Unleashing Social Change

Latest Episodes:

Episode 30: Kevin Keenan, "Dismantling Mass Incarceration" Sep 08, 2020

Show notes

Join us for an important and eye-opening conversation with Vera Institute Executive Vice President and Special Counsel, Kevin Keenan, as we peel the onion of mass incarceration - and learn what Vera is doing about it.

Highlights:

The extraordinary harm caused by our system of mass incarceration
Facing into brutality and racism of our criminal justice system
The importance of treating everybody with dignity
The importance of proximity for really being able to tackle complex social problems
What Vera Institute is doing to create a more just society

Links:

https://www.vera.org/
Twitter: @verainstitute @kevinkeenan
Justin's Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PUPQrF5Qlk
Bar Chart from PPI: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2018.html
JustLeadership USA/ Glenn Martin Quote, "Those closest to the problem are closest to the solution, but furthest from resources and power.": https://jlusa.org/our-goal/
On Movement Ecology, AYNI Institute: https://ayni.institute/movementecology/

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Episode 29: Michelle Molitor, "Facing into our Collective Grief" Sep 01, 2020

Show notes

Recorded shortly after the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Michelle Molitor, Founder of the Equity Lab, joins Becky for a vulnerable and raw conversation about the double whammy of racism and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Little did we know that soon after we recorded this interview, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd's murders at the hands of police would spark one of the largest social movements in US history. Michelle reminds us that even through our grief - if we are brave enough - now is the time for us to transform the world forever. How we show up in this moment matters.

Show highlights:

Michelle Molitor - Executive Director, The Equity Lab

Why we must seed disruption
The link between personal and organizational and societal transformation
The importance of decolonizing our spaces and creating equity of voice in every space
We need to slow down and create space to grieve
How allowing ourselves to grieve creates the possibility for connection with others

Links:

The Nexus Fellowship: https://www.theequitylab.org/nexus

The Equity Lab blog: https://www.theequitylab.org/blog

Why Everyone Loses When We Don't Talk About Race and Equity: Q&A with Michelle Molitor

https://www.educationpioneers.org/blog/why-everyone-loses-when-we-dont-talk-about-race-and-equity-qa-michelle-molitor

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Episode 28: Eunice Lin Nichols, "The Power of Intergenerational Connections"� Aug 25, 2020

Show notes

If you are fortunate enough to live a long life, it is all too likely that you will experience ageism. Sadly, older adults are sometimes viewed as a liability versus the tremendous asset they are. In this episode, Eunice and Becky discuss the importance and power of intergenerational work and Encore's bold reimagining of what it means to be an older adult.

Show Highlights:

How Eunice's identity as an Asian American woman shapes her work
How the Gen2Gen project is mobilizing 1 million older adults to show up for kids
Why innovation is not just for the young
The wisdom that can come from living through dark times
Why you shouldn't say, "Ok, Boomer."
Why young people need older people in their lives.

Links:

https://encore.org/

www.iamgen2gen.org

Eunice's twitter handle: @eunicelnichols

Nuns and Nones: https://www.nunsandnones.org/

Adam Horowitz Poem, "To Our Elders"

http://www.adamhorowitz.org/writing/2020/4/12/whats-your-star-news-a-few-poems-amidst-pandemic

Experience Corps: https://www.aarp.org/experience-corps/

EnCorps STEM Teachers Program: https://www.encorps.org/

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Episode 27: Joe McCannon, "Building a Fear Free Army" Aug 18, 2020

Show notes

In this episode, listen in on an intimate conversation between Billions Institute Co-founders Becky Margiotta and Joe McCannon as they talk about the adventures along the way of their 11 year friendship.

Joe will discuss his perspective on large-scale change and the power of inviting people to be part of something bigger than themselves. Becky and Joe will also talk about how non-profits can be more innovative and create environments that are exhilarating to work in.

Imagine what kind of world can we create together when we believe we can share power and bring solutions to everyone who can possibly benefit. In this episode, we'll hear about what it takes to build a "fear free army" that can lead change.

Show Highlights:

The history of Becky and Joe's friendship including the 100,000 Lives an 100,000 Homes campaigns that brought them together
How to take what you do and make it work in a lot of different environments
Why an outsized experience can be addictive
How do shift your mindset from a bad question to a good question
What it really takes for large-scale change to happen
Why the size of a soccer team might be the optimal size for a work team, too
Creating a joyful and unambivalent work environment
How to transcend the struggle for organizational survival and double-down on your purpose
The root of many of the world's problems: fear, ignorance, greed and inequity
What it means to create a "movement of movements"
How to keep optimism alive in 2020

Links:

Follow Joe on Twitter: @cjmccannon

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Episode 26: Susan X Jane, "During These Pandemic Times, What Wants to be Unveiled?" Aug 11, 2020

Show notes

Episode 26: Susan X Jane, "During These Pandemic Times, What Wants to be Unveiled?"

Susan X Jane, Principal of Navigators Consulting

In this fascinating episode, DEI expert and Billions Institute Coach Susan X. Jane shares her insights with Becky about the pandemics given her background in media, culture and apocalyptic studies.

Apocalypse is often misconstrued as "end times" but is really about "unveiling." All apocalyptic movies invite us to question, "What kind of person would you be in that situation?" So in times like today, given our dual pandemic crisis, Susan asks us the same question: who are we, and who do we hope to be, and what do we want to change before the natural tendency to revert to the "way things were." What things can we genuinely change during the pause and collective grieving?

All this and more will be explored as we listen in on Becky and Susan's enlightening conversation. There may never have been a more opportune time to think as social leaders about what how we can re-imagine the world and then get started with taking the steps to make that happen.

Show highlights:

How the dominant culture always asserts itself in the narratives we see in television and movies and all media we consume
Recognizing the liberatory counter-narratives revealing themselves as well
Key questions that arise in apocalyptic stories such as "How would we face an existential threat?" And "What is being currently revealed within us during the double pandemic of covid-19 and racism?"
What is the post-apocalyptic world we can envision during these times?
What are the questions we should be asking ourselves? Such as "Who is putting themselves at risk right now so I can be safely at home?"
Shifting out of the dichotomy of "you and me" how do we get to a more harmonious place of both/and, "you AND me"?

Links:

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Susan's blog at smntks.com

Culturenavigators.com

Twitter: @susanjane19

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TEASER SEASON 3 Aug 04, 2020

Show notes

Episode 25: Christine Margiotta, SVP Los Angeles, "Shifting from Charity to Justice."� Mar 10, 2020

Show notes

In this episode, Becky interviews her favorite person, her amazing wife Christine! They'll discuss everything from how they met 10 years ago (working on homelessness) to learning more about Christine's current work funding grassroots social justice efforts in Los Angeles. You'll hear how Christine's journey has led her to serve as the Executive Director of Social Venture Partners Los Angeles, where she is working on shifting philanthropy from a charity mindset to one deeply rooted in justice.

Over the years, Christine has been working deep on systems change while Becky has been working broad on spread and scale. This combination makes for an interesting conversation to eavesdrop! Listen to them discuss some of the key moments that have shaped Christine into the leader she is today and how she envisions all of us creating a more just and loving world.

Show Highlights:

How Christine and Becky met working on homelessness
Collective impact and how to bring philanthropy, business, non-profits, government and voters to tackle big problems together
The importance of doing iterative and deep root cause analysis
How to create a liberatory non-profit culture with your employees
The moral dilemma of accepting funding from companies that are perpetuating harm
How SVP Los Angeles is working to disrupt the field of philanthropy

Links: svpla.org

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Episode 24: Dimitry Anselme, Facing History, "Teaching Kids in the Midst of the Fragility of our Democracy" Mar 03, 2020

Show notes

How do we help balance the desire for our kids to know the truth and yet also wanting to shield them from the pain and horrors embedded in history? Dimitry Anselme from Facing History opens this episode's conversation with an interesting provocation that youth enter the conversation about history through moral and ethical terms. It is how we engage them in learning and help them locate themselves within the stories. When we start with, "Your ideas matter, your culture matters, whatever you are bringing into the classroom matters, and instead of trying to erase or assimilate it, we will build upon it," then we have them engaged.

Dimitry's own history of growing up in Kinshasa, where the teaching style was to see the teacher as a beacon of all knowledge and it was disrespectful to ask a question, to building a community of students around him now asking the tough questions is a beautiful journey we explore in today's episode. Our democracy is fragile and if we wish to protect it, we need to continue to nurture the critical thinking of our students.

Show Highlights:

What is Facing History and Ourselves and their mission
Dimitry's personal story for how he came to this work from teaching and could not find resources as a young Black teacher on how to help his students think critically and their place in history
Expanding from Holocaust to emergence of racist thinking, the eugenics movement and race membership, Civil Rights movement and the Reconstruction Era
Social Emotional Learning – more kids are now able to identify racism, homophobia, and are attuned to it happening
Pedogogy of the Oppressed – valuing what you think. Your questions are valid is incredibly affirming.
Practices we can adopt to become better teachers and the mindset shift to create lifelong learners which can be tough when emphasis is on numbers and grades and passing a test
How do we bring equity in more fragile communities? Do the students feel like they are rightful contributors of society?
Resources varying from one school to another - Brown vs. Brown was not about segregation and integration, it was about equal access to resources, textbooks, etc.
The idea is it is always a march towards progress – teaching history is really teaching how we've taken five steps forward, 2 steps back
Re-dedicating yourself to the mission of building the society you hope to have
Navigating organizational change over time. What is the rationale for changing something that is going well? Why do we want to work at a particular scale?
Diffusion of Innovation Curve. Slowing down and letting early adopters teach you and get it right so that it is easier to get to the late adopters because concerns and tests have been addressed prior.
The scaling plan of Facing History developed during two Skid Row Schools to now 100,000 educators
Willingness and tolerance for failure and changing the culture for this
Building tolerance for "I don't know if this is going to work"
You can build up a system where you will know fast if it is not working
In leadership, imagining who will be and where we will be in 20-30 years requires steady discipline

Links:

Facinghistory.org

Diffusion of Innovation Curve

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Episode 23: Jason Marsh, Greater Good Science Center, "Advancing Well-Being and Happiness through Research" Feb 25, 2020

Show notes

Episode 23: Jason Marsh, Greater Good Science Center, "Advancing Well-Being and Happiness through Research"

How do we advance and spread something that is so essential yet seemingly difficult to grasp as "happiness" and "well-being"? Jason Marsh joins us today for an engaging discussion about how The Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley is doing just that with their open source method of sharing their research. What they have found is building happiness and well-being is about the cultivation of relationships, how we expand our concept of the "in" group, how we make the distinction between empathy and compassion, and how we can improve the conditions to make each and every contact with the people we interact with more positive.

In this episode, Jason discusses how outcomes can change when we know what is expected of us, like when children play "The Wall Street Game" vs. "The Cooperation Game." And how the Bridging Differences study breaks down the barriers between those we see as different. Human beings have an innate draw towards kindness and compassion yet also the pervasiveness to dehumanize people we disagree with. How do we stimulate the positive natural impulses so we can bridge that gap between what we hope to see in the world vs. what we do see in the world? Listen in on this fascinating discussion so we can build a happier and healthier world.

Show highlights:

Shrinking the change, clearing the path and making research accessible
Making research more applicable to people's everyday lives
Combatting the pervasiveness we have to dehumanize people we disagree with
How we expand the "in" group so we can be more generous and kind
Knowing what is expected of us and how that impacts behavior
Conditions that make contact more positive: 1) Equal Status 2) taking cues from leaders 3) common goals and seeing my fate as linked with other's fate
Evidence that health outcomes and other outcomes are poorer when there is a larger disparity between people
Defining suffering and the difference between empathy and compassion
Studies on kindness and compassion out of Harvard – seeing an 18-month old observe an adult drop something and need help
What is result of entire lifetime of cues that child sees, even subtle ones and cultivating mindfulness
Pro-social vs. anti-social behavior and the impact of having just one positive relationship with an adult at school
The Greater Good Science Center method of open source as an end game for spread (Gugalev and Stern) and thinking though sustainability with open source model
Pyramid of Engagement for sustainability – professional products and experiences for those who want to go deeper and funneling (the both/and model)
Is human nature good or bad? The deeply rooted instincts we have both for care and to do bad things as well. But how do our environments elicit one or the other?
We become more self-interested when we feel scarcity and feel threatened or scared
We often think that the world has become more violent but the historical look shows that violence is actually significantly lower than centuries ago

Links:

https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/bridging_differences/definition

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts/item/episode_57_why_shared_goals_can_bridge_divides

Steven Pinker – "The Blank Slate"

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Episode 22: Kate Hilton, Institute for Health Care Improvement, "Getting Out of Your Own Way as a Leader" Feb 18, 2020

Show notes

What could we all accomplish if we could put relationships first and primacy in shared purpose? In this episode, Kate Hilton shares how her view of leadership has shifted over the years starting with her own experience of being told to get out of her own way. From discussing the shift from "power over" to "power with" and discovering that the joy in work comes from what matters to people. When you start with who people are vs. what you want to do and listen to what people's biggest dreams and assets are, your strategy only gets better.

Kate has an insatiable curiosity around how to help people make change on the basis of activating their agency, power and courage. She also dances her face off with zero inhibition. As a lover of people, Kate is a studier of the human conditions for social change and we have a lot to learn from her so you won't want to miss this fun and engaging conversation!

Show highlights:

Kate's circuitous career path that led her to where she is today
Her love of people and of finding out their values and what drives them
The experience of having Marshall Ganz as mentor
Evolving as a leader and the hardest thing to let go of
The value of breathing and getting perspective
Mental failure exercise
Psychology of Change and what are the things that get in the way of effective leadership
Understanding power as a relationship
MLK, Jr. definition of power as, "The ability to achieve purpose."
Combining resources together to create new power out of shared values
Power as malleable because you have to build the relationships
How to help one another through fears and motivations
How you keep what matters front and center
Are there enough people moving in the right direction vs. being at the effect of…
Psychology of Change Framework: 1. Unleashing people's intrinsic motivation 2. co-designing with people most impacted by the change 3. co-producing in authentic relationships 4. distributing power and 5. adapting in action.
Recognizing and mapping the system by people
Shifting from what matters to me to what matters to other people
Appreciative inquiry and motivational interviewing
Power as being fundamentally about people
Activating people's agency is at the heart of the psychology of change and the ability to act
In democratic societies, knowledge of how we combine to create is the basis of our commitment
If not now, when? We can't learn what we need to learn without getting into action