Practice? Podcast
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© Copyright 2025 David Fearon and Peter Vaill
Description
“Theory and practice” is a common phrase. We've seen a lot of writing on theory, but what about that other word? Peter calls it "the dark matter of the social sciences" - Practice. It applies to pencil-pushing, educating, heart surgery, sailing, golfing, and anything you can do with purpose. Peter and Dave take you into a world of thought that couples work and play, purpose and routine, life and legacy. In a world of white-water, On Practice is the raft.
310 Episodes
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Periodically, Dave checks in with leadership trend researcher and advisor Tom Casey to learn what practicing business leaders have on their minds. He and his Discussion Partners Collaborative colleagues ask the question, "What if all you believe to be accurate and possible is incorrect?" In these turbulent times, Tom discusses how leaders are holding their beliefs in suspension. They are advised to 'snap out of it'.
My friend and co-author Peter B. Vaill told us in his 1989 book, Managing as a Performing Art, to be ready to practice in permanent white water. David Silk kayaks daily in white waters raging in rivers around the globe. His practice has him racing among the top kayakers, exploring rivers around the world that have never been kayaked before, and teaching practitioners who are firmly committed to this challenging sport. In all ways, David is a whitewater professional.
Richmond, Maine sisters Olivia and Elsie Winokurzew drew upon lessons from their leadership experiences at Starbucks to create their own coffee and donut business, which was needed in their hometown. They named it Morning Moose Coffee. As committed entrepreneurs, they continue learning every day, even after successfully growing their business for over three years.
Dave leads me through a process to understand understanding itself. What happens in real-time moments of cognition. is comprised of 6 E's, enacted, embodied, embedded, extended, emotional and exacting processes that are also visible in conversation. This is the latest in a series of episodes probing the nature of Practice. The YouTube version includes presentation slides.
"High Tech. Human Touch" is a logo of Walker Group led by co-CEO Jessica Rich. Dave knows human intelligence thrives there, even as they know and apply AI, because Walker Group is a registered Benefit Corporation and the first Perpetual Purpose Trust-Owned Company in Connecticut. They promise their practitioners a stable foundation for a long career. Jessica has been with Walker for over 22 years and has no plan or reason to lead elsewhere.
Dave, Jr., and I had another conversation to discuss more dimensions of how information and practice in social behavior is not abstract but rooted in the real dynamics of physics, even at the quantum level. Explored this time are how enacted living systems are expressed by Constructor Theory, Assembly Theory, and Indivisible Stochastic Processes
Dave meets a contemporary who thinks alike about the nature of leading as practice. John Varney founded the Centre for Management Creativity and High Trenhouse and the author of Leadership as Meaning. Enjoy his wisdom and lovely English accent.
Dave becomes acquainted with Dr. Kim Byas, who, among his several current endeavors, including Vice President of Community Engagement and Impact at The Center for Health Affairs, is a member of the Conscious Leadership Guild. In the course of this conversation, Kim introduces the concept of the origin story. Each of us has one, yet to inform and grow our practices, we can become more aware of this unique personal resource. Journaling is one way of doing so.
Dave introduces Kyndra Frazier, a doctoral student studying Organization Development and Change at Bowling Green University. She is well into her career as a pastor, social worker, and consultant and aims to become a chief spiritual officer in a progressive company.
Dave discovered that his versatile friend from 'way back' practices genealogy as an avocation. Barbara MacDonald Saabye, a fellow graduate of the Portland, Maine Deering High School Class of 1961, tells how searching for her grandfather's records captivated her interest in researching other family lineages. Forty years later, she uses Family Search.com to find the ancestry of friends and fellow genealogists.
Dave reconnects with his former student, Pam Potanka, to learn she is joining her former colleague, John Kelly, to blend their advanced managerial leadership practices to create a custom recruitment and development firm Arise Results Business Services.
Dave reconnects with Discussion Partner Collaborative Managing Principal Tom Casey to learn what his research tells senior leaders they are facing ahead in our time's raging Practice white waters. Vicarious trauma and Predicate are the two factors they have under discussion for leader development.
Dave adds to our deep dive for the closest look so far at the socially-enacted nature of Practice, the ideas of philosopher and cognitive scientist John Vernaecke.; Relevance Realization in particular.
Dave Jr. and his dad resume their exploration of social enaction and Practice by delving into Ralph Stacey's theories on complex responsive processes. Reading Stacey's books caused Dave to make a major revision to his doctoral dissertation, Social Enactoin: How TalkinInteraction Constitutes Social Organization.
I am at an entirely different point in my life as a recent widower. Talk about change! Accordingly, I am shifting my attention to practitioners who make our daily lives livable, many of whom are paid by the hour. Yet, they shine and see their role and work as a personal practice. I will both podcast conversations with them and create short videos telling their stories. Yes, change is afoot. I'll still post conversations with organization and leadership developers, but I will feature the people whose work I also admire.
I move past 12 and 13 to reprise this Episode 14 as the last one before I resume new podcasting. Peter gives us the "why" of our and your attention to Practice. It organizes what we think about our Practice, and Practice organizes us! Asked, "Who are you?', we tend to answer with what we do (Practice). Asked, "What do you love doing?" we may respond differently than what we are paid to do. That's Practice rising from our souls.
Change makes the leader, and leading makes the change. Peter and Dave, co-authors of On Practice as a Way of Being, talk about leading as a dynamic practice available to anyone, at any moment, to make change happen
Peter and Dave continue their conversation probing the developmental nature of Practice. Episode 10 was recorded in 2019 as they collaborated on what became Peter's last book - On Practice as a Way of Being. People find something we have the energy to do, and we are driven to do it better each time.
Dave and Peter deepened their thinking about practice, introduced in their digital book On Practice as a Way of Being. Over time, intended results teach practitioners what works and why. The payoff is increasing performance levels. If you stick with it, it sticks with you.
Peter and Dave recorded in 2021. Peter predicted that digitizing our work and its context was accelerating. Today, Artificial Intelligence applications abound. Their book On Practice as a Way of Being is one of the first digital-only, interactive books. They went all in on this trend. Here is a preview.
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