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 the Phronesis podcast. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to just a world-renowned scholar Dr. Joe Raelin. Joe Raelin is an internationally-recognized scholar in the fields of collective leadership, learning, and practice. He is the Donald Gordon Visiting Professor of Leadership at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and the Asa S. Knowles Chair Emeritus at Northeastern University in Boston, USA. He was formerly Professor of Management at the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College. He received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Joe is a prominent inventor of new theory in leadership and management studies, to wit, his path-breaking work in diagnosing and managing the clash of cultures between managers and professionals, his re-affirmation of work-based and action learning as bridging knowledge and action in the workplace, his creation and application of the work self-efficacy inventory, his designation and application of “leaderful” practice to bring out leadership in everyone, and now, his co-construction of leadership-as-practice, which looks to leadership, not in individual personality but in everyday practice, and in particular, in emergent dynamic social and material interactions.
As a management consultant, Joe’s principal practice in recent years has been helping companies establish leadership development programs using leaderful action learning methodology, a management development approach that encourages managers and executives to collectively learn and lead amid their very practice rather than in the classroom. Among his honors, Joe is a recipient of the David Bradford Outstanding Educator Award from the MOBTS Teaching Society for Management Educators and of the national CEIA (Cooperative Education and Internship Association) James W. Wilson Award for outstanding contribution to research in the field of cooperative education. Among his best-paper awards is his and his colleagues’ work on self-efficacy study as the best overall conference paper among all those presented at the 2012 annual conference of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Wow, sir. What else do listeners need to know about you? Let's add a little more color and texture. Are you from Buffalo originally?
Joe Raelin 2:22
Oh, no. I'm a New England boy. New Hampshire boy.
Scott Allen 2:26
Nice.
Joe Raelin 2:27
But you know, I noticed quite a few tongue twisters in that review.
Scott Allen 2:34
I'm not gonna say...it was not a light lift. Well, a New Englander! So, you know, we had this really wonderful afternoon in New Hampshire. This is, gosh, maybe eight years ago, as a family in the White Mountains, there's a state park. And we did this little hike; we got the kids out of the car and just went on this hike. And it was just absolutely beautiful.
Joe Raelin 2:59
You're talking real New Hampshire, the White Mountains. And guess what I grew up north of the White Mountains.
Scott Allen 3:05
Okay. It's beautiful. And my wife's dream, her dream is to move to New Hampshire and work for King Arthur Flour. That is her dream job. We did a lot of baking during the pandemic Joe a lot of baking. Well, you know, today I am so excited to speak with you. You know, I've been seeing this phrase Leadership-as-Practice coming across my radar more and more recently. And I really, really appreciate your time because I want to really lay this out for listeners. And as we were speaking, even before we started recording, starting with some foundational concepts, maybe even the background as to how you got to where you are now, maybe we start there, go into some foundational concepts. And then, as I said to you before we started, go deeper and deeper into the pool, but we're gonna walk into the pool. So what are some of the roots of this Leadership-as-Practice (L-A-P)? Let's start there.
Joe Raelin 4:06
Well, okay. I think when we started before the interview itself, I understand that this can be, at times a little difficult because these are unfamiliar ideas. And they diverge so much from mainstream ideas of leadership. So I can understand that at times. It's a little challenging when we first started in some respects; it was for myself because I really worked on this idea of leaderful Practice before I even knew enough about practice theory. And so that then enriched my understanding of Leaderful Practice, which I probably had preferred, that I had started, with practice, practice theory, and L-A-P. But so L-A-P is a bit more foundational than Leaderful idea, maybe the best way to begin would be to say a word or two about what practices are. Yes. And then from there,
Scott Allen 5:06
yes, because Okay, so my mind when I hear those words, Joe, it goes to, like, K. Anders Ericsson "deliberate practice," right? There's that. So it goes to, I'm practicing law or practicing medicine, it goes to a few different definitions that kind of rumble around in my head. So that would be a great place to start.
Joe Raelin 5:26
Yeah, it's not even from the musical world, you know, rehearsing - practicing. It's, so how about thinking of these practices as these embodied practical, often collaborative accomplishments, among people, you know, that, in turn, are shaped by a host of things that, you know, they're their collective discourses that the surroundings, the space that they're in, the emotions that are expressed, the rituals, the movements, all those things can either enhance or detract from these, these accomplishments. So you can see we're looking well beyond just the talk between people. By the way, so that, right, there alone would be a distinction for our listeners that are perhaps of a stronger base in relational leadership theory than practice-based.
Scott Allen 6:22
So would practices, in some ways, be our ways of being our habitual patterns? Would they be some of the practices could be damaging? In some cultures, and some organizations, some practices could be healthy and life-giving? And energizing? Would that be a way of thinking about this?
Joe Raelin 6:40
Yeah, but the only addition I would place there would be that, for the most part, we like to think of these practices as collective things that people do together; we're engaged in some kind of mutual endeavor, and there's a collective mentality for us in thinking about practice. So you can see already that it enters that collective leadership space. But to then add the specific leadership component, let me just add one other layer; we like to say that when social processes, you know, amongst this group of people working together, when certain processes change the trajectory of the flow of practices - the turning point, you might say, in the spaces between these participants, these people, that is when leadership is occurring. So to find leadership, we like to say, you need to go to the practices within which it is occurring.
Scott Allen 7:42
Okay. Let's unpack that a little bit. Okay. I heard words like find; I mean, I love it. I love it. So. So say that again, would you
Joe Raelin 7:55
To find leadership, look to the practices within which it is occurring. Leadership is not something that is thought about ahead of time. In some respects, it's an outcome; it's a result of these practices. So you can immediately see that those are those of us working in this field were trying to get into and discover those blind micro-processes and practices, and determine when leadership is occurring. And it's occurring. Typically, when there's this change in trajectory, you're changing the turning points that changes, you know, the pattern that has been established in the group.
Scott Allen 8:37
Now, okay, obviously, we're moving away from the great man or the great woman or the individual as, quote-unquote, the leader. This is a collective process that's occurring. Is it always a process, Joe? So, for instance, maybe I, in a meeting, share my observation, and I gain some traction among the authority figure or that my colleagues, and we're kind of CO creating, but it's just a comment, I intervene, the group moves forward, it changes the trajectory. But is it in moments in time? Or is it again, are these practices longer term and more stable? Does that make sense?
Joe Raelin 9:20
Yeah, I would say the latter, you know, okay, because these practices are going on all the time. And you're absolutely right. They're influenced more by what we think of as a human process. Yeah, you know, it could be an interaction between the person and some artifact, we might ask, Well, why is it that, you know, sometimes when you do a PowerPoint presentation, it seems to grab the attention, and it can move the group forward, but other times, it seems to be lost in space...
Scott Allen 9:53
It kills energy!
Joe Raelin 9:56
So it's all those things, and so that's why we are very specific to almost anal to get into the thick of the experience, especially from the other person's point of view.
Scott Allen 10:10
Hmm, say more about that? Well,
Joe Raelin 10:12
Well, what it suggests is that I think our study of these L-A-P processes tends to be somewhat phenomenological. And then, we are looking primarily using ethnographies to look at the lived experience of how people see the things that are occurring around them.
Scott Allen 10:30
And you're on a hunt for these practices that help leadership, emerge, co-creation, that that's it creates that space for these trajectories to change, and these practices are in some ways, releasing energy. They're breathing life energy into this space versus, I imagine, in some organizations, there are practices like, Dementors, kill energy, kill co-creation, collaboration.
Joe Raelin 11:06
Yeah, you might think, you know, as opposed to even other qualitative studies. I like to think of the L-A-P researcher as a detective. Not necessarily an author, you tend to, we tend to think of a lot of qual studies as, as a practice and authorship, you know, we try to maintain, if you're familiar with phenomenological studies, we try to maintain this "epoche," which means this detachment so that we can really discover the phenomena from the point of view of the person of the individual inexperience.
Scott Allen 11:46
So, Joe, I'm curious, what have you? What are some of the practices that you've stumbled upon? Are there some themes that have emerged that are creating the space for co-creation? Creating a space for leadership to for us to find leadership? I love that. Can I call the episode "finding leadership?"
Joe Raelin 12:06
Find leadership...yeah, I like that because it suggests that leadership is occurring. And sometimes we need some kind of retrospective analysis to go back and say, "Oh, look, what just happened there!" So just some examples, then maybe Scott, why at times do teams seem to hum along like a single instrument, right? And other times, it seems like the participants disagree so vehemently that they may even break off. And then, at times, those ruptures are repaired. How and why? You know, we would probably be interested in that. Let's go to something totally different. What's the meaning of having dinner with a client in another culture? And in some respects, that could suggest possible leadership without a word being spoken. We're looking at every possibility for trying to figure out how leadership can occur for some of our listeners who are in the OD field, for example, you know, what does it mean to look at leadership as an outcome? If you think of it that way, that means you're not looking for this single person and his or their aspirations for the group or their directives to the group. To find leadership, again, we have to, we have to somehow get into those micro-practices - find out what's going on. And so it speaks to the thought that in order to change leadership or change the processes in the group, we have to understand initially those situational dynamics that are going on in the group. So that's, you see, where I think I initially missed out in inventing leaderful Practice that I think we didn't know enough about how to really get into the thick of the leadership that's going on initially.
Scott Allen 14:10
You're making me think of, and this might hit close to home. Have you heard of Orpheus, in Boston, the conductor-less orchestra?
Joe Raelin 14:18
They're one of the foremost performing ensembles in the world.
Scott Allen 14:24
And in some ways, would they embody some of these practices, but just in that context?
Joe Raelin 14:30
Well, I think it's a lovely example. Okay. Because if you're gonna pick an institution that, you know, truly seems to exist because of the single out in front leader, you know, the conductor with tails, yes. And the baton and you turn that upside down and say, here's a wonderful performing ensemble, but they don't have a conductor, but they are extremely involved in that experience. I mean, even in the case of ensemble music, not all the players are involved in the piece at any given time. So during rehearsals, if you observe that orchestra, they all crowd into the, to the assembly, you know, and they make these suggestions, you know, about balance and blend, you know, and they do that also in recording. So it's truly a multi-participatory experience to see them in action, not get just the performance, just all the things that go on ahead of time.
Scott Allen 15:39
Well, my mind right now is going to, okay, I have an organization where hierarchy does exist. I mean, there is a person with quote-unquote, a title, and they are the authority figure we could call them. But I think how you're defining it, how you're thinking about this, if we, that's just an authority figure, that doesn't mean that we're going to find leadership in any of their behaviors or in those practices, where leadership will emerge. And again, to your point, change the trajectory of the group for the better, correct?
Joe Raelin 16:13
Yes, yes. But that does bring to mind if you have such an authority, you know, how do you change this group of this organization? To become more leaderful to be to focus more in the practices. Yeah. So I think earlier, when we talked, you had mentioned the Leadership-as-Practice book. Yes. As these as many authors, I guess whom you know, and one chapter with authors David Denyer, and Kim Turnbull James, they talk about something called Leadership as Practice Development. How do you change the leadership structure to incur more of this sort of democratic participation? So maybe this is a good time to say a word or two about this? L-A-PD - Leadership is practice development. If you don't mind, then
Sure, sure.
This is probably I'm gonna refer to something that probably goes a little bit earlier than your time, but you may surprise me.
Scott Allen 17:16
Well, Joe, how old do you think I am? I just had a birthday.
Joe Raelin 17:19
Oh, my goodness. Younger than me!
Scott Allen 17:23
Good answer, a very, very politically correct. I am 50. So born in 72.
Joe Raelin 17:29
Have you ever heard of or seen a TV program called candid camera?
Scott Allen 17:34
Oh, yes, of course. Oh, yes. Yes.
Joe Raelin 17:37
Well, remember, the producer said, "all this program is about to do is to catch people in the act of being themselves."
Scott Allen 17:48
Yep!
Joe Raelin 17:50
Well, that's what this is all about this L-A-P-D, we have to catch people in the act of being themselves as they're working together. In other words, I said before in their lived experience. So they'd be attending to their own projects, maybe even for development purpose; you might give them or assign them to a project that might be somewhat different from their mainstream work. What we might do in the case of L-A-P-D is introduce novel forms of conversation that would be aimed as much on reflecting and learning than on task accomplishment. So you see the connection to action learning, and work-based learning, which has been another area of interest of mind. But for our, for our listeners, were? What do I mean by adding a touch of conversation and introducing some of these reflective practices? It could be something as simple as having them learn to challenge their assumptions and their inferences, having them begin to explore some of their differences, their inter-subjective differences, maybe even allowing them maybe allowing particular individuals at times to have the courage to stop the flow of conversation because things aren't going according to the way they thought it should go. I'm sure we've, we've all experienced that we're in a meeting and all of a sudden things are going off track, and what do you do?
Scott Allen 19:20
I've been in that faculty meeting!
Joe Raelin 19:27
And introducing some kind of reframing to kind of change course. So this is what we're trying to do. And this allows the participants to collectively gain the capacity to reconstruct their leadership on behalf of their mutual interests. This is the flexibility that L-A-P offers to those who might think that no leadership is for "those" people. But in fact, it's truly for all of us.
I've always really, really appreciated your notion; I said this on a podcast just the other day, you know, so much of our work in management is, you know, imagine if healthcare was doing it the same, that they were so far from the work, sometimes they - your work has always been look, this, this education needs to be close to the work, it needs to be real. It needs to be real projects that we're working on in the context of the organization, and not sitting in a classroom, having a conversation about it. That's one type of learning. And it's, it's an important one. But you don't have a pilot at the end of that conversation. You don't get in that airplane, you're learning in the flow of the work and in the flow of the organization. And I've always very, very much appreciated your work because it's close. It's close to the actual work. It's not an add-on. But then we're trying to pause and reflect, do some sensemaking, and potentially redirect. And I think that's when it's...Theo Dawson, I don't know if you've explored her work, but she's incredible. If you have an opportunity, listen to that podcast I did with her. She has an organization called Lectica. But she calls it an opioid dopamine cycle, where when we're learning, there's heat, and it's real, and we're learning, that's when we're firing. And that's when the real connections are being made versus, again, back to your PowerPoint from a few moments back - The 70 slide lecture that does, you know, nothing's firing.
But you did say one thing that caught my attention Scott; you know, should there be a pilot? I mean, do we believe in getting rid of the pilot, you know, as the plane is in the air?
Scott Allen 22:03
Depends on the technology on the airplane.
Joe Raelin 22:05
Let's, let's say we're on a piper cub. Exactly. So here's the story. You know, there are street movements that adopt some of these L-A-PD leadership principles. Yeah. And there's, there's been a problem with some of them. Like, for example, the "Yellow Jacket" movement in France.
Scott Allen
I'm not I'm familiar.
Joe Raelin
Some of these organizers are so adamant that they don't want to be seen as a leader that no one is available to speak on behalf of the organization. And no one is available to take the steering wheel because they happen to have that particular expertise. We don't believe that people shouldn't take particular roles and help the organization. Of course, they should. But in some cases, those roles are permanent. But in other cases, they're temporary, and sometimes that temporary, because you want others to learn what you're doing as well, you know if they have such an interest. I wouldn't want people to think that this sort of collective approach means that we are rudderless.
Scott Allen 23:17
Yes, well, I think it's it's an important distinction. I was speaking a few years ago with a friend of mine, a neighbor, who is on our SWAT team, in our community, in our county. And they're practicing, and they do a lot of training. And they do a lot of drills. And I said, Well, who's the leader in that scenario? And he said, well, there really isn't a leader - we all very much understand our role. We understand what we're about to go and do. And then we go do it. And at times, things are happening so quickly that someone might need to step up and assume authority. But generally speaking, it's not like we're turning to someone in the heat of the moment for the next command, so to speak. So that might be another example where the practices are so codified that everyone understands their role, and the norms in that context exist to a point where, again, traditional notions of leadership may not be appropriate in that moment.
Joe Raelin 24:15
Yeah. You know, and sometimes this even occurs during crises, you know, people say during a hurricane or a flood, let's say of the Mississippi in the water is about ready to kind of overflow the dikes, you know, how do we organize to sandbag the dikes and people seem to sort themselves into the respective roles. And if someone were to take charge, that would probably produce a huge inefficiency because no one has the capacity to know all the skills and resources and needs to respond to that crisis. It allows people to kind of organize themselves to do the necessary leadership.
Scott Allen 24:58
Could norms be a synonym - that the norms are so ingrained, the norms are so front and center to how we exist and how we behave that, that that could be a supplement. How does that hit you?
Joe Raelin 25:15
Well, it certainly, I think, is part and parcel of the practices, okay? Because those practices are made up of, well, one of our authors is named Bourdieu, Pierre Bourdieu. And he talks about the habitus - so these predispositions, these norms, these, these axioms, these, these principles that seem to cause a structure establishing how we, how we organize and how we view the world.
Scott Allen 25:47
Well, that Okay, so now my mind is going to Ray Dalio. I mean, are you familiar with Ray's work on principles? Okay, so, so that might be another way of thinking about this is that Ray, you know, he has a couple of books that I've read, he's trying to, to codify these ways of being that help us be functional in organizational life.
Joe Raelin 26:16
Well, the only caution that I would put out there about principles or even other "universal laws" would be that they not be permanent. That they are flexible, that they'd be subjected to a contested interaction so that they can become live themselves. And apply to each new context and each new situation as it arises.
Scott Allen 26:45
Well, Joe, you have called this a movement?
Joe Raelin 26:48
Yes. Perhaps I was a little bit ambitious, you know, even using the word movement. But here's, here's the derivation of this. We were doing a presentation on one point, and we call L-A-P at the time, a move-ment. Okay, so we were talking about this being a flow. Okay, that leadership is a "flow of practices" because we wanted to distinguish one of the absolute essential shibboleths of standard leadership being influence. This idea of influence between leader and follower - to something that, well, one of our writers referred to this as in hyphen, flow, a hyphen, "in-flow-ence." In other words, movement within the practices. We're taking a very, very different tact. And we hope that this move-ment will, in turn, lead to a movement where people have a base in which to think through alternatives to the standard "leader out in front" model that you referred to earlier, the great person model, for example. Something other than leadership residing in the individual.
Scott Allen 28:15
What questions or keeping you engaged and interested right now, as you continue to think about this work? What is it that's on your radar from a scholarly standpoint or just something you're really been thinking about when it comes to Leadership-as-Practice?
Joe Raelin 28:34
I'll name some. And if you'd like to pursue any of these, feel absolutely free, but the contribution of L-A-P to theory development leadership and as a result, the contribution of L-A-P to leadership research, okay. We've already talked about the leadership development phase of L-A-P called L-A-PD. Is L-A-P humanistic, or is it post-humanistic? I think about that. And so, as a result, where do ethics reside in the L-A-P movement? Is it democratic, for example. And what about the role of context in L-A-P? Sure, Oh, those are some of the things that have cropped up. And I would say we're working on and we're working through, you know, as we speak, as a movement.
Scott Allen 29:30
So I would love to go a little bit into context. How do you think about that question? Because I imagine, yes, in certain contexts. You know, you talked about being a paradigm shift, as we have this dialogue right now. There are places in the world where this would be a totally separate conversation.
Joe Raelin 29:50
Yes. Well, I think I would start in context by saying that for L-A-P objects, any events would be likely deemed equivocal unless they're understood in the present context. So it makes it a little hard for standard theorists to characterize. Because we probably are going to change our understanding of L-A-P, depending on the context in which it is occurring, which causes some difficulty in arriving at some form of normative regularity. So I'm sure that would cause some difficulty for those who are researching it. But context is absolutely intrinsically tied to leadership for us.
Scott Allen 30:41
Well, that goes back to our commonality around, you know, coming from Jesuit institutions, context is critical, right?
Joe Raelin 30:48
So we have to change the patterns; we have to change those likely occurrences every time out, maybe we can find some regularity across comparable contexts, that might be helpful, but it's going to be a little more difficult to track in the case of L-A-P, compared to say, some kind of personality theory of leadership.
Scott Allen 31:11
Sure. Anything else in context that you want to go to Joe?
Joe Raelin 31:14
Maybe just to say that they are mutually constitutive? Leadership is sustained by the context and vice-versa.
Scott Allen 31:27
Research Methods? I'm seeing, you know, this is heavy qualitative. Do you see a space for quantitative research?
Joe Raelin 31:37
I think there might be, in one sense, for sure. And that is that if you think about L-A-P, its examination is by its very nature longitudinal, you know, across time, and I think there are new quantitative methods to bring out these consistencies and inconsistencies across time; it would be inventive to see what people could do along those lines with quantitative analysis. But I would say, in terms of theory, it's a bit problematic to think about L-A-P in the sense of scientific theorizing because the practices themselves are inconsistent, because of what we've just said, the variety of contexts that they're in, it's not as easily dependent on theory, as it is, perhaps we refer to abduction, you know, plausible explanation of what's going on.
Scott Allen 32:34
Yeah, I mean, an indicator that we've found leadership is that we are in-flow-encing right, there you go, that's occurring in the system or in the group or in the space. And that is going to be to, like you said, depending on the context, different practices will allow us to find that space.
Joe Raelin 32:59
Well said - you can be our next representative!
Scott Allen 33:08
Do I get a t-shirt, or something?
Joe Raelin 33:15
Throw you into the game. Get in there!
Scott Allen 33:20
Well, Joe, as we begin to kind of wind down our time together. Is there anything else that you want to say that we haven't gotten to that you want listeners to have an appreciation for?
Joe Raelin 33:31
Well, you know, one or two things here or there, you know, because you didn't mention the great person theory and this focus on the individual. And I think I said that you know, maybe we need to distinguish between the humanistic and post-humanistic orientation of L-A-P. Clearly, practices precede the subject. In fact, at times, L-A-P has been thought to have what's called a "flat ontology." And all that means is the person is not the center of all things. And so, what do you do with all this research on on the autonomy of the individual, authenticity, individual potential, and trust? Is it possible that we're going to lose the value of the individual? The one thing I would say is, in some respects, we have already lost the full contribution of the individual. This is something that I think has been forecast by critical thinkers a long time ago, and that may be the individual has become incredibly fragmented and, in some cases, objectified within our existing power structure.
Scott Allen 34:41
Say more about that Joe.
Joe Raelin 34:43
As individuals, we ourselves can become objectified under a structure - I think it was George Orwell who referred to "the velvet glove of control." So what so bring this down to what everybody, I think, is dealing with these days, especially with social media, Right, Scott? The problem of confirmation bias, where we're susceptible to AI search engines and become subjected to almost an echo chamber where we're given the reality, we're given the truth that we already have created in our own minds. So there may be value with kind of forming collective groupings and even protest movements with others who can kind of challenge us on these views. Again, we're always subject to this contested terrain, trying to kind of work through the truth that we think we are experiencing.
Scott Allen 35:49
It's another candidate for the title of the episode, "the truth that we think we are experiencing."
Joe Raelin 36:00
It's funny how we think; it changes things a little bit, you know, I was initially raised in my earlier career to be a therapist, or a psychologist, really. And so I'm, I'm beginning to lose some of my focus on personality theory by thinking through the sociology of experience.
Scott Allen 36:22
we have a similar background, I was at the University of Minnesota, and my undergrad was in Family Social Science. So family systems theory. So a cousin, right? Not the individual but the family system. So very cool. Anything else that you want to underscore or highlight for listeners?
Joe Raelin 36:41
I think, when we first talked, you know, what does this do? Where do we come out on the subject of ethics? If there are not these universal underlying permanent principles that can guide us, whereas I think an L-A-P approach would probably see that external moral authority is probably unattainable. Rather, I think the parties to any practice, I think, need to work out multiple changing and conflicting perspectives so that they can co-construct and negotiate ethical meaning as they work together. So that's a very different kind of orientation, kind of more like a principled pragmatism rather than this idea of universal virtues and guidelines to help people in their ethical decision-making that calls upon people to be somewhat responsible and work it out. Get in there. I mean, this is what Dewey said, you know, get in there and through the experience with co-participants, these theories that you're going to going to propose it's not for spectators. You've got to work them through what your co-participants experience.
Scott Allen 38:07
Well, and I imagine in certain contexts, it could be extremely skewed as to what emerges as the practices or the healthy practices. If you look at human history, there's at least a faction of people on the margins whose reality was far from a true north from a moral compass standpoint. Right. So that's an interesting question because are there some truths when it comes to that conversation around ethics? Or is it truly co-created in every instance by these groups?
Joe Raelin 38:45
You know, yeah, I mean, I suppose what, what we believe is that maybe there aren't any particular features of persons that can actually in their own right break down the, I'd have to say, the dangerous discourses around now of conformity that I think can disrupt the social life. So that's, that's probably one of the most immediate scourges that we faced civilization today.
Scott Allen 39:15
Joe, you know, I said, we need to enter the pool through the stairs in the shallow end, and then and then move more and more into the deep end. And I think I think we're; we're there. This conversation, I hope, has sparked curiosity in listeners, and we're going to place a number of resources into the show notes. So for all of you listening, you will have access to a number of different articles and websites; there's a LinkedIn group. There are all kinds of things that we're going to draw your attention to so that you can be aware and you can engage in the conversation because, as Joe has highlighted, there are some really big questions that this group of people you is working on and thinking through. And you know, I just really, really appreciate your work, Joe; I have followed your work since the action learning/action research that whole phase - and I just very, very much appreciate it. And again, what I appreciate so much from a developmental standpoint is just your belief that education occurs close to the work, and the people engaging in the work and those people learning together and with one another, and in some ways, co-creating that knowledge. I think it's a wonderful way of thinking about how we do development. And I just appreciate your time. I'm so thankful, sir.
Joe Raelin 40:45
Well, it's been a lot of fun. And you said when we signed up here that this was just going to be a friendly, easygoing conversation. You know, like, two people would have at a bar. Yeah, yeah. Maybe not at the bar.
Scott Allen 41:05
Didn't quite get there. We could record that sometime. I could have a beer, and you could have a beer, and then we could see where the conversation takes us. This was more of a cup of coffee.
Well, thank you so much, sir. You'll come back, right?
Joe Raelin 41:24
I'd love to talk again. Okay, okay. Well, be Well, okay. Bye, everybody.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai