Back2Different

We’re both lovers of language, Jack and I - I’m a recovering English teacher; he comes from the fields of journalism and PR. He cuts right to the chase about 'value over volume' and has some very cool insights about the impact of powerful-and vague- writing. His opus is Ten Steps to Successful Business Writing, a very down-to-earth approach to simplifying and clarifying before we hit “Send”. We cover a lot of ground as we talk about suicide, social media, politics and, yes, writing. Jack’s an adjunct professor at The City College of New York and New York University as well as running his own consulting shop (successfulbusinesswriting.com).

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How big is a neighborhood? I guess it has to be big enough to hold all your neighbors. Greg Chapman (linkedin.com/in/thisisgregchapman) lives in my neighborhood. He also lives in South Delhi, India. He and I live across the virtual street from each other. We’re fearless about our friendship and have somehow achieved lifelong connection. Though the chronology of that life only stretches for six months, its connection is nearly familial. Maybe one of the changes we can embrace from this shift in our being is to stretch the power of neighborhood to exclude no one. Give a listen as Greg and I talk about walking the earth.

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Editing the back2different podcast I recorded with Steve Pearlman  took longer than usual. I kept going back to listen to points he made, e.g. “Intelligence is less important than critical thinking.” He’s right. Critical thinking is a perspective, a way of living that embraces skepticism and continuous discovery, playing with ideas, knowledge as a basis for insight, not as an end in itself.

We batted ideas around our thinking-playground time together, building and questioning: dialogue (talk through together) rather than discussion (which comes from the same root as percussion and concussion).

 Steve is funny, childlike, successful and a new friend. Follow along and enjoy our adventure. Oh, and he just published America's Critical Thinking Crisis: The Failure and Promise of Education.  It’s quite cool.

Steve resides virtually at [email protected].

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David Osborne published Laboratories of Democracy—his first book—in 1988. It spotlights five governors around the country who wanted to change how states operate. I chose his title for this podcast because schools are our greatest laboratory for democracy, yet they are arguably the least democratic institution in our country.

David is a champion for change—in government (Reinventing Government), in education (Reinventing America’s Schools), and in native-white relationships (The Coming, his novel with a long but very worthwhile incubation). We share a passion for learning and a focus forward. We also take things seriously enough to laugh frequently.

David is the Director for the Project on Reinventing America’s Schools at the Progressive Policy Institute ([email protected]). He’s fun to talk with.

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John and I support Margaret Wheatley’s idea that “Power in organizations is the capacity generated by relationships.” Leadership does not exist within leaders, it exists between everyone involved. After spending time working  as an architect and mountaineer (seriously!), he and his wife moved to North Yorkshire for a temporary stay in the country. He’s still there. He has had a peripatetic career, finally publishing “Leadership as Meaning-Making” to capture his years of learning.   Join us for a conversation about the future of self-organizing leadership, teams, and communities.

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After too long apart, Greg and I have rediscovered how much understanding and sense of discovery we have always shared and still do. His thinking, his writing, his courage and transparency all remind me that we need to act in order to nourish change and help, inch by inch, spread the warmth and power of community. Greg’s work in sustainability and humane leadership continue even as he and Frances enjoy life in Fort Myers.

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Megan Miller ([email protected]) , like me, followed a winding road to find her way to her business, a very personalized and focused way of teaching language. We both love riding horses, are infernally curious, and value a childlike place of wonder and discovery. During our conversation, she gave me a gift about teaching: teachers need to be “utterly curious and relentlessly humble.” We both also follow our path because it gives us the opportunity to see ‘lightbulbs’ go off as people find moments of insight and understanding, hence the name of the episode. Aprovechar, btw, I take to mean ‘make the best use of’. Enjoy her passion and energy!

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The connections keep showing up if we’re available. Bill Bray and I live within a few miles of each other, yet we’ve met, and become friends, only virtually. He served, I did not. That difference provided us with curiosity rather than judgment. Bill works at USNI (www.USNI.org), the United States Naval Institute. Among other things, they feature and publish what he calls insurgents—people in the naval community who push toward new ideas and challenge thinking habits that may no longer apply. Bill is a proponent of education rich in humanities, the arts, and leadership, hence his admiration for STEAM. Find out about his love of writing, where we start our conversation and then sail off into leadership, culture, history and learning.

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Katherine Porter ([email protected]) is quietly and convincingly passionate about creating ‘better,’ especially for women. After having lawyered for twenty years, she decided, in the throes of the pandemic, to start her own business blogging and coaching to help spread the word that whether from a humanity sense or from a purely business sense, being more inclusive and building employee engagement create a place for shining eyes and mutual accountability.

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In 1976, Mohamed Hammoud fled Lebanon with his family to escape a civil war. Arriving in Canada, he was told to change his name to “Mike” in order to fit in. Over the years, as he moved and explored, he changed his name again and again—Mikeal in Quebec, Miguel in Spain, and finally back to himself, Mohamed. He and I had a terrific journey of ideas and insights over 30 minutes, and now I have a wonderful friend in London, Ontario, where I actually stopped for a snack in m1973!

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