energy from that, and that's awesome, and I love that, but it probably wasn't my path. 

 

Martin Gutmann  21:34 

And isn't that a form of leadership to be a facilitator and somebody who kind of collects insights and presents them to the world in a format that's easily digestible and fun and entertaining? That's quite an achievement. 

 

Scott Allen  21:50 

Yeah, I hope. It's been fun. It's been a lot of fun, and, like I said, there's been a ton of wins, but also I have energy for it. And it's hard to believe it's been almost five years, but I get energized by it because I'm learning, and I'm curious by nature, and I love to learn. And I have this excuse to have a conversation with someone who has a heck of a lot more than I do about something, and I learn. So, in some ways, also another benefit is it has systematized my learning because, every week, I'm talking with someone who knows a heck of a lot more than I do. 

 

Martin Gutmann  22:24 

And can you give us a little bit of a peek under the hood of the show here? So, how long do you prepare for an episode? How exactly do you prepare? What does it look like after you've recorded? How do you go from initial contact to a finished episode with somebody? 

 

Scott Allen  22:41 

Yeah. Okay. So, it kind of goes like this, and this has changed a little bit over the years just because of schedules and busyness. In the beginning, I was doing absolutely everything. And so, how it works right now is I will reach out, and I will say, “Martin, let's have another conversation.” Or, at times, an author has published a book, and they'll reach out to me and we'll set up a time. I'll send a little one-pager about the show, what they should be prepared to do. And the biggest challenges are connectivity and sound. And so, you are a great example of a person who's elevated his sound game in a very, very wonderful way, my friend. (Laughs)

 

Martin Gutmann  23:24 

Yes, I've had to do that as well. Sure. 

 

Scott Allen  23:26 

But that's been the biggest challenge. I have like three microphones sitting next to me right now because the sound is, if it doesn't go well, it's just more difficult. But so, we set it up, and oftentimes, I will prepare in a few different ways. So, sometimes someone's written a book, and I have not read it. Sometimes someone's written a book, and I have. Sometimes they say, “I want you to read the book or I'm not going to come on. Please make sure you've read it.” So, I tend not to over-prepare. Some people I have been reading their work for years, and I know it well. Some people, I literally am meeting them for the first time. And I always open up with just a spirit of generosity, gratitude. I want to shine them in the best light. So before this starts, I say, “I want the listener to have a great experience, and I want you to shine. And we can edit anything, so it's like we're having a cup of coffee and we're just meeting each other for the first time and getting into a really fun conversation.” That's the goal. So, I don't want it to feel over-programmed or over-scripted. And that, actually, has really, really helped me too because it's, in many ways, helped me practice my own improvisational skills of keeping a conversation going. Or, at times, I'm trying to orient the conversation towards us winding down, but I don't want to do it in this clunky or abrupt way. So, we record, we have the conversation, and then that goes to a gentleman that I work with who edits the episode and adjusts the sound, helps do a lot of magic behind the background, and then I listen to it. That's where my learning solidifies. And I don't know what it is about my mind because, when I'm recording, I'm hearing it, I know if anything went wrong, but I'm not really locking into the conversation. When I listen to it edited, it just sinks into my brain. And I can tell you weird facts about a lot of conversations because it's just kind of anchored there. And then, I'll also send it off to have the transcript made and then put together the show notes. That's been a lot of fun because all of the guests have something that they've read, something that they've consumed, something that they have turned me on to. So, that's another source of learning, is when guests come out and they say, “Hey, I love this,” or, “This is incredible. If you get an opportunity, watch this show. It's awesome,” or, “Read this book, it's fascinating.” So, I always then put together the show notes. And then, yeah, I'll release on Wednesday mornings. And that process takes, including the recording time, probably about four hours per episode. And it's probably about $150 per episode. And so, it's not to say that there isn't a time commitment and a financial commitment because there is. To have the episode edited, to host all of these podcasts on a server, to have some of these different programs that you need to have, to transcribe, or to have someone transcribe. So, there's a cost associated with it. Now, in the early days, Martin, it was probably six, seven hours an episode because I was editing everything. I was listening to it a couple of times, and so that just took a long time. But it was during the pandemic, and I had time. It was actually relaxing. And then it goes out in the world, and I love that. I absolutely love that. 

 

Martin Gutmann  26:40 

Amazing. I've always seen this podcast and other podcasts from the perspective of the listener, as a way for the listener to learn and grow and get information. But, for the host, for you, it seems like an even more high dosage form of learning. 

 

Scott Allen  26:57 

Oh, systematized my learning. It's just beautiful. It's so beautiful a process. For me, learning this way is just… Again, I shouldn't have an opportunity to speak with the former prime minister of Greece. I wouldn't be able just to call him up. So, this has provided a platform for us to make that happen. And then, I'm sitting there, and I'm obviously guiding the conversation, but I'm also just learning always.

 

Martin Gutmann  27:23 

Yeah. Well, you mentioned before as you were talking, this art you've had to develop of listening, and asking, and then also gently guiding the conversation towards a conclusion. I have not learned that art yet from you, so maybe I'll just say should we do a final question here as we…

 

Scott Allen  27:40

Yeah, that's great. 

 

Martin Gutmann  27:41

Yeah. Okay, good. Let's look forward a bit. What are topics or guests that you have to have on the show that you haven't yet? Or maybe even a topic where you don't know who could speak to this, but you feel like somebody needs to tell me and tell the world about this? 

 

Scott Allen  27:57 

Yeah. So, this is a good question because I'm actively in the process of thinking about, okay, what's next? What's the next iteration? So, it's really, really interesting because, I said earlier, I'm kind of learning in public, but I'm also crafting and shaping and shifting this show in public. And so, it's been a lot of fun on that front as well because it's not the same it was four years ago. So, as I move towards episode 300, I really am thinking about a new chapter in this project. It might be a new name, it might be a new focus for the podcast. But, for five years, I've been pretty heavily focused in academia. So, what happens if I have five years of conversations pretty heavily focused in practice? What does that look like if I'm speaking with people doing this work at Amazon, or Microsoft, or mom-and-pop boutique firms who are doing leader development and doing the work every day? So, that's kind of where I'm orienting. I want the experience to feel pretty practical. And I always joke, I say, “I don't know how practical Practical Wisdom is for the average manager.” And this has become clear over the last five years, if it's how do we better prepare people to serve in these roles? I'm really actively interested in that question. How do we better prepare people to serve in these roles? So, are these episodes geared towards helping someone? If they're not going to get the training in their job, if they're not going to get the education they need there, can we provide a resource where they can turn to help them think about how to be successful in these challenging positions they've been placed in? So, a little more tactile, potentially, in some of the topics. A little more really close to the ground, like, “Oh, I'm about to have a difficult conversation, what are five things I need to have on my radar?” And still speak with a world-class expert, but it's oriented in a little bit of a different way. So, that's where my energy is moving. That's kind of the space that I want to orient towards. And, again, it might be that I'm still speaking with an academic, it's just how are we having that conversation? What's the focus of that conversation? And it's a little more action-oriented for someone who could literally listen to the episode and then go try something at work in the next hour. So, for instance, an episode on gratitude and the power of gratitude, and then, literally, someone could walk into work and remind themselves to say thank you to three people that they hadn't actually thought to say thank you of before this episode, and put it into practice immediately. So, that's how I'm thinking, and so we'll see. I'm sure some will enjoy that, some may not. But I think, in my own evolution to stay true to where my energy is, I've talked to a lot of academics. A lot of academics, and it's been awesome. And so, now I want to talk with people doing the work. You know the parable of the blind men and the elephant? So, for listeners, yeah, so you've got these blind men, and they're touching an elephant, different parts of the elephant, and one person says it's a wall, and another person says it's a tail, another person says, “Oh, this is a sword.” And they're all kind of rooted in their perspective. And, of course, it's an elephant. So, I want to look at the elephant from a different angle and have that conversation. And that's kind of the impetus of me leaving academia full time was, okay, my energy is really on working with organizations and organizational life, learning from that perspective now, seeing how this works. I've done academia for 17 years, I kind of understand how that works. So, that's kind of the visual I have in my mind, and the podcast helped me look at the elephant from a different perspective too. But all in service, how do we better prepare people to be successful? And so, another thing that's on my radar is, how do I get my own thinking really clean on this work of developing leaders so that it's not in an egotistical way of, like, my model. I'm not going to call it the Allen model, but based on all these conversations, how do we do this, and how do we approach this and better prepare people to serve?

 

Martin Gutmann  32:22 

Well, I hope, for everybody, that you are successful on that journey. And I have no doubt, with your energy, that you will have a huge impact. 

 

Scott Allen  32:32

Oh, well, thank you. 

 

Martin Gutmann  32:34

No, for sure. Scott, I have to thank you once again, and I'm confident I'm speaking on behalf of many, many listeners and guests that you've had on that we really appreciate the work that you do. It's obvious that this is something you are passionate about, put all your energy into, and it shows in the product. And thank you.

 

Scott Allen  32:57 

Thank you. Thank you. Martin, I'm thankful. I know you because of this. I don't know that our paths would have crossed, and so I'm just thankful for this medium called podcasting, which I knew nothing about. And then it was a positive that came out of the pandemic. And so, I hope to buy you a pint or a coffee this summer…

 

Martin Gutmann  33:17

Or both.

 

Scott Allen  33:19

… In Switzerland. Or both, yeah. (Laughs) 

 

Martin Gutmann  33:19

Yeah, I look forward to it. 

 

Scott Allen  33:23

Thank you so much. 

 

 

[End Of Recording]