Kallen: Today, I am delighted to have Dr. Derek Newberry. Derek is the co-author of Committed Teams: Three Steps to Inspire Passion and Performance and the business anthropologist at the Wharton School of Business.
He advises corporate leaders on the human factors that drive organizational effectiveness.
Derek: Thanks so much for having me, Kallen. I’m glad to hear you’ve got some Philly roots.
Kallen: Let’s go back in time, Derek. How did you know that you would work in academia? Or did you? Were your parents teachers or professors? Talk about that.
Derek: Yeah. That’s a good question. Both of my parents graduated college, but neither of them had a Ph.D.
So, the reason I ended up in academia wasn’t so much because of my parents’ specific career path but it was more about the values that they gave me growing up.
And I’ve also been always interested in understanding people’s stories. So, when I got into college, I actually wanted to be a journalist putting those two things together – really caring about having a social impact and understanding people’s stories understanding where they’re coming from.
I ended up really quickly getting into international development just because I wanted to see some of the world but similar idea you know sort of having a positive social impact.
And through that, I got into anthropology so it was a little bit of a roundabout path but then through understanding international development and poverty alleviation. Anthropology is a big field than that.
Anthropology is really gone. It’s about in a more rigorous sort of research based way understanding people’s stories, their worldviews, their perspectives and how that shapes culture and how culture shapes things like poverty alleviation initiatives.
Eventually, I ended up getting my Ph.D. in that and from that I got into the business world because my dissertation research was all about understanding cultural change in businesses.
And that’s also pretty much how I ended up at Wharton as the business anthropologist. But to me, it’s all about stories that build connections and relationships.
As a result, people work better together and find more meaning in the work they do. They build better communities. That’s what I’m about for sure.
This is a snippet transcription of Reaching The Finish Line episode 94 that continues with Part 2.