Practice? Podcast

Dave reconnects with his former university colleague Glynis Fitzgerald to celebrate her recent ascendence to President of Alvernia University with a conversation about old times, now-times, and time up ahead. Glynis' sunny nature is now a beacon for her school, as it was for Dave's back then. This time, her practice is simply presidential! 

Many have one soul-satisfying practice around which other ways of being cluster. Teaching 5th graders is Matt Dick's primary way of being his best self. Storytelling in many forms and forums orbits and compliments his teaching. Dave salutes his fellow adventurous teacher. 

Kate Barnhart and her old friend "Uncle Dave" talk about her extraordinary service accomplishment - New Alternatives for LGBT Homeless Youth in New York City. Kate was a close friend of his late niece Kate Spencer, who helped this agency when she could. During this conversation, the New Alternatives doorbell rang - a possible new client needing guidance, solutions, and a hot meal.  

Judi Neal , an inspirational global educator, and leader, encourages us to be Edgewalkers and to elevate our Global Consciousness. It does take courage to change for the better. Listening to Judi in this conversation with Dave, you may experience some of her positive energy right through your screen. Dave did.  

Thinking partner Bessi Graham is a writer, speaker, podcaster, and listener. Hear this in a getting-acquainted conversation with Dave, who suddenly says she is a conversation 'alchemist.' Bessi draws out one's ideas and better is found: a better way forward, a better way to direct business,  a better way of being. 

"It is safe to say" that Senior Director of Operational Safety for Spirit Airlines Jordan Wareham is a superb organizational learner. In this conversation, you will see why Dave says this is so. The Operation constantly 'teaches' him what it takes to sustain its exceptional safety. In turn, he brings these lessons to all responsible leaders, and they to him. Safety learning takes flight at Spirit....

Motorsports have been the roaring soundtrack of race driver Mike Hurczyn's career since childhood. Among the lessons Dave learns in this conversation with his former student is that all a driver's team does rides on the track on the 'second seat' in all aspects of a race. Mike now consults with those sponsoring and developing those vital teams and beyond.  

Hundreds of thousands of people living in America's town have an advocate in Bart Russell . His practice is to know and care deeply about the small town way of life, telling their compelling story for positive change to major companies and government bodies. Dave has known Bart for forty years and is still amazed at how well he 'talks for the towns.' 

Northern Michigan University Professor of Management Gary Stark found his place to thrive in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He "talks shop" with Dave, who had, for 30 years, found his place to excel at teaching Organizational Behavior in a regional campus of the State University System. Both have been versatile leaders in the Management & Organizational Behavior Teaching Society celebrating its 5...

Here is another conversation in which Dave Fearon, Jr . continues to teach his dad (me) how we humans are constantly fulfilling the promise of our practices and have the capacity called languaging to tell about it. Please think of the importance of other people when it comes to the telling. This usually happens in spirited conversations, when achievements are relived and made memorialized. It's th...

Outstanding Maine Music Educator Andy Forter was found in the fifth grade by an attic trumpet. Many trumpets since have kept Andy learning, growing, and inspiring the same in thousands of rural Maine students for 35 years. Making music is his gift to audiences. Making musicians is his gift to Maine and beyond. 

Over 200 individuals have engaged in discussions with Dave, exploring the distinctive essence of their practices. The catalyst behind these conversations was Peter B. Vaill, who requested Dave's assistance in completing his manuscript entitled "On Practice as a Way of Being." Despite Peter's deteriorating health, these determined educators launched a podcast to convert words from pages to sound wa...

Recovering from COVID when he recorded this conversation, Dave knows first-hand what it means to Practice drained of energy. Martin Goldberg 's new book Out of the Workplace Trap rolls out a different map (the works of Wilhelm Reich) for releasing natural human reservoirs of what Martin calls work energy. To Dave, this opens fresh ways to foster organizational development and Practice development...

Entering his seventh decade, David Mansfield looks back at his years as CEO of a major UK media corporation, his satisfying times as an advisor/coach to senior leaders, and now, ahead as a student of effective decision-making. Hear Dave's conversation with this Monday Revolutionary .  

Diagnosing is a practice we rely upon in many fields. It takes 'a keen ear". Since his early teens, Dan Oleksiw has built and repaired PCs for his family's small business Computer Heads.  Now, he chairs an IT department at a Connecticut Technical High School. Still helping out on weekends, Dan 'heard" Dave ailing PC's more profound problems and enacted a fix prompting this conversation. Dan's dept...

Perhaps John Hibbs was walking an Island of Guernsey beach when the first ideas for his company, CoEfficient , came to him. His practice is as a Maker, a co-maker of companies that help us see a business as its workers see it. This one is several Guernsey beach rock-skips along, but Dave finds it fascinating and promising for his Organization Development community. 

Here is my conversation with my son Dave asking him to take me back to his learnings from George Herbert Meade.  As you will hear, all there is about Practice happens at the moment we ACT. Picture holding your finger above the Send key. Then, send it! This ACT commits us to know what happens now and not know what will come next. The thrill of figuring out how to ACT upon what comes next energizes...

Dave discovers something else about Practice. Music is at the core of Rijon Ericson's way of being, yet today he works as a people-gatherer. He draws people together for moments of free expression in the Open Space; not unlike a wandering troubadour of an earlier time.  Yes, change can be wrenching and difficult, but why not try sheer fun with the singing Purple Person, Mr. Rijon? 

Dave relishes this conversation with a professor whose career, like Peter Vaill's, began among the taproots of thinking, writing, and managing Organizational Behavior. Ian Mitroff is still drawing hope and energy from those who believe in the power of the human spirit. Dave and Ian -a leading thinker on Crisis Management - agree there has never been a better time for each of us to supply that powe...

Dave has a lively conversation with fellow Management Educator Richard Boyatzis .  Richard's research practice informs his highly regarded teaching, writings, and consultations. His current interest is coaching which helps people make timely changes. This dovetails with Dave and Peter Vaill's focus on changing and growing to keep a practice viable in times of constant change. 

Action IS the point of Hilary's research and of her Action Research peers. A Zoom call connects Dave with Hilary in her home in Ireland for a conversation where you'll hear her joy in convening people to apply collective thinking and caring to understand better and solve world problems.   

When a person channels her practice over decades of use and learning, it becomes a prominent and reliable way of being . This is Cloudbed's  Senior Pricing Analyst Katie Wei . We all know that everything we purchase has a price. Katie is teaching her former professor Dave that there is an art and science in determining what we customers value.  

Dave joins Leadership and Change consultants Lesley Tracy and Tom Casey in 'prognosticating' what is happening with our five-generation workforce, changing the hiring game for organization leaders.  

Dave has followed, supported, and learned with Joe De Feo's Juran-Attain's Quality Management education practice for over 40 years. Like Dave, Joe has 'gone digital.; reaching people with new QM tools for making their practices indispensable.  

Practice is a way of being. A memoir tells us and others what we've been and why. Author, consultant, and now grief support counselor Kathryn Kaplan talks with Dave about how her new book - Becoming Visible to Myself - came to be. We are all living an imagined memoir. Kathryn made hers real.