Dr. Barbara Kellerman - The Month That Shook the World

Dr. Barbara Kellerman is a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. She was the Founding Executive Director of the Center, and a member of the Kennedy School faculty for over twenty years. Kellerman has held professorships at Fordham, Tufts, Fairleigh Dickinson, George Washington, Uppsala, Dartmouth, and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.  During spring 2022, she's a Visiting Professor of Leadership at Christopher Newport University.

Kellerman received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, and her M.A. M.Phil., and Ph.D. (in Political Science) degrees from Yale University. She was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and three Fulbright fellowships. Kellerman was cofounder of the International Leadership Association (ILA) and is author and editor of many books including The Political Presidency; Bad Leadership; Followership ; Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (2010); The End of Leadership (2012); Hard Times: Leadership in America (2014), Professionalizing Leadership  (2018); and (with Todd Pittinsky) Leaders Who Lust: Power Money Sex Success Legitimacy Legacy. Kellerman has appeared on media outlets such as CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Reuters, and BBC, and has contributed articles and reviews to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Harvard Business Review.

Barbara Kellerman has spoken to audiences all over the world including in Berlin, Moscow, Sao Paolo, Jerusalem, Mumbai, Toronto, Kyoto, Beijing, Sydney, and Seoul. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Leadership Association. In 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 she was listed by Global Gurus as among the “World’s Top 30 Management Professionals.” Her most recent book – The Enablers: How Team Trump Flunked the Pandemic and Failed America – was published in August 2021 by Cambridge University Press.

A Quote From This Episode

• (On Russia's invasion of Ukraine) - "It's enormously gripping, fascinating, depressing, instructive, and surreal. At moments deeply sad, but it is nevertheless instructive. I really urge any students of leadership, and experts on leadership to pay close attention."

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Transcript

Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate 

Scott Allen  0:00  
Okay, everybody, welcome to the fro niece's Podcast. Today I have this is a hat trick, Barbara! This is your third visit to the podcast, you are the first to be a three-time visitor.

Barbara Kellerman  0:11  
I'm excited, Scott, I'm honored.

Scott Allen  0:14  
I'm going to read your bio, but now you need to add three times on the phronesis practical wisdom for leaders podcast. So everybody, welcome to the podcast, and I'm excited about this conversation today. It's an important conversation that we're going to have. I have Dr. Barbara Kellerman. As I mentioned, she's been on a couple of times before, she's a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership. She was a founding executive director of the center and a member of the Kennedy School faculty for over 20 years. She's held professorships at Fordham, Tufts, Fairleigh, Dickinson, George Washington, Dartmouth, and in spring 2022. She is a visiting professor of leadership at Christopher Newport University. She's also served as director of the Center for the advanced study of leadership at the University of Maryland, perhaps most important for our conversation today, in addition to everything else, she has a master's degree from Yale and Russian and East European Studies. And so we were kind of in conversation, Barbara, I thought this would be a wonderful time to have you on to help us make sense of how you're seeing the situation that's unfolding in Ukraine. I'm excited about this conversation, not only because of your expertise in Eastern Europe and Russia but also because of the lens, the leadership system lens that we've talked about in the past that you look at leadership through, which is that you know, this is a relationship between the leader, the followers and the context. And I think we've already come up with a name for the podcast episode, the month that shook the world. So maybe you bring us into that title. And then let's begin by focusing on the context a little bit.

Barbara Kellerman  1:56  
That sounds good. Scott, again, thank you very much for inviting me. I'm happy to be part of this conversation, especially I guess, at this moment in history, to comments about them that shook the world are two things I'll say at the outset. First of all, this is a mixed blessing. It's mainly negative and tragic. But I will start by saying that for students of leadership, leadership and followership, whatever, this is grist for our mill, the dynamics among global leaders, the dynamics among global followers, that is when I say global, I mean, almost all over the world. It's enormously gripping, fascinating, depressing, instructive, surreal, at moments deeply sad at moments, it is nevertheless instructive. And I really urge any students of leadership, experts on leadership, to pay close attention this goes to undergraduates as well as graduate students and, you know, more advanced scholars. I think most Americans and people around the world, many people around the world are paying close attention. But again, for students of leadership, there's so much to unpackage. Here. It's a learning opportunity. That is I hope unlikely to come along again, in the imminent future. Yes, the month that shook the world. That is really a reference to the global context. I think it's fair to say that Russia's invasion of Ukraine almost a month ago, is almost certain to change the global system in ways we could not have imagined two months ago. It's already changed the dynamics in Europe. The most obvious example of that is Germany, which has reversed course and upped its military national security budget in ways that were unthinkable until the invasion happened. The Americans and actually Donald Trump high on the list have been pressing the Germans to do that for a long time. And they have been resisted, clinging to the new track relative neutrality that grew out of their experience with World War Two bolstered NATO bolstered America's alliances with the Europeans brought China into the conversation, again, in ways as some of us know, Biden and G talked, I gather for two hours today, as my understanding I'm not sure what I haven't heard yet what might have come out of the call or didn't. This is hard on the heels of what again, just a month or month and a half ago. It was called an agreement but it was a near alliance between China and Russia when Putin traveled to Beijing during the Olympics that took place in Beijing the Winter Olympics and the two cozy to each other in ways that had not been the case, since the alliance between Russia and China, or then the Soviet Union and China, in the late 1950s. Again, and the South American countries are coming into this because of economies because of oil, energy needs. Again, this is really changing the power dynamics. One more comment on "shook the world." For those of us who have been around for a while, there was something almost surreal, about the occasion of the invasion. It was telegraphed, the American certainly had warned that this was likely American intelligence has been extremely good on this issue. American intelligence warned that it was coming. When it actually happened, the idea that there was likely to be again, this kind of bloody war on the European continent, which had seemed so unthinkable until it actually did happen, happen was really an occasion for us to wake up and to remind ourselves and nobody's more fond of the contextual and followership approach than I am. But it was a reminder of the havoc that essentially one man, a totalitarian leader, and we can talk about totalitarian leadership if you would like at some point Scott was able to do in one of my blogs, I actually wrote that I thought the leader-follower dynamic, that language really fails us here, because a better way of thinking about it, is that Putin was the lead actor if we were watching a play, he'd be the main actor in the play, and everybody else. Everybody Am I include Biden, and all the other leaders of Western European countries were reactors, that's almost a better way of looking at it than the traditional leader-follower. 

Scott Allen  6:56  
Let's, let's stick real quick for a moment on China and Russia. Because this is in some ways, as you mentioned, a little bit of a contextual shift, right? You've written about Xi, and it primarily that was in leaders who lost talk about the relationship between these two individuals, Putin and Xi, and the relationship between Russia and China? Because, that seems to me to be just a very, very critical variable in this whole endeavor. Right?

Barbara Kellerman  7:28  
You're absolutely right, Scott, no, no player other than the players themselves who are embroiled in the war is more important than she's China, I call it Xi's China because one can have a discussion as to whether he's an authoritarian leader or a totalitarian one. But he has since he came to power in 2012 2013, he has every year accrued that is Xi, I'm talking about Xi Jinping, President of China, leader of the Communist Party of China, he has every year since 2013, accrued more and more power and then less and less inhibited about doing so. So yes, it's a very big deal. Obviously, he could be seen as the linchpin of what happens if he, I wouldn't say sides with the rest. But if he listens to Biden and NATO, and exert some sort of pressure on Putin, that will push Putin even further into a quarter. But if he does not, it not only complicates the Ukrainian situation, but it sets a miserably negative path for the future. Again, these two countries I mentioned briefly, China and the Soviet Union slash Russia has a very complicated history when Stalin was still alive. Those were the years that Mao came to power mile came to power, Moses Chung, came to power in 1949. And his model at the time, Stalin was in power till he died in 1953. His model at the time was Stalin. And in the early years of Mao being in power, he looked to Stalin and those two countries really were allies. This alliance broke up not only did Stalin die, but Mao eventually found his own footing, you didn't need the Soviet Union anymore. And that alliance broke up in the 1960s, and certainly in the 70s and 80s. But there is a history there of a Chinese/Russian alliance, that that is very important here. In other words, these two countries did not out of the blue, these two men she and Putin did not out of the blue forging alliances, or, as I said, they called in an agreement at the Winter Olympics. There is a history there. The last thing I'll say on this is they are like-minded and that they are authoritarian leaders who will prefer to be left alone to exercise total control over their countries and over, we could use the word Empire here broadly. But gee, like Putin, has been interested in adding to his realm, most obviously, already very successfully, if that's the right word in Hong Kong,

Scott Allen  10:21  
talk more about other factors that you are observing in the context.

Barbara Kellerman  10:28  
I think the most important contextual comment here Scott is actually not about Germany or about China, if I might, I want to go back, speaking of context to the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, that is really at the heart of what we're talking about, you know, in the beginning, it was said about Putin, what he really wants to do is push back against NATO. But as analysts have looked at this more closely, and I certainly agree with that, and begin myself always with history, we have a much, much better understanding of why it was that Putin decided to go in in the first place. Most analysts and now I'm talking about military analysts feel it was misguided, mistaken, and that he was counting on an easy victory. Setting that aside, he was counting on an easy victory, not because he's a madman, we can have another conversation about whether he is or is not a rational actor, at least in our conception of what a rational actor is, one needs to go back, as I said, to the history, the relationship between Ukraine and Russia, it goes all the way back pre to pre Soviet days. The Soviet Union, of course, came after the Russian Revolution in 1917. This goes back to the days of the Empire. As you know, Scott, in Ukraine, there's a real mix of Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers. And in Russia, there are many people, Ukrainian families, Ukrainian ancestry, they really know this notion, I think Putin use the word brother and our brother, we want to unite our brethren. He didn't pull that again, out of thin air, there is a very close history there. And one could argue that when the Soviet Union came, the more formal name was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That's because each Republic, including Ukraine, was at least on paper, its own formal identity. So Ukraine between, you know, 1917, 1918, 1919, 9020 until the collapse of the Soviet Union 8990 91 was it's technically its own sovereign state. Technically, not literally not actually. But technically proforma. That's not what Putin wanted. He didn't invade Ukraine to have a separate, independent state. His image, his fantasy was to unite Ukraine with Russia. That's really what he wanted. Now Ukraine has its own very complicated history, setting aside Russian history. I will make that quite contemporaneous and talk about two h words. The great Yale historian Timothy Snyder wrote a book called Bloodlands. I think one of the best books about World War Two, in which he argues that the center of World War Two was in Eastern Europe, Ukraine at the very heart of it. So think of Ukraine as the blood lands during the Holocaust, and then go back in time to the 1930s when there was the hormone door, the great famine of 32-33 that Stalin inflicted on Ukraine, Ukraine, in short, has an extremely inordinately tragic history recent part from the complexities of the way back. It has an inordinately tragic recent history, going back to the period, not long after the Russian Revolution, and continuing through World War Two to come quite close to the present in 2004, has been called the Orange Revolution. When Ukrainian started to revolt against the Russian imposed President of Ukraine. street protests, already hostilities, my Ukrainians toward Russians, although not united, I repeat not united the way they are now. And then 10 years later, in 2014, was what's called the Revolution of Dignity. When again, the Ukrainians took to the streets to push out a Russian-backed president. Putin was so furious. This is 2014 Very recently, not long ago that that's when he took Crimea. And that's when he had Russian troops occupied East Ukraine, the so-called Donbas region. So the best way of thinking about the best contextual way of thinking about Russia's invasion of Ukraine a month ago is to put it in the context of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Since the collapse of communism, in particular, Putin is yearning to have Ukraine absorbed back into the Russian sphere. And Ukrainians resisting although, of course, not resisting the way they are now. Nor as United. There were divisions in Ukraine that seem essentially not to exist at this time. So now you have a whole obviously a whole other ballgame, whole other kinds of conflict, but that the conflict now is grounded in at least the last 15 years not to speak of much further back.

Scott Allen  16:04  
If we take the conversation. Now, given that general landscape, if we take that conversation to a couple of core actors, let's go to Putin. And then lets to the extent that we can, uh, how does the follower relationship connect with Putin in the context of Russia right now, to your point, maybe there aren't followers just kind of scared people around him that really don't have much choice in any matter. Take us into the mind of this individual, how you view him.

Barbara Kellerman  16:39  
I'm going to return to Putin in a moment. Again, I just want to point out what I said a little earlier, Scott, in a way, we're all his followers right now, because the Biden's and Olaf Scholz's
- chancellor of Germany - and the Boris Johnson's, and the NATO Secretary-General, they're all following his lead in a weird way. In other words, they're doing what they have to do to respond to this man. So depending on how you define leader and follower, it's a kind of curious dynamic. Maybe again, actor and reactors is a better way of thinking of it. Putin, you know, for convenience sake, Scott, I'm going to divide his tenure in power into three. Okay, three stages. He's been in power for 22 years, this is very broadly speaking. 22 years, he's been in power. But for the sake of this exchange to economize it for the first 10 years, he was sort of reasonable. I mean, he was dictatorial, but it was, within reason Russia did not become North Korea. It was not that close to society. As you know, there have been exchanges, and we're exchanges, whether it's students or artists, back and forth. And it was never a cozy relationship with the West, but it was okay. And within Russia, after a period of turmoil, after the wall fell, and communism collapsed. 1990 1991 was 10 years of chaos and disarray in Russia. So when he took over, he brought stability and order, and he revived the Russian economy. He was the kind of strong man that people will look for always everybody knows, studies, leadership knows that when there's chaos, people want a strong man. So in the year 2000, the Russians, who had zero trust and have zero tradition of democracy, and a long history of strong man rule welcomed Putin. And indeed, he brought order and stability and a reasonable degree of relative prosperity to Russia, between roughly again 2002 1010, the next 10 years, he began as people you know, to the old saw, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's a, you know, a real interest of mine is what happens over time. And indeed, between 2010 and 2020, he became that much more autocratic, again, not dissimilar from GE, as I just mentioned earlier, it's what happens when these people are left are in leadership roles year after year after year after year when they are prone to autocratic tendencies anyway, they can tip from autocratic rule into totalitarian rule. So that's stage two, stage three. It has been said about him. I wasn't there. I'm not in the Kremlin. But many observers have commented including the French President, that because of COVID, In other words, roughly speaking the last two years, Putin has become more isolated, and more set in his ways more rigid in his thinking fewer people With whom he interacted, in other words, is already very small circle has shrunk even further. And he has been left alone, to some degree to his thoughts. And Ukraine, which we know because he wrote a 5000-word document on Ukraine last summer. That's a lot of words for a city, Russian President for any president in Ukraine. So Ukraine became apparent during the last two years, even more of a preoccupation for him than it had been previously. And he became, as I also said, that much more isolated, that much more rigid, that much more unable to listen to voices other than those in his own head.

Scott Allen  20:44  
And so talk about that inner circle right now of individuals. It's a small subset that he may not be listening to. I mean, you have a person who is more and more backed into a corner.

Barbara Kellerman  20:57  
Yes, it is widely agreed that it's a very vertical structure. Now. He sits at the top. Of course, there are some people around him his military men and a handful of advisors. It is certainly not the oligarchs who everybody mentions, but there's no evidence whatsoever that they have any clout with him. There's not much evidence that anybody has any clout with him. Although, what we don't know yet, although we'll know more in the next few weeks, is the degree to which these handful of people who do speak to him are able to convey to him and not only convey to him but persuade him, that there is a rabbit reality on the ground, which would make a ceasefire and a negotiated peace a desirable and for Russia? We don't we just don't have the answer to that question yet. But yes, it's a very vertical structure. He is more or less alone at the top with very, very few people around him who can be even heard not to speak of what they say absorbed.

Scott Allen  22:04  
So now in Ukraine, we have Zelinsky. Talk a little bit about Zelinsky. Talk a little bit about his inner circle, and what you're observing there.

Barbara Kellerman  22:15  
How's Zelinsky again for students of leadership? He is, you know, for those of us who remember a man, an author by the name of Eric Erickson, who wrote these psycho biographies, one about Mahatma Gandhi and the other about Martin Luther. His argument was and for why was quite popular, although we hear it a little bit less that "great leaders happen to meet their moment in time." And about Zelinsky. Absolutely. One has to say this is a man who met his moment. Let me just point out, as you know, because everybody knows by now, Scott, that before he became president, he had zero experience in politics. Comedian Rector, I see you as a comedian, or better put a comic actor he was in a TV sitcom series, which series, which I think, by the way, is playing on Netflix now a "Servant of the People", it's called. And by the way, he was not particularly good at governing, and his approval rating before the invasion was all of 25%. Okay, he was inexperienced, and he wasn't particularly good at it. So it's not and Ukraine was fractured. I mean, a divisive, you know, little, we're familiar in the United States with dismissiveness. However, when this happens, somehow his skills I'm one of them, I've been blogging almost every day on this, one of the blogs I wrote was called The Great communicate tourists plural, as you know, of course, and any student of the presidency knows that it was Ronald Reagan, who was in this country called the Great Communicator, which he was. So why was he a great communicator, because he had spent years as an actor, he knew how to speak, he knew how to act. And by the way, after he was quite successful, or even very successful, these things go Hollywood actor, he was a very successful pitchman on television. So he knew how to persuade he knew how to communicate well, so as he didn't have the many years of experience that right Reagan did, but this acting skill, but this capacity to convey what it is you want to convey to put it into words, we know that some of his TV writers were writers of his speeches, and you know, there are lines that he's uttered one of them when he was offered a chance to go into exile, in order to protect himself and his family was, "I don't need a ride, I need ammunition." So these are both one-liners and these incessant speeches that he's been giving to the Congress to the European Parliament in Brussels to the Canadian Parliament. To the German parliament just yesterday, I think so his capacity to know what to do how to do it to say the right thing to serve as a lightning rod for the people of Ukraine, uniting them, arguably, in a way they have never been united before, certainly not against Russia. There. As I said, some people were pro-Russian or so they certainly have strong Russian roots. This is a rather remarkable thing he has done brilliantly in the last month, whether this will translate into how he can govern. Once this is over. I don't know. And as I said, his track record before was not great. By the way, when US intelligence was warning that this invasion was likely to happen. Zelenskykept saying no, it's not until it happened. And then obviously, he pivoted. But it's a great example for students of the leadership of man needs moments, he was the perfect man, for the perfect moment.

Scott Allen  26:10  
Well, into your point in an interesting kind of way. Biden, and other leaders around the world are also following him. Talk about that. I mean, it's a very interesting dynamic, right? I mean, we have, we have this one actor that is causing us to react. And we have this other actor who is working to influence authority figures around the world to support and aid and help and pressure

Barbara Kellerman  26:39  
authority figures around the world and ordinary people around. Yes. It's just amazing how the American public No, it took Zelinsky or Putin to get the Republicans and Democrats to agree on something and to get the American public. You know, in this at least for the moment, this incredible dismissiveness on every issue, there is very strong backing, as you know, in this country, for helping you Prain and Biden, if anything has to put has had to at least what he felt he's had to do put the brakes on. So yes, I mean, of course, Biden has not done any more than the German chancellor has done, or anybody else. Any of these leaders, everything that Zelinsky has asked them to do we know that, however, the dynamic to which I allude, does leave the leader-follower framework somewhat wanting. Yeah, because Zelinsky has gotten other "leaders," essentially, to follow his lead. And Putin above all Putin has gotten, Putin has forced Zelinsky to react, and Putin and Zelinsky together, have forced other national leaders to react. So the language that we're used to using falls somewhat short, and we make a mistake, if we say, this is leader, leader, and we certainly make a mistake, if we simply frame it as leaders and followers, that also doesn't quite work, at least not when you're talking about Zelinsky and Putin getting other national leaders to follow. So for those of us who are digging deep into this, rethinking the language, or at least defining our terms, probably makes good sense.

Scott Allen  28:30  
Then another contextual shift. I would imagine that that is a big player that maybe we haven't touched on yet. I mean, briefly, in some ways, but just the social media components of this. I mean, obviously, there's a very toxic side to social media, a very toxic side to that whole universe. But it's also right now, helping to frame for everyone immediately. What's going on. And that may not have been the case even 10 years ago.

Barbara Kellerman  28:59  
Yes. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that point up about social media and media in general. Social media, yes. Zelinsky. These 40, I think, is 45. He knows how to use social media, and he's used it to maximum effect. What's interesting about this last month, is media generally, it's not just new media. It's old media. 48 hours ago, I think it was when he spoke to Congress in the middle of that sub 20 Something minute speech, I think it was, he had an extremely powerful click Yes, it was put together in somewhat new ways cut from the past to the present. But it was essentially a movie clip. And I might add, the way many of us are getting our news these days is not just by going online, but turning on the television, CNN which is another conversation because it's had a lot of difficulties as a corporation recently, has found its purpose. Again, it's original 24/7 All news all the time purpose. In the last month, viewership has shot up. People turn to CNN. It's not the only channel, of course. But it is a return to old media, along with new media and social media in particular, as you point out, Scott, that is among the contextual characteristics of what has gone on in the last month. And I would argue I've listened to some experts on Russia, they will say certain things that in my view does not take into account, the contemporaneous components that we're talking about, including Scott, you're referenced properly. So to the role of social media.

Scott Allen  30:41  
So how does this play out? In an ideal world, how does this resolve? I don't see that path? Clearly. Maybe you do?

Barbara Kellerman  30:50  
Yeah. I mean, there's, as you know, Scott, there are or there have been, increasingly in the last few days talks of negotiations between the Russians and the Ukrainians. And everybody says this can't possibly work. It's not, you know, I'm not going to go through the various suggestions for compromise. I will say only two things, there are several possibilities. This is saying the obvious. One is, however, this is not a possibility, it is a must, which is in my view, the West must make sure no matter how they try to save space, they must make sure he loses, he cannot win this particular conflict. Because if he does, he will continue. We will never the West will never hear the end of it. And I think people increasingly, they didn't understand it 234 weeks ago, I think increasingly, they understand it now. Whatever that entails. That's number one. Number two, never rule out the unexpected. When leaders fall, as I don't have to tell you, they sometimes fall overnight. I don't rule out that somehow he vanishes in ways that we can't possibly anticipate. Probably the most likely scenario here is one of two or scenarios is one of two, a wretched protracted war, or a ceasefire in the relatively near future in which both sides purport to win. But both sides actually lose.

Scott Allen  32:26  
Because ultimately, I mean, we would come down to you know, compromise there. What is some type of ceasefire look like? I can't imagine Ukraine accepting anything but Russian soldiers completely exiting their land.

Barbara Kellerman  32:40  
That's true. Scott, the question is what constitutes a quote, to use your language their land? Yeah. In other words, does Ukraine now formally see Crimea does Ukraine now formally see to Russia, East Ukraine, the Donbas region which has in effect been occupied by Russia since 2014. So your line is correct. But the question is, what constitutes and what will constitute in the future, their land?

Scott Allen  33:10  
Well, any final thoughts, considerations, ways people should be thinking about this issue. Barbara, what comes to mind for you?

Barbara Kellerman  33:18  
I think it's Scott, a reminder this is an audience. Your audience is a leadership audience. These are students of leadership experts and leadership, people just interested in leadership. That's why they're listening to your podcast, I can only go back to what I said a few moments ago, no one has is a more ardent proponent of what I call the leadership system, the equal importance of followers and context than I am. This then for your audience, as well as for me, is a visceral as well as a factual reminder of how one man can make a monstrous and I use the word monstrous advisedly, in several different ways, how one man can make a monstrous difference.

Scott Allen  34:03  
Powerful summary? Yes. Well, Barbara, I'm going to continue to follow your blog I've been following and some of the articles where you explore, for instance, kind of the corporate reaction to some of what's happening, and some of the shifts there. I think I'm going to put that in the show notes so that people can follow along with how you're interpreting and how you're thinking about this topic. Because I think it's so fascinating to look at this through the lens of how you see leadership, but then also your expertise on this part of the world. I'm thankful that we have people like you to help us make sense, because to your point, there is a lot of grist for the mill right now to be observing and to be paying close attention to the dynamics afoot. And all of us, our students in this. In this context, we are all learning in real-time and making sense of what's happening. So thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you so much for the writing that you're doing. And again, for listeners, there is a link in the show notes now. And if you want to know how Barbara is thinking about this topic, she's actively writing... I sense a book in the future. Barbara trying to make sense...I am going to call you the Tom Brady of authors!

Barbara Kellerman  35:29  
I just blogged about him today, by the way. You're right. You're right. I lost. I lost. You're right. You're right. Thank you so much. It was a great conversation. And I greatly appreciate your pointed and obviously knowledgeable questions. So thank you very much.

Scott Allen  35:47  
We are all fortunate that you love to write. We are very, very, very fortunate. So thank you so much. 

Barbara Kellerman  35:54  
Bye Scott.

Scott Allen  35:54  
Have a wonderful day.

Barbara Kellerman  35:55  
Thank you. Bye-bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai