December 3, 2024 • 44 mins
Nancy Napier, a professor at Boise State University and the author of several books on organizational creativity and innovation, shares how her multidisciplinary approach has shaped her career. Inspired by her father's shift from military service to academia, she combines her languages, political science, and international business interests to enrich her teaching and research. Her story emphasizes the importance of having a wide-ranging knowledge and the diverse viewpoints it brings.
She highlights how her curiosity brought together leaders from law enforcement, software, and sports, fostering an exchange of ideas that led to her book, "Wise Beyond Your Field." This collaboration illustrates how diverse groups can offer unique insights to tackle leadership challenges.
This episode emphasizes how curiosity and embracing diverse opportunities can inspire greater understanding and compassion.
Let's enjoy her story!
To connect with Nancy https://www.nancyknapier.com/
- Share Your Thoughts and Shape the Show! Tell me what you love about the podcast and what you want to hear more about. Please email me at behas.podcats@gmail.com and be part of the conversation!
- To be on the show Podmatch Profile
Thank you for listening - Hasta Pronto!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
DanielaSM (00:00):
Welcome, Nancy, to the show.
I'm very happy that you're here.
Nancy Napier (00:03):
I'm delighted to be with you, thanks for asking
me.
DanielaSM (00:06):
Yes, I know that you have a story to share, so why do
you want to share your story?
Nancy Napier (00:11):
I may be, I hope, like some other people who never
had a clear sense of one pathto follow.
And I think part of thatstarted when I was very young.
My family, my parents, we wouldsit around the dinner table and
argue about different topicsalmost as a sport, and so we
might argue something aboutscience or Stonehenge or
(00:34):
continental drift theory.
My parents argued a lot aboutpolitics and what was going on.
So I saw this wide variety ofideas to start learning about.
When I went to college and thenI've got a master's degree and a
PhD, the same thing happened.
I could never pick one smallthing to stay interested in and
(00:56):
become the expert in house fliesor wasps or whatever that might
be.
So instead, in all of thosedegrees I put together multiple
areas, so multiple disciplines,from German language and history
and political science tocombining international business
with labor, economics and soforth.
So I've always tried to blenddifferent fields and also felt
(01:20):
the need to learn aboutdifferent areas, whether it's
science or art or literature orpolitics or history.
So I guess that was.
The background of my story isthat I am a generalist, I'd like
to say a multidisciplinaryperson, and have just tried to
(01:43):
draw from different fields anddifferent ideas as I make my way
through life, and that hasplayed out in much of what I've
done in my career and now tryingto learn how to write fiction
as a new career.
DanielaSM (01:56):
Yeah, that's wonderful that you said actually
, because there is a lot ofpeople that are generalists.
I like that word.
I remember talking to a youngguy and he said, oh, that is so
bad because you're supposed tobe a specialist.
And I said, no, it's actuallygood to know a little bit of
everything.
It gives you a well-rounded wayof being and you know, my dad
was like that, my grandfatherwas like that, my husband is
(02:18):
like that, and sometimes we feellike, oh, that's wrong, because
you hear these people beingexperts on something.
But it is so.
I'm glad that you're bringingthat story so.
So you think your story startswhen you were younger, on the
dinner table or somewhere else.
Nancy Napier (02:33):
I'm sure it did.
I'm sure it did.
My my father was in the armyfor 20 years and he taught at
West Point, which is themilitary academy for the army,
and he fell in love withteaching.
So he retired and got a PhD andbecame a professor.
So I watched him learn a newfield, learn how to become
(02:55):
somebody in a university versusa military officer.
And even when he was focusingon learning more about he taught
in the business world.
So he taught strategy andbusiness.
He still had these wide varietyof interests in archeology and
in history and sometimes inastronomy.
(03:15):
So it was this constantlearning here's his career.
But he never gave up onlearning about other fields
Opera he got interested in laterin life, and so I think that's
where it was that I saw what arich life my parents could have
by knowing, understanding andtalking about so many different
(03:36):
areas.
Want to do if you can.
If you can do it, go for it.
We're not going to tell youwhat to study, what kind of a
career to have.
It's your decision, and so thatalso, I think, was a big part
of it that I just thought, ohwell, I'll check out all kinds
of areas and see what'sinteresting and pursue them.
DanielaSM (03:56):
Yes, this is good and bad sometimes for me, that I am
very interested and then Ilearn and then I drop it and
then go to the next one.
So it's a bit like a, like a, bI guess, but then I don't know.
You see that sometimes youlearn and you go and you drop it
.
Is that a good thing?
I don't know that.
Nancy Napier (04:16):
I put it in good or bad, I would say it builds a
mosaic of who you are, so thatyou have you have different
stones of what you've learnedand gone into depth on, and then
you can move to another areaand that's still part of you.
Often you can pull somethingfrom it.
I've been a universityprofessor for 35 years and my
(04:38):
research has normally in aboutfive to seven year increments.
I've studied really differenttopics, from strategy and human
resource management to mergersand acquisitions, to
professional women who workabroad, to creativity, to
transitional economies.
I worked in Vietnam a long timeand so each of those I could
(05:02):
shift about every seven years,learn a new topic, write about
it and then I could move on tosomething else.
And I learned that my approachto research is much more kind of
a startup entrepreneurialtopics that people really
weren't studying, and I couldget into that, learn about it,
(05:29):
write about it and then move onto something else.
By the time the field wascatching up and everybody was
becoming specialists and I knewI couldn't compete as a
specialist.
So I don't think there'sanything wrong with building
these mosaics, stones of who youare.
That just makes you a richerperson.
I would hope.
DanielaSM (05:42):
Yes, Jack of all trades are that just makes you a
richer person?
I would hope yes, jack of alltrades.
Oh yeah, yeah Right.
However, you have gotten a bitmore intense.
People usually just learn onething painting three things and
they go.
So you've done a little more,so maybe you're.
Nancy Napier (05:59):
Yeah, if you're serious about it, you'd take a
couple three, four, five, six,seven years.
Okay, yeah, that.
DanielaSM (06:04):
Yeah, okay.
So what happened?
So you went to school and youcouldn't decide, and so were you
in university for a long timethen.
Nancy Napier (06:13):
Oh no, I did decide and I put three areas
together, which was harderbecause I had to have more
professors involved along theway.
But they saw that it made senseto put these different fields
together.
And then I was lucky enough towork for an organization that
did research for business firmsall around the world, and I did
(06:34):
that for about five years.
And that was kind of a goodeducation from a standpoint of
working on a project for threeto six months in some topic and
then moving to another topic inthe business world, in the
research world.
But I learned how to change.
So once again I was jumpingfrom one question to another
question.
(06:54):
I got a PhD and began life as auniversity professor.
DanielaSM (07:01):
So you make your own degree kind of thing, because
you took three things and sothat's not very usual.
Nancy Napier (07:08):
No, no.
I went to Ohio State Universityas a PhD and they have a
program called one of a kinddegree.
So you put together fields thatyou want to study.
Instead of having, I think, twoor three advisor professors, I
had to have four.
It took a long time to createthe documents, to say this is
(07:28):
why I want to do this.
I agreed that it made sense forme and if I can even remember
the three areas so internationalbusiness, labor, economics and
industrial relations, I think Ihad to have professors from
those three different fields,four different fields.
I did my exams in a differentway and dissertation in a little
different way.
I guess I was pretty good atconvincing them that this was
(07:51):
something that was worth doing.
So instead of just majoring inmarketing or just majoring in
finance, if I could slam thesethings together, it was unique
and it was hard to do, but forme it worked.
I have a bachelor's degree and Idid the same thing there.
I put together German language,history and political science,
(08:12):
those three together, and then Ihave a master's degree in
international business, politicsand language.
Again, that was from a master'sprogram called Thunderbird
which was designed that way, sothat one put three areas
together.
You had to prove languageproficiency, you had to take
(08:32):
social science classes ineconomics and politics, and then
you had to take businessclasses and then the PhD.
I said, well, shoot, I'm goingto do the same thing.
So put three fields together,get people to sign off on it,
and then got the degree.
DanielaSM (08:47):
And at the meantime were you working, when you were
studying?
Nancy Napier (08:50):
Not for my bachelor's and master's.
When I was doing the PhD, I wasworking at this research
institute called Battelle, verylarge contract research firm,
worked with businesses and alsoa lot of government contracts.
They now do a lot ofenergy-related research, run a
national laboratory in theUnited States, two of them one
(09:11):
in the state of Washington andactually one in the state of
Idaho where I live.
It was a fabulous education andthen I became teaching and had
to get a little bit morespecialized.
DanielaSM (09:22):
I'm happy that you got guidance to invent these
degrees, because I don't thinkthat usually people know that
this can happen.
Nancy Napier (09:30):
I hope that it's more available now.
The university where I workright now has a similar kind of
program and I think it may becalled it's an interdisciplinary
major, but again, it requiresthe student to drive it.
So the student has to figureout what fields to put together,
has to convince the professorsto be on an advisory committee
and may have different kinds ofrequirements.
(09:51):
So it's definitely that's theway, frankly, environmental
science got started.
People were interested in thescience part, but they were
interested in the public policy,so students started putting
that together.
Now it's become a more commondegree and available across
universities, but so many ofthese startup combination
(10:13):
degrees started because peoplecouldn't find a single one that
they really wanted to pursue.
DanielaSM (10:18):
Interesting.
Okay, so you study a lot, yougot a job in research, and then
what happened?
Nancy Napier (10:25):
I started teaching was at the University of
Washington in Seattle for a fewyears and then had an
opportunity to come to BoiseState University for a year.
There was a man doing research.
He was the only other person inthe country who was doing the
same research I was.
I wrote him a fan letter, onlyone I've ever written.
He worked at Pennsylvania Statebut he was in Boise, idaho, for
(10:48):
some time.
I came down to work with himand then my husband, who was a
banker, came down to Boise andwe fell in love with the place
because of the lifestyle.
Frankly, it's easy to live here.
My commute to work is abouteight minutes when the traffic
is heavy.
I mean it was amazing.
We were looking, hoping to havechildren and we thought we
(11:09):
can't do that as easily inSeattle.
On balance, two careers.
So Boise was an easy place todo that.
We ended up staying.
This was a university thatreally was unknown and I learned
I'm an academic entrepreneur, Ilike to build things, whether
it's research streams orprograms, and so when I moved
(11:32):
here, the dean of the College ofBusiness said would you be
interested in starting aninternational business program
for students?
And I said sure and put thattogether and ran it for a long
time, then had an opportunity towork in Hanoi, vietnam, did a
project there for nine years.
It was an $8 million project tohelp create the country's first
(11:55):
business school, and I neverwould have been able to do that
in my big university of OhioState or Washington.
This school allowed me to be anentrepreneur, allowed us to go
and do this project and that wasa huge life changer for me.
I've been involved in Vietnamfor 30 years, almost one way or
another, and it's been major.
(12:17):
So you lived there for eightyears, ran the project for nine
years.
So I lived there full-time partof the time, but mostly I
commuted back and forth, so I'dbe there six weeks, home two
weeks, or the reverse.
My two sons lived with me for asemester when they were in
third and fourth grades, soeight and nine went to the
(12:38):
international school there andloved it.
That was a major turning pointfor me.
But I tell people, when I wentto Vietnam I had brown hair and
now I have white hair.
It was stressful.
So when I finished I saidthat's it.
I never want to go back there.
What was stressful?
I explained it as a new venturestartup and you've talked to
(12:59):
people who have startedcompanies and how difficult that
can be.
It was the same idea because wecreated the academic side, the
administrative side, thefinancial piece, the IT part,
and we were doing it in acountry where I was in a
university with 10,000 studentsand our office had the only
flush toilet.
At the time there was oneinternational phone line in our
(13:24):
office.
Power went out, a lot Waterwent out.
It was from a physicalstandpoint.
It was just very difficult toget things done.
And then, of course, vietnam isa communist country and so
there are lots and lots ofregulations for getting things
done and a little bit stressfulin terms of how open we could be
and what we could talk aboutand that sort of thing.
(13:45):
So I was ready to stay home whenI finished that, which was the
early 2000s, and looked aroundfor research topics and ended up
starting to study creativityand organizations.
At the time there was loads ofresearch on creativity in
individuals, from artists tomathematicians, creativity in
individuals from artists tomathematicians, but not so much
(14:06):
about organizations, and I hadgotten interested in again
diverse different disciplines.
So I ended up studying asoftware company, county Jail.
The football team at myuniversity is one of the top
ones in the country.
It's famous, started because ithas a blue football field.
But the coach at the time wasbrilliant, didn't realize he was
(14:29):
creative until I worked withhim for a while, but anyway.
So I had law enforcement,software, jail, a Shakespeare
theater, a dance organization,healthcare marketing company and
I put these seven, eightdifferent organizations together
, studied each of them to findout how they were similar or
(14:50):
different on creativity.
And then I used to bring thoseleaders together on a regular
basis so they could talk topeople who were at their level,
top of the organization, but incompletely different fields.
And so to hear them say and Iwrote a book, we all wrote a
book about that experience so wewould say what can a police
(15:11):
officer learn from a footballcoach and what can those people
learn from a dancer or an actorand what can they learn from a
healthcare person?
The leaders of thoseorganizations.
The big takeaway was when theygot together they talked about
leadership issues they faced andthe number one was how do you
(15:33):
build a good culture in yourorganization?
I wrote a very simple to readbook about leadership ideas from
those people and about culturehow do you build it using those
diverse organizations that wecalled the gang, so kind of a
scary name, but it was a hasbeen a wonderful experience.
DanielaSM (15:52):
That sounds super interesting.
So then, did these meetingshelped for each of them to go
back and create a better culture?
Nancy Napier (16:01):
Mm-hmm.
So the book that we did calledit Wise, beyond your Field had
some principles.
It makes me think of RobertGreene's 48 Laws.
Well, these were maybe a dozenkey principles that they had
learned and used in differentorganizations.
So one person would talk abouta process they used to come up
(16:24):
with ideas.
Another organization would takethat and use it.
Or the idea in sports andfootball, which I know nothing
about.
You have coaches that focus oncertain positions that the
players are in.
The software company took thatconcept and applied it in its
organization to develop reallystrong position coaches.
(16:47):
So they learned from each otherand I think we met maybe for
five, six years, seven yearsthat they met on a regular basis
.
These are top level people.
What I discovered and thensought out, these were
organizations that were known ashighly creative.
They were trying new things butthey were seen as high
(17:09):
performers in their fields.
However, that was measured.
So for the Shakespeare Theater,there was a case study that
Yale University Drama Schoolwrote about them.
The New York Times wrote aboutthem.
For the football program, itwas rated in the top whatever 10
in the country.
So whatever measure said,you're a high-performing
(17:32):
organization and you're creative.
I wanted them here, and Irealized I live in a very remote
part of the US and so thesepeople really didn't have
equivalent leaders to go to.
The software person said if Ilived in Silicon Valley, I could
walk across the street and talkto somebody about my problems.
(17:53):
I don't have anybody here otherthan a football coach, a
sheriff of a jail, so that again, that goes back, I think, to
what we started with buildingbridges across different
disciplines and fields, and sothis was another way to do it to
what we started with buildingbridges across different
disciplines and fields, and sothis was another way to do it.
(18:13):
How do you thought about puttingall these people together?
I got interested inorganizational creativity and I
stumbled onto the footballprogram and the software company
.
And what was the third one?
The law enforcement, the jailcompany.
And what was the third one?
The law enforcement, the jail.
And so one summer I went andinterviewed them and wrote case
studies about theseorganizations and they were so
(18:33):
interested in what I was findingthey said, well, can we meet?
I thought, well, sure, thatmakes sense.
So it started as a researchproject for me to understand
creativity in organizations thatwere super different from each
other, and then we expanded it.
So I looked for organizationsthat were different, that were
(18:54):
creative and that were highlyperforming, and grew it to seven
, eight leaders, leaders, andthen over time, another
colleague and I created I thinkat one point we had six of these
different multidisciplinarylearning groups going.
So different types oforganizations, but it was always
(19:18):
high level people from verydifferent organizations.
So we had the basketball coachand a newspaper, the top
newspaper here, the leader ofthat, together with several
other people.
So it was.
These gangs were really greatbecause people, it was
completely confidential, theywere all at the same level.
(19:40):
They could talk and nobody hadan agenda.
So I could put an idea out andthe other person could take it
or not, and no one felt likethey had to push it or there was
no competition it was wonderful.
DanielaSM (19:53):
So we have established already that you are
a bit of a genius and veryclever woman.
No, but how these ideas come toyou Like you're taking a shower
, wake up in the morning andsuddenly, oh what if I did this
research?
How is the process here, Nancy?
Nancy Napier (20:10):
Exactly what you were talking about when we first
started, that we are both verycurious, we both sounds like.
We both read that you want togo into different fields and try
things out and you study andyou learn, and that's what
happens.
I've learned that I can seeareas of gaps where, at least in
(20:31):
research when I was doing muchmore of it that it just hadn't
been studied.
For the creativity one, thathappened over time.
I saw dots information aroundand I finally went to my CEO
friend and I said I'm seeingarticles that say creativity in
(20:51):
the United States is droppingcompared to China and countries
in Europe.
Our research is just steady andthey're speeding up.
I'm seeing one or twouniversity presidents making
comments about how ourengineering schools are not as
strong as they were.
They need to get stronger.
So there were three or fourpoints dots and I went to him
(21:12):
and he said, oh, that's easy, soI give him credit for that
research.
He said we've seen ourselves ascreative and innovative in the
United States.
We're doing what we've alwaysbeen doing.
Other countries are realizingthey want to get better at
creativity and innovation andthey're doing it intentionally.
(21:34):
And so I said, oh my gosh, Ineed to start doing teaching
this stuff in my classes and Ialso need to learn more about it
myself.
So that's how that one cameabout.
But it took me a couple of yearsto find that topic to really
get my teeth into.
I looked at other topics thatwere big at the time and this
(21:55):
one made sense and now it's muchmore common.
So lots of people talk aboutcreativity and innovation in
organizations.
So I don't know what I wouldlook for now.
I haven't really thought aboutit but as a traditional research
stream.
But really it's curiosity.
It's seeing these differentdots and thinking, gosh, can I
(22:18):
pull those together, like I didfor the fields in my degrees and
bringing these different peopletogether from leadership
positions and very diverseorganizations.
So, as a child, how?
DanielaSM (22:30):
was your curiosity.
Nancy Napier (22:33):
Well, I credit my parents for that in terms of
they exposed us and and I did alittle bit of that with my own
son so I was always doing somekind of an artwork class, but
also something in science, andso when our kids were little,
they wanted to do a lot ofsports.
I said, great, but you alsohave to do some art course after
(22:55):
school.
So one of them did they bothdid tennis as a sport.
One of them picked piano andstayed with it for 10 years.
The other one did tap dancingand playing a saxophone and
theater and drawing, and he'sbecome an actor.
But I want you to have bothsides of your brain working here
(23:19):
, and my folks did that a lottoo, just exposing us to.
As I said, my dad wasinterested in archeology a
little bit, and so I used to.
I read a little bit about itand he collected as a child.
Were you different?
I was, yeah, I was smart, andin those days, girls couldn't
show that they were smart.
When my father finished his PhD,we went as a family.
(23:43):
When he was an army officer.
We never took vacations.
So the first vacation we tookas a family was when he was an
army officer, we never tookvacations.
So the first vacation we tookas a family was to go to Europe
for a month, and that was thefirst time where I felt like, ah
, I can see that there arepeople who live on this line and
you step over and they speak adifferent language and it's more
fluid and more.
It was just fascinating to me.
So that did it.
(24:04):
So I went to college and made myway to Europe a number of times
, studied for a year in Munich,germany, learned how to speak
German there and it just feltbetter.
I was in high school in a veryit was a university town, but
small in the South in Arkansasin the US, and I never, never,
(24:25):
never fit.
I couldn't wait to leave.
So I think that sense of beingable to see and be part of
different cultures, that wasjust became water.
I needed it.
And now, working in Vietnam,that's my second home.
It's very comfortable for menow, lots of friends there, and
I've watched the place changeover the years dramatically.
(24:48):
Did you also learn?
DanielaSM (24:48):
Vietnamese.
Nancy Napier (24:50):
I tried when I was working there fuller time I
tried.
It's a tonal language so it'sjust super hard.
But everybody in the project Iwas running wanted to speak
English, needed to learn English.
So they insisted we speakEnglish.
So I did.
I, you know, I know a littlebit of tax evis.
DanielaSM (25:08):
And that university is still amazing.
Nancy Napier (25:11):
Oh yeah, it's one of the top ones in the country
and so that we helped build thisbusiness school within the
university.
Our university continues tohave a good relationship and we
send students back and forth.
Now my teaching is all in ourexecutive master's of business
program.
We take the group between 20and 25 participants.
(25:33):
We take them to Hanoi, vietnam,every year for a week and it's
like a trade mission almost.
We have a few speakers, butthey are doing projects for
companies, either to find newmarkets or to find supply
sources.
Because we know so many peopleover there, we're able to plug
them into the appropriatedecision makers.
(25:53):
So, again, we have a greatrelationship.
I just was part of a group thattook our university president
and the dean of the businesscollege over to Vietnam and they
did a fantastic job speaking ata conference and opening up
avenues for us to do more workwith different universities
there.
So I hope we'll have a long.
(26:15):
I need to kind of pull back andlet other younger folks take
over on that, and they will, soI'm excited about it, that's
great as a mom were youresearching a lot of things too?
I guess one of the first and abit of a challenge when our our
both of our sons are adoptedfrom Asia.
And when the first one came, hewas about a year old, from
(26:36):
Korea, and when he startedtalking I said to my husband
you're from Germany.
He's from Germany originally,still has family there.
I studied German in college andspeak it.
I say I speak it fluently, notfluently, so they know I'm not
German, but they don't know whatI am.
Anyway, I said let's speak toour son in German, or let's try
(27:00):
this so he can be bilingual.
So the agreement was we'd tryit for three months.
So for one month I spokeEnglish, he spoke German and our
son only spoke to me.
I said, okay, how about?
For the next two months, Ispeak German too.
Of course, by the end of thethree-month period our son was
speaking German to both of us.
(27:20):
Both sons grew up speakingGerman until they were 12 or 13.
It wasn't cool to speak Germanin public, convinced if they go
back in a week they'd have it.
So it's a very strong part ofthem.
One son studied German incollege too.
Have it.
So it's a very strong part ofthem.
One son studied German incollege too.
Yes, I had to do the research onhow does bilingualism for kids
(27:43):
work when they're young?
How do you teach them thedifferent approaches?
Yeah, so that was one, and then, I guess, same thing in terms
of having them come to schoolabroad.
They were with me for asemester in Belgium early on, so
they learned Flemish, and thenin Vietnam, the school they went
to.
They came home one day and saidmom, the only people who speak
just one language are theAmericans.
(28:04):
Everybody else speaks more thanone language.
And so for the first time theywere normal.
They spoke two languages andthat was normal.
So over time, yeah, I've doneresearch on a lot on the
language part, but then justraising boys, which is I had no
idea how much challenge thatcould be.
So it's been fun.
DanielaSM (28:23):
Yes, we have also two boys and I went to German
emergent school in Venezuela.
If you know about Humboldt,which I know, in American they
said Humboldt, oh sure, yeah, hewas a naturalist in the 80s,
something.
Yes, I've read about him, so hewent most South America and came
all the way to Canada becausethere's a town called Humboldt
(28:45):
too.
In every city like Lima, bogota, caracas, they all have a
Humboldt Schule.
Oh, there was a German sectionwhere all the people come from
the embassies and everybody whowas here for a while were having
their kids there, and then theyhad the immersion.
(29:05):
You know, like we get Germanonce a day.
Yeah, so I was in that school.
My father was German.
Wow, it was hard to learnbecause I was speaking Spanish
all the time.
My dad didn't want to speak tome in German because he said I
want to be your friend, andGerman doesn't sound like that.
So I only learned it by going,since I was 11.
For two months I would go tofamilies that I didn't know in
(29:28):
the north, close to Essen,oldenburg, and then so I spoke
German, but I always had anaccent.
I'm not very good at losing it.
I spoke German first, but then,when I learned English which it
was when I was 20, I gotconfused because it was so
similar, hoping somewhere in theback of my head.
Nancy Napier (29:47):
Well, please tell me when you come back.
Tell me how that worked.
Oh, and it will come back.
I'm sure we go over every yearor so and it's a struggle.
The first few days my headhurts, but it comes back.
You know there's a Humboldt inCalifornia.
Now I'm wondering if he passedthrough there.
Sure, we can do a little moreresearch on that.
DanielaSM (30:07):
Yes, I actually should read more about him.
Anyway, going back to you, sowhat happens?
So now you are working withuniversity and you have to
create all these projects, butthen you decided to be a writer,
or you were a writer.
Well, you have been writtenbooks already.
Nancy Napier (30:23):
Yeah, I've written nonfiction my whole life.
I had to for work and academics.
I retired a few years ago butcontinue with the executive MBA
program, so I'm no longer havingto sit in on meetings and teach
undergraduate students.
When my sons left, I thoughtI'm not up to date with the
music and all the culturalthings that younger people know,
(30:47):
and so I thought I can't teach20-year-olds if I don't know
what's going on in their culture, so their lives.
So now I teach really supersmart adults and they're
fantastic.
But I've tried over the yearsto write fiction.
Probably 10 years ago I took anonline course and I at one
point said you know, I can't dothis, I'm not good at lying.
(31:07):
And one of the other studentsin the course said well, it's
not lying, it's using yourimagination.
And I thought well, maybe Idon't have any imagination.
So I stopped for a while.
Pandemic arrived and I thoughtI'm going to try this again, so
I thought this should be noproblem.
I've been writing my whole lifeand I've even some of these
(31:28):
more recent books.
I've used creative writingapproaches in them to make them
a little more lively, and thiswill be well.
I am learning.
This is one of the hardestthings I've ever tried to do, so
in the pandemic I just burnedout three or four quote novels,
one of them I was able to turninto actually I think that's the
(31:49):
one I mentioned to you, so it'sa mystery, and so that has
worked.
Now I'm working on one aboutart crime in Vietnam.
One of my goals is to helppeople know Vietnam in a way.
That's not about the Americanwar or oh, it's got great food.
There are other parts of it,and so if I can help people
understand that.
(32:10):
But the writing of this novelfrom a writing standpoint is
incredibly difficult and hard.
In fact, after we talk thisafternoon, I'm going to talk to
an editor who's just sent me abunch of feedback that was very
hard to get but quite accurateon things I need to do better
and differently.
(32:30):
Yeah, so I call myself afiction writer in training.
It just amazes me how complex,difficult it can be.
I've sort of decided I'm justgoing to do it to learn about it
, and I'm not going to have tosend my kids to college based on
what I make in writing books,which is not much, but I'm
(32:52):
really learning it.
And it uses again, uses yourbrain in a different way.
At the same time, about twoyears ago I decided my husband,
my sons, are huge tennis playersand they've always said I
needed to learn and I would takea lesson for two days and say,
no, I'll just watch you, I'llcheer you on.
I decided to try and learn.
So I'm a beginning tennisplayer and, frankly, one of the
(33:16):
unexpected benefits of both thewriting and the tennis is that
I'm forced into the role ofbeing a beginner.
And so I see tennis instructor,writing instructors.
They have to say things to meso many times before.
Oh, I get it and they'vealready said it 50 times, but
I'm finally hearing it.
So that has been important withmy teaching.
(33:38):
So I'm teaching very smartadults strategy or creativity or
about organizational culture,and so all this material to me.
I know it well, but they don't.
So it forces me to remember tosay do have them experience the
concepts in multiple ways.
So after they've experienced itfour or five ways, they say oh,
(34:03):
oh.
And I'm thinking yes, they,finally they see it too.
So being forced to be abeginner has been fabulous.
Once more, it is not easy.
Once more, it is not easy.
It's not easy, but that'sanother benefit.
I think you said you like tolearn a lot of different things
and I think of it as a mosaic.
But every time you do that,you're forced back into beginner
(34:23):
role and it keeps your mindfresh.
DanielaSM (34:26):
That invigoration that makes you feel when you
actually know the subject.
Nancy Napier (34:32):
You need that too, and you have that.
DanielaSM (34:34):
So then on the other side, here you can do the
learning part Absolutely didn'tthink anything about Vietnam
(34:56):
actually, and then I went toHanoi and I thought it was
beautiful.
To me, the most interestingpart is the influence that well,
the influence they have from somany countries and especially
the French.
It was quite fascinating, very,very With the food and the
coffee and the buildings thatwere bizarre.
Nancy Napier (35:10):
You know I think you're right that other than
Americans and as Americans getolder they won't focus on it as
much.
But it amazes me that 50 yearslater there are still people
maybe my age, a little bityounger, older that still talk
about the war and I just make apoint to just talk about other
kinds of things.
(35:30):
And this is a country that isincredibly competitive and they
are growing so rapidly.
We're going to have to watchout.
The very first day I arrived inVietnam in 1994, one of the
professors at the school sothese are people who had gone
through all kinds of hard thingsand had two changes of clothing
and belts that wrapped allaround their waist because they
(35:52):
were so thin.
He said we conquered you in thewar, we will conquer you in
business.
And I thought we don't evenhave power in this building and
it goes out.
If it's on, it goes off and thewater is unpredictable.
You're saying this to me andthey're absolutely right.
They have such resilience andgrit, ability to work hard and
(36:13):
they're doing it and succeedingwell.
Of course, as they do that,they're also facing problems
that any other country is, withpollution and more traffic and
all that.
DanielaSM (36:22):
In South America you live, or at least in Venezuela,
with a sense of surviving, andso it's constantly that solving
problems Well, exactly.
Nancy Napier (36:31):
I mean, the extreme was when I first got
there.
There were no cars, of course,and so there were mostly
bicycles and then somemotorbikes.
But every man knew how to fixthe motorbike because they
always broke down and they couldfix anything the air
conditioning in the house if youhad air conditioning, the
(36:52):
electricity, the water, thephone, whatever it was, they
knew how to fix it.
And I remember one of themsaying, as we get more reliable,
fill in the blank, electricitypower, all that we will lose
that ability to solve problemsin new ways, because somebody
else will be called in to solvethe problem of the printer or
the computer.
(37:12):
We won't be able to solve itourselves.
DanielaSM (37:15):
Yeah, all right, so well, getting back to you, so
you are now writing fictionbooks and it's a challenge, but
you're doing really well.
Nancy Napier (37:24):
I work at it.
I work at it.
I don't think it'll ever beeasy.
DanielaSM (37:30):
but that's probably the point, isn't?
It Should never be easy.
Yes, that and tennis.
What else I mean?
Is it ever going to end?
Nancy Napier (37:35):
I hope not right.
There's always something new tolearn.
I am a I've learned over theyears.
We've been fortunate enough togo to Africa on several safaris
and I've learned that I am ajunkie when, if I ever won the
lottery, I would oh I would goas often as I can.
I fear that those animals maynot be there in the next decade
or two, so I want to go see asmuch as I can of them in the
(38:00):
wildlife.
So one thing in the back of mymind is what can I do to help
that?
And other than money I'vethought about there actually are
programs for people to go andlearn about guiding.
So you learn about the tracksof the animals, you learn how to
see them, you learn about theflora and the fauna and the
(38:21):
birds.
So that would be something thatwould be really fun.
In the meantime, I read a lotabout nature and wildlife and,
given climate change and what'sgoing on, so that's something
that's sort of on the sidelinethat I like to read about and
learn about a little bit, and Idon't know what else.
We'll have to see how it goes.
I'm having enough troubletrying to learn about art.
That'll be on my list for awhile.
DanielaSM (38:44):
Yeah, so bravo for curiosity, I guess one of the
best traits that some people canhave.
I think so.
Nancy Napier (38:49):
I got interested in curiosity a few years ago
when we had some visitors fromVietnam.
One of the daughters wanted tosee snow and so we drove up into
the mountains here and on theway there were pockets of snow
still in the high level, highelevations, and we stopped for
her to go up and touch it and soforth.
And I thought I said what doyou know about snow?
She said not much.
I've read about it and I'veseen pictures of it, but I
(39:12):
wanted to touch it and feel itand all.
So I looked up curiosity.
So curiosity happens when wehave a little bit of knowledge
about something and then we wantto have more knowledge.
If we have a whole lot of it,sometimes we're not as curious
anymore, right.
But if we have no knowledge, wedon't even know to be curious,
(39:38):
curious.
So back to.
That's why I expose myself.
I read lots, lots.
I read a lot of differentnewspapers and different types
of books, so that I'm alwaysthinking about what's out there
that's interesting, that mightbe something I want to learn
more about.
So to have a little bit ofknowledge and then you can build
that into a deeper knowledgewith that curiosity.
I think is good for everybody.
Well, so he's the deepknowledge.
I'm the flat.
I like to know a little bitabout a lot of different things,
so yes, yes.
DanielaSM (39:59):
This is a perfect way of ending this story of yours,
because great explanation aboutcuriosity and how wonderful it
is to be with curiosity andlearn so many things over the
world, I think also make us moreopen and more compassionate to
other people to understand aswell.
And we're not going to be allladies that are closed and set
(40:20):
in their ways, right?
I hope not, we don't want to.
No One of my aunts she's 92,and she says I like to be
complimentary, not contradictory.
Oh, I like that, yes.
So that's why I think it helpsto be curious and be accepting
to things.
Nancy Napier (40:38):
I agree.
Yeah, curiosity is such a.
If we can instill that inchildren and they keep it, what
a wonderful thing.
DanielaSM (40:45):
So yes, so thank you so much, nancy, for sharing your
story.
It was lovely conversation aswell.
I really really enlightened andenthusiastic and I am so
inspired, actually, actually,from listening to you.
Nancy Napier (40:57):
Well you're a great interviewer.
I do a lot of that in my workand so I know how hard that can
be with good questions, andyou're really good at it.
Thank you, thank you, Iappreciate it.
Thank you so much for invitingme, thanks.
Welcome, Nancy, to the show.
I'm very happy that you're here.
Nancy Napier (00:03):
I'm delighted to be with you, thanks for asking
me.
DanielaSM (00:06):
Yes, I know that you have a story to share, so why do
you want to share your story?
Nancy Napier (00:11):
I may be, I hope, like some other people who never
had a clear sense of one pathto follow.
And I think part of thatstarted when I was very young.
My family, my parents, we wouldsit around the dinner table and
argue about different topicsalmost as a sport, and so we
might argue something aboutscience or Stonehenge or
(00:34):
continental drift theory.
My parents argued a lot aboutpolitics and what was going on.
So I saw this wide variety ofideas to start learning about.
When I went to college and thenI've got a master's degree and a
PhD, the same thing happened.
I could never pick one smallthing to stay interested in and
(00:56):
become the expert in house fliesor wasps or whatever that might
be.
So instead, in all of thosedegrees I put together multiple
areas, so multiple disciplines,from German language and history
and political science tocombining international business
with labor, economics and soforth.
So I've always tried to blenddifferent fields and also felt
(01:20):
the need to learn aboutdifferent areas, whether it's
science or art or literature orpolitics or history.
So I guess that was.
The background of my story isthat I am a generalist, I'd like
to say a multidisciplinaryperson, and have just tried to
(01:43):
draw from different fields anddifferent ideas as I make my way
through life, and that hasplayed out in much of what I've
done in my career and now tryingto learn how to write fiction
as a new career.
DanielaSM (01:56):
Yeah, that's wonderful that you said actually
, because there is a lot ofpeople that are generalists.
I like that word.
I remember talking to a youngguy and he said, oh, that is so
bad because you're supposed tobe a specialist.
And I said, no, it's actuallygood to know a little bit of
everything.
It gives you a well-rounded wayof being and you know, my dad
was like that, my grandfatherwas like that, my husband is
(02:18):
like that, and sometimes we feellike, oh, that's wrong, because
you hear these people beingexperts on something.
But it is so.
I'm glad that you're bringingthat story so.
So you think your story startswhen you were younger, on the
dinner table or somewhere else.
Nancy Napier (02:33):
I'm sure it did.
I'm sure it did.
My my father was in the armyfor 20 years and he taught at
West Point, which is themilitary academy for the army,
and he fell in love withteaching.
So he retired and got a PhD andbecame a professor.
So I watched him learn a newfield, learn how to become
(02:55):
somebody in a university versusa military officer.
And even when he was focusingon learning more about he taught
in the business world.
So he taught strategy andbusiness.
He still had these wide varietyof interests in archeology and
in history and sometimes inastronomy.
(03:15):
So it was this constantlearning here's his career.
But he never gave up onlearning about other fields
Opera he got interested in laterin life, and so I think that's
where it was that I saw what arich life my parents could have
by knowing, understanding andtalking about so many different
(03:36):
areas.
Want to do if you can.
If you can do it, go for it.
We're not going to tell youwhat to study, what kind of a
career to have.
It's your decision, and so thatalso, I think, was a big part
of it that I just thought, ohwell, I'll check out all kinds
of areas and see what'sinteresting and pursue them.
DanielaSM (03:56):
Yes, this is good and bad sometimes for me, that I am
very interested and then Ilearn and then I drop it and
then go to the next one.
So it's a bit like a, like a, bI guess, but then I don't know.
You see that sometimes youlearn and you go and you drop it
.
Is that a good thing?
I don't know that.
Nancy Napier (04:16):
I put it in good or bad, I would say it builds a
mosaic of who you are, so thatyou have you have different
stones of what you've learnedand gone into depth on, and then
you can move to another areaand that's still part of you.
Often you can pull somethingfrom it.
I've been a universityprofessor for 35 years and my
(04:38):
research has normally in aboutfive to seven year increments.
I've studied really differenttopics, from strategy and human
resource management to mergersand acquisitions, to
professional women who workabroad, to creativity, to
transitional economies.
I worked in Vietnam a long timeand so each of those I could
(05:02):
shift about every seven years,learn a new topic, write about
it and then I could move on tosomething else.
And I learned that my approachto research is much more kind of
a startup entrepreneurialtopics that people really
weren't studying, and I couldget into that, learn about it,
(05:29):
write about it and then move onto something else.
By the time the field wascatching up and everybody was
becoming specialists and I knewI couldn't compete as a
specialist.
So I don't think there'sanything wrong with building
these mosaics, stones of who youare.
That just makes you a richerperson.
I would hope.
DanielaSM (05:42):
Yes, Jack of all trades are that just makes you a
richer person?
I would hope yes, jack of alltrades.
Oh yeah, yeah Right.
However, you have gotten a bitmore intense.
People usually just learn onething painting three things and
they go.
So you've done a little more,so maybe you're.
Nancy Napier (05:59):
Yeah, if you're serious about it, you'd take a
couple three, four, five, six,seven years.
Okay, yeah, that.
DanielaSM (06:04):
Yeah, okay.
So what happened?
So you went to school and youcouldn't decide, and so were you
in university for a long timethen.
Nancy Napier (06:13):
Oh no, I did decide and I put three areas
together, which was harderbecause I had to have more
professors involved along theway.
But they saw that it made senseto put these different fields
together.
And then I was lucky enough towork for an organization that
did research for business firmsall around the world, and I did
(06:34):
that for about five years.
And that was kind of a goodeducation from a standpoint of
working on a project for threeto six months in some topic and
then moving to another topic inthe business world, in the
research world.
But I learned how to change.
So once again I was jumpingfrom one question to another
question.
(06:54):
I got a PhD and began life as auniversity professor.
DanielaSM (07:01):
So you make your own degree kind of thing, because
you took three things and sothat's not very usual.
Nancy Napier (07:08):
No, no.
I went to Ohio State Universityas a PhD and they have a
program called one of a kinddegree.
So you put together fields thatyou want to study.
Instead of having, I think, twoor three advisor professors, I
had to have four.
It took a long time to createthe documents, to say this is
(07:28):
why I want to do this.
I agreed that it made sense forme and if I can even remember
the three areas so internationalbusiness, labor, economics and
industrial relations, I think Ihad to have professors from
those three different fields,four different fields.
I did my exams in a differentway and dissertation in a little
different way.
I guess I was pretty good atconvincing them that this was
(07:51):
something that was worth doing.
So instead of just majoring inmarketing or just majoring in
finance, if I could slam thesethings together, it was unique
and it was hard to do, but forme it worked.
I have a bachelor's degree and Idid the same thing there.
I put together German language,history and political science,
(08:12):
those three together, and then Ihave a master's degree in
international business, politicsand language.
Again, that was from a master'sprogram called Thunderbird
which was designed that way, sothat one put three areas
together.
You had to prove languageproficiency, you had to take
(08:32):
social science classes ineconomics and politics, and then
you had to take businessclasses and then the PhD.
I said, well, shoot, I'm goingto do the same thing.
So put three fields together,get people to sign off on it,
and then got the degree.
DanielaSM (08:47):
And at the meantime were you working, when you were
studying?
Nancy Napier (08:50):
Not for my bachelor's and master's.
When I was doing the PhD, I wasworking at this research
institute called Battelle, verylarge contract research firm,
worked with businesses and alsoa lot of government contracts.
They now do a lot ofenergy-related research, run a
national laboratory in theUnited States, two of them one
(09:11):
in the state of Washington andactually one in the state of
Idaho where I live.
It was a fabulous education andthen I became teaching and had
to get a little bit morespecialized.
DanielaSM (09:22):
I'm happy that you got guidance to invent these
degrees, because I don't thinkthat usually people know that
this can happen.
Nancy Napier (09:30):
I hope that it's more available now.
The university where I workright now has a similar kind of
program and I think it may becalled it's an interdisciplinary
major, but again, it requiresthe student to drive it.
So the student has to figureout what fields to put together,
has to convince the professorsto be on an advisory committee
and may have different kinds ofrequirements.
(09:51):
So it's definitely that's theway, frankly, environmental
science got started.
People were interested in thescience part, but they were
interested in the public policy,so students started putting
that together.
Now it's become a more commondegree and available across
universities, but so many ofthese startup combination
(10:13):
degrees started because peoplecouldn't find a single one that
they really wanted to pursue.
DanielaSM (10:18):
Interesting.
Okay, so you study a lot, yougot a job in research, and then
what happened?
Nancy Napier (10:25):
I started teaching was at the University of
Washington in Seattle for a fewyears and then had an
opportunity to come to BoiseState University for a year.
There was a man doing research.
He was the only other person inthe country who was doing the
same research I was.
I wrote him a fan letter, onlyone I've ever written.
He worked at Pennsylvania Statebut he was in Boise, idaho, for
(10:48):
some time.
I came down to work with himand then my husband, who was a
banker, came down to Boise andwe fell in love with the place
because of the lifestyle.
Frankly, it's easy to live here.
My commute to work is abouteight minutes when the traffic
is heavy.
I mean it was amazing.
We were looking, hoping to havechildren and we thought we
(11:09):
can't do that as easily inSeattle.
On balance, two careers.
So Boise was an easy place todo that.
We ended up staying.
This was a university thatreally was unknown and I learned
I'm an academic entrepreneur, Ilike to build things, whether
it's research streams orprograms, and so when I moved
(11:32):
here, the dean of the College ofBusiness said would you be
interested in starting aninternational business program
for students?
And I said sure and put thattogether and ran it for a long
time, then had an opportunity towork in Hanoi, vietnam, did a
project there for nine years.
It was an $8 million project tohelp create the country's first
(11:55):
business school, and I neverwould have been able to do that
in my big university of OhioState or Washington.
This school allowed me to be anentrepreneur, allowed us to go
and do this project and that wasa huge life changer for me.
I've been involved in Vietnamfor 30 years, almost one way or
another, and it's been major.
(12:17):
So you lived there for eightyears, ran the project for nine
years.
So I lived there full-time partof the time, but mostly I
commuted back and forth, so I'dbe there six weeks, home two
weeks, or the reverse.
My two sons lived with me for asemester when they were in
third and fourth grades, soeight and nine went to the
(12:38):
international school there andloved it.
That was a major turning pointfor me.
But I tell people, when I wentto Vietnam I had brown hair and
now I have white hair.
It was stressful.
So when I finished I saidthat's it.
I never want to go back there.
What was stressful?
I explained it as a new venturestartup and you've talked to
(12:59):
people who have startedcompanies and how difficult that
can be.
It was the same idea because wecreated the academic side, the
administrative side, thefinancial piece, the IT part,
and we were doing it in acountry where I was in a
university with 10,000 studentsand our office had the only
flush toilet.
At the time there was oneinternational phone line in our
(13:24):
office.
Power went out, a lot Waterwent out.
It was from a physicalstandpoint.
It was just very difficult toget things done.
And then, of course, vietnam isa communist country and so
there are lots and lots ofregulations for getting things
done and a little bit stressfulin terms of how open we could be
and what we could talk aboutand that sort of thing.
(13:45):
So I was ready to stay home whenI finished that, which was the
early 2000s, and looked aroundfor research topics and ended up
starting to study creativityand organizations.
At the time there was loads ofresearch on creativity in
individuals, from artists tomathematicians, creativity in
individuals from artists tomathematicians, but not so much
(14:06):
about organizations, and I hadgotten interested in again
diverse different disciplines.
So I ended up studying asoftware company, county Jail.
The football team at myuniversity is one of the top
ones in the country.
It's famous, started because ithas a blue football field.
But the coach at the time wasbrilliant, didn't realize he was
(14:29):
creative until I worked withhim for a while, but anyway.
So I had law enforcement,software, jail, a Shakespeare
theater, a dance organization,healthcare marketing company and
I put these seven, eightdifferent organizations together
, studied each of them to findout how they were similar or
(14:50):
different on creativity.
And then I used to bring thoseleaders together on a regular
basis so they could talk topeople who were at their level,
top of the organization, but incompletely different fields.
And so to hear them say and Iwrote a book, we all wrote a
book about that experience so wewould say what can a police
(15:11):
officer learn from a footballcoach and what can those people
learn from a dancer or an actorand what can they learn from a
healthcare person?
The leaders of thoseorganizations.
The big takeaway was when theygot together they talked about
leadership issues they faced andthe number one was how do you
(15:33):
build a good culture in yourorganization?
I wrote a very simple to readbook about leadership ideas from
those people and about culturehow do you build it using those
diverse organizations that wecalled the gang, so kind of a
scary name, but it was a hasbeen a wonderful experience.
DanielaSM (15:52):
That sounds super interesting.
So then, did these meetingshelped for each of them to go
back and create a better culture?
Nancy Napier (16:01):
Mm-hmm.
So the book that we did calledit Wise, beyond your Field had
some principles.
It makes me think of RobertGreene's 48 Laws.
Well, these were maybe a dozenkey principles that they had
learned and used in differentorganizations.
So one person would talk abouta process they used to come up
(16:24):
with ideas.
Another organization would takethat and use it.
Or the idea in sports andfootball, which I know nothing
about.
You have coaches that focus oncertain positions that the
players are in.
The software company took thatconcept and applied it in its
organization to develop reallystrong position coaches.
(16:47):
So they learned from each otherand I think we met maybe for
five, six years, seven yearsthat they met on a regular basis
.
These are top level people.
What I discovered and thensought out, these were
organizations that were known ashighly creative.
They were trying new things butthey were seen as high
(17:09):
performers in their fields.
However, that was measured.
So for the Shakespeare Theater,there was a case study that
Yale University Drama Schoolwrote about them.
The New York Times wrote aboutthem.
For the football program, itwas rated in the top whatever 10
in the country.
So whatever measure said,you're a high-performing
(17:32):
organization and you're creative.
I wanted them here, and Irealized I live in a very remote
part of the US and so thesepeople really didn't have
equivalent leaders to go to.
The software person said if Ilived in Silicon Valley, I could
walk across the street and talkto somebody about my problems.
(17:53):
I don't have anybody here otherthan a football coach, a
sheriff of a jail, so that again, that goes back, I think, to
what we started with buildingbridges across different
disciplines and fields, and sothis was another way to do it to
what we started with buildingbridges across different
disciplines and fields, and sothis was another way to do it.
(18:13):
How do you thought about puttingall these people together?
I got interested inorganizational creativity and I
stumbled onto the footballprogram and the software company
.
And what was the third one?
The law enforcement, the jailcompany.
And what was the third one?
The law enforcement, the jail.
And so one summer I went andinterviewed them and wrote case
studies about theseorganizations and they were so
(18:33):
interested in what I was findingthey said, well, can we meet?
I thought, well, sure, thatmakes sense.
So it started as a researchproject for me to understand
creativity in organizations thatwere super different from each
other, and then we expanded it.
So I looked for organizationsthat were different, that were
(18:54):
creative and that were highlyperforming, and grew it to seven
, eight leaders, leaders, andthen over time, another
colleague and I created I thinkat one point we had six of these
different multidisciplinarylearning groups going.
So different types oforganizations, but it was always
(19:18):
high level people from verydifferent organizations.
So we had the basketball coachand a newspaper, the top
newspaper here, the leader ofthat, together with several
other people.
So it was.
These gangs were really greatbecause people, it was
completely confidential, theywere all at the same level.
(19:40):
They could talk and nobody hadan agenda.
So I could put an idea out andthe other person could take it
or not, and no one felt likethey had to push it or there was
no competition it was wonderful.
DanielaSM (19:53):
So we have established already that you are
a bit of a genius and veryclever woman.
No, but how these ideas come toyou Like you're taking a shower
, wake up in the morning andsuddenly, oh what if I did this
research?
How is the process here, Nancy?
Nancy Napier (20:10):
Exactly what you were talking about when we first
started, that we are both verycurious, we both sounds like.
We both read that you want togo into different fields and try
things out and you study andyou learn, and that's what
happens.
I've learned that I can seeareas of gaps where, at least in
(20:31):
research when I was doing muchmore of it that it just hadn't
been studied.
For the creativity one, thathappened over time.
I saw dots information aroundand I finally went to my CEO
friend and I said I'm seeingarticles that say creativity in
(20:51):
the United States is droppingcompared to China and countries
in Europe.
Our research is just steady andthey're speeding up.
I'm seeing one or twouniversity presidents making
comments about how ourengineering schools are not as
strong as they were.
They need to get stronger.
So there were three or fourpoints dots and I went to him
(21:12):
and he said, oh, that's easy, soI give him credit for that
research.
He said we've seen ourselves ascreative and innovative in the
United States.
We're doing what we've alwaysbeen doing.
Other countries are realizingthey want to get better at
creativity and innovation andthey're doing it intentionally.
(21:34):
And so I said, oh my gosh, Ineed to start doing teaching
this stuff in my classes and Ialso need to learn more about it
myself.
So that's how that one cameabout.
But it took me a couple of yearsto find that topic to really
get my teeth into.
I looked at other topics thatwere big at the time and this
(21:55):
one made sense and now it's muchmore common.
So lots of people talk aboutcreativity and innovation in
organizations.
So I don't know what I wouldlook for now.
I haven't really thought aboutit but as a traditional research
stream.
But really it's curiosity.
It's seeing these differentdots and thinking, gosh, can I
(22:18):
pull those together, like I didfor the fields in my degrees and
bringing these different peopletogether from leadership
positions and very diverseorganizations.
So, as a child, how?
DanielaSM (22:30):
was your curiosity.
Nancy Napier (22:33):
Well, I credit my parents for that in terms of
they exposed us and and I did alittle bit of that with my own
son so I was always doing somekind of an artwork class, but
also something in science, andso when our kids were little,
they wanted to do a lot ofsports.
I said, great, but you alsohave to do some art course after
(22:55):
school.
So one of them did they bothdid tennis as a sport.
One of them picked piano andstayed with it for 10 years.
The other one did tap dancingand playing a saxophone and
theater and drawing, and he'sbecome an actor.
But I want you to have bothsides of your brain working here
(23:19):
, and my folks did that a lottoo, just exposing us to.
As I said, my dad wasinterested in archeology a
little bit, and so I used to.
I read a little bit about itand he collected as a child.
Were you different?
I was, yeah, I was smart, andin those days, girls couldn't
show that they were smart.
When my father finished his PhD,we went as a family.
(23:43):
When he was an army officer.
We never took vacations.
So the first vacation we tookas a family was when he was an
army officer, we never tookvacations.
So the first vacation we tookas a family was to go to Europe
for a month, and that was thefirst time where I felt like, ah
, I can see that there arepeople who live on this line and
you step over and they speak adifferent language and it's more
fluid and more.
It was just fascinating to me.
So that did it.
(24:04):
So I went to college and made myway to Europe a number of times
, studied for a year in Munich,germany, learned how to speak
German there and it just feltbetter.
I was in high school in a veryit was a university town, but
small in the South in Arkansasin the US, and I never, never,
(24:25):
never fit.
I couldn't wait to leave.
So I think that sense of beingable to see and be part of
different cultures, that wasjust became water.
I needed it.
And now, working in Vietnam,that's my second home.
It's very comfortable for menow, lots of friends there, and
I've watched the place changeover the years dramatically.
(24:48):
Did you also learn?
DanielaSM (24:48):
Vietnamese.
Nancy Napier (24:50):
I tried when I was working there fuller time I
tried.
It's a tonal language so it'sjust super hard.
But everybody in the project Iwas running wanted to speak
English, needed to learn English.
So they insisted we speakEnglish.
So I did.
I, you know, I know a littlebit of tax evis.
DanielaSM (25:08):
And that university is still amazing.
Nancy Napier (25:11):
Oh yeah, it's one of the top ones in the country
and so that we helped build thisbusiness school within the
university.
Our university continues tohave a good relationship and we
send students back and forth.
Now my teaching is all in ourexecutive master's of business
program.
We take the group between 20and 25 participants.
(25:33):
We take them to Hanoi, vietnam,every year for a week and it's
like a trade mission almost.
We have a few speakers, butthey are doing projects for
companies, either to find newmarkets or to find supply
sources.
Because we know so many peopleover there, we're able to plug
them into the appropriatedecision makers.
(25:53):
So, again, we have a greatrelationship.
I just was part of a group thattook our university president
and the dean of the businesscollege over to Vietnam and they
did a fantastic job speaking ata conference and opening up
avenues for us to do more workwith different universities
there.
So I hope we'll have a long.
(26:15):
I need to kind of pull back andlet other younger folks take
over on that, and they will, soI'm excited about it, that's
great as a mom were youresearching a lot of things too?
I guess one of the first and abit of a challenge when our our
both of our sons are adoptedfrom Asia.
And when the first one came, hewas about a year old, from
(26:36):
Korea, and when he startedtalking I said to my husband
you're from Germany.
He's from Germany originally,still has family there.
I studied German in college andspeak it.
I say I speak it fluently, notfluently, so they know I'm not
German, but they don't know whatI am.
Anyway, I said let's speak toour son in German, or let's try
(27:00):
this so he can be bilingual.
So the agreement was we'd tryit for three months.
So for one month I spokeEnglish, he spoke German and our
son only spoke to me.
I said, okay, how about?
For the next two months, Ispeak German too.
Of course, by the end of thethree-month period our son was
speaking German to both of us.
(27:20):
Both sons grew up speakingGerman until they were 12 or 13.
It wasn't cool to speak Germanin public, convinced if they go
back in a week they'd have it.
So it's a very strong part ofthem.
One son studied German incollege too.
Have it.
So it's a very strong part ofthem.
One son studied German incollege too.
Yes, I had to do the research onhow does bilingualism for kids
(27:43):
work when they're young?
How do you teach them thedifferent approaches?
Yeah, so that was one, and then, I guess, same thing in terms
of having them come to schoolabroad.
They were with me for asemester in Belgium early on, so
they learned Flemish, and thenin Vietnam, the school they went
to.
They came home one day and saidmom, the only people who speak
just one language are theAmericans.
(28:04):
Everybody else speaks more thanone language.
And so for the first time theywere normal.
They spoke two languages andthat was normal.
So over time, yeah, I've doneresearch on a lot on the
language part, but then justraising boys, which is I had no
idea how much challenge thatcould be.
So it's been fun.
DanielaSM (28:23):
Yes, we have also two boys and I went to German
emergent school in Venezuela.
If you know about Humboldt,which I know, in American they
said Humboldt, oh sure, yeah, hewas a naturalist in the 80s,
something.
Yes, I've read about him, so hewent most South America and came
all the way to Canada becausethere's a town called Humboldt
(28:45):
too.
In every city like Lima, bogota, caracas, they all have a
Humboldt Schule.
Oh, there was a German sectionwhere all the people come from
the embassies and everybody whowas here for a while were having
their kids there, and then theyhad the immersion.
(29:05):
You know, like we get Germanonce a day.
Yeah, so I was in that school.
My father was German.
Wow, it was hard to learnbecause I was speaking Spanish
all the time.
My dad didn't want to speak tome in German because he said I
want to be your friend, andGerman doesn't sound like that.
So I only learned it by going,since I was 11.
For two months I would go tofamilies that I didn't know in
(29:28):
the north, close to Essen,oldenburg, and then so I spoke
German, but I always had anaccent.
I'm not very good at losing it.
I spoke German first, but then,when I learned English which it
was when I was 20, I gotconfused because it was so
similar, hoping somewhere in theback of my head.
Nancy Napier (29:47):
Well, please tell me when you come back.
Tell me how that worked.
Oh, and it will come back.
I'm sure we go over every yearor so and it's a struggle.
The first few days my headhurts, but it comes back.
You know there's a Humboldt inCalifornia.
Now I'm wondering if he passedthrough there.
Sure, we can do a little moreresearch on that.
DanielaSM (30:07):
Yes, I actually should read more about him.
Anyway, going back to you, sowhat happens?
So now you are working withuniversity and you have to
create all these projects, butthen you decided to be a writer,
or you were a writer.
Well, you have been writtenbooks already.
Nancy Napier (30:23):
Yeah, I've written nonfiction my whole life.
I had to for work and academics.
I retired a few years ago butcontinue with the executive MBA
program, so I'm no longer havingto sit in on meetings and teach
undergraduate students.
When my sons left, I thoughtI'm not up to date with the
music and all the culturalthings that younger people know,
(30:47):
and so I thought I can't teach20-year-olds if I don't know
what's going on in their culture, so their lives.
So now I teach really supersmart adults and they're
fantastic.
But I've tried over the yearsto write fiction.
Probably 10 years ago I took anonline course and I at one
point said you know, I can't dothis, I'm not good at lying.
(31:07):
And one of the other studentsin the course said well, it's
not lying, it's using yourimagination.
And I thought well, maybe Idon't have any imagination.
So I stopped for a while.
Pandemic arrived and I thoughtI'm going to try this again, so
I thought this should be noproblem.
I've been writing my whole lifeand I've even some of these
(31:28):
more recent books.
I've used creative writingapproaches in them to make them
a little more lively, and thiswill be well.
I am learning.
This is one of the hardestthings I've ever tried to do, so
in the pandemic I just burnedout three or four quote novels,
one of them I was able to turninto actually I think that's the
(31:49):
one I mentioned to you, so it'sa mystery, and so that has
worked.
Now I'm working on one aboutart crime in Vietnam.
One of my goals is to helppeople know Vietnam in a way.
That's not about the Americanwar or oh, it's got great food.
There are other parts of it,and so if I can help people
understand that.
(32:10):
But the writing of this novelfrom a writing standpoint is
incredibly difficult and hard.
In fact, after we talk thisafternoon, I'm going to talk to
an editor who's just sent me abunch of feedback that was very
hard to get but quite accurateon things I need to do better
and differently.
(32:30):
Yeah, so I call myself afiction writer in training.
It just amazes me how complex,difficult it can be.
I've sort of decided I'm justgoing to do it to learn about it
, and I'm not going to have tosend my kids to college based on
what I make in writing books,which is not much, but I'm
(32:52):
really learning it.
And it uses again, uses yourbrain in a different way.
At the same time, about twoyears ago I decided my husband,
my sons, are huge tennis playersand they've always said I
needed to learn and I would takea lesson for two days and say,
no, I'll just watch you, I'llcheer you on.
I decided to try and learn.
So I'm a beginning tennisplayer and, frankly, one of the
(33:16):
unexpected benefits of both thewriting and the tennis is that
I'm forced into the role ofbeing a beginner.
And so I see tennis instructor,writing instructors.
They have to say things to meso many times before.
Oh, I get it and they'vealready said it 50 times, but
I'm finally hearing it.
So that has been important withmy teaching.
(33:38):
So I'm teaching very smartadults strategy or creativity or
about organizational culture,and so all this material to me.
I know it well, but they don't.
So it forces me to remember tosay do have them experience the
concepts in multiple ways.
So after they've experienced itfour or five ways, they say oh,
(34:03):
oh.
And I'm thinking yes, they,finally they see it too.
So being forced to be abeginner has been fabulous.
Once more, it is not easy.
Once more, it is not easy.
It's not easy, but that'sanother benefit.
I think you said you like tolearn a lot of different things
and I think of it as a mosaic.
But every time you do that,you're forced back into beginner
(34:23):
role and it keeps your mindfresh.
DanielaSM (34:26):
That invigoration that makes you feel when you
actually know the subject.
Nancy Napier (34:32):
You need that too, and you have that.
DanielaSM (34:34):
So then on the other side, here you can do the
learning part Absolutely didn'tthink anything about Vietnam
(34:56):
actually, and then I went toHanoi and I thought it was
beautiful.
To me, the most interestingpart is the influence that well,
the influence they have from somany countries and especially
the French.
It was quite fascinating, very,very With the food and the
coffee and the buildings thatwere bizarre.
Nancy Napier (35:10):
You know I think you're right that other than
Americans and as Americans getolder they won't focus on it as
much.
But it amazes me that 50 yearslater there are still people
maybe my age, a little bityounger, older that still talk
about the war and I just make apoint to just talk about other
kinds of things.
(35:30):
And this is a country that isincredibly competitive and they
are growing so rapidly.
We're going to have to watchout.
The very first day I arrived inVietnam in 1994, one of the
professors at the school sothese are people who had gone
through all kinds of hard thingsand had two changes of clothing
and belts that wrapped allaround their waist because they
(35:52):
were so thin.
He said we conquered you in thewar, we will conquer you in
business.
And I thought we don't evenhave power in this building and
it goes out.
If it's on, it goes off and thewater is unpredictable.
You're saying this to me andthey're absolutely right.
They have such resilience andgrit, ability to work hard and
(36:13):
they're doing it and succeedingwell.
Of course, as they do that,they're also facing problems
that any other country is, withpollution and more traffic and
all that.
DanielaSM (36:22):
In South America you live, or at least in Venezuela,
with a sense of surviving, andso it's constantly that solving
problems Well, exactly.
Nancy Napier (36:31):
I mean, the extreme was when I first got
there.
There were no cars, of course,and so there were mostly
bicycles and then somemotorbikes.
But every man knew how to fixthe motorbike because they
always broke down and they couldfix anything the air
conditioning in the house if youhad air conditioning, the
(36:52):
electricity, the water, thephone, whatever it was, they
knew how to fix it.
And I remember one of themsaying, as we get more reliable,
fill in the blank, electricitypower, all that we will lose
that ability to solve problemsin new ways, because somebody
else will be called in to solvethe problem of the printer or
the computer.
(37:12):
We won't be able to solve itourselves.
DanielaSM (37:15):
Yeah, all right, so well, getting back to you, so
you are now writing fictionbooks and it's a challenge, but
you're doing really well.
Nancy Napier (37:24):
I work at it.
I work at it.
I don't think it'll ever beeasy.
DanielaSM (37:30):
but that's probably the point, isn't?
It Should never be easy.
Yes, that and tennis.
What else I mean?
Is it ever going to end?
Nancy Napier (37:35):
I hope not right.
There's always something new tolearn.
I am a I've learned over theyears.
We've been fortunate enough togo to Africa on several safaris
and I've learned that I am ajunkie when, if I ever won the
lottery, I would oh I would goas often as I can.
I fear that those animals maynot be there in the next decade
or two, so I want to go see asmuch as I can of them in the
(38:00):
wildlife.
So one thing in the back of mymind is what can I do to help
that?
And other than money I'vethought about there actually are
programs for people to go andlearn about guiding.
So you learn about the tracksof the animals, you learn how to
see them, you learn about theflora and the fauna and the
(38:21):
birds.
So that would be something thatwould be really fun.
In the meantime, I read a lotabout nature and wildlife and,
given climate change and what'sgoing on, so that's something
that's sort of on the sidelinethat I like to read about and
learn about a little bit, and Idon't know what else.
We'll have to see how it goes.
I'm having enough troubletrying to learn about art.
That'll be on my list for awhile.
DanielaSM (38:44):
Yeah, so bravo for curiosity, I guess one of the
best traits that some people canhave.
I think so.
Nancy Napier (38:49):
I got interested in curiosity a few years ago
when we had some visitors fromVietnam.
One of the daughters wanted tosee snow and so we drove up into
the mountains here and on theway there were pockets of snow
still in the high level, highelevations, and we stopped for
her to go up and touch it and soforth.
And I thought I said what doyou know about snow?
She said not much.
I've read about it and I'veseen pictures of it, but I
(39:12):
wanted to touch it and feel itand all.
So I looked up curiosity.
So curiosity happens when wehave a little bit of knowledge
about something and then we wantto have more knowledge.
If we have a whole lot of it,sometimes we're not as curious
anymore, right.
But if we have no knowledge, wedon't even know to be curious,
(39:38):
curious.
So back to.
That's why I expose myself.
I read lots, lots.
I read a lot of differentnewspapers and different types
of books, so that I'm alwaysthinking about what's out there
that's interesting, that mightbe something I want to learn
more about.
So to have a little bit ofknowledge and then you can build
that into a deeper knowledgewith that curiosity.
I think is good for everybody.
Well, so he's the deepknowledge.
I'm the flat.
I like to know a little bitabout a lot of different things,
so yes, yes.
DanielaSM (39:59):
This is a perfect way of ending this story of yours,
because great explanation aboutcuriosity and how wonderful it
is to be with curiosity andlearn so many things over the
world, I think also make us moreopen and more compassionate to
other people to understand aswell.
And we're not going to be allladies that are closed and set
(40:20):
in their ways, right?
I hope not, we don't want to.
No One of my aunts she's 92,and she says I like to be
complimentary, not contradictory.
Oh, I like that, yes.
So that's why I think it helpsto be curious and be accepting
to things.
Nancy Napier (40:38):
I agree.
Yeah, curiosity is such a.
If we can instill that inchildren and they keep it, what
a wonderful thing.
DanielaSM (40:45):
So yes, so thank you so much, nancy, for sharing your
story.
It was lovely conversation aswell.
I really really enlightened andenthusiastic and I am so
inspired, actually, actually,from listening to you.
Nancy Napier (40:57):
Well you're a great interviewer.
I do a lot of that in my workand so I know how hard that can
be with good questions, andyou're really good at it.
Thank you, thank you, Iappreciate it.
Thank you so much for invitingme, thanks.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!