Margaret Wheatley on Leaders Being Hosts, Not Heroes

If we can’t altogether rid ourselves of hierarchies, Margaret Wheatley shows us one way to make them work better: “It is time to face the truth of our situation—that we’re all in this together, that we all have a voice—and figure out how to mobilize the hearts and minds of everyone in our workplaces and communities.”

Maurice Mitchell’s Map to Build More Resilient Organizations

In some ways, this essay reads like response to Ryan Grim's article from Summer 2022. What I love about Mitchell’s piece (audio here) is that he not only identifies existing challenges for organizations and their root causes, but he goes on to analyze why the problems persist, and then proposes manageable solutions to keep doing the work we all have to do.

Sheila Davis on Leadership and Teamwork

“Crises need relational approaches.” This nurse-turned-CEO shows what’s possible when we admit what we don’t know. This conversation makes me wonder: How do we foster cultures that encourage people to ask for help? A discussion of mistakes, true learning cultures, and the benefits of not staying in one’s lane.

Linda Hill on Navigating Conflict

Linda Hill says “…if you can’t in fact deal with conflict, learn how to amplify differences, be comfortable with that, and then leverage those differences to come up with new and useful solutions for your organization, you won’t be able to be an innovator.” This episode has been an evergreen seed that makes me continue to wonder what is possible when we remember that conflict is a natural phenomenon, and that part of our work is to get better at navigating it.

Still Processing: Inclusion vs. Incorporation

This 2018 episode has been in heavy rotation ever since I first heard it that summer. For any community thinking through and/or acting on what it means to become more inclusive, this is necessary listening and re-listening.

Money and Mission: Building 21st Century Capital Markets for Better Social Outcomes

Clara Miller’s talk at The NY Federal Reserve about “fixing the plumbing” of philanthropy and the subsequent roundtable (with Andrea Levere, Audrey Choi, Corey S. Anderson, and Geoffrey Canada) are, together, an exceptional reframing on how we can better lead organizations while improving society.

Claudia Rankine / Eula Biss

Krista Tippet’s conversations with these two writers are beautiful explorations on their own and additionally moving when paired together for discussions on race and class. Every week, I think of Rankine’s stories from airplanes and automobiles and the way Biss says “You can't think about something if you can't talk about it.”

Perfect is the Enemy

How procrastination and perfection grow from a similar anxiety and what to do about it.

Kiese Laymon and Tressie McMillan Cottom on Revision as a Life Practice

I return to this conversation for its wisdom on being a writer and a person. (Content warning: Laymon reads a passage from his book Heavy that references being molested as a child.)

Natalie G. Diaz / Diane Ragsdale

Both of these conversations with Meklit Hadero, Brett Cook, and Liz Lerman (part of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Alchemy of the Reset series) made my mind do flip turns in the early weeks and months of the pandemic.

Ruha Benjamin in conversation w/ Meredith Whittaker

I re-listen to this conversation about ethics and race in technology every few months. I return to it not just for the profound content but also for the way these interlocutors model fruitful dialogue.

Tim Harford on Slow-motion Multitasking

On creativity, time, and not judging someone’s method of working, no matter how non-linear it is.

Brené Brown interviews Harriet Lerner about apologies Part I & Part II

A how to, and why.

A Pre-Pandemic Leading Example of How Remote Work Could Be

The company Ultranauts developed innovative, inclusive processes to prioritize the communication needs of its staff.