Unleashing Social Change Becky Margiotta

 
Unleashing Social Change Podcast has a featured episode for you this week!
High Tech High Unboxed, hosted by  Alec Patton. In this Episode, Stacey interviews Brandi. Stacey Caillier talks to Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford about what Improvement Science looks like when equity and liberation are embedded in the PROCESS, not just the hoped-for result. This interview is rooted in two things, how improvement science can be a tool for our collective liberation and what we do in the meantime before that liberation comes about. Hope you enjoy this week's Bonus episode. 

Show Resources: 

HTHunboxed Podcast: https://hthunboxed.org/podcast-home/

Order Becky’s Book Impact With Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself
Check out our 1:1 Coaching 

Nicki Roth and I met back in 2003 working on the 100,000 homes campaign. She is currently heading the executive leadership coaching offered to all MBA students at MIT Sloan School of Management. She has published two books on leadership and is the co-founder of The Messy Truth Leadership. I am honored and SO grateful that Nicki listened to the entirety of Season Four and brought her wisdom and expertise to this debrief. 
Nicki is unafraid to call a spade a spade, or an asshole, and for that I love her. Unapologetic in her mission to develop leaders that are able to lift and progress teams rather than exhaust them with tone deaf egos, Nicki has decades of experience working in leader development and has her pulse on what leaders across sectors need. 
In this episode we unpack the magnitude of the season. We discuss the threads of leadership lessons we saw woven throughout decades of service and the most prominent characteristics of authentic leadership. 
To sit down in conversation with my old friend was a treat. Enjoy the last episode and then start all over again. 
Show Notes:
The difference seeing leadership development as a profit generator versus a necessity. There is more clarity of purpose in mission driven organizations. Commonalities between nonprofit, military, and corporate leaders. The journey from being externally motivated to developing intrinsic self worth.  The opposite of humble leadership is “I’m in charge” The nuance of navigating ego as a non-dominant group leader. How ego driven leadership limits careers and exhausts staff.  Never underestimate how honored a leader will be if they are asked to be a mentor.  People in non-dominant groups must have internal mentors to advocate for them, to help them navigate systems, see them, hear them, experience them, and help develop their talents.  Leadership isn’t about the leader, it's about the group.    
Show Resources
Nicki’s Projects
The Messy Truth Leadership 
Sloan's approach to leadership 
Private audio coaching 
 
Nicki’s Books 
The Messy Truth About Leading People
Beyond Passion: From Nonprofit Expert to Organizational Leader
 
Pre-order Becky’s Book Impact With Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself

My last mentor of the season is one who has known me since before I was born, my Aunt and Godmother, Sharon Kanis of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. 
Taking her vows at the age of 19, Sharon has since gotten a degree in chemistry, a masters in applying Jungian theory to biblical archetypes, and a PhD in how people experience their spirituality in their bodies. When asked if I could introduce her as Doctor Sharon Kanis SSND she scoffed and said the phd was just a thing she did a while ago. 
Sharon is a truth teller and willing to question her own assumptions with enduring humility. She has traveled the world to pay witness and be of service. An educator through her decades of service, she brings people and their shared experiences together in community. Sharon has rooted her service in the interconnectedness of the web of life and is unwavering from the oneness of the universe. 
In this episode, you’ll hear that the thing Sharon attributes her progress to is also the biggest obstacle she’s faced as a leader - mutual accountability; showing up, consistently, willing to meet someone where they’re at, to get the work done. And although sometimes inconvenient, it is necessary and rooted in justice. 
Show Notes:
The lesson I taught her at three years old. The difference between community and communion.  Theology isn’t about answers, it's about questions.  Our identities are not reasons for division but markers for community.  How to stay in communication with people when egos inflate the room. Consensus is not always efficient but it is necessary.  The philosophy of mutual availability. The web of life and what it means to be interconnected. Making time for contemplative practice.  What happens to one of us happens to all of us.  Weaving together common experiences as a mode of operation.   
Order Becky’s Book Impact With Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself

Description:
A few years ago I received advice that every leader should have a mentor who is 20 years younger than them. In the reckoning of June 2020, I found mine in Noah Winnick and Josue Barnes. The duo founded Claremont Change and have been representing the voices of marginalized people in the community since the inception of the organization. 
They are fearless advocates who are relentless in their commitment and vision in creating an antiracist Claremont and I will follow them, quite literally in peaceful protest, to the ends of the earth. 
The synergy between these lifelong friends is animating to witness. Somehow they are able to make the daunting and often draining work of social justice joyful and approachable. They authentically show up for their hometown and I am so proud to be in arms with them as I do my part in shaping the city where I have rooted my family. 
I hope you enjoy this time with “The Rom-Com Boys” as much I did. 
Show Highlights: 
 
Fostering fearlessness and Cat’s The Musical  The weight and responsibility of speaking out in a town that you were raised in.  How to bring humor and irrepressible joy to the daunting journey that is social justice advocating.  Learning how to hold your own as the baby of the family. Trusting instincts and accepting that just because someone knows more than you doesn't mean they’ll be helpful.  Navigating trust in politically charged strategies. Learning that knowledge does not imply truth or helpfulness.   
Show Resources: 
Claremont Change
Order Becky’s Book Impact With Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself

This week I sat down with Mark Lipton who I met when he was the Department Chair of my graduate program in Organizational Change Management at The New School. He has since moved on to Professor Emeritus status, which has freed him up to consult with Fortune 500 companies and write awesome books, so be sure to check out Guiding Growth: How Vision Keeps Companies on Course and the award-winning Mean Men: The Perversion of America’s Self-Made Man. 
I learned that Mark and I had all kinds of things in common in this episode. For example, we bonded over the fact that both of us entered higher education entirely on a whim. And I was absolutely fascinated to listen to Mark’s thoughts about what he calls Emotional Fortitude - a signature attribute of “undisruptable CEOs” that he defines as, “the art of examining one’s own thoughts and emotions surrounding a decision in order to consider those thoughts and emotions themselves as inputs to the decision-making process.” Though we have traveled different paths, the fact that we are both so keen on helping leaders know themselves and do the inner work of mining their emotions confirmed for me that this is someone I was so lucky to have as a mentor and teacher so many years ago. 
Mark’s reflections on purpose and vision are something everyone leading anything needs to listen to. This wonderful human being has a great big heart to match his great big brain. Everything he shares is oozing with humility and thoughtfulness.
I hope you enjoy listening to this show as much as I enjoyed recording it with Mark. 
Show Highlights: 
“Knocking out a phd” could alter the course of your life The leadership superpower of Emotional Fortitude  How do organizations set up feedback loops? And how can leaders actively listen?  What is trust and how do we gain, sustain, and lose it?  Why knowing what you are feeling in the moment is one of the most important skills you can build as a leader What is left when we let go of the notion that we have something to prove to others or ourselves Understanding your feelings, in the face of a challenge, will let you know what you truly want to do about it Thoughts on (not) retiring  Vision. Is. Everything. Show Resources: 
Mean Men: The Perversions of America’s Self-Made Man  Guiding Growth: How vision keeps companies on course.  The Group Laboratory   
Pre-order Becky’s Book Impact With Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself

In this episode, you’ll meet Rosanne Haggerty, winner of the 2001 MacArthur “Genius Award.” Having worked for her for 11 years I can say with no doubt: she really is a genius, although she’d never tell you that herself. Super humble and one of the most relentless leaders I’ve ever known, Rosanne’s work speaks for itself. 
Last year the organization she founded, Community Solutions, was awarded the prestigious $100 & Change grant from the MacArthur Foundation, a global competition for a $100 million to fund a single proposal that promises “real and measurable progress in solving a critical problem of our time.” I am so confident Rosanne and her team will deliver on this in spades. 
Back in 2003, when Rosanne hired me to reduce street homelessness in two-thirds over three years in parts of Manhattan, NYC, all I knew was that I wanted to throw myself into work where I felt zero ambivalence. Rosanne took me under her wings and taught me that there’s no such thing as a problem that can’t be solved. Why she hired a former Army officer to lead an effort to tackle street homelessness is a mystery that she attempts to answer in this episode, and her answer sheds light on her knack for disrupting business as usual. 
Everett Rogers estimates 2.5% of the population are innovators for any given area. Rosanne is one of those rare 2.5% who cannot help but generate fresh insights into entrenched problems. This leader was put on the planet to shake things up! 
In this episode, you’ll hear us talk about our time working together on the 100,000 Homes campaign, the challenges we faced, and the power of active listening. You’ll also hear some of the behind-the-scenes stories from my book, Impact with Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself. 
As always, enjoy the show and please share far and wide. 
 
Show Notes:
Thinking outside the box when it comes to hiring. Mobilizing accountability in complex problems. Homelessness is the collective failure of other systems and structures. Stepping up for the people who need it. Why solving short-term crises doesn’t work and where we need to start.  The challenge is not sinister or mysterious - it’s solvable.  Learning how to engage people in a way that’s not overwhelming for everyone.  Matchmaking genius and what it can do for an organization. Allowing space for what needs to come next.  Finding the balance between keeping an organization afloat while keeping it equitable and innovative.  Pre-order Becky’s Book Impact With Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself