Brian Peckrill Podcast Transcript
Brian Peckrill joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive podcast.
Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Brian Peckrill. Brian Peckrill is the Executive Director at the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund, which supports evidence-based programs aimed at helping individuals and families. He leads all operations of the fund. He also serves as the fellows program director, where he’s responsible for the design and implementation of this forward thinking, ethics focused experience for top MBA students, as well as fostering an active and engaged alumni community of young business leaders as they embark on and manage their careers.
Prior to joining the McGowan Fund, Brian served as Vice President of World Chicago, a Chicago based nonprofit organization focused on engaging the world in person to person, exchange base capacity building projects. He oversaw all aspects of program planning and business development. Brian has also served as project director for the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative, the US Department of State’s Flagship Initiative for Private Sector Leadership Development in Europe and Eurasia.
Well, good afternoon, Brian. Welcome to the show.
Brian Peckrill: It’s a pleasure to be here on The Digital Executive.
Brian Thomas: I appreciate that my friend. Really do. We’re in the same time zone today. You’re just a few hours north of me in Chicago Land there. Love visiting Chicago virtually and physically. Again, Brian, appreciate you making the time.
Let’s jump into your first question. You lead the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund, which champions evidence-based programming. What key challenges do you see in scaling these kinds of solutions nationally, and how does the fund ensure real world impact?
Brian Peckrill: That is a great question, Brian, and it’s actually one of the larger challenges that we have faced as a foundation.
The truth is, is when you scale programs nationally, local context matters and what works in one community may not work in another community. So for us to ensure that we have the greatest performance and impact that we can, what we actually do is we focus on a local strategy. We are what we call a placed based philanthropy.
We make a difference in the communities in which we live. There’s a lot of core reasons for that because we’re in, we work in the communities that we live and work. Our board members can be our ears on the ground. They can understand why something works in the community and under what conditions, and this ensures that we have a.
Customized strong programs with strong measured outcomes that are unique to the communities that we work in. This allows us to identify the right partners in the right context and ultimately have an impact that has long-term change, not just short-term wins.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. That’s good. And I do appreciate that even though you know we’re one big country here, United as the United States, when you start to scale programs, you’re keeping in mind that local context works when you’re working on national projects or campaigns, which I appreciate, but the customized programs that are unique to the communities you work in are by far gonna be more successful.
So I appreciate your insights there. Brian, the McGowan Fellows program places a strong emphasis on ethics and business leadership. How do you approach instilling ethical decision making in today’s MBA students, especially in such a rapidly changing global landscape?
Brian Peckrill: I. Again, this is another great question.
I would say that there’s two core elements that are needed to instill ethical decision making in business leaders. The first is self-reflection. Ethics is not just a checklist, it’s something that someone develops over time through practice. So while they must reflect, they must make it a habit. I was actually recently speaking with a faculty member of ethical leadership, and he was saying that.
Every day of the week, grit beats skill, but habit beats grit. So what that means is that one has to develop a practice of reflecting, looking at their own values, seeing what’s their strengths, and creating a roadmap around how they can practice flexing reflection. Flexing. Taking the skills and virtues that they’re learning from that reflection and implementing in their practice so that it becomes habitual and routine.
So when they’re in a challenging situation, they know how to respond. We do this in our McGowan Fellows program through implementing developmental coaches that help fellows determine what their strengths and weaknesses are, and develop an actualized plan to practice it every single day.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that.
I like how you kind of focused on that self-reflection, right? Ethics is not just a checklist, and I know a lot of times we need that checklist to kind of keep us in bounds, right within the lines, but I liked how you reflected grip beat skills, but habit beats grit and I’ve not really heard that. I’ve heard a lot about grit, but not about, uh, the habit.
So I appreciate that. Thank you so much. And Brian, you’ve designed leadership training programs around the world from Japan to Ukraine. What core components do you believe make a leadership program universally effective, regardless of cultural context?
Brian Peckrill: Absolutely. I believe that to have an effective leadership program, it has to be experiential in nature and make use of action.
Learning leadership is not something that is implemented on pages. Or through textbooks. It’s something that you have to learn through action and interaction. So whether you’re in Japan or Ukraine or the United States, when designing a leadership program, it has to be experiential in nature. It has to take people outside their comfort zone, challenge their previously held notions.
Create that space where they can self-reflect on themselves and get an honest assessment. So I believe that all leadership programs, regardless of context, has to focus on this experiential nature. The second piece I’ll say is that programs should identify or reveal the importance of trust. It doesn’t matter if you’re anywhere in the world.
Trust is built through the same building blocks. I would say it’s credibility, reliability, and empathy. So it doesn’t matter where you are. These types of programs should help individuals understand how to build trust. And while it might look different in different places, it’s gonna come down to the same core foundational elements.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. And you know, we hear that a lot and I know we’ve all spent our time in school and college and so forth, but what I found is those that have real world experience, you know, you mentioned effective leadership is important, that it’s implemented in real world, experiential in nature, which I totally agree with.
And it’s not just a textbook. So I appreciate that. And of course, building on that trust, you know, having that credibility, that reliability and accountability is, is so important. So I appreciate your thoughts on that. And Brian, the last question of the day. From your perspective, why is it more important than ever for executives of software, AI and robotics, decentralized finance, you know, blockchain automation and other digitally based companies to make ethically based business decisions in today’s environment?
Brian Peckrill: I. Absolutely. This is a core question moving forward, right? It looks like the pace of innovation is outstripping the systems that we have in place, the guardrails that keep them accountable, and these products that are being built in AI and robotics. I. They’re really not just products. They’re changing the way we live our lives.
So I really think that this comes down to two elements, right? The first is these organizations need to govern themselves. They need to ask that tough question. It’s not just, can we do this? It’s should we do this? And the second piece is. On a central level, there needs to be strict guardrails in place to make sure that these products are used ethically and they’re additive to our lives, and they make our lives better and prevent us from the various harms that might emerge from these products.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. There’s so much going on. We talk about that, gosh, at least a couple times a week here on the podcast about, especially, you know, we’re talking emerging technologies in general, but ai, right? The pace of innovation, as you mentioned, is outpacing the systems and guardrails we have today.
So that self-governance is so important. We talk about ethics here. We know everybody. We’re humans, right? We’re all biased in some way. Some do things in a great way. Some people do things in not so great way, and we’ve gotta keep those guardrails in place. Ethics is so important in this day and age, so I appreciate your insights, Brian.
It was such a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Brian Peckrill: Absolutely. Thank you again, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Brian Peckrill Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.
