OVERVIEW

Social Insights Research held a timely panel discussion featuring organizational leaders who are navigating today’s turbulent social and political climate with commitment, vision, and resilience. Facilitated by Social Insights Founder and CEO Zuri Tau, this conversation featured Ericka Stallings and Nikki Dinh, co-executive directors of Leadership Learning Community. Inspired by Social Insights’ 2025 motto, “More Than a Phase”, this discussion was a reminder that our presence and what we value and care about are not temporary.

RESOURCES

• Leadership & Race: Report: A Call to Each Other, Exploration of the Current Racial Justice Landscape and Recommendations for Action

• The Call of Leadership Now Article: BIPOC Leaders in a Syndemic Era

• Organization Ericka & Nikki Receiving Coaching From

• Another Coaching Organization Recommended by Ericka & Nikki

• Liberatory Leadership Learning Series Blog Post: When All Of Our Tools Are Weapons

• Love Work Report: Liberatory Leadership in Practice

• Coming Soon: LLC’s Liberatory Leadership Framework

• Blog Post: Lessons on Change from the Immortal Jellyfish

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Alright. We expect people will keep coming in over the next few minutes, but we are going to go ahead and get started. I am so, so excited and just good afternoon, good morning, good evening to those of you all over the world. My name is Dr. Zuri Tau and I'm the CEO of Social Insights Research. 

I'm so excited to be hosting this webinar. It's called More Than a Phase and we're here with our lovely guests, the co-executive directors of Leadership Learning Community, Ericka Stallings and Nikki Dinh. And, also, supporting this event is Miko Brown. Miko is our administrative and community manager. Miko will be monitoring the chat and supporting with technical assistance and is responsible for making sure you all all got registered. So, thank you, Miko. 

More Than a Phase is Social Insights’ 2025 motto. It's our rallying cry and we're really having this conversation in spirit of that, in the spirit of our enduring dedication and commitment to our values in this challenging time. And, I'm here because I have been researching and writing about leadership for the past 10 years and as a scholar and practitioner, I am feeling the challenges and demands of this moment very viscerally. I just want to learn from other people who are wrestling with and finding solutions in this moment in their unique settings. I think by the presence of all of you in this room, you're probably wanting that, as well. 

So, I am grateful that I'm not alone. What we're going to dig into today is how we stay committed to our values, how we innovate in the midst of challenge, and how we care for ourselves and for others in this time of profound uncertainty and change. Before we get into our questions, I would love to introduce these wonderful people a little bit more. 

Nikki Dinh is the co-ED of Leadership Learning Community (LLC). She is the daughter of boat people refugees who instilled in her the importance of being in community. Her immigrant neighborhood taught her about resistance, resilience, joy, and love. Her lived experiences led her to a career in social justice and advocacy and, as a legal aid attorney, she learned from and represented families in cases involving immigrants, immigration, domestic violence, human trafficking, and elder abuse. 

Later, she joined the philanthropic sector where she learned from and invested in local leaders, networks, and organizations throughout California. She has also consulted for clients such as Hispanics in Philanthropy, Common Counsel foundation, the California Judicial Council, and the Culturally Responsive Domestic Violence Network. Now at LLC, she continues to be guided by the belief that the people and communities we seek to serve are best positioned to identify and create solutions for their community. She leads strategy, communications, and philanthropic engagements. In her spare time, she enjoys sailing. Welcome, Nikki! 

And Ericka. Ericka Stallings is also the co-ED of Leadership Learning Community. She drives strategy, practices, and partnerships and with her leadership, LLC has expanded its work into deepening equity and also exploring liberatory leadership. Her previous experience includes Deputy Director for Capacity Building and Strategic Initiatives at the association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), where she supported organizing and advocacy and led ANHD's community organizing capacity-building work. 

Ericka also directed ANHD's Center for Community Leadership and the Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing, which strengthened community organizing in local neighborhoods. Before working at ANHD, she served as the Housing Advocacy Coordinator at the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), managing its Immigrant Housing Collaborative and Immigrant Advocacy Fellowship Program. Ericka is an avid traveler and enjoys building joyful connections in her community. Welcome, welcome, welcome, Ericka! 

Thank you both so much for being here! Yes! So, I just want to start with some gratitude and I'd love to hear if there's a leader that's on your heart and your mind right now that you all are feeling grateful to or inspired by as you're in this moment. 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Want me to go first? I lost a game of chicken. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

You're up! 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

I will say that the chat is lovely and it, like, really emphasizes, like, liberatory practice, the way people are already in community. And, even though I can't see everyone's faces, just seeing all the names of people I know and love is really great. Also, reflecting on the fact that your bio doesn't seem that long when it's written down, but when you hear it read, you're like, “Oh, that was long.” 

In terms of a leader who inspires me, this feels kind of silly or like trite, but my mom, I facilitate the way my mother hosts. I want people to feel the way they feel in my mother's house. I think the firm love is part of the way that I show up as a leader. What else I love about my mom is that she is a person who I've had the opportunity to watch evolve. She's not a changeable person in the sense that she's always been dependable, but I have watched her change as a person and so it made it possible to learn and grow and to not be stuck in a static, calcified notion of myself. 

And so, my leadership has evolved in that same way. And, I feel like my leadership is really a hodgepodge of every leader that I also care about and love and have learned from and that ability to absorb what I've learned from others and to stay myself but keep learning and growing, I think I do get from my mother. So, my mom is a leader that I would refer back to. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you. That is not trite at all. That's beautiful. Thank you, Ericka. Nikki. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Right on, Ericka. And, I think that the idea that we are made up of so many of the leaders that we have learned from, too. And, I wanted to give a shout out to Nobu Tomita who's on this call, who was the very first caseworker on the very first domestic violence case I've taken as a lawyer, and, also, Bess Bendet, who was one of my mentors while I was going through philanthropy. So, thank you to you both. 

And, I think the person on my mind today is also someone I've learned from and still considers one of my best friends. His name is Stephen Ouyang. He's a retired administrative law judge, somebody I clerked for when I was in law school. And, he spent several, you know, decades as a leader in the California Civil Rights Agency. 

So, you know, in these times, I think I've been really pulling back to say, like, “Give me a longer timeline to look at. Let me understand more from the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, you know, the 70s, the 80s and 90s, not just in the context of my last 20 years in the workforce.” 

And, I've been finding some grounding in seeing our expanded history and how fragile and young a lot of our rights and our movements are, and have, also, found a lot of grounding in knowing how it only took a…you know, we've never won things—like, our civil rights movement—we didn't win that by a huge margin. It was very, a slim margin at the time. But, today, it's calcified and fortified, you know, to feel like something that we all—like, a majority of us—can get around. So, I think the lessons from my conversations with Stephen Ouyang has been really grounding me lately. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you. Thank you. Wow. I'll just add that when I was thinking about asking you all this question, there's a leader that was in the community outreach department when I was in college, Chantell Pleasant. I have no idea where Chantell is to this day, but, at the time, I was just a young, blossoming 22-year old who someone gave a job to organize college students. 

And, I remember feeling like this heavy weight on me and everything seemed so serious. And, every time I would talk to Chantell, Chantell would listen with this very serious face and then just pause. It would just be silence. And, I had never had anyone engage with me like that. All the leaders that I knew and worked with just were ready, like, they were giving me an answer right away. They knew what they were talking about. They were so confident and, like, I wanted to be like that. And then, I met Chantell and I was like, “Oh, my God. Like, she is really thinking about her answer.” And she just…she was always present with a deep compassion and patience. 

And that's something that feels really needed in this moment. Compassion, patience, listening, and kindness. And so, Chantell's on my mind and my heart today as we share this time together to talk about leadership. 

So, thank you for bringing all of these wonderful leaders into the room. And we're excited to be here with all of you and we look forward to hearing from you all soon. What we're going to do is chat and talk and dig into some deep questions. And then, of course, we're going to open up the floor for Q & A. And, we'd love for you all to put questions in the chat and whatever is on your mind and on your heart, please feel free to share it with us. 

So, let's just talk about how you all are showing up as leaders who are also women of color and who are also realizing that people are looking to you. And I'm really curious about how you're navigating both the need to meet expectations and show up in a way that honors the moment and how people are feeling and what they need, and, also, sometimes, the expectations that come at you that sometimes may be unreasonable and expecting more from you because you are women of color and what we ask of women of color leaders—we know from research— is more, always more. So, how are you balancing that in this moment? 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

This is a really good question. And, I also wanted to invite folks who are joining as participants and listening in to put in the chat, too, like, maybe one word that describes this moment that we're in today. I would name it as, like, “a lot,” like, “very extra.” And in this question, I wanted to set some context, too. 

So, like, please put in the chat, like, how are you feeling today, folks? Like, are you tired? Are you, you know…are you finding grounding? Are you slowing down for purpose? Is there too much going on? Those themes of expectations we've internalized as women of color, as leaders of color, as leaders, you know, of other experiences. has…is not new. This context is putting it on fire a little bit and putting it it in extra mode, but that context has always been there. And, I wanted to name…shout out to Neha and Felicia from Transformative Leadership for Change. They wrote a great article in NPQ in 2023 and they said “BIPoC leaders are asked to simultaneously dismantle the past, survive the present, and create alternative futures. We are asked to space travel every single day as if we had portals, as if we had magic.” 

I think LLC made a conscious effort to interview a lot of leaders of color right before the elections and we put out a report called Leadership & Race: A Call to Each Other. And, in that, we also name a lot of the expectations and unreasonable pressures we put on each other and ourselves in this sector, as well. So, we name that as an ongoing, long-term, has been an issue for a while now, and more than ever with the attacks on DEI, with the, like, general attacks on all the progressive movement towards racial justice, we are feeling the weight much more heavily. I'm going to pass it on to Ericka to share a little bit more nuance on what that is. 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Concretely, some of the ways that we maintain this balance or navigate these difficult conditions is with coaching. We have a fantastic coach, Belma González. And, having that, asking for help, and not assuming the burden totally has been one way. Institutionally, we just have a culture of care and caring for each other is an established practice at our organization. 

Communication is a huge part of the way LLC works. And so, we like to share information and being as clear as possible with our team about what decisions are being made, how decisions are being made, the decision-making criteria, the roles and process. We're sharing the information that we're hearing. We walk people through our finances. And, part of that transparency is also practicing vulnerability and saying when we don't know and saying “To the best of our ability, we will do this, but there are conditions that are outside of our control and we want you to be in choice about that, knowing what you know.” 

This is also related to our shared/distributed leadership model. And so, we don't hoard information, we don't hoard power. We're distributing power, we're distributing information. But, that also means that we're distributing responsibility. And so, not everything is on our shoulders. We do really have a team and what everyone holds isn't exactly the same. We do still have a hierarchy. We're still the co-EDs. We still…you know, there's still a hierarchy to our staffing model, but it's not so rigid or so…we're not exactly flat, but we're pretty close to flat. 

And so, that relationship between power and responsibility and that distribution means that we're not holding it all on ourselves. And so, it makes that balance easier for us. And, we also acknowledge, like, we experiment, we try on, and we're a learning community and then we say, “What did we learn?” And so, that means that sometimes we are imperfect, we aren't always balanced. And, we just acknowledge that and keep it moving. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you. So, I'm hearing you all acknowledging that a lot of the expectations are the same. We've known this. And, I'm hearing that and I, also, am curious if you feel that there are some differences. I'm thinking now of, like, 2020 and 2021, right. There were a lot of changes in that we saw a lot of organizations calling for leadership from people of color. “We want you to lead this new initiative. We want…oh, we now need you to be in leadership. You should be the director now. You should be the ED. Take over this organization.” So, a lot of that was happening. And, I'm curious about what you feel is different and similar and what you're experiencing as leaders from that time and this time. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Maybe I could start. Not that anybody needs a reminder of what 2020 and 2021 has felt like, but, I'll invite everybody to take a deep breath so we can go there. You know, it was a single, you know, attention that the global community could pay attention to, right. It was a virus, a single threat that was external to our politics, basically, and then layered onto that was the murder of George Floyd, which gave us an acute—in America, especially, but definitely had a global impact, too—an acute focus on racial justice, racial disparities. Which, like I said, we have known for years and years and years now. 

I think folks on this call—and, definitely, folks on this panel—have been paying attention to racial disparities for a long time now and know that it's integral to how our social good sector has been developed. And so, I think, Zuri, what you named is that overwhelming interest in racial justice was very, very present at the time. And, for philanthropy and for funders—both public and private—we saw that there was fund flowing in a concerted effort. Folks were talking to each other. Folks were breaking things open, trying things in the most open ways, as possible. We saw cash distribution from public agencies, allowing nonprofits to offer cash distributions for the first time. 

We saw organizations receive multi-year general operating support. We saw the, you know…externally, we saw the pattern of even grant reporting, the like, arduous work of, like, tediously trying to put back together what just happened just for the funder's sake. You know, because we do that. Like, all nonprofits and social good folks, we do the impact stuff for the external audience, you know, for the participants, for the communities we serve. But, you know, that extra layer of doing it for the foundation, let's drop it. Was, like, really, it freed up, I think, a lot more time for folks to say, “Okay, what is the heart? What is the value of this work that I need to get at?” 

And then, if we fast forward to the external context we are in today, we are seeing the economy doing less well in the last few years, which means that folks managing endowments have restricted the amount of funding that comes out. It's not as free flowing as it was during the pandemic, when the economy was somehow still doing really well and there was lots of governmental incentives to, like, keep the economy moving and flowing. So, today we feel like there's far more limited resources. And, just by the nature of the federal…in America, the federal funding shrinking…that is the largest funder of, you know, civil society in America. 

So, as that shrinks, that means that the nonprofit sector will also inherently shrink, as well. It's like philanthropy itself is just a small plot compared to that larger public funding investment. So, externally, I think that's the difference. Right now we're really talking about a very novel, very unique moment in American society of reshaping the social good sector. And, you know, is this temporary? You know, are we seeing…you know, are we seeing some of the litigation play out right now? Some of it is temporary and some of it will be lasting because, ultimately, this is causing some type of culture shift in America as well. Ericka, what are your thoughts? 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

So, I feel like what Nikki described or like the environment, the conditions, the context and how that is showing up internal to organizations…LLC has been having really candid, really vulnerable conversations with peer organizations or other organizations in the social good sector. And what we're feeling and what we are observing others are feeling that's different from 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-era is that there's more anxiety—surprisingly—more anger, there's more frustration, there's more exhaustion, and there's less certainty and less security. 

And, I think, it should be…we should remember that, you know, internally, internal to individuals and internal to organizations, that there's a cumulative impact. So, these are probably the same leaders who were leading during COVID who are leading now, who have just not gotten a break, and many of those leaders who came in, came in in 2019, came in 2020. So, like, they've never had a honeymoon. There are lots of leaders, like, I know so many leaders, you know, who started a month, six weeks, seven/six months before COVID. Like, they've never had a honeymoon. And then they've run right into this period of time. 

And, I have this image of like the floor is lava. And, you know, during COVID there were a few more safe spaces to land with COVID being, you know…at some point, there were depoliticized places to step. And, these days, things that we may have taken for granted, you know, basic civil and human rights, you know, inclusion, you know—forget about DEI—but just like diversity, even one letter of each of the DEI acronym that we thought were kind of like safe, normal things, the soft democratic processes and norms, things that we take for granted, all of these things seem smaller, they're narrower. 

So, like the soft places, the safe places to land when the floor is lava seems to have decreased. And so, not only are leaders leading with far more difficult tangible resources…you know, conditions with fewer tangible resources, but, also, in a constrained and more dangerous political context. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

I want to add to that something that Karla Monterroso said in Leadership & Race. I'm going to put it in the chat so you can read it. But she said, “I watched a lot of Black women lose their jobs in the last few years, in part, because they stepped into a gap that was there post-George Floyd during the pandemic that had not been filled but have devastated a lot of communities. But now that we're past it, folks are, like, you didn't do enough.” 

Ericka, I think the context you're naming is this pressure of “You didn't do enough.” And now, with this, like, anti-diversity movement saying “You are actually not enough”...Amazing, because the most functional, the most effective, the most, you know, somehow being able to do the executive function side, but also the caring and loving side has always been women, women of color, people who had an othering experience that allowed them to turn around and really step into doing...not replicating what the, you know…not replicating the hate and the harm and the, like, cycle of power and abuse, but instead choosing another way. And, that's the hardest thing to do. 

And, I mean the reason why we all do liberatory leadership work on this panel,  I'm guessing is because it is the hardest thing to do. We're not here to do the easiest thing. So, I say—to layer on to what we just said—the context is different. It is. It does feel hard, like hard work. But, if you're at this call today, there must be something about you, too, that is like, “Well, I wasn't about the easy stuff or else I would have done like this ABC over there with all my skill set. I'm going to do something that I think is really critical,” which is now being called...you're being called more than ever, right. We're all being called on more than ever right now. Where can we put our skill sets? Where can we start networking, getting together, being more innovative, being more practiced in collaboration so we can actually move things differently. 

And one of the…I want to say, like, in 2020, Ericka wrote a blog that, like, still, like, speaks to me, so well: “When All Our Tools are Sharp Objects.” If all our tools are sharp objects, we turn around and we accidentally slice each other, cut each other. I think liberatory leadership work is really about building a much broader toolkit, a much broader spice kit, a much broader toy kit, so that we are flexing all the available, like, all the options available to us to build life-giving…you know, to have life-giving policies and to build life-giving and joyful communities.

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Yes, I love that. Ericka has the best quotes. There's something that you're saying that you were mentioning about all the work that we've done and that we've been doing, right. And, that Ericka's saying, like, “We haven't had a break.” And, something that is really beautiful about that is some of these things that were built. I'm thinking of our healing justice movements. I'm thinking of somatics practice spaces. I'm thinking of the group chats, all of these innovations and interventions that we created. What feels familiar to me is that I need those innovations and those structures. Like, I now realize, “Oh, yes, that meditation group that I did, that tai chi group of organizers that I was working…like, I need that again now.” 

And so, I do really feel like the reminder for me is all of the structures that we were creating, that that is what we need to tap back into and, also, create some more space for people to tap in and tap out. You know, we can't all be leading at the same time. It's just like when, you know, down here in the south, we're seeing the geese, they're starting to migrate back north. And, if you all have ever looked at geese flying together in formation, there's sometimes one geese is at the front for some of that time and then that geese drops back and then another geese takes its place that's flying harder and cutting the wind, right.

So, that’s what's feeling really prescient for me right now. And, I'm wondering…we already started talking a little bit about caregiving and how you all are showing up with, you know, skill and, also, with compassion. And, how are you navigating showing up in a really difficult moment where a lot is being demanded from you, but you, also, need to honor your own limitations and your own dignity in order to be able to continue in this work? How are you balancing that? I mean, you both look very hydrated. I'd like to hear more (laughs). 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

We're staying super hydrated. I’ll take a sip now. Yes, there it is. Like, we definitely, like, have a very loving approach. And, you know, we incorporate love and play. And, it's not just because we're nice. We are very nice. But, it's because we are demanding our full humanity. We're demanding the right to have our full toolbox, not just sharp tools, not just weapons. So, we are saying we get to be whole people and part of being a whole person is having, like, the full array of emotions, and love and care are the feelings that we also have and we bring that to our work. And, it's also in alignment with the vision that we're…of the world that we're trying to create. 

And so, we say out loud, you know, we put in the intentions for a particular policy or practice or activity that it is loving and caring and honors the humanity of the folks that we're working with, whether it's internal or external. And so, when we have a community of practice, it's a space of love and care. The way we facilitate, you know, love and care are central, and we balance that out with clear roles and boundaries. We're really clear on, you know, both the why we do what we do, but also the kinds of relationships that we hold. And we recently had a…just like a reflection conversation with one of our…facilitated by one of our board members, and she asked us to, like, write a question about why you do…explaining something about what you do at the organization. And then, we went to small groups and annoyed each other by asking each other why and how, why and how, why and how, over and over again. 

And so, getting deep and clear on why we do what we do, how we do what we do, is a regular LLC practice. We're also really clear about the nature of our relationship that, you know, it can be in…in, like, the social good sector and like some of our organizations where it feels really nice, we often describe ourselves as a family. And so, we actually have real conversations about the distinctions between the relationships that we have and the relationship you have with your actual family. And, like, naming that we are both in a relational kind of engagement, but also a contractual one and not hiding the fact that, you know, we have an employer employee relationship. And, in this relationship, I care about you as a human being. And so, not hiding anything, like bringing everything to the surface and letting all the things be is one way that we hold that balance. 

And, when I talked about the responsibility and power conversation earlier that we do at LLC, we're also inviting people to really be holding their power, their agency, their autonomy, and to, like, bear responsibility for the…for what's happened in their own lives but at LCC, and we make it possible for people to do that. And, we are intentional about, like, not infantilizing people. So, when you have the question of, like, “Should we say anything? They might feel bad.” But we're also like, “We work with really smart grownups, and it's important that we honor their intelligence and their adulthood and their maturity and their capacity and not hide and not secret away and not hoard information with the assumption that we're their parent that needs to take care of them, and they somehow don't have the capacity to understand or make decisions.” And so we're really cautious about that and that balance. 

And so, we're also open to questions so that…you know, we don't know everything. And so, we want people to be asking us the questions to help us get to that balance. And, you know, I'll say, concretely, in terms of, like, not just the balance, but some of the ways we hold space with gentleness is in the way we facilitate. So, we like to say that “We invite you to rebel,” because, like, the focus is on consent. So if you can't say no, then you can't really say yes. And so we share an agenda and then ask people, like, “How does this sound?” And then we'll incorporate, like, a sound bath or moving, you know, meditation. 

Like, Nikki often will lead us in a drinking meditation. You know, sometimes if hard things have happened…there have been, like, you know, George Floyd is one, but there's been school shootings. I mean, any number of tragedies that have hit and have impacted folks at staff. And, we can't just go into work and just do business as usual. And so, we might just stop and do a drinking meditation. And, you know, you have the time for that. You have the five minutes to do the drinking meditation and to just let people ground and, like, let their nervous systems, you know, get a little bit calmer. So, these are some of the, like, the concrete ways that we incorporate the love, the care, but also with boundaries. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

 Thank you. Thank you. Nikki. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

To layer onto that. Ericka, I just, I loved what you named in terms of, like, what love looks like at work. And I am somebody who is like a learner to this. You would have never caught me saying love at work prior to this organization. I mean, in the context of, like, you know, “I love doing that,” but like, “I love you.”  Like, you know, “I care about you.” Like, it is an honest feeling to have happened. We did…We're pulling from context from our latest community of practice called Liberatory Leadership Community Practice. I wanted to drop some other learnings. It's called Love Work. So, if you're exploring that area of your professional life, too, like a learner like me, I felt like some, you know, the words of other practitioners were really helpful for me, it’s there.

I, also…Ericka, you know, always like, love…Ericka loves that I'm an attorney and like, I always...like down to, like, the contract. But, how she facilitates is very much like an attorney. It's a consent-based facilitation. And, how we run LLC as a lab for liberatory leadership as well is also based on consent, right. So, I think some of the things she's naming here, an underlying like, value or principle that we're bringing in is consent. 

Hey, we're facilitating, oftentimes, a group of executive leaders, right. They're people who're used to being the shot callers in their organization. The only way we can balance power with them is to say, “Hey, this is the agenda. Do you like it? Is this why you're here? Why are you here? Let's make…let's start changing things around so that you're getting what you need out of it. And will you rebel? Will you have the…will you feel like you have the right to say, ‘Actually, you know, it's a little uncomfortable, but you said this or you said this or I came because I thought it meant this and that's what I need.’” 

We had to make room for our conversations for everybody, you know, in our own organizations with our close partners, but even with, like, our family and communities, to be in that consent-based relationship and to give people the offering to not just nod along because it's the polite thing to do, but also be able to…Zuri, to your point, take a deep breath, think about it, and really say what we, we need, including, “I don't understand. I'm still learning about that. Or actually it triggers something to me. Can I check that with you?” That's actually how we manage the conflict that we're all in right now in our politicized, you know, environment, that we need to start slowing down to get into that consent relationship again with each other. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you so much. Something that you all mentioned was play also, and I love that this is…this comes up in your reports, and you can see some different tools on your website. And, I'm really…I know for me and at Social Insights and Liberatory Research, we think a lot about joy. We have joy hours at Social Insights with our interns. We have joy hours with students at Liberatory Research. What I think happens in this context—or anytime things get hard—the pain is so present, it's sometimes so hard to, also, get past that, to see where the joy is. And, what, also, happens is our creativity gets bound and limited. And so, I think play and art and joy and creating space for that is a really important part of resistance and leadership. 

And so, I'm curious about how you all are tapping into creativity in this moment. This is both personally and professionally, how you're welcoming that into your life. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Can we start by building some context to why LLC is a very playful place? 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Yes!

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Ericka, I'm gonna invite you to, like, build a story with me. I think it started with Beyonce (they all laugh). I think I was really into what was happening with her Renaissance album. And then, Ericka and I just, like, we're talking…we always share music with each other. And, so we were talking about, like, the history of music and, like, what it meant growing up in the 90s and, like…and even before that. What, like, it meant to be in a disco era and what, like, what was the context of coming through? Why did we have such joyful, like, fun party music in a time where there was the AIDS epidemic? There was, like, you know, really, like, terrible, aggressive prosecution on our communities there. There was, you know, a lot of harm that we are just in this current time trying to undo, right. That was playing out. 

And so, we were like, “Why did that exist?” You know, we said it existed because people needed it to. And, I drew also from my own family's experience as Vietnamese boat people, refugees. You know, this month is the 50th year mark…the 50th year of the fall of Saigon, which is like, you know, when we officially lost our country, which is South Vietnam. And, I think when a lot of Americans…I just remember Googling, like, Vietnam and Google—you know, like in 2010 or something, or 2002—and all you would see on Google search engine was just like war. Like, you just see camouflage. Like a pair…you would think Vietnamese people just lived in a wartime, like, only, right. 

Like, you only saw a war from the 70s, like 60s, 70s and 80s in our current search engine. So, that was very much the Western experience of, like, what it felt like to be Vietnamese here. I would have people come…I still to this day have people…I hope it's none of you all on this call, but I have people come up to me after after presentations or like panels, at conferences, and they would be crying because they are reliving…like, they're non-Vietnamese people, they're just reliving their experience of what it meant to see a Vietnamese person. And, I was like, “I was born here.” I wasn't even there, you know, but the projection of the sorrow onto me or me representing sorrow to somebody. 

But, something you all have to know is my family is ratchet. Like, my parents are taking shots of tequila, you know, way beyond my capacity. They're singing karaoke at night really loudly, like, really, really loudly. Like they don't care who is around and, like, what neighbors say, you know, like, they are living their lives, right. They are joyful. And, never have they ever described their existence as a sorry, pitiful existence to me. And, you have to remember that people who live through wars, people who live through, like, the worst, don't see themselves in that way. 

Oh, so, Amy (responding to a comment in the chat), like, there has been a change in life where they went away from Hennessy and now they only drink tequila because it's more ratchet, I think. And I am afraid for…Because I'm here visiting them. I'm afraid for this weekend, quite honestly. But to say back again, like, we don't…people see things more beautifully when they have gone through more shit, and they see things more joyfully when they've gone through more shit. Why would we…if you are somebody who hasn't gone through enough in your life, don't put that on somebody. Tap into that joy. Tap into the play. And so, you know, for the context of why LLC does a lot of play work is we were reclaiming play. We are reclaiming, recapturing play. It was taken from too many of our childhoods. It's been taken from too many of our identities. People only see us as diversity or something. That's not our full humanity.

 Ericka, how would you…is that story getting to where…? 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

 She said all the things! You know, we were like..,in this conversation, we were talking about, like, specifically about, like, you know, hip hop emerging at the tail end of disco. And, like, having these two conversations. And, like, we associate hip hop with, like, hardness and disco with, like, softness. And, how do we have all of these things at the same time? And what is the way to be when times are hard? 

And this is all part of, like, larger conversations we were just having about, like, reclaiming our humanity. Like, we have to have all of the things and we don't want to be this picture of sorrow and sadness. Like, I'm so frustrated when, like, every book, every movie about Black life is one in which “Oh, it was so sad.” Like, I'm sitting being sad all the time. And, like, I'm not…like, I don't want…don't turn our lives into trauma porn. Like, that's not what we are. We are whole, happy, beautiful human beings. And play is not…like I said, like, we're loving to each other not just because we're nice. We're playing not just because we're nice and playful, but because it is important to our humanity. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Yes! Yes! Woo, that's powerful. Okay, you've told me about the organizations. You've told me about the ratchet parents. What are you all doing personally to tap into play and creativity tight now? 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

We're partying. Might be slightly indulging, like Nikki's parents. You know, I'm taking an art class and like, you know, it will...it concluded, but it was like a several session drawing class. And I was like, “I'm terrible at this. I'm terrible at this. I'm so bad.” And then I went to the class, I was like, “Actually, I'm not. Why do I have this story about myself? And so, why am I telling myself for all of these years that I'm not good at this thing? And I'm like, just fine.” Am I quitting my day job? No, but it is an entirely reasonable hobby that I can now have. And like, being able to access different parts of myself is like, that's one way that I'm tapping into creativity, you know, personally. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you, artist Ericka. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Fine art too. Not…she's not just like, she has like some fine art she's doing. It's sophisticated, y'all. I have two young kids, so I have to play all day with them. Like, and they're boys, so they're like, “Let's…you, mom, you be the horse. You be the…” So, I think that really gets me into a playful mood. 

Like, their way of thinking is so joyful and creative. And, you know, I think there's a lot going around social media saying, like, creativity is like maybe the interrupter to, like, stress and certain, you know, nervous system, like, issues. So, I really…I could see that. And, maybe to me, what it is, is when you really are playing, you play like on a board game, or you're playing, you know, and doing something creative, you are being mindful. You're paying attention to something. You're not actually head over here, over there. Like, when you're a horse and somebody's on your back, you better…and you're 40 something years, you better be mindful or else you're gonna hurt yourself. And so, it's…I think play gives you that moment of regrounding that is much more like some of my friends cannot do meditation and cannot do mindfulness, but they can do play. And I think that's what I'm thinking of whenever I have to be a horse. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Yeah. Yeah, Love that! Aw, the babies. Always bringing us into the present and into the moment. So grateful for them. Thank you all for sharing. Learned something new. So, we're talking about creativity, and I just, you know, we have a few more questions left before we're going to open it up to the group, but I'm really curious about some of these things that are more quiet, more invisible, less Beyonce, more, I don't know, Michelle Ndegeocello. Like, what are these quiet, invisible acts of leadership that are exemplifying liberatory practice that may not be in your reports or that aren't as big and bold, but are equally as important? 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

I'll kick it off and then, Nikki, you can tag team it? (Nikki nods) Cool. 

So I'll say that, like, some things that, you know, at LLC that might not be visible to others is like, we really do make space for rest and for wellness. You may not have everything, but what we do have control over and what we have is time. And so, we take intentional pauses. So, we control how we spend our time. So, we pause for rest. And, that's a reminder of where we do have abundance. We really do focus on relationships. So, you know, the same way we invite people to rebel when we facilitate, but we're also deepening and asking people on staff…

So, at a staff meeting, we're like, “You know, we want to hear about your “ows” and your “wows.” You know, what went well, what didn't.” Like, we don't want to encourage, like, toxic positivity and just say everything was great. And, like, if we have too many times when no one has said a complaint…there was a period of time when we were still practicing this in our staff meetings, and sometimes no one would ever say anything negative, and Nikki would say, “Okay, we're not concluding until somebody says something that's not great because something not great happened and we want to be able to create space for the not great.” 

I think we are also really focused on balance. And I think, you know, liberatory leadership requires us to move away from binary thinking to, like, to be in the dialectic, to hold the, like, the things that seem to be contradictory, holding the multiple, you know, the both/and kind of thinking. And so, we're always like…Nikki and I, you know, as we're talking with staff about stuff, we're like…we're looking around and we're seeing the writing on the wall when it comes to philanthropy. And so, what conversations do we have with staff? And so, what's the balance between being transparent and just dumping and burdening staff? How do we maintain that balance? 

That's the invisible work that we're, also, doing. You know, we're being connected, and we have clear boundaries. We are realistic, and we're open to possibility. You know, we know that some resources are becoming more scarce, but we're also maintaining an abundant mindset. And so, we're okay with…we have to be in the space of experimentation where we say “It's okay to not be right. We're not gonna get it all. Sometimes the balance will be off, and y'all are gonna have to deal because we're human beings.” And part of this—just like reclaiming play and ratchetness and all that stuff—is, like, demanding the humanity to be imperfect. Like, I'm not a machine, and you're not going to turn me into a machine or a product that is somehow always perfect. And, I'm supposed to accept that. And, if I am not perfect, then I'm somehow a failed product. And we're not…we're not accepting that. So, those are some invisible practices. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you. Thank you so much. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

You know, Ericka, you're…I think that it was kind of the downfall of DEI is because it made it look so mechanical: what this thing is of being in relationship with each other. It just looked very corporate and, you know, none of us and probably none of the folks on this call were like in a corporation doing the DEI…you know, doing that kind of like, that kind of movement with it. I think we're all in like racial equity work, racial justice work, or paying attention to diversity in leadership. But, yeah, I really like that you brought that up. 

And, I think another thing to bring up in terms of invisible acts of leadership is that more than ever, we think that liberatory leadership is needed and that's really hard because also more than ever, very sharp tools are needed right now. You know, people want to be in combat mode as they should be wanting to. You know, like, there is a fight here. But, something that LLC talks a lot about is the output has always been good in the social good sector. The like, the output, you know, like power building, campaigning, changing policy, advocacy has always been a good output, but it has always come at a really deep cost to the people at the table. That's an invisible harm that we don't often talk about. I mean, there have been some big articles, you know, about organizations and implosions and like, you know, dynamics. But for LLC, I think what we've been saying is how we do our just work. So, it's like just work in just ways. Just work in just, joyous ways. Just work in just, joyous, and liberatory ways. We have to get to those kind of ways in order for our output to match and be sustainable for a much more diverse and multiracial, multicultural kind of makeup of our leadership. So, I think about that a lot too, because all the little invisible acts of leadership that makes it joyful at an organization.

To prep for this call, I want to give a big shout out to Miko. You know, they really helped us get, like, to a place where we understood what we were going to be talking about. We understood, you know, it was a little gift, a little, like…Miko made a video for us to prep us. You know, it's the little invisible act of leadership that happened and I really felt it. You know, I really appreciated it. There are lots of little moments like that. 

I know you all like, do like, “Did you connect somebody to somebody?” Kinkini is on this call. She connected us to one of our favorite people. Not though…just a little outreach, a little connection, little invisible acts of leadership. You know, it's something I just do, you know, on the side is “I saw you like this, I see you like that. Would you get to…would you talk to each other? You seem like people who would get to know each other and be friends.”

And then, I want to give a shout out to our colleague who's not on the call because she's on spring break with her kids and hopefully she's not on the call but Iman Mills Gordon, I think some of the things I've learned from her is when she takes a break from our organization it's like a little gift to us in that she's practicing something that has never been allowed. You know, like, we hold each other so high that we're like, “Take a break.” And you're like, “I don't want to take a break. Like, I need to get things done.” And Ericka, you do this for me too. “Take a break, Nikki.”

You know, so when Ericka was saying like that balance and stuff like that, I still need it. I think Iman so needs it and we need it. We give it to each other like “Hey, you need to take a break now. It's actually like I can see the hurt that's happening from you trying to get to the outcome that's so good and so good and juicy and necessary but the hurt isn't worth it to me. I want you to know that.” So, I like those invisible acts of leadership…it’s also invisible kindness and connection and things that we already know in our other spaces. Maybe we're not calling it leadership as proudly and loudly. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Hmm, I love that. Yes. That just makes me think about the Social Insights team and there are so many things said and unsaid that we're all doing for each other. And, I'll see someone from the team that's like “Ph, I'm going to pick up the slack because someone's having a hard time right now. So, I'm going to be on this meeting instead of them or I'm going to contribute to this instead of them.” 

I think some of what even what we think of as DEI—in whatever context, cultural, federal, social justice—often there's like this other invisible part of what equity truly is that is not reported. There's no statistic for, you know, giving grace to someone who's 5, 10 minutes late to a meeting because they're doing their school pickup, right. There's no, like, measurement really for some of the loving notes that we'll send when someone seems stressed on a call or the check ins that we do, right. Like, that to me is equity and it is what it means to make someone feel included when they're not at their highest level of production. 

So, yes. So, shout out to all of our amazing teams. And, this is my last question. We're talking a little bit about, you know, measurement, right. What…h.ow would you say during this moment, during this really difficult time, what is your indicator of organizational wellness? How do you know that y'all are doing okay? Not perfect. Not, you know, on a hundred, but what is your indicator that you're okay right now? 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

I could feel you, like, on that mute button hard (laughs). So, I'm gonna kick it off. I think, you know, we've done a lot of work on relationships over the years, and, like, we've been, like, tending to relationships as a core part of, like, organizational maintenance work. The same way you take care of, like, other things, like making sure the relationships are right, something that we paid attention to. And so, what those relationships look like are indicators of wellness to us. So, are we choosing to be…and we're an entirely virtual organization, so you don't have to talk to anyone outside of, you know, a meeting. But, are people choosing…are they setting meetings with each other so they can talk through the work? 

Like, are people electing to be in space, virtual or any kind of space with each other? When we are in space with each other, what's the vibe? Are we treating each other with love and care? But, you know, when you're stressed out and you start sniping at your partner or your, whoever else is with you, like, what's the nature of our conversations? Are we still…do we still have the room and the spaciousness to give grace? Are we still able to…do we have enough in the tank to extend ourselves, to check in on each other? Do we have enough in the tank to say, “Good job. You did great.” You know, to acknowledge each other? So, those interactions are indicators of wellness to me, as well. 

Whether or not people are excited and curious. Do people have ideas? You know, like, when you're swamped and you're, like, just trying to survive, like, you're not curious and, like, wondering, “You know, what could we do? I wonder.” So are people still in that state? Do they still have wonder and curiosity? Those, to me, are indicators of a well team. What about you, Nikki? 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Yes, to all those things. And then, I think I would layer on, like, maybe one concrete way to figure out, like, the “Are we giving each other grace?” I've been thinking about the Losada ratio. It's like, the idea that you have to say, like, three or five or six positive things before you say, like, a negative thing. Are you building enough space in your team meetings or your interactions with, you know, the cohort that you're leading so that people can say the positive things, acknowledge it, so they can also say the negative thing, the feedback that needs be said so that you're not restricted to not saying anything at all and you're just holding in all your feelings. So, I like that idea of like, are there, you know, as a way of measuring space to give negative feedback as well as positive feedback. 

I also think being able to stick to your values and naming your values is a really important time thing for us. LLC has had to have some really hard conversations within our own organization in the last few years. Whenever Ericka and I have had to come to that conversation to each other and then also to our team, we always started with saying, “What are the values we want to come up to this table with?” And then, we try to stick to those values, as much as possible. And, typically, one of the top values or principles we want to stick to is transparency. This is transparent. You know, I want to be transparent as legally as possible that this is the scenario we're dealing with here. I want to bring our team along, not just like at the moment of crisis, but we wanted to bring them along the entire time so they can even see the trajectory and see when, why we called it, this is the crisis moment. 

And, I see like a question, for example, in the Q and A about financial crisis. Like we, like we said at the get go from of this panel, there is a financial crisis in the social good sector right now because the federal government's funding is inherently the largest funding source for civil, you know, civil society, human rights, civil legal rights, that is—on purpose—being shrunken right now. So…and philanthropy, because many didn't do well with their, you know, investments in the last year have also, you know, big philanthropy have shared to us that their funding will either be the same or less. Very few foundations have said, “Oh, we're going to give more in this time.” Maybe that will come later this year and I hope it does. But, you know, during the pandemic there were financial vehicles for them to do that with. They were able to take large loans and bonds out that is not being opened, of course, right now as a financial vehicle for folks to utilize to create more funding opportunities. So, the financial crisis is very real. 

One of the practices we have at LLC is we have openings quarterly for our board. We share back the finances and where we think the trajectory is. But, also, within our team, we have tried to open it up to more staff to understand the actual trajectory of our finances and get more into the nuance so that it isn't a big surprise when we see changes in the sector that they are, also, managing that expectation with us. 

So, earlier Ericka said something around like, you know, we're demanding our full humanity, but we're also like making everybody share the responsibility. The distributed leadership side of the work is not because we want—as EDs—to do less. Like, I don't ever feel like I'm doing less, but it is so that our team gets the skill set of an executive leader, as well, right. And that they get the same information pattern. Because in these times…different from like 40 years ago when a lot of nonprofits started out, many of us can now Zoom into a meeting. It doesn't….you don't only have to send one person to an in person meeting to get the information. So, information is free flowing and that means we should be able to be a little bit more transparent about how businesses are run on the back end. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you, Nikki. Alright, we're at the most exciting time, which is Q and A time. We have a few questions we've been collecting as the chat has been going throughout our webinar and we are going to answer questions as they come. So, we'll do our best to get in as many as we can. Feel free to leave them and put them in the chat. Or if you want to, you can DM the Social Insights Research LLC host directly. And, thank you...yes, also the Q and A field. Thank you, Miko. 

Nikki, you spoke a little bit already to one of these questions about, you know, collective care and love and, you know, making difficult decisions. And, Vanessa, thank you for sharing, you know, what you're feeling challenged with right now. And, I'm curious if other folks, you know, want to actually add to that in the chat. You can feel free to share your wisdom, as well. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Sorry, maybe I could add a little bit more to that…Vanessa's question more directly. Definitely transparency, you know, helping people see the lay of the land. I think a lot of staff…our, you know…LLC, we host a lot of learning circles with executive leaders. Some of them are in geographic combine…like, you know, regions together. Some of them are just, like, have another characteristic that, you know, they're part of the same type of field or they're part of like they're all new EDs, for example. And, something we've been hearing is that folks are, like, the ED levels are, like, really aware of the financial crisis we're in right now and their staff are not. 

They're just like “Just going to do my thing,” you know. And, I think my…And even, like, last month when we were checking in maybe two months ago when we were checking with philanthropy, many of our program, you know, contacts and philanthropy were not aware of the financial crisis that was happening because we know on the back end people are planning layoffs and people are applying scenarios and people are like talking to their employment lawyers, right. But, that's maybe the executive level or the C-suite level and the staff level wasn't really aware of it, yet, and philanthropy wasn't really aware that it was happening, yet. So, I think, you know, really important to now start talking about this more broadly, more widely. Hopefully there are more like external resources, like external papers that you can point to to show like this is a system wide kind of moment, not just like we're experiencing it by ourselves kind of moment. 

And then, I would also want to just lay a framework for you to consider. Nothing is meant to live forever. I know it's really hard to hear that. Mortality is part of what makes humans so amazing and mortality is what makes a lot of beings so interesting and amazing. But, organizations are set up to want to live forever. And so, if we have to live forever…the lesson that we're drawing to this moment is the immortal jellyfish. There is at least one being that we know of and…you know, biologically that can kind of live forever and it's the immortal jellyfish. And how it does that isn't because it stays in its like, you know, 40s forever or 20s forever. 

How it does it is it grows older, it might get sick or it might, you know, just like start, start like aging, and it will revert back to its teenage years and then regrow again. So, it's doing this, you know, growing, constricting, contrasting, constrict moment. And, I…to me, I think that is one lesson on how to navigate these times, too, is to not see yourself as this…uou have to stay the same and become, you know, and live on forever. But, you have to allow your organization to grow and get smaller, grow and get smaller, and kind of feel comfortable in that type of change management and change within the organization. It's a very hard mountain to get over for a lot of people who are seeking a certain type of stability. 

The way we've tried to offset that is can we give folks a lot of runway into understanding how long they have stability for and, also, can we give you a lot of skills. Like when you're working with us, you should be getting a lot of skills that makes you also very agile so that you can become water. People need to become water in these times and be very agile and be, you know, able to maneuver and flow much more than, you know, you are…”I am only the co-executive director. I only do strategy, so that's all I can do.” You know, I need to learn from my colleagues to learn how to talk about love and show up as a caring leader in the organization, too. 

I need to learn about liberatory leadership, which I really have appreciated the leaders and the Black women who've carried that beautiful gift to us in these last few years. We all can take responsibility now and learn from each other so that we can become water and maneuver with agility in these times. 

So, immortal jellyfish and being water are two ways to also talk somehow about financial crisis and risk. 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

I want to add that to something that Nikki said, is that we talked about transparency. And so, I think the first step is assessment. Like, what's the nature of the relationships that you have with people? Because you can't…like, it's hard to turn on a dime and just like all of a sudden, if you didn't have a transparent relationship with folks and then switch to, you know, how will that information be received? So, some reflection on, like, how…what transparency looks like and how it's showing up at your space is critical. I think it's also important to share your intentions. Like, “We are doing this…these are the values that we want to be present in this policy. These are the intentions that we're trying to uphold.” 

And then, I think there's a…when you talk about, like, how to hold people with love and sustainability, it's like we do an assessment and a capacity, a risk and capacity assessment. So, like, what is the risk to our organization and what do we have the capacity to do? And, I bring up capacity because you asked the question, Vanessa, how can we navigate difficult decisions so that no one is left out? And, it might not be possible. You can have everyone…maybe it's possible that no one is left out of the conversation, but maybe it's not possible that you have an outcome, a desirable outcome for each individual depending on your individual circumstances. And so, not setting the bar that, like, if everyone isn't, like, ecstatic at the end of the decision making, that somehow it was a bad decision. 

Like, sometimes the decisions are hard and they just stink and sometimes the circumstances are just bad. And, you can do the best that you can, but that doesn't mean that doing the best you can all of a sudden makes things great or enjoyable or fun or, you know, or feel good. And I think there's an association with liberatory leadership and comfort.  And, like, sometimes, things that we do aren't comfortable and they don't feel good, but they are the best that we can do given the circumstances that we have. And so, that should be the expectations that we set for ourselves, that we do the best we can, that we don't have…to the extent that we have control, the extent that we have power, the extent that we have resources and capability, that we always do that in alignment with our values, but that there are circumstances beyond our control. 

And so, being clear about what we control and what we don't control and how we're going to behave and how we're going to move where we have power and capacity is what we communicate to staff and to each other. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you. Very thorough answers. I appreciate that and thank you for putting that additional context in the chat too, Nikki. Lots of follow up possible here after this call. We hope you all engage more with Leadership Learning Community. We had a question that was a little bit of a call back to what you all were talking about, consent and your consent way forward. 

So, I'll put this in the chat. Do you see your consent-forward way of relating to one another in your work seeping into your other or personal relationships? And so , feel free to answer this as in-depth or, you know, however you feel comfortable going into that. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

This is such a good question. Thank you, CheyOnna for it. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

That's CheyOnna. She's from Social Insights. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

CheyOnna, hey! I will say, I am…I have a problem. I like taking care of people and I suspect that I'm not alone in this room with that problem. Like, you see a problem, you, you know, you want to help, you want to solve, you want to be with the person. And, for me, the consent…for some reason, I love being an attorney because it really gets me in the mindset of the consent. But I didn't until, like, being with LCC recognize that that's actually something I can apply in every space, not just only when I have an attorney hat on, right. So, the revelation for me is, like, I can care about you. I don't have to take care of you. And, there's something more consent-based in that way than me being like, you know, just overwhelmingly, you know…

Like I'm an older…I'm an older sister. I'm not the oldest, so I'm not that person. I'm an older sister to some younger ones. And, I really got to a point where I'm like, “Oh, I, you know…have I been overbearing on you? Have I put too much on you? Because I've been wanting to take care of you. Like, now I get to just be caring of you. What do you want? What do you need? How do you see this playing out? How do you want to solve your problems?” And, I think as a mother too, that's been really like a gift to me, in terms of bringing that consent-forward way of relating to one another, even to my child, my children, just being like “You get to own your autonomy because…and your power and your agency. I want to give…I'm giving that to you. You should deserve…you deserve that even at this young age.” 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Love that. Thank you. 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

I think the consent goes from, like, work to personal, but, for me, consent came from personal and it's really, like, informed by my husband. Like, he used to frustrate me because he wouldn't do the things that I was like, “You have to do that. It's a rule. You have to do that. And, he was like, no, I don't want to.” And I was like, “You could say no? That's an option?” And, I wasn't aware of that. I'm a very nice girl. I didn't know you could say no to all these things just because you didn't want to. And so, this idea of, like, rebelling and, like, honoring your…what you know what you want, you know, came more from the personal life into work. 

And, when we invite people to rebel, like we're really clear about…we've learned to be clear about what we're inviting people to rebel against. So, like we invite you to rebel against our agenda, the plan that we've laid out, not against the commitments and relationship that we have with one another. So…but I do think, you know, in my embracing my middle-aged ladyness and saying like, “I can elect…I have agency and autonomy and if that's what I want for myself, I need to offer it to you, as well.” 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Is no an option? It's like, “Wait a minute!” Telling me no (laughs). I love that, I love that, that you all have very clear understandings. I think...Yeah. I have a oldest child who just turned 18, so it's interesting because they are also in college, so…and before they turned 18, right. So, there's a level of independence that I think is how consent is showing up for me in a lot of different ways, like between us and our relationships, like how much I'm invited into sharing what I think should be happening, providing support. 

And, I think what I have learned from this 18-year relationship is that, again, back to something I was saying about Chantell is like the gift of listening. I think that's what I have learned most from consent is like you're from…you're in a posture of listening instead of telling, instead of demanding, instead of starting with what it is that you want to happen. 

And, I think there's the balance there, right, where you're also able to talk about your needs. But, for me, it looks like, “Alright, let's start with the listening so that what I'm asking for and what you're asking for is clear and the assumptions are minimal.” So, yeah, that's how it shows up for me. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

That was great. It reminded me of…we have group agreements and most of the folks probably have been in a situation where you have had group agreements before. And, it used to say, just like...Ericka, tell me the assumption… 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

 Assume good intent. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

Yes, assume good intention. And then, like, over the years, we've just modified it and we're like, assume nothing, ask questions. You know, be open to asking the questions. 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Mhmm. Yeah, we have group agreements at Social Insights as well that are…were originally really created to share with clients. And so, you know, we're not a nonprofit organization, and so our culture is different, but some of the things that felt really important to me as someone who was really deep in movement was like, “Oh, we need to be clear about how we're approaching this relationship and what we need in order for this relationship to work well, even though technically we're working for you, right.” Like, “Yes, you are paying us, but these are the agreements that we want to make as we enter into this relationship.” And so, I think it's been really, really helpful and it's something that we will return back to when we're having conflict. 

And, I think, you know, it hasn't changed that much. Those agreements haven't changed too, too much. And maybe that's, you know, even an opportunity for us as a team to say, “Alright, do we need to say assume nothing on here like you all have done?” But, yeah, I think those agreements are really helpful and useful for us, too. 

I'm curious if those of you who are in the room, if you all have some version of working agreements that are changing. Are they in flux? Are they static? Do you wish you had them and you don't? So, would love to hear from you all about that, too. I'm, also, really curious as we're talking about working agreements and some of the things you all have in place as far as you talked a lot about some of your policies. I'm also curious about the mindset that you all are nurturing in your organization. And, of course, we all come with our own points of view and our own histories and our own backgrounds, but when I'm thinking about the LLC culture, like, you're making it pretty clear to us, like, what your culture is. And, I'm wondering if you could speak to mindset, to what you're cultivating, and what already exists. 

Ericka Stallings (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

I'll start, Nikki. I'll pass to you. Like, I think the mindset is learning or being a learner, like, in community. So, like, our name really does describe, you know, the mindset that we're asking people to hold and that we're trying to nurture. So, being a learning community. And so, we are, you know, I, personally, was like, really resistant to dogmatic approaches. And so, learning, curiosity, experimentation are…and a willingness to do that are mindsets that we really nurture and doing all of that in community. Yeah. Thank you. 

Nikki Dinh (she/her) | Co-ED | Leadership Learning Community

I'll add, like, generosity and the art of being generous, that it isn't just a charity mindset. I mean, if you're in the sector, you have interrogated charity and generosity. But, I think as I keep pulling, like, how do we…to be in abundance means, I think, to be creating generosity. And, it doesn't always mean to be able to have to be the richest person on the earth, you know, to be able to do it. It actually is in the most trying times. What do I have to offer? I can give you some space. I can be a thought partner. I can give you agency and show you that you have agency, to me, I keep playing with this idea of how do I…what is the art of generosity really like and how do I practice it in my own life? 

Dr. Zuri Tau (she/her) | Founder & CEO | Social Insights Research

Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been absolutely incredible. We are a little over time. Oh, Emma (reading the chat), thank you so much for that feedback. Of course. We are just thrilled to have gotten to know a little bit more about each other. This is like that beautiful practice of community. Thank you for being with us. 

This conversation, as you know, was recorded so you will have access to it again and access to share. We have a feedback form, of course, because we want to know your thoughts, please take a moment to fill that out. It is pretty short. Miko has put the link in the chat for us, as well as Social Insights Research. That's our website link, as well. 

Thank you all so much. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the week. Maybe get a little ratchet like Nikki's parents. Maybe you need to eat candy like Ericka is doing at her mother in law's right now. Maybe you need to sit under a tree and breathe or take a little break. Whatever it is, take good care of yourself and we'll see you next time.