Rodger Dean Duncan is the award-winning, bestselling author of CHANGE-friendly LEADERSHIP: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance. He’s a regular contributor (more than 600 columns) to Forbes.com, a platform that reaches 75 million readers each month.

Rodger’s interest in leadership and human performance issues was first planted when he was an undergraduate. That interest blossomed into full-scale passion when he covered business and politics as a young journalist. One of his early editors was Jim Lehrer (later of PBS television fame), who taught him how to connect the dots between what people aspire to and what they actually achieve.

When he was 28, Rodger launched a consulting practice focusing on leadership and performance improvement issues. His clients have ranged from cabinet officers in two White House administrations to senior leaders in many of the world’s best companies in more than a dozen industries. In addition, he headed global communications at Campbell Soup Company.

Rodger earned his PhD degree in organizational dynamics at Purdue University. Famed author Stephen R. Covey called Rodger’s work in leadership “brilliantly insightful and inspiring; profound, yet user-friendly; visionary, yet highly practical.”

Rodger and his wife live in Missouri.

As a young boy, I was curious about most everything around me. I peppered the adults in my life with a barrage of questions: Why won’t fish bite on dead minnows? How do you sharpen a saw? Why are cucumber seeds planted in mounds? What makes thunder and lightning? Is anyone older than God?

My early teachers, especially my grandfather, always had a patient answer—liberally seasoned with a heavy dose of common sense and sometimes a sprinkle of humor.

I carried that inquisitive nature through my school days and into my adulthood. It served me well as a young journalist when I interviewed interesting people like President Lyndon Johnson, comedian Jack Benny, Baroness Maria von Trapp, cardiac surgery pioneer Michael DeBakey, historian Arnold Toynbee, pollster George Gallup, luxury retailer Stanley Marcus, baseball Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, super investor Warren Buffett, and anthropologist Margaret Mead. I later traded jokes with Norman Rockwell and discussed home carpentry with Robert Redford.

Of course I’ve also talked with thousands of not-so-famous people. They’ve all had stories to tell and opinions to express. I’ve learned something every time.

Today, most of my interviews are with so-called “thought leaders.” They’ve earned that appellation because their views are taken to be authoritative and influential. They think big and they say things worth hearing.

The conversations you’ll hear on the LeaderSHOP Podcast are with some of the smartest people around. I appreciate their generosity in sharing their time as well as their opinions. I believe you’ll agree it makes for good listening and learning.

Without a good question, a good answer has no place to go. So I’ll keep asking good questions.