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

When Theory Meets Reality with Dr. Juandré Peacock

• Scott J. Allen • Season 1 • Episode 281

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Dr. Juandré Peacock is an accomplished organizational psychologist and speaker. He holds Master's and Doctorate degrees in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, credentials that have underpinned a distinguished career working with some of the most complex organizations in the world.

As a practitioner psychologist, Dr. Peacock applies research-based insights and strategies to every solution to ensure maximum impact. His work spans industries and continents, helping organizations foster connection and engagement, reduce attrition, and create cultures of growth and stability.

An advocate for lifelong learning and innovation, Dr. Peacock has developed proprietary frameworks like RocketStart™, Cornerstone Skills for Managers™, and SynergisticChange™— tools designed to revolutionize how organizations approach talent development and change.

Known for his engaging delivery, Dr.  Peacock crafts experiences integrating scientific research with inspirational narratives into actionable insights for all organizations. 

When not consulting or speaking, Dr. Peacock spends time with his wife, two children, and two dogs. Most weekends are spent in youth sports or arts, with the occasional fishing trip when time allows.

A Quote From This Episode

  • "I think there's a little bit of a disconnect between what you learn in the books and what you get to apply in the job space...when you learn about these things, what you don't learn are the real world constraints that organizations have to deal with...it's all well and good to try to do a job analysis by the book, it's extremely difficult to do it in practice."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode 

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

About  Scott J. Allen

My Approach to Hosting

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



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

Scott Allen  0:00 

Okay, everybody, welcome to Practical Wisdom for Leaders. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. Today, I have Dr. Juandré Peacock, and he is an accomplished organizational psychologist and speaker. He holds master's and doctorate degrees in IO psychology, credentials that have underpinned a distinguished career working with some of the most complex organizations in the world. As a practitioner, psychologist, Dr. Peacock applies research-based insights and strategies to every solution to ensure maximum impact. His work spans industries and continents, helping organizations foster connection and engagement, reduce attrition, and create cultures of growth and stability. An advocate for lifelong learning and innovation, Dr. Peacock has developed proprietary frameworks like Rocket Start, Cornerstone skill for managers, and Synergistic change; tools designed to revolutionize how organizations approach talent development and change. Known for his engaging delivery, Dr. Peacock crafts experiences, integrating scientific research with inspirational narratives into actionable insights for all organizations. When not consulting or speaking, he spends time with his wife, two children, and dogs. Most weekends are spent in youth sports or arts -- I can identify -- with the occasional fishing trip when time allows. Juandré, thank you so much for being with me today. Appreciate your time. What's not on your bio that people should know about you? 

 

Juandré Peacock  1:28 

I speak funny. I have an accent. I'm a naturalized citizen. I was born and raised in South Africa for 20 years. I've been in the US now 25 years, and so I have to always make sure that people understand the ways that I pronounce my words. It's not because I have a speech impediment, it's just called an accent. 

 

Scott Allen  1:46 

Okay. South Africa. When I think of South Africa, I think of Dave Matthews. I was with Dave Matthews in 1999. So, this is pre-Y2K. Remember that? 

 

Juandré Peacock  1:59 

Yes. 

 

Scott Allen  1:59 

Okay? So, I was at a concert and I got this backstage thing. And so, I was backstage, and Dave was talking about where he was going to be as it turned to the year 2000. Is it Table Mountain? 

 

Juandré Peacock  2:11

Yes. In Cape Town. 

 

Scott Allen  2:13

Okay. So, that's where Dave Matthews spent New Year's Eve in 2000. Now you know. That's one thing I think of when I think of South Africa. 

 

Juandré Peacock  2:24

Yes. It's usually a triumvirate of things. Dave Matthews is always first. Then it usually goes to Charlize Theron, which really, her last name is Tron in South Africa. And they're like, “Do you know her?” And I'm like, “Of course. Yeah. Of course, I know her.” And then the third one is Elon Musk. And I'm like, “Yeah, I know him too. We grew up together.” And that's really the only ties that people usually have to South Africa. When I came to the US I worked at Disney World, and so that's how I came to the US. They recruited me, I came and worked for them. And so, on your name tag, it says your name, and it says where you're from. And the other question we would usually get from guests is, “How does it feel to wear shoes?” “Did you have an elephant as… Did you ride elephants to school?” Which I then embellished and made up this fantastic story, which kind of went over about 60% of the time. People believe me. And then the other thing is, did Disney teach us how to speak English? And, at that point, usually, I'm just tired of entertaining them and I just turn around and walk away. 

 

Scott Allen  3:30 

(Laughs) Okay. So, I also think of wine. 

 

Juandré Peacock  3:35

Oh yes, that's good. 

 

Scott Allen  3:36 

I think of Safari. 

 

Juandré Peacock  3:37 

Yes. Very good. 

 

Scott Allen  3:39 

And, well, of course, that Mandela. Oh my gosh. Well, I am looking forward to this conversation And I know, as we have kind of prepared for this, and kind of talked a little bit back and forth, what I appreciate about you is you've got the IO psych kind of cred, and then you've got the organizational cred. You've worked in some very complex, large organizations, doing talent development, doing leader development. And so, I just want to kind of dig into that. What are some of your reflections on that work? How are you thinking about that work that might separate you from just a hardcore academic or a hardcore practitioner? You're looking at this through a very unique lens, which I just love. So, what are some observations you have? 

 

Juandré Peacock  4:23 

I think the first observation that I have is that a science practitioner model is the first thing you learn in grad school, but I think that the divide between those two things are bigger than we expect. I think there's a little bit of a disconnect between what you learn in the books and what you actually get to apply in the job space. And it's not so much the theories of leadership, or socialization, or change management, or selection that's misaligned, it's the application in the job space, because when you learn about these things, the things that you don't learn about are the real world constraints that organizations have to deal with. So, it's all well and good to try to do a job analysis by the book, it's extremely difficult to do it in practice. If you want to do a job analysis for a police officer, when you're sitting in Assessment and Selection 101 in grad school, you're like, “Yeah. Okay. These are the characteristics of a job analysis; you have to observe it,” but do you know what that entails? You have to ride around with a police officer in Chicago, that's where I live, to be able to see what they do. One of the ride-alongs that I did was with a sergeant who was working undercover informants. And so I drove with him in the seediest, darkest places of Chicago. And I am a 6 '2, 240 white boy who's not fitting in any of these environments, and you're riding in a police car. So, you have to understand, I'm foreign. So, the only thing I know about police stories is what I see in the movies. And so, I am ready to duck and cover at any moment. It's not in reality the way that it is, but the way that you're taught is, “Yes, you have to observe this, and then you have to talk to so many people.” Well, when you’re pulling 50 officers off the street to talk to them about what they do, that costs money, and you can't do that. And that's not just pertaining to selection, leadership development. I feel like it happens in this best world scenario, this vacuum where, okay, in the best scenario, we're going to have this, and you're going to have your leaders, and you can teach them this. Well, guess what? Now you're sitting in a room with 50 different leaders over five different generations, male, female, different ethnical backgrounds, and you don't fully grasp what the non-communicated and non-visual life experiences are and journeys that influence those people's perspectives on leadership. So, you can say whatever you want, but if you don't understand what that day-to-day is, you're lost. And leadership in an organization, leadership, the royal leadership, is far removed from the day-to-day when you're sitting at your desk and you have eight bosses coming to yell at you about TPS reports. And so, that's very hard to get people to understand where you're wanting them to go, how to apply the best practices, the things that our scientific colleagues research for us and tell us what works. But even that snapshot has boundary conditions. It's not something that is universally just applicable. And I think the IO practitioner has to be able to… It's part art, part science. You have to be able to take what is given to you and distill that into a manner that is applicable and is receivable by those people who actually have to use it in the job space. And so, that's some of the challenges that I've seen that I struggle with most both when I was a practitioner in those organizations. Because I have worked with first line managers who stack burritos. Very simple. And then I have people who are double PhD, actual rocket scientists, who put people and equipment in space for 100 years. How do you tell them that the leadership that's distilled up here is going to help them? That's a very difficult thing to do. And when you have layers of leadership, every leader wants to imprint his own footprint, power dynamics is another thing. It's incredibly difficult to tell the frontline leader, “Yeah. This is what you should do,” when the middle level manager doesn't want to get there. And they have to listen to their top-level leader. So, that's really, really difficult. And that's what I think I do a really good job of, is bringing those two things together. 

 

Scott Allen  9:04 

Well, yes. I was in a conversation recently with an individual. We were talking about theory. And theory is wonderful. And oftentimes, in the textbook, it's a very nice box, or a Venn diagram, or a very pretty diagram. And then just add humans… (Laughs)

 

Juandré Peacock  9:20 

Right.  

 

Scott Allen  9:20 

In politics and authority, and you can't account for that infinite number of variables that impact the work. I think I couldn't agree with you more. Again, theory is incredibly important. It's useful. It's valuable. It gives us a place to start. And I loved your phrasing of, “Look, this is science and this is art because I have 15 minutes with this individual, not an hour and a half to go through these 70 things. What can I get done in the 15 minutes that is going to be the most important elements to do a good enough job in this situation?” And so, I think that dance is a fascinating space. It really is. 

 

Juandré Peacock  10:07 

And everything is always tied to money, so that's the driving force. And, as a new psychologist, I was always like, “But, no, this is not the best science. We're short-changing you as a client by not doing all of these things by the book.” Well, I had to learn very quickly that, unless you can show very tangible results, it's not going to get adopted. And even if you can, that's a 50/50 shot whether you're going to get adopted or not. And so, exactly, to your point, you have to pick and choose what is your main goal right now, and you have to scale, and you have to put on a timeline. “We can't do everything, but we can do these two things now. And the next month, once we've shown some value here, maybe we'll do the other two things.” And this is not fair. I think a lot of the theory generators, our researchers go directly from grad school into that field, so they don't have that aspect. They don't understand the constraints that we have to deal with. And so, I think one of the recommendations I would make if I was ever selected into a leadership position that governs our training would be, you don't get to go teach that if you've not lived it. And that makes a huge difference because I would teach all of my courses that I absorbed in grad school very differently now than I did back then. 

 

Scott Allen  11:23 

Well, yes. It's interesting because the theory is divorced from constraints like time, human behavior, resources, finances. Its location in the world, time in the world. It's fascinating. 

 

Juandré Peacock  11:42 

Yes, it's very hard. But that's why people like we exist, to be able to be that bridge, be that liaison between the two so that we can move organizations forward. And, it's not the large organizations that struggle. I've worked with companies who are very small. I have worked with companies who have 100,000 people. I have worked with companies like Amazon, who is the second largest organization on the planet. And the large organizations have the resources, it doesn't make it any easier. But they also have people like me, so, generally speaking, they're able to move in the right direction. It's the smaller and medium-sized organizations that they don't know we exist. The mom and pop engineering shops, the manufacturings, the teachers, those individuals who don't know that there is a better way of doing it. And then they go, “Okay. There's a leadership book. I'm going to read this leadership book,” written by who knows whom, what kind of background, what kind of framing they have. And then they take that information. It might be great, but it might be baloney. Who knows? And then they take that into their businesses that they have spent their livelihoods on working on, and it leads them down the wrong path. That breaks my heart. And that's one of the reasons why I left corporate Amazon so that I can do what I do because this was my calling right from the beginning. I left my first job as a GM for Chipotle to go back to school to be able to help organizations be better in those types of realms. And so, that's what I do now, and it's been life-changing.

 

Scott Allen  13:18 

Well, and it's really interesting. So, as you were just speaking, I was thinking of Jocko Willink's books, ‘Dichotomy of Leadership,’ and then ‘Extreme Ownership.’ So, here you have a Navy SEAL -- and, again, I liked both of these books. If you listen to them, you feel like Batman's reading you a story. It also [Inaudible 13:37] And, of course, his service to the country, and it's good stuff. And extreme ownership, you take that person who runs that mom/pop family business, who now goes back into and says extreme ownership and tries to run their machine shop like it is a Navy Seal… They're set up for failure. Actually, what I really respected about Jacko is that, in their second book, ‘Dichotomy of Leadership,’ he said that. He said, “Look, as we watched how this interfaced with reality, with human beings in organizations, even extreme ownership can be taken to the extreme. It's not always appropriate.” So, I really, really appreciated the fact that they kind of went back, and observed that, and learned and kind of made that apparent. But, yeah, I get frustrated at times with these simplistic memes on LinkedIn that I think are doing a greater level of disservice than, maybe, help with organizations. Having that kind of middle ground of, “What's something that's really digestible?” Back to your original point, where I want to exist is this kind of middle ground of this is good content that's a little more complex than the meme on LinkedIn that says “Leaders never follow,” or something of that nature with 10,000 likes. But it's not an academic dissertation that no one's [Inaudible 14:59] What's that middle ground that gives people enough to be really, really good at the work, and, again, avoiding those two extremes. Fascinating space.

 

Juandré Peacock  15:00 

Yeah. No, I love it. When I found IO, it's like this weight lifted off my shoulders. I was old when I came into this field. I was 26 years old. I already had a degree from South Africa that was unrelated to this entirely, but I never felt like I found what I was made to do. And then, when I got this, I was like, “Oh, I have to go spend nine years minimum to achieve my goal.” And that's going from being really successful as a GM to working for $8 an hour. Granted, this was back in 2006 when $8 an hour was livable. And so, I quit my job, and I went back to school, redid a bachelor's degree. And I graduated college in South Africa when I was 19, so I was one of the youngest people in my graduating class. Going back to now being one of the oldest people in my undergraduate class, and that was weird. And I got to the point where people were like, “Oh, I'm so glad I'm almost done. I've got senioritis.” I'm like, “I still have five years to go. What are you talking about? This is nothing.” And so, I finished all nine years in a row, and I got it done, and I've never looked back. It was the best decision I ever could have made. 

 

Scott Allen  16:19 

Well, okay. So, what else are you seeing out there? What else is going on? What's on your radar? I'm really interested in this. As you kind of do your work, what's popped up for you? 

 

Juandré Peacock  16:29

It's surprising. So, one of the main things that I focused on lately is change management. So, change management is a very big thing for me, and it should be a really, really big thing for everybody else.

 

Scott Allen  16:41 

If you're leading, yes.

 

Juandré Peacock  16:43 

But, for the most part, people don't do that very well. As a discipline, I have found that it's a rather antiquated and stagnant field. It popped up in the mid 90s, took off like a wildfire. Everybody was like, “Yeah, this is fantastic. This is great. It gives us something to do.” Well, when you look at that really carefully, it's changed. When the philosophy was built, it's not anybody's fancy things. It's good old psychological science. What you need to do to tell people,”Hey, there's going to be a change. This is what I need you to do to acquiesce, and this is what you're going to get on the outside of it.” But, back then, the job market looked different. You could afford to tell people, “Well, you can either come along or you're going to be left behind. That's your choice.” That's no longer the case. We had two generations in the workspace back then, we have five now. They're not very closely related, these five, they are very far apart. And so, the way that you approach these five different individuals is very different. And then, the way that original structure was built is very top down, left to right. And what I mean by that is it's top down; CEO decides, somebody decides this is going to be a change. This is what we're going to tell everybody that they need to get in line. And the left to right is, “Hey, here's all the things that we're going to tell you, and we're going to give you an opportunity, so to speak, but there's really no buy in for you. You have no rudder here. Everything we're doing is simply to feign interest and feign a voice for you as the end consumer and the person who's most impacted by this so that we can get you to go, ‘Thank you, sir. May I have another.’” That's essentially all it is. That doesn't work today, and companies are spending a ton of money on antiquated systems that don't work. They're archaic. If you just look at the numbers, what's involved with change management, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2024 established the average, this is the average. Attrition rate after a major change is about 30% of the population that's impacted by this change. Okay. So, let's say it's an organization that Amazon changes one function, and it influences a thousand people.  Not very hard to do. So, that's 300 individuals that's impacted by this. The average cost to replace a single individual, same study, is between 50 and 200% of that individual's salary. 

 

Scott Allen  19:21 

Wow. 

 

Juandré Peacock  19:21 

So, let's take a simple number, $100,000. It's not a very high number. I think that's very low on the distribution, that 100,000. So, let's say it costs you 50% of replacing that individual. That cost you $50,000 to replace one person, you just need to do now 299 others. So, you're looking at millions of dollars in replacement costs alone, let alone loss of productivity, let alone loss in momentum, loss in cultural changes, climate changes within teams. And so, one of my programs that I created is it teaches organizations, A) Should you really make this change? And if you think that you should, you're doing this because you think you're going to benefit and capitalize on certain efficiencies, or whatever you think is going to happen. The problem with that is this is predicated on an existing environment and eco-structure, an ecosystem, that once you make the changes, ceases to exist. So, you have this fallacy. You're putting all of your eggs in this basket that doesn't exist. And so, the way that you change your change management is you need to understand upfront, a priori, what it is that you're doing to your support systems when you make the changes, and there's very specific things that happen. And then how to mitigate those risks so that you can actually gain those efficiencies and benefits of this change. But then, that's not enough. You can't just talk at your people. These people want to be involved. They have a voice. They're educated, they're smart. They want to be able to tell you, “Your idea sucks. This is what we actually do. You think this is how we do it, but this is how we actually do it because we have constraints. Let us help you get where we want to go, and let us help you provide the solutions.” Now, that whole system is upside down. Adoption is a whole lot more. People don't leave because they feel like their values and their opinions matter. And so, now you don't have the attrition costs, you don't have replacement costs, you don't have loss for activity. Your adoption is a whole lot more, and you get to the end goal so much faster than if you do this in the old way. But organizations are so reticent to understand that. And so, when I talk to my clients about this, and I shared what I just shared with you, it's like you hit them with a two by four. They're like, “Oh, my God, I never realized that.” And it's those organizations who move forward.

 

Scott Allen  22:14 

Well, and then, so what are some of the pushbacks that you're hearing? “Oh, we don't have time.” You're hearing that for sure. “We don't have time to kind of involve a bunch more people.” When you do get some pushback, what are you hearing? 

 

Juandré Peacock  22:25

It's usually that. I also hear, “Well, we've already started.” And I'm like, “Okay. So, if you started driving your car and you go in the wrong direction, do you just keep driving? No, you stop and you figure out where you are. M, maybe you put the address wrong. Well, guess what? You're putting in the address wrong in your ways. You stop, you get the right address, you ask somebody for help, you turn around, and you go to the right place.” So, it's never too late to make it better because millions of dollars you can't afford to lose. And whether that's a million dollars, or whether that's $50,000 for a mom and pop shop. It’s, quite often, more impactful for them in the long run than it is the big boys. But the big boys have stockholders, the small ones don't. It hits their pockets. The big ones, it hits their shareholders. They don't like that either. So, usually, once I'm able to show people that, “You're going down the wrong path and it's costing you a lot of money that you don't even realize, and you're not going to get what you think you're going to because your support systems don't exist,” they're like, “Oh, okay, well, maybe D. peacock doesn't just speak funny. Maybe he actually does know something or two.”

 

Scott Allen  23:36 

(Laughs) Well, the cultural ramifications, the engagement, the retention, hiring. Yes. I wish there was a way for us to visualize… Even Gallup's numbers of what it was, two-thirds of folks that, generally speaking, are at work and that they're disengaged or active?

 

Juandré Peacock  23:56

Oh, absolutely. 

 

Scott Allen  23:58  

Just the cultural ramifications of doing change poorly. I don't know if someone's costed that or someone's done some of that research, I'm not up on that. It's interesting, though, because I once had a conversation with John Cotter, this might be like 2003, maybe it's 2001, and I said, “John, is it always these steps in this order, exactly as you've described?” And he said, “Yes, always.” I'm like, “Wow, that doesn't feel right.” 

 

Juandré Peacock  24:29

Right? Yeah, it's hard. And it's not just the organizations that's hard to get on board with, A) Realizing, we need to change. It's the practitioners of the ADKAR model they are kicking against it even in the face of evidence. You are going the wrong way, “Ah, I'm hitting fifth gear, baby. I'm going. I'm committed.” That escalation of commitment is real. 

 

Scott Allen  24:53 

I was just going to use that phrasing. Yes.

 

Juandré Peacock  24:55  

Yes. It's real. 

 

Scott Allen  24:58 

And they keep going. They're on the road to Abilene.

 

Juandré Peacock  25:00 

That’s right. Yes. So, I have been very fortunate that I have an opportunity to… I share this with my clients on my one-on-ones, but I also have an opportunity to share this in mass twice this year. So, I've been invited by SHRM to give presentations at two of their different state conferences, where this is going to have a lot bigger impact than just me reaching out to my clients and go, “Hey, you're struggling a little bit here.” So, we're at the forefront of where this is going to go. There's not a whole lot of people who's even aware that this needs to happen, and there's even fewer people who actually have the skills to do anything about it. But I think, over time, I have high hopes that, 15 years from now, this will be the status quo. 

 

Scott Allen  25:51  

Yeah. Well, give me one more. Give me one more as we begin to wind down our time together. What's another thing that's kind of on your radar right now that you're seeing out in the field as you're engaging with practitioners?

 

Juandré Peacock  26:04  

This is not even new. This is how somebody moves from being an exceptional individual contributor…

 

Scott Allen  26:12  

Oh yeah. I know where you're going.

 

Juandré Peacock  26:14

To a first-time people leader. And you would think that people like -- I keep picking on Amazon, but it doesn't matter, you can pick anybody you want -- that they would have processes in place to make that transition as seamless as possible. You'd be wrong. And small and medium-sized companies, that's even worse because, especially if they're very technical-oriented; engineers, architects, those types of people, you take the best performer and you move them up, and you hope for the best. And that is a recipe for disaster. And so, most of my leadership work that I do is focused to that. My philosophy here is, if you've made it to the upper levels, congratulations. You're either fantastic and you're a rock star, or you're part of that axiom that you went as high as your incompetence allowed you to go. But it's those people… So, part of my overall coaching and speaking in IO philosophy is leadership impacts everything, it's not just a standalone function. So, you mentioned earlier, I have programs that focus on socialization, onboarding. I have programs that focus on this specific new manager development, and then I have the change management. In my philosophy, those three things are the three biggest events in any employee's job journey, his employee journey with an organization. When they enter the organization, absolutely critical. When they get promoted and they move into that first leadership, that sets them up for life, whether they want to be a people leader forever or not, and whether they're going to be successful in your organization or not. And that's the organization's responsibility to set them up. Most of the time, it doesn't happen. And then the third thing is what we just spoke about is the change management, which impacts everybody. And so, the leadership philosophy of an executive impacts all of these different things. And then they wonder, “Well, we're not going to spend money on onboarding because it's just a half a day. We're going to give them a presentation, and we're going to sign their I-9, and we're going to move on.” Well, then they wonder why 45% of their new hires attrit within 60 days. Why 35% of them attrit within 30 days? It's a self-fulfilling wheel of death. Stop. 

 

Scott Allen  28:33

(Laughs) I'm going to name the episode The Wheel of Death. Can I do that?

 

Juandré Peacock 28:37  

(Laughs) It's good. I like it. When you look at those first leaders, again, when you come to that breakdown between science and practitioner, we can think all about leadership, and what they do, and how you get to become Jeff Bezos, but you don't get there without being really good at the fundamentals. And so, one of the things that I've seen in all of my industries that I coach, that I work on, that I've been in, new leaders, especially if it's their first time, struggle with four things. And that's pretty universal. Well, five things, it's four and a half. Mindset is one, but that kind of comes in. Time management. Number one, they suck up to high heavens with it. Time management, how to properly delegate. And there's a plethora of things that go into that. Some of them are power hungry. Others want to serve, they just don't know how. And then there's their power dynamics and relationships. It's hard. And then, how to coach. So, they don't know how to coach. They've never seen that. Quite often, it's because they've never been coached correctly. They've never been delegated in a way that they can be successful. So, if you don't have that skill set or that ability innately, what is your default go to? You look for a model of performance somewhat. And proximity effect, you look at the people that you see everyday, how do they treat you? Well, if they treat you like shit, guess what? You're going to do the same thing. You're going to perpetuate that to your people. You're not getting any better. But, guess what? You're the one who's going to get fired because you're not doing a very good job, because you can't fire your boss. So, it's those three things, and then communication. Communication is critical. In IO, it’s what we call a hygiene factor. It doesn't make things necessarily better, it's a bottom level. It's a requirement. 

 

Scott Allen  30:30 

Yeah. Like showering. 

 

Juandré Peacock  30:31  

Right. It sure as hell can make things bad. And people think… There's this famous quote that the biggest fallacy with communication is the perception that it actually occurred. And that's true. And so, I teach my new leaders that you can't do any of these other things if you can't communicate because, guess what, all of these other things take up portions of your day. Communication is all day, every day. Doesn't matter what you do with whomever. And you mess that up once, a relationship that you had built for months, if not years, destroyed in an instant, and you never get it back. And so, if you're going to communicate, you're damn well better be doing it at the highest levels. And there's very specific ways to do this. And so, usually, with my program, I set new leaders up with that. It does a whole lot of different things. It provides them with resources. It reduces their anxiety and their uncertainty. It increases their self-efficacy. Those are the things we want and our new leaders. It teaches them how to create time and space to pour into others. How to not be overwhelmed and have life balances, to go fishing when they want to. And those are the things that the large organizations miss. Those are the things the small organizations don't think about because they don't have the resources to build those. And that is a big gap, I feel like, in the leadership literature. We all look at these very high performing, very high level individuals, but it's down here where the rubber meets the road. That's where it's the most critical. 

 

Scott Allen  32:12  

And what were they again? We had delegation, time management, communication…

 

Juandré Peacock  32:16  

And coaching.

 

Scott Allen  32:18

Coaching. Okay. Yeah. Are you building a team? And I think a challenge we have sometimes in leader development, it's a little bit of an effed up dojo. So, that's my own phrasing. 

 

Juandré Peacock  32:30 

I like it.

 

Scott Allen  32:30  

So, it’s like walking into a dojo, and some of the time you get a black belt lesson, and some of the time you get a purple belt lesson, and some of the time it's a white belt. So, it's really interesting, in management and leader development, even when it is happening, some of my colleagues will start talking about systems theory with freshmen. That's a black belt type topic. We’re dealing with complex problems. VUCA, well, for a sophomore in college or for a beginning manager, do we need to go to that yet? Should we go to active listening and communication skills? That seems to me like white belt type stuff, but then maybe we [Inaudible 33:09] So, I love the fact that you've kind of clarified this. “Look, these are the foundational elements that if you've got time management, if you're delegating, if you're communicating well, those are good first starting points. Of course, there's an infinite number of other things we want from you; inspiration or influence, but these are some baselines.” And I like how you're thinking about that. 

 

Juandré Peacock  33:34 

Well, thank you. What you just mentioned, I like that term, the upside down dojo. 

 

Scott Allen  33:38 

It's the effed up dojo. 

 

Juandré Peacock  33:41 

I like it. I'm going to put that on a card; effed up dojo. But that's exactly right. And it further emphasizes that break that we talked about. I don't want to beat this horse, but I'm going to beat it a little bit more. What you're talking about is scaffolding, how people learn. That's fundamental L&D. If you spend five minutes in a team L&D function outside, you will realize that you can't do that. You've got to provide the information in chunks so they can learn it. What are you doing?

 

Scott Allen  34:08

And it has to scaffold it accurately. If it's Suzuki methodology, or another, at least, have a coherent methodology that builds, and to your point, scaffolds, keeps the person in the zone of proximal development, but not here and then here, and then here, and then here. And I think sometimes in leader development, at least coming out of academia, it feels like… It's amazing to me. It's absolutely amazing to me. Well, okay. So, as we begin to wind down our time, I always ask guests what you've been reading, or streaming, or listening to. Something that's caught your attention in recent times. It may have something to do with what we've just discussed, it may have nothing to do with what we've just discussed. So, for listeners, I'm going to put a bunch of resources in the show notes so that you can access those, but what has caught your attention in recent times? I'm interested in hearing this.

 

Juandré Peacock  35:03 

Alright. So, let's think. Let's go off the topic of what we talked about today. So, I'll tell you about something I'm really excited about.

 

Scott Allen  35:10 

Yeah, please. 

 

Juandré Peacock  35:11 

And this makes me a big nerd, and I don't care. I'm a big dude, very few people's going to fight me, so it's all right. But there's a TV series that's based on a bunch of books by Lee Child and it’s called ‘Reacher.’ That's his main character. And there was a bunch of movies with Tom Cruise a couple of years ago, they're okay. But Amazon picked up a series of it a couple of years ago with an actor named Alan Ritchson in it. And he's this massive dude, and he portrays what you imagine, if you read a Lee Child ‘Reacher’ book, what this person would be. And so, it's my dirty little secret. I love ‘Reacher.’ So, at nighttime when I'm making dinner for my family, I'll just put it on. I've seen these two seasons. The third season's coming out in February. They just released the trailer this week. I sent it to all my friends, I'm like, “Look at this, this is coming. And it's awesome.” And so, I'll just put it on TV. I know the words, I know everything that's going to happen, but it just makes me childlike happy. It gives me the warms and fuzzies, I just want to roll up against it. It lets me disengage from the stresses. It makes me happy. That's what I love. 

 

Scott Allen  36:24  

I love it. Okay. I will put that in the show notes for listeners. Juandré, Dr. Peacock…

 

Juandré Peacock  36:31 

Sir.

 

Scott Allen  36:32 

I appreciate your time. Thank you so very much for joining me today. 

 

Juandré Peacock  36:36 

You are very welcome.

 

Scott Allen  36:35  

And, again, for listeners, resources in the show notes. Take care, sir. Be well.

 

 

[End Of Recording]