Translating Academic Research Into Real Business Impact | Nathan Bennett | 738
The Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast is created by Peter Winick and Bill Sherman and produced by Thought Leadership Leverage.
Lessons in humility, self-selection, and earning trust from the C-suite
A management professor and executive educator unpacks what it really takes to translate academic research into ideas executives will actually use — and why AI has flooded platforms like LinkedIn with hollow, forgettable content. The conversation explores curiosity, humility, and what separates real thought leadership from noise.
What actually happens when academic research meets the boardroom?
Peter Winick sits down with Nate Bennett — professor of management and faculty director of the Executive MBA program at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business — for a candid look at the gap between what business scholars know and what business leaders actually use.
Bennett has spent his career straddling three audiences: students preparing to lead, practicing managers looking for answers, and fellow academics who reward each other for depth over accessibility. He explains why so much scholarly work is, by design, written for a room of a handful of other researchers — and why that’s not necessarily a flaw. The real skill, he argues, is knowing how to translate that work for people who don’t have the patience for a slow academic build. In front of executives, you have to get to the punchline fast. But speed isn’t the whole story: Bennett makes the case that curiosity and humility matter just as much as expertise, and that professors who walk into a room assuming they have nothing left to learn rarely land well.
The conversation also turns to a subject on every thought leader’s mind right now: AI. Bennett doesn’t mince words about what’s happened to platforms like LinkedIn, where he says the signal-to-noise ratio has collapsed under a wave of AI-generated posts. His take on the right way to use the technology is refreshingly practical — think of it as an invisible assistant, not a ghostwriter. He shares how he uses AI to reformat dense research into readable tables, and reflects on what schools should really be protecting when they worry about students using it to cut corners: not information recall, but the ability to think and read.
This is a conversation for anyone trying to figure out where real expertise ends and real relevance begins — and what to keep, and what to let AI handle, along the way.
Three Key Takeaways:
- Academics write for three different audiences, and confusing them is a common trap. Scholarly work aimed at moving other researchers doesn’t automatically translate into insight a practicing manager can use — the two require different pacing, structure, and even goals.
- Curiosity and humility outperform “having the answer.” Entering a room of executives assuming you’re there to fill them with knowledge shuts the exchange down; entering curious, and open to having your thinking shaped by the room, produces a far better session.
- The best use of AI is invisible. Rather than publishing AI-generated takes, the more valuable approach is using AI behind the scenes — as a tireless research and formatting assistant — while what actually gets published still reflects the author’s own thinking.
If Nate’s take on translating dense expertise into ideas people actually act on resonated with you, that’s exactly the terrain Peter Winick, Bill Sherman, and Naren Aryal cover in The Thought Leadership Handbook. Drawing on more than 700 conversations from this very podcast, the book lays out the same tension this episode explored — how to build ideas rigorous enough to hold up and accessible enough to spread — into a practical framework you can apply to your own thinking.
Order The Thought Leadership Handbook today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, or directly from Amplify, and learn more at thoughtleadershiphandbook.com.
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Transcript
Peter Winick And welcome, welcome, this is Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage and you’re joining us today on the podcast which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Nate Bennett. He’s actually Dr. Nate Bennett, he’s a PhD. He’s a professor of management and the faculty director of Robinson’s Executive MBA program. He joined the faculty there in 2012. He is published in many accomplished resources such as Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Businessweek.com. And he’s the co-author of two books, Riding Shotgun, The Role of the COO, and Your Career Game. So welcome aboard, Nate, how are you today?
Nathan Bennett I’m well, Peter, thanks for the invitation to join you.
Peter Winick Yeah, so you and I met many, many years ago. A long time. When writing Shotgun, I did probably write about not long after it came out. So I wanna talk a little bit about, you’re clearly an academic. That’s what you do, right? That’s where you spend most of your time. Yet, the writing of books and the articles and all that brings you into sort of the corporate world on occasion, because organizations take a look at that and take interest and say, Nate, can you come and help us? Can you come talk about that? Tell me about sort of that crossover.
Nathan Bennett Well, it’s, I think, you know, one of the more enjoyable parts of the work that I do, I’m expected to kind of sit in between where current leaders are and where future leaders are learning. And, you, know, I try to think of my role as being a conduit that works in both directions. So I need to, I need, to try and understand how to, how to help translate what’s happening in the field. For my students say they can, they can emerge, you know, ready to be a part of that world. But then I also feel like there are things that academics who have a, you know, sort of a broader training, a broader perspective, some theoretical grounding might be able to offer practicing managers. So I enjoy the chance to do both of those things.
Peter Winick So stay there for a minute, because it’s usually I usually see that sort of on a continuum for the academics do the academic thing. They research, they write, they teach, they do all those sort of things, but it’s largely, and I’m speaking in, you know, general terms here, theoretical, right? Then you have the business folks where it’s like, yeah, the theory is kind of cool until you get punched in the face, right? Until life happens and we don’t get to do what the academics do and say, let’s hold all the variables, but one stable, right. And it’s a rare. Academic that garners the respect of the business folks and vice versa. Because the reality is it’s where those two things meet that magic happens, right? Like if you just stay in academia researching, who cares? And if you’re in the business world and not taking the value from what academics are doing and integrate it into your thinking, that’s not smart either. So tell me how you’re able to sort of.
Nathan Bennett Do that. Well, I, you know, I think what you’re describing is the goal and it is a, it is a art, it’s a bit of an art. I think that in both cases, you’re talking about, well, you talking about several audiences. And maybe I can help shed a little light on this. The audiences we’ve talked about so far are, you know, practicing managers and people who are learning to join the world of practicing managers. There’s a third audience, which is other academics. And so a lot of the work that academics are rewarded for producing is really intended to help other academics, right? So if we’re trying to deepen our understanding of a theory, a lot of the writing we do is for them.
Peter Winick But I but stay there for a minute because I’ve seen academics get I don’t want to call it trapped But some of the objectives of a lot of their work is to convince for other academics and they’re right, right? So there’s a little bit of that. I know it’s ego or it just comes with the trade or that focus of energy Which isn’t I don’t think all that productive other than it’s fun to be right, I guess
Nathan Bennett Well, you know, I don’t think trying to pick a hill and die on it is necessarily a great career strategy. You know, so I think that at the at the extreme, I understand the point you’re making. But you know the reason we have management theory is to try to better understand organizations and how they work. And spending some time trying to train other academics who are interested in those questions in ways that they could be asking sharper questions. Doing better research. There’s no harm in that. And no one really thinks about it as skeptically if we were to switch fields, say, to medicine. No one would ever question the fact that there are medical doctors who are doing research that really only helps us understand disease. It doesn’t lead directly to cure. Right. No, one would have trouble with that. In business, I think people are more quickly frustrated by the fact that writing’s going on that doesn’t really. So clearly and directly influence practice.
Peter Winick But but it does it’s just a bit further up the food chain, right if you’re influencing thinking of those that practice Ultimately, it might be a tertiary sort of outcome, but it I would imagine
Nathan Bennett Well, I think to suggest that a fair bit of the academic research that takes place, to your point, looks like it’s written for a very small audience is true. And that might mean that it doesn’t have value for directly for a practicing manager. It doesn’t mean it isn’t a reality of the industry that that’s part of what faculty are rewarded for doing. I think what makes what makes has made my job interesting is that I work for a University that that explicitly appreciates trying to find ways to take what we’re doing to help improve management practice. And so while I’ve spent some amount of time writing pieces that might seem fairly obscure, I’ve also been expected to take on the task of trying to write some things that will help managers improve their practice.
Peter Winick So I think that’s an interesting point that you make is that there’s a self-selection piece there, right? So I would imagine, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth for you when you chose to join this faculty, that was important to you, right, that that was a value that they honored, et cetera, versus some universities might be different than that. And then you’d be fighting fights that you don’t want to be fighting. Right, no, that’s absolutely correct. Cool, so I wanna take this a little bit further because I’ve actually seen you in action. Taking your ideas to business leaders years ago, right? And what’s kind of cool about that is not all academics could do that well, because they just, the things that make one successful as an academic, the research, the publishing, et cetera, don’t necessarily translate that. But you’ve got a, sometimes between a style and the validity of your work that translates well. What do you do differently when you’ve gotta room of C-level execs that you’re. Sharing your thoughts and ideas with.
Nathan Bennett That’s an interesting question.
Peter Winick Maybe it’s not differently, or maybe the other.
Nathan Bennett Well, I mean, I’m trying to give you, I want to give you a thoughtful answer. I think there are certainly ways in which you present material that change, right? So you have to get to the punchline quicker. You know, an academic audience will accept a slower build. And in fact, they might expect a slower bill because they want each piece of evidence to have been laid out. You know, they don’t need you to skip to the to the on it. But I think that stylistically for me, I think when I think about the other academics that I’ve seen present, I think if you enter a room of executives and you’re not entering curious, then it’s probably not gonna go that well. I think you enter feeling that you’ve got the answer and your job is to be here and to share the answer with them, that approach is not gonna lead to a great. Uh, exchange. But if you go in the room, curious, you know, I want to, I want share some thoughts. I want get your reaction to these thoughts. I’m open to having you with your responses shape my thought. I think that’s what leads to a better session. I think it’s really the, you have to have a learner mindset, even if you’re the speaker.
Peter Winick Well, it sounds like there’s and maybe that’s it. That’s an interesting point, because I think. Parallel to your calling it curiosities is some level of humility, because I’ve seen some academics go out of the similar groups, and there’s a go call it an arrogance. But hey, I’m the smartest person in the world about X, whatever X is. And I’m going to tell you what it is. And it’s not even a conversation, right? Just they’re laying it laying it out there, particularly if it’s something new or newer. Like there’s so much going on now around sort of AI and AI ethics and whatever, whatever. And a lot of boards say, get us the smartest guy or gal in the room. And we need an hour or two to do a brain dump. You know, I like that curiosity piece and the humility piece. Do you agree there’s a little bit of humility in the baked into the curiosity?
Nathan Bennett I mean, I think if you’ve reached the conclusion that the person you’re speaking to has nothing to teach you, that’s a very different conversation. But I think even in situations where there’s an obvious experience differential, I mean imagine a parent and child. I mean how differently does someone parent if they approach an interaction with their child as an opportunity to learn something about the kid as opposed to you’re an empty vessel and I’m here to fill you with. With the Kool-Aid.
Peter Winick So is this maybe also a self-selection, where the executives in the organizations that bring you in are made up of leaders that have a growth mindset that are curious, they don’t have the arrogance of, well, we figured this all out, what could we learn from this nutty professor, right? Is there a self selection there?
Nathan Bennett Well, yeah, I mean, I do think it would be, well, okay. I think that if, if you get invited in to join a group of executives, um, there’s a problem they want solved or, you know, addressed, right? And I could see being the decision maker about who to bring in being focused on, you know, what I need to do is, is help my group get a solution. Uh, I’m not so worried about their style or their curiosity. Maybe they are the smartest person in the room, right. So it could be completely, even strategically. Desirable, that that’s what this person’s mindset’s going to be. And I think maybe that’s a difference, which is that I spend most of my time doing executive education, not, you know, turning my thought leadership, right?
Peter Winick That’s where I was going to go because I think that that’s a context, right? Exactly education. There’s a defined context of even though you’re an executive, you’re a student at this moment, right. But I think there are other times when thought leaders are brought in, you know, am I being brought in to solve the problem that’s consulting, right, am I brought in figure the thing out for them or am I an input or a tool or something for them to integrate into their world? To help them figure out what they need to do. And they’re not necessarily ready for me to solve it. I’m just one piece of a puzzle.
Nathan Bennett Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and particularly given how complex most of problems these folks would be struggling with are There’s not likely to be a just a silver bullet speaker out there that that takes care of the whole thing for you
Peter Winick Right. Well, here’s the three things to do to turn your company around and have perpetual growth. Cool. For years, this podcast has explored how thought leaders build, influence, and create change. Now, Bill Sherman, Nara Nareyal, and I have put the experience into a new book, The Thought Leadership Handbook. It’s available now. Learn more at thoughtleadershiphandbook.com and order it today at Amazon, BNN, Bookshop, or directly from Amplify. So are you seeing anything different in the last say five, six, seven years relative to academics getting their ideas out there at scale?
Nathan Bennett That’s also an interesting question. I don’t think the reward structure for academics has changed much. We’ve known for a long time that if you reward A and expect B, that’s not going to So I don’t think the reward structure has changed very much.
Peter Winick Is that the publisher perish model that it’s expected as just part of what you do as an academic? You’ve got to get these things out there.
Nathan Bennett Well, and in particular, sorts of outlets.
Peter Winick Yeah, okay. Yeah, got it and Interesting, okay, so it hasn’t really changed all that much now is the Ways that one does that the same or different, you know now you’ve got so I mean ever anybody could publish anything today, right? Social whatever has that changed it is that lowered the bar raised the bar and made it the same
Nathan Bennett That’s a good question too, right? So you’re right that there are tons of ways to disseminate information, or at least to make it available. I think it’s a different challenge to find ways to get people to click on the link or to read your content. And I think what’s happened is that we’ve created a real signal noise problem. And I think AI has exacerbated that tremendously in just the last year. And I, you know, I don’t know how much time you spend looking at LinkedIn, but I, you know I, I at least every other day to kind of keep up with what’s going on. And my goodness, you can, you can recognize an AI generated post in about, you know, three seconds and that’s, that’s all it is. You know, someone has what they think is a clever idea. They ask Chad to write a post. They cut and paste it into their feed. And there you go. And it’s really, I think the singleton noise, at least with regard to the people that show up in my feed, it’s become terrible. It is so much rarer now that I find a nugget that I say, I’m keeping this because I want to use this in class. I’m keepin’ this because it can help me with this project I’m working on. That’s not what’s there.
Peter Winick So I would say yes. And so I would say yes, 100%. I look at stuff and by the first sentence, I’m like, this is AI slop like what, why would somebody put their name on this? It’s not thoughtful. It’s not insightful. It doesn’t represent them well, because it’s easy, right? I look at it and say, you know, the best use cases that I know of for both myself and the thought leaders that I work with, from an AI standpoint, it’s invisible. They’re using it as a reason. Well, they’re using it to ask, they using it sort of behind the scenes. I always think of it as like the 10 interns you have working for you 24 seven that nobody knows about. And to me, it’s not visible. Someone might have written an article, but you don’t know. They spent six or eight hours fiddling around with AI in thoughtful ways. Give me five examples of this or ask me this or contextualize it that way. And I think that that sort of invisible use or when it, when it’s sent to me. Is good use of it and I just think that right like you said that signal the noise the ratio of just you know Crap to thoughtful use is is just out of control right now
Nathan Bennett Well, and, you know, to reinforce your point, right? If I wanna know what AI thinks about something, I can ask it. I don’t need you to put it on LinkedIn, get in the way of all the other stuff. What I wanna see on LinkedIn are your thoughts.
Peter Winick Yeah, or if I don’t know you if I’m working with a different population, you know, how might an analyst think about this? How might someone in? Consumer packaged goods think about right like the contextualization is interesting. How if it all are you I’m assuming you are But how are you using AI sort of? Interesting in creative ways and how are seeing your students use it?
Nathan Bennett Oh, well, those are two. Those are two different questions. I think, I think, you know, as regards my use, well I’ve, you know, I’ve used tools like Grammarly for a long, for a long time. And I mean, that is AI. Right. So, so I’m, I’m happy to make sure my subject and verbs agree and you know all that kind of stuff. So so at that level, I have used it a long time
Peter Winick It’s not just really mechanical, right? Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Bennett Currently, what I’ve used it for are things like, I’ll tell you about a paper I’m working on now. I’m, I’m workin’ on a paper where I’m comparing a new theory to our earlier conversation that I think, you know, fits in a gap that these six other theories don’t talk about. And so I have a long text that explains, you now, my model and then these other six models. And I’m thinking, you know what, this is a lot to read. I need a table. So I can take that and I can feed it into Claude and say, put this text in the table. And it does a pretty good job pretty quickly, certainly more quickly than I could. So for structuring stuff like that, it’s like a really good graduate assistant. And maybe in the past, I would have given that to a graduate assistant, well, not exactly free, but.
Peter Winick Yeah. Yeah. What about your students? How are you? What interest in the way do you seeing?
Nathan Bennett Yeah. So, so higher ed is, is, uh, I think struggling, you know, to be frank and trying to understand how do you simultaneously teach a tool that is clearly going to influence people’s careers and sort of restrict its use because we want your answers on the test, not chat GPT’s answers on the test. So it’s a struggle. I think that. You know, clearly it’s a, it’s a larger problem in some disciplines than others. I mean, if you’re doing a computer science class and the students are supposed to write code, there’s no reason to believe any of them are doing any of that, right? But if you are in a, you know, if you’re in a liberal liberal arts major, it’d probably, you know, there is a different sort of risk. You know we, what I’ve tried to do is I’ve tried to change the, um, the way I do testing. You know, there have been great articles in the press about the return of the dreaded blue book.
Peter Winick You know, I was just gonna ask that I’ve seen that like back
Nathan Bennett I broke out the blue books last semester and there are other technologies, testing environments with locked down browsers so students can’t visit some other site to adjust their work and all that. I don’t know the answer, but it’s definitely a struggle. I think part of what makes it difficult is I don t know that we’ve really articulated what we want the outcome of all this to be. So, you know, to the extent that these tools exist, how should that change what we expect a college graduate to know? How should we expect it to change the way they conduct research? How should they change the way that they write?
Peter Winick Yeah, I think a bit of a different conversation where a student can clearly use AI to sort of fake the knowledge, but okay, so it’s a year, two, five, 10 years later, do you have the ability to think? Do you have to ability to read? Like, those are the things that are timeless versus who could pull whatever the GDP of Romania quickest, like, who cares, right? You know? Cool, this has been great. I appreciate your time, I appreciate you insight, and I love talking to someone that’s in. Got one foot in both worlds and the cutting edge there. So thank you so much, Nate.
Nathan Bennett Absolutely, as I said at the outset, I appreciate the invite and I enjoyed the conversation as well. Cool, thank you. All right, take care.
Peter Winick To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter at Thought Leadership leverage.com and please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.
