Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen

Dr. David Reyes - Guide on the Side

• Scott J. Allen • Season 1 • Episode 247

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Dr. David Reyes serves as the Talent & Leadership Development Manager at Southwest Airlines, overseeing the Leadership Development Programs strategy and execution. Before his work in Talent Development, he served in administration in higher education and continues to teach as an adjunct professor for Communication and Leadership classes.

In 2021, David received his Doctorate of Education and studied the social responsibility and the efficacy of Leadership Educators and practitioners. David has been married to Madison for 8 years, and they have two children, Judah (3) and Nora (1 month).

A Quote From This Episode

  • "We should not be the sage on the stage but to be the guide on the side."


Resources Mentioned in This Episode


About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

  • The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Register for ILA's 26th Global Conference in Chicago, IL - November 7-10, 2024.


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 reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

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 have David Reyes, who serves as Manager for Talent and Leadership Development at Southwest Airlines, where he oversees the leadership development program's strategy and execution. Before his work in talent development, he served in administration and higher education and continues to teach as an adjunct professor for communications and leadership classes. In 2021, David received his doctorate of education and studied the social responsibility and the efficacy of leadership educators and practitioners. David has been married to Madison for eight years, and they have two children, Judah, three, and Nora, one month. David, you are in it with a one-month-old. (Laughs)

 

David Reyes  0:46 

Ye. The way I could describe it, just tired all the time. It's a real thing, but you learn to just kind of live with the tired. 

 

Scott Allen  0:56 

Congratulations. That's so exciting. One interesting thing about parenting -- we're a little further down the road, we have twin girls that are 14, we have a 16-year-old as well -- we're kind of getting into the space where sleep deprivation is a thing again with these teenagers, where it's, “Can I stay out till 11 or 11:30?” And we're used to going to bed at 9:30. Those two hours are important hours when you're getting up at 5:30 A.M. So, it's been this really interesting space of “Wow, we're in this kind of area where we're only getting 6, 7 hours again.” But I'm so excited for you. As you know, parenting is just your own little developmental laboratory, isn't it?

 

David Reyes  1:37 

Oh yeah. I joked on my LinkedIn reflection after paternity leave that I still had to do some performance management conversations with my son because I was just with him every day. But, of course, I couldn't really put him on a pip; there were just sorts of things. But, yeah, I learned a lot about leadership; I was just isolated in that. Because I was like, “Wow, I've really got to take note of these and apply this when I come back into the work,” things like that. 

 

Scott Allen  2:06 

For some reason, when my son was born, my wife said to me, “Look, I want to make sure that you're present through this experience of parenting and parenthood.” For some reason, my son was born, and that day, I opened up my laptop and I just wrote a sentence. And then, the second day, I open up my laptop and I wrote a sentence. And, literally, for 16-plus years, I've been opening up my laptop, and I write a sentence. And a couple of times in recent times, my statement for the day is, “You're challenging me to get better.” Because parenting can be such a mirror in so many ways, even this week, I didn't intervene as I should have, and I was struggling. And, at the end of it, my wife was like, “What was that? That was a fail.” You're in this kind of 24/7/365 simulator to help you develop whatever it is you need to develop, whether that's patience, or that is emotional intelligence, or that is, I don't know, modeling curiosity for your children, modeling having difficult conversations. If you look at it, it's a really cool developmental opportunity in and of itself. 

 

David Reyes  3:16 

I think for me, I was so focused a lot of time on routines. And even while I was away from work for a bit, I was like, okay, part of me wants to just get back on a routine, or at least get to that point where things can be routine. But I started just realizing that it will probably never happen as much as I want it to, or as much as we can build, things will change. And so, I've started referring more to the rhythm of a song, where there are going to be tempo changes and different nuances to how things are going. And I just felt like, “Okay, if the rhythms are there, there might be some nuances within there, but I can't get wound up if that didn't happen at that exact time. It's just part of this rhythm.” So, it's definitely a work in progress as I'm thinking about this new season, but I'm definitely excited for this season as well.

 

Scott Allen  4:03 

That's awesome. I'm looking forward to this conversation because, in recent times, at least, and it's in your bio, you've made this transition from thinking about leader development, doing the academic work, and doing leader development in the higher education context, to a fortune 500, Southwest Airlines. An incredible organization in many, many ways. Incredible History to that organization in many, many ways. So, I think today, I'd love to just do a little bit on what your observations of that transition are. Because I think sometimes people in academia or higher ed don't necessarily… They think that their skills and their talents will transfer to corporate America. And then, if there's anything that has kind of caught your attention about the work at Southwest, we could talk a little bit about that. But let's talk about the transition first, what are some observation you have about making that jump from higher ed to corporate? 

 

David Reyes  4:57 

I love this, Scott, because I think about it a lot because I have a lot of conversations about it because people will reach out on LinkedIn or see that, “Hey, I've seen you've made the switch,” and things like that. I really enjoyed the talk because it was such a thought process for me when I was pursuing the doctorate program, and I was looking at what's out there, the discipline of leadership. I was getting really excited because, as you know, there's newer compared to some other disciplines. There's just work that's coming out. You're a great voice in this space, as well as other podcasts and articles I read often, so I was really excited about where this work was going to go. Then, I just started thinking about, in an organizational context, and just business; I was not a business major. I really thought, okay, maybe education will probably be my path. And I felt my last math class was called math, so if that gives you any indication of where I was. So, I was like, I probably am not going to venture much into there, but then I started understanding and identifying this world of learning and development, talent development, and organizational change. I started looking into all these things and realized, wow, there are a lot of similarities to what I've been studying and what I've been looking at and how I can apply them in those contexts. And so, it was really just a space where Southwest was seeking leadership development facilitators. And I said, “Okay, I think I can do that. I feel like that's a space I love.’ And I remember coming into the space, and I think, historically, there hadn't been a lot of educators that were brought into this space. It was typically people who had maybe come from the operation here or had been in leadership and other spaces that kind of transitioned into these spaces. And so here I was, and obviously, it's still a newer thing to say, “Oh, wow. My major was leadership,” or, “My study was leadership.” It was embedded. And so, I remember the transition being something of like, “Well, I studied this, I think this is something that I value.” And so they're really cautious with, “Are you going to bring in a lot of these academic terms?” It was really these conversations, and I said, “No, I could get that.” And, really, you have to check yourself because you're coming from defending your dissertation, and you have to make sure you're using all of these terms and calling back to the data. And so, the first thing was contextualizing everything that I've done, but not dismissing everything that I've done. I remember Scott, sitting at a conference room, and we were going through, “Here's kind of our next leadership class that we're going to be doing,” and the other thing that was a new thing is, in higher ed, if you ran a leadership development program, you were the coordinator, you were the designer, developer. You did everything from start to finish.

 

Scott Allen  7:50 

You probably went to Costco to buy all of the food as well.

 

David Reyes  7:54 

Yes. You were really needed to think of everything when I came to Southwest, and so fortunate that Southwest as a whole is really invested a lot, and they hold in high regard leadership development and training and development. And it's been amazing to see, but you had to come in and like, “Oh yeah, we have a team that designs the content, we have a team that develops the slides, we have a team of project managers that make sure that that is happening.” And then, it comes to the facilitator team. We talk about it; we help make it come alive. And then we have people that are making sure that classes are scheduled and all this stuff. And I'm like, “So you're telling me I could just read this, and I didn't have to do any of that.” And so, I found that that was really a neat thing, but I was also looking at some of the content. And, of course, it was another team that was writing this, and they were here on site, but I'm like, “Okay, I want to get to know them because this is rich content.” And I was simultaneously still an adjunct, and I was like, this is content that I could easily apply to my undergrad, even graduate classes. But it was hard to sell that because they were like, “This is just what we do. It's just…” And I'm like, “Man, there's something here” And so, my immediate thought was like, “How do we get our leaders credit for this class?” Because this is really rich stuff, and it was rooted in a lot of research. So, that was one of the cool things I noticed, and it was like, “Oh, wow, I have a space here. I think this is really where I could bring in some of that.” So, I was really excited about that, and then I got to meet some of our developers and designers and see the research and the time that they were putting into this content. And as I started working here, I ended up, fortunately, being able to move into a leadership role over the team of facilitators. Going from buddy to boss was another concept of leadership that we now teach, but that was a new thing. But also to close that gap between the developers and the facilitators. Even though it was great that we had teams doing everything, I think that was so helpful for me to help bridge because, as a facilitator, I said, “Hey, we can make it come alive. We can do all the tips and tricks to make sure these learners are engaged. But if we don't understand where this is being rooted from research, it's going to be harder to break when they come and ask us a question, and we're like, “We don't have a paragraph for this.” So, I wanted to close the gap. So, that's been really exciting, and it's been a really cool part of the transition.

 

Scott Allen  10:23 

I think that because I'm similar to you in my work in organizations, I'm not embedded in an organization right now, but I'm interfacing with some fairly large organizations. And it is, it's fascinating. It's incredible the resources, and the person developing the slides, and the person doing this part of it and that part of it. But I love what you're saying because if that team is not coordinated and, in many ways, of one mind, it can also present its own little challenges. But I also very, very much appreciate what you said about… At times, I think we're translators. We're not going to necessarily say, “James McGregor Burns in 1978.” However, leadership is one of the most observed yet least understood phenomena on earth. People can kind of get that. You can frame up that question, and people will have a nice turn and buzz for a good five minutes. I think, at times, it's about us translating it in a way that it's accessible, it's digestible, and it's rooted in a really good, solid foundation. But I think where a lot of academics, when they interface with individuals in corporate America or in nonprofits or other organizations, how do we truly make it actionable? Because these people are leaving that room and then actually going back to work and leading. And you can't say, “Fred Fiedler in contingency theory.” No.

 

(Laughter) 

 

David Reyes  11:51 

Yeah. Exactly. They're not going to care so much about the dates and the names. To your point, I think I've had to understand this. I remember coming in and saying, “Yeah, we typically didn't hire a lot of educators into these roles.” And I remember just asking them as courses; they got to know me, and I wasn't all that scary coming in, hopefully, but just recognizing why that was. And I think it was this propensity, or maybe this thought of our desire, that we should not be the sage on the stage but to be the guide on the side. And I think what I learned from that is really so much of our audience is individuals that are working in so many different contexts, so many different arenas, and we might have them all in one… I may have an operations agent, a customer service agent, a rampage, I may have a pilot, and I may have someone from the financial planning and analysis team all in one room sharing leadership concepts. Each of them is going to be taking it into totally different contexts. And so being able to understand, like, “I can share, but I really want to facilitate where you're coming from. How are you seeing this and reflecting on this type of thing now to be able to say, ‘hey, let's think through that.’” And then maybe call them back to, “Here's some of the modules, here's some of the frameworks, but how can you use this practically? It may not be cut and pasted in your specific area.” And it creates a challenge because there are times when you get a lot of the ‘how does this apply to me’ question. And so you can't do that with every single person sometimes within the allotted time, but what you can do is just learn from the wisdom in the room. And I think it goes back to, you use the word wonderfully, this idea of being rooted in that. I think that's what helps. When you know you're rooted in that, you can facilitate the wisdom in the room and still have a thread around it. And you're not nervous coming into it because you know where to go, you know where the point A to point B is going to be. And so that's what I really have loved, and really have observed a lot, is exactly what you said: understanding that contextualization, but also recognizing that, within the organization, you're having to contextualize it with different work groups and truly guiding them. The beautiful moments are those moments in the breaks where you're just having someone that you can just tell they're wrestling with something, or, “I didn't speak up, but you know this is really happening,” and they share their specific situation on their team or their dynamics, and you just start to be able to share the things that you've learned and contextualize it for them. And so, that's been really a neat way for me to frame everything.

 

Scott Allen  14:33 

I oftentimes will go down the road of a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Let's just say, hypothetically, that's a… And I'm not going to go into Carol Dweck. I'm going to give a quick definition of growth, a quick definition of fixed, and a couple of stories on each that are personal to kind of wrap people in. And then, for some of these organizations, I have never served as a tech. I've never worked on a car, sold a car, or led a team at an automotive dealership. I've never done any of that work, but what I can do is say, how does this apply? How does this concept apply in your world? That kind of guide on the side, to your point, there's a transition here. I love that phrasing, ‘not the sage on the stage, but the guide on the side,’ because, to your point, you probably haven't served as a gate agent or an operations individual; however, we can prop up some pretty cool concepts, some really cool work. Communicate it in a way that's very translatable, and then say, “How does this apply?” And in the process, what I've found when I am that guide on the side is that I end up learning just as much as everyone else in the room. Just a different type of learning because I'm learning the context, and I'm getting rooted in the context a little more deeply. Does that make sense? 

 

David Reyes  15:55 

Absolutely. And I love that you bring in the growth versus fixed mindset because that's been something that I have really tried to anchor on through all of our development of these programs, even now as we're working to refine our leadership programs, just as we need too often. What are things going on externally? What are things that are happening? What are the trends that we're seeing from employee surveys? How are we translating those into our development, and what themes do we see? I'll share a story that I think captured it so well for me: we were going through a Crucial Conversations class, which is one of the sections that we share in our development program. And I remember we started talking about emotions and the way that we speak with emotions. And we're in a room with a lot of different leaders, and I had a leader, operations leader, and really, his team, they do the work. They're not sitting around a lot of meetings, they're not having a lot of conversations, they're just doing the work. And I remember he boldly shared in the class that he said, “I don't think this applies to me because I don't get emotional.” And I said, “Okay, thank you for sharing that, Osaka.” He's like, “Yeah, anytime that someone on my team is getting emotional,” this was him sharing this, but he said, “I usually get a lady to come and help because I really…” And this was him. And I think, culturally, for him, he just never felt like that was comforting. He felt, “Okay. Maybe my female counterpart could maybe do this better.” And so, I could tell the room just got a little bit tense. It was fun as a facilitator to see these things, but it's okay; you have to see where this is going. So, obviously, it's come from a super fixed mindset, but, at the moment, it's not like, “Okay, let's break away. Let's talk about growth, fixed mindset,” but you start to identify this. And immediately after that, or very shortly after that, we played a video, part of the curriculum. It was a video of someone sharing their story of how they had been rejected for jobs and passed over for jobs time and time again. Just sharing how they had to overcome that messaging in their head, the stories that they were telling themselves. And he raised his hand, this was like 20 minutes after he just said that, he raised his hand, and he said, “That story,” he said, “That was my story. He said, “In the previous company I was in, they told me I would never be a leader.” He said, “And I finally came here…” And, Scott, this man started bawling, he started crying. And the whole class, you could just tell, was just like jaws open because this is the man that just said, “I don't need this; I'm not an emotional guy.” And then he's the first one to cry in the class. It was a beautiful moment, but it reminded me of one that you don't see that transformation, obviously, all the time. But I think it just reminded me of that coming in from, not in that moment, there was not that, “Okay, something I'm going to say is going to really pivot this conversation.” But it was like, “Okay, we're going to sit with that thought. We're going to allow this kind of module to keep taking place, but we're going to come back to these elements.” And, obviously, there was a lot of safety built up in the room, obviously, for him to even share that. And so, that's all around it. But I just thought it was powerful to just see a growth mindset in a way that it wasn't just us sharing that principle, but it happened organically, again, using the guide on the side kind of approach. 

 

Scott Allen  19:18 

Yeah. Well, your story, for me, brings up another shift in transition, which, at times, is when you are that guide on the side you're facilitating. And when you're facilitating and creating that space where people feel like they can speak up and share, you're also a little bit an improv because, in that moment, you're like, “Okay, what do I do here? Do I confront that? Do I let the group confront that? Do I let it go for right now?” And so, I think that, at times, it can be a little bit worrisome for some educators or for some individuals that, “We are now going to facilitate,” versus me doing a one-way download. That's safer, that's easier, “I can download all of you and then walk out of the room.” When I'm facilitating, you're an improv sometimes. Some of the things that come up are, “Okay, where do we go from here?” 

 

David Reyes  20:13 

Oh, yeah. A lot of my team will sometimes say, “Hey, did you hear about what's happening over here? What's happening?” “No, but I'm assuming a leader just vented out in class about what's happening over there,” or whatever it may be. And, yeah, it is a lot of that, the improv. And I love that because I'm a big fan of improv. And, actually, we've done some improv training with some of our team because we've realized that's been something that, yes, and the approach has been really, really helpful. I have definitely seen where coming into this role, I was really nervous. Like, okay. I can prepare all I can. But if I didn't listen to those cues that were coming from a learner, it's so easy to say, “Thank you for that comment,” and just keep going. You didn't really listen to that comment because what that person just said, half the room's thinking about, they can directly relate to that. And so, I think a lot of it, too, is not only the contextualisation of the roles, but what's happening across the company? We have to be really clear on the values of our organization and the messaging that comes from our senior leaders. Because it's not always going to say, “Hey, here's your notes of what we're going to be sharing in our next kind of all-organization meeting.” These are the things that we have to be picking up on and understanding kind of the landscape of what's happening to be able to keep that messaging going. “These are priorities, let's align them back to the company, and they’re team-specific.” So, there's so much of that simultaneously that has to be in our heads. And I've always told the team that, “Hey, if we linger on one module so long that we're like, ‘we may have to cut something,’ I think at that moment we decide because it's very clear there's something happening here that we just need to tie.” And so, I love those moments. And I think it's a lot of times in education too, but I think it just happens so much more real-time because it's literally things that people are dealing with situations that, as soon as this training is over, they're ready to go and try this out, or they're able to go try this out right after.

 

Scott Allen  22:09 

Yes. Embedded in our conversation right now, I think this could be a little bit of a fixed mindset perspective among people thinking about the transition to corporate. I think, at times, there can be this narrative, this soundtrack in our own minds, of, “Gosh, I don't know anything about the automotive industry, I don't know anything about construction, or I don't know anything about airlines and piloting. I wouldn't be a fit in that.” When, at least how you're communicating right now, a good percentage of what you learned in your experiences in the doctoral program and in higher education, humans are humans; they translate regardless of… Obviously, there's these contextual specifics that we have to be aware of, we have to be attuned to, we have to learn. Crucial conversations are happening in a lot of different industries that are training, and it cuts across because it's a fundamental challenge for human beings. 

 

David Reyes  23:06 

Yeah. And I think that's when you get to lean on the wisdom in the room and be okay with saying, “You know what? You mentioned that kind of acronym; I'm not really sure what that means. Can you expound on that for those who may not know, including myself?” And talk about that, being okay with saying I'm not unfamiliar. I see this a lot, even in leadership. But, Scott, one thing that I've been thinking of lately is that I'd love to be able to do more with leadership and share more with leaders. And I think, oftentimes, you feel like I have to have led a lot of things, or I've had to… And, obviously, I've been in some of those spaces, but I remember being in grad school, and this speaker had come into a guest lecturer class, and he was a consultant advisor, did all this stuff. And I was like, “Wow, I really think what you do is cool; I'd love to explore that.” I remember him telling me, “You gotta put in your time. Don't worry about this stuff, just lead go and do all this stuff.” And I remember a little bit being bummed because I was just like, “That's annoying.” Because I feel like maybe I have a voice in there, but I'm younger, yes, I know. And I've thought the very same thing about leadership, in general. And there's so many people that have done it for years, and 20-plus years, 30-plus years, all the years of experience. I could never do that, but I read Kouzes and Posner's ‘Learning Leadership’ book, and that, for me… It's been around for a while, but, for me, it just opened up this idea of, okay, I'm learning as I go, and that's the beauty of it. That's how I think we all can align on that; we're all learning, but it's like I can approach a conversation sometimes with more questions than I do answers, and I'm still very effective. I still can make a case for myself. So, I've gotten a lot more confidence in that, and my hope is that, in the future, I can… Because I've done some workshops, and similar to you, Scott, do a few things. And getting to learn from individuals like you that have paved the way. But I'm just like, Man, there are opportunities; it's just having the confidence to say, “Hey, I'm learning along with everyone.” I've just found so much beauty in that. 

 

Scott Allen  25:03 

Yes. So well said. So, Tony Middlebrooks, good friend of mine, teaches at Florida, was at Delaware for years. He has a statement that he uses at the beginning of every class. I've adopted using this -- again, this week, I'm in three or four different organizations, whether it's accounting, law, surgery, it's across the board. It's a little jarring at times, especially with the shifts that I'm making. 

 

David Reyes  25:26 

The different contexts, yeah. 

 

Scott Allen  25:29 

But I always begin with, and this is what Tony said, and this is what he taught me, “I don't know better, I know different. You know your craft incredibly. I know the literature on leadership and what great leaders do, and together, we can come to a better understanding of this thing because, ultimately, what we want to do is create a great environment for our people. That's our shared objective, that's our shared goal.” So, I really try to honor their knowledge, not in a boastful way honor my knowledge, but just say, “Look, we know different things. Let's do this. Let's explore.” But then, that also sidelines me from putting myself in this box of having to be the sage on stage where I am learning with you. And you know what? I haven't had that statement fail me yet. People appreciate that. I say, “Look, there's an incredible amount of wisdom in the room. Some of you have been leading teams for 20 years; I know different, and we all know different. So, let's explore this.” All of a sudden, everyone just chills in. So, I am so thankful for his statement. I think it was in a podcast episode. It took the pressure off of me as well.

 

David Reyes  26:34 

Yes, it does. I learned a lot coming into this space and recognizing that I want to facilitate these. Not only just the conversations and the learnings, but I want to facilitate the relationships in the room, to just recognize you're seeing the networks happen. And sometimes it could be the most simple thing, but there's so much. The juices that flow out of that are just so much more than, “Oh, wow, I had this whole really incredible deck of stuff that I was going to share, but all of a sudden, we just need to lay in here.” And I think I've just really enjoyed that. I think it's given me a lot of confidence being able to speak to people in different industries and different organizations because, just like you said, we're all human and we're all needing to navigate in the space, we come with different vantage points. It's not to say that it's more or less, or better or not as good, but it's just a different vantage point. We can be confident enough to say that we have that. Yeah, I love that.

 

Scott Allen  27:35 

And we're modeling. I think, in some ways, we're modeling for the individuals, the learners, a little bit of vulnerability. And I think a myth at times is leaders have the answers. And I actually come across that fairly often where someone is psychologically putting the pressure on themselves to come up with the answer forward, when for some of these puzzles that these folks are working, they're complex adaptive challenges, and there isn't an answer. There's no person in the world we can call right now to say, “Hey, how do I fix this?” And they say, “Oh, do these four things, and you're all set.” No, that's not a thing.

 

David Reyes  28:11 

And I also hear -- and it's funny you talk about just the weight that holds -- oftentimes, it's a very common sentiment, but you'll hear, people don't leave companies, they leave leaders. There are elements of our program that we say that. And I remember thinking as a new leader coming in, I'm like, “That is a lot of weight. So, you're telling me that if anybody leaves, it's on me.” And so, you almost position this leader into thinking like they have to keep all the balloons in the air and make sure that this person. Instead, developing people and empowering people is about creating a space where they have ownership and the responsibility to adjust. And so, I think that sentiment is true in a lot of ways, but I do recognize this imbalance of weight sometimes that is put on leaders, where, instead, it's real leaders empowering and equipping their people to really think critically, to approach things with an ownership mindset, all of those things that I'm like if you have done all those things… There are people that leave the companies for different reasons, and I think it's just you doing what you can with what you have at that moment, but being able to challenge those people. Because I think it can be really easy to say, “Okay, I'm sorry you're struggling. Let me fix all these things, or let me do all these things.” And this next person's myth because that happens, so you're like, “Let me change it back.” And so, it can be so easy to get in that mindset when we're really like, no. Psychological safety is there, but Edmondson also talks about accountability in the same way. It's like it's both of those. So, that's just another thing I think about a lot as we're speaking to leaders.

 

Scott Allen  29:47 

Yep. And that's a whole fun conversation in and of itself, the psychological safety. Because I think, sometimes, especially back to the complex adaptive challenges, the leader, in my mind, in that instance, at times, is elevating the right question for the group to work and whether the group has the psychological safety to have kind of the knock down drag out conversation about what is our best guess as to how to proceed forward? No one has the answer. So, helping leaders with some of those tricks and tools and mindsets of, oh, okay, this is one. I probably need to elevate this to the team. And again, I gotta create the space where people feel like they can have that conversation, all been in the meeting where the leader thinks they've had the conversation, but they haven't, oftentimes because of their behavior and not creating a space of psychological safety. It's so much fun. And I think we have a shared vision; I'm not putting a vision on you, but how do we better prepare people to do this work? Because it's hard. It's not easy. It's like having a one-month-old. It's awesome, incredible, cool, and hard. (Laughs)

 

David Reyes  31:01 

Yes. And I really do think, Scott, there is such a bridge between the academic space and the organizational leadership space. There are so many bridges in that because I hear from both sides, both leaders in higher ed, that kind of longing for that. And those who are really top learning and development professionals seeking some guidance. And I just think there's such a bridge that still needs to be discovered in a lot of ways, and I'm excited for conversations like this. 

 

Scott Allen  31:29 

I love the perspective you're bringing to the table. It's that sweet spot, that Goldilocks zone, for me, at least, of I'm rooted in the theory, I understand it, and I get it. I'm also trying to operationalize it, so I'm going to need to shift a little bit to help ensure that these concepts truly do help these leaders make sense in real time of some of what they're navigating. It truly helps individuals navigate some of the complexities of their work more elegantly or with greater intentionality. I love it. And so, this is the first of a few conversations we are going to have.

 

David Reyes  32:05

Yes. 

 

Scott Allen  32:06

You're okay with that? (Laughs)

 

David Reyes  32:07 

Absolutely. Well, and I appreciate this space for the conversation, but also the way that you… I think you're at a really good spot where you're bringing… Again, I been listening to your show since I was a doctoral student trying to examine this world, and so I love being able to say, “Hey, there's a spot for me at Scott Alan's podcast still.” I love it. This is great. It's fun, so thank you for that.

 

Scott Allen  32:30 

As you know, I always wind down by saying, “What's caught your attention lately?” And it could be something you've been streaming, something you've been listening to, something you've been reading. It could have to do with what we've discussed; it may not have anything to do with what we've just discussed. It could be that you've been binge-watching ‘Bridgerton’. Who knows? But what is that for you that listeners might find interesting? 

 

David Reyes  32:53 

Well, not a lot of TV time for me right now, it's been a lot of just holding down the fort at work, and then when I go home. I think, for me, I've really been recently thinking a lot about the complexity of a personal brand. And it's been funny because it's been a highly requested topic, actually, by a lot of teams and departments that reach out to our team to say, “Hey, we'd love to have something on personal brand.” I've had a lot of dialog with people about what personal brand is, and I think how it also attributes to your personal values. And, for me, it's my faith and how those marry in a lot of ways. Because personal brand, I think, is much more than just vanity seeking or positioning yourself in a certain way. Personal brand, to me, is really understanding, “Hey, what are my values? What do I really value? What do I do? And how am I navigating that? I probably think about it in terms of, I have a lot of conversations on LinkedIn with individuals, like we mentioned earlier, that are in transition, that are navigating kind of those spaces. Educators who really see the work of learning and development are like, “Oh, wait, there are some similarities there.” And so, being able to just understand, okay, I don't want to change who I am, but I want to adjust different streams of your passions, professions, and your personality all coming together. So, I've been thinking a lot about that and just listening to how people define it and why it matters. And so I could bring another conversation, but I've been thinking about that a lot. I do a lot of podcasts, but I wish it was more fun than probably things like that, like a show. But, right now, that's what I do for fun. It's on my commutes and podcasts when I'm not listening to Phronesis, of course.

 

Scott Allen  34:38 

That is a really cool topic in and of itself: personal brand. And there's an identity shift involved in some of that. Like when I started posting a little bit more and more, there were demons in my mind of, “Oh…” And when I decided to do the podcast and put that out into the world, there were demons in my mind. And that, in and of itself, is a really interesting conversation, the personal brand. 

 

David Reyes  35:04 

Oh yeah, you're telling me. You mentioned LinkedIn, but it's interesting, I'll post something and people at work, it's like, “Oh yeah, I saw your post.” And it's like, “Oh, man, am I getting too much real estate in your mind right now,” you start thinking about that. But then you hear about someone down the road, they're like, “Okay, hey, I've been wanting to reach out to you. I see something.” And so, I've just been like, Man, I'm taking it as an opportunity. I recognize that. I'm not trying to brand anything, but I'm just wanting to try to create space for the conversation. And it's led to some incredible conversations. But yeah, you're having to fight some of that.

 

Scott Allen  35:38 

Sir, I appreciate your time today. Thank you for the good work that you do. Again, I'd love to have other conversations down the road. So much fun. And, again, much respect for the fact that you bring the perspective you do to the table and gain the experience of, okay, how do we operationalize this and truly prepare people to be more successful, literally, tomorrow? I think it's God's work. However, listeners define that it might just be karma points in the universe. I don't care. You're earning karma credit, whatever it is. It’s good work.

 

David Reyes  36:15 

It's good human work. You got it. So I love it. Thank you so much, Scott.

 

Scott Allen  36:18

Okay. 

 

 

[End Of Recording]