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Scott J. Allen, Ph.D., is an award-winning educator passionate about working with people at all levels and across industries. He serves as an instructor in SMU’s Cox School of Business Executive Education and spent more than 18 years as a professor of management. Allen’s areas of expertise include leader development, the future of work, and executive communication.

Scott has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He’s the co-author of several books and hosts Practical Wisdom for Leaders, ranked among the world's top 2.5% of podcasts. Along with the podcast, he publishes a weekly newsletter.

Scott frequently serves as a keynote speaker. In addition, he consults, facilitates workshops, and leads retreats across industries. Recent engagements include Catholic Charities, Cleveland Leadership Center, Key Bank, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Progressive, Nestle, EY, Siegfried Group, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Sherwin Williams, Whiting-Turner, Builder’s FirstSource, Vocon, CID Design Group, Toyota Motor North America, Lexus, Crestron, NASA-Glenn, Sam’s Club, Elbit America, Oatey, Lubrizol, Enbridge (Dominion), Endeavor Energy Resources, Scout Energy Partners, First Energy, TransAlta, FedEx Custom Critical, Thompson Hine LLP, Nordson, Beacon Oral Specialists, and Cleveland Clinic.

Scott served on the board of the International Leadership Association, Association of Leadership Educators, and Management and Organizational Behavior Teaching Society. He was named an ILA Fellow by the International Leadership Association in 2021.

Thanks to Martin Gutmann for interviewing!

A Few Quotes From This Episode

• “If you’d asked me in 2020, I would’ve said I knew a lot about leadership. But now I see just how much I didn’t—and still don’t—know."
• "This podcast has systematized my learning. Every week, I’m talking with someone who knows more than I do."
• "Maybe I’ve reached base camp, but Everest is still ahead."

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!

About Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
• Blog

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

♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Send us a text

Dr. Amy Climer is a thought leader in innovation, team development, and experiential learning. She teaches research-based practices, tools, and techniques to forward-thinking organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the University of Wisconsin.

Amy holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University. Her research led to the Deliberate Creative Team Scale, designed to measure the three critical dimensions of team creativity. Her TEDx talk, The Power of Deliberate Creative Teams, explains her research and philosophies on innovation, and she is the author of Deliberate Creative Teams: How to Lead for Innovative Results.

Amy is the host of The Deliberate Creative™ Podcast. She is the designer of Climer Cards, a creativity and teambuilding tool used by thousands to deepen conversations and generate ideas. In 2016 she won the Karl Rhonke Creativity Award from the Association for Experiential Education. Amy lives in Asheville, North Carolina in the U.S.

A Few (Awesome) Quotes From This Episode

• “We’ve known actually since the 1970s that creativity training works. The problem is we rarely bring it into our day-to-day work.”
• “It’s about being deliberate. You can’t just hope for creativity to happen—you have to follow a clear process and cultivate the right environment.”
• “If you want your team to be more creative, spend time clarifying the real problem before jumping into ideation. Even five minutes can change everything.”
• “Creative abrasion is when we can disagree around ideas and still respect each other personally. It’s healthy conflict that leads to better solutions.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Documentary: Where There Once Was Water
• Book: Your Creative Power by Alex Osborn
• Book: Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!

About Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
• Blog

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

♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Send us a text

Jon Acuff is the New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including his most recent, All It Takes Is a Goal: The 3-Step Plan to Ditch Regret and Tap Into Your Massive Potential.

Published in more than twenty languages, his work is both critically acclaimed and adored by readers. When he’s not writing, Acuff can be found on a stage, as one of INC’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers. He’s spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at conferences, colleges and companies around the world including FedEx, Nissan, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Chick-fil-A, Nokia and Comedy Central. Known for his insights wrapped in humor, Acuff shared the stage with an American Icon when he opened up for Dolly Parton at the Ryman Auditorium.

For over 20 years he’s also helped some of the biggest brands tell their story, including The Home Depot, Bose, and Staples. His fresh perspective on life has given him the opportunity to write for Reader’s Digest, Fast Company, The Harvard Business Review and Time Magazine.

He lives outside of Nashville, TN with his wife Jenny and two teenage daughters.

A Few Quotes From This Episode

• “If you want a kind 16-year-old, give a six-year-old kindness and then 10 years to practice.”
• “Another thing I’m thinking about is how do I be interruptible for a small number of people. I’m highly interruptible for three people: my wife, and my two daughters.”
• “I’m learning to hold two opposite thoughts at once: one is that you’re doing better than you think, and the other is that you’re more capable than you realize.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• All It Takes Is a Goal by Jon Acuff
• Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff
• Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking by Jon Acuff
• The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!

About Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
• Blog

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.

♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.