“A place of work ruled by progress, guided by justice, and fired by the light of beauty” – Mario Labó (about the Olivetti designer-manufacturer most famous for their typewriters)
If we could all be so lucky. We are. Build it! This vision guides how I approach team building and organizational culture – forging environments where innovation thrives through purposeful creative work.
“[O]ur sense of responsibility to a world community beyond our own borders is a virtue, even though it is partly derived from the prudent understanding of our own interests.” – Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History.
Being serious about sustainability and impact means growing human resilience through cross-boundary, interdisciplinary learning and routine practice of ‘love-based leadership” values—the foundation for building effective partnerships and solving wicked challenges.
Research across civic transformation (Václav Havel, The Art of the Impossible, “[c]onsciousness precedes being”), interpersonal relating and neurobiology (bell hooks, All About Love and Daniel Siegel, The Developing Mind, “[m]ind, brain, and relationships are linked), leadership studies (Robert Quinn, Deep Change, “sustainable staff empowerment is risk, growth, trust, teamwork“) shows that sustainable change happens through two key principles.
ONE. High-performing teams are built through intentional love-based leadership practices that create belonging, trust, and shared purpose. These practices are learned and work across cultures and departments because they address fundamental human needs for connection and meaning.
TWO. Strong relationships change our neural brain structure, which evolves our mental frameworks. When teams invest in relationship quality, they become more adaptable, creative, and effective at securing resources and achieving goals. This creates a generative cycle of trust → performance → sustainability.
“We are connected to each other to the degree that we can discover who we are and what we are capable of doing” – Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light and Other Essays.
This drives my approach to team development and mutually beneficial partnership building – helping people grow down into their best selves with unique needs, values, and strengths.
“The more you know about another person’s story, the less possible it is to see that person as your enemy.” – Parker J. Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit
To know is to be known. Seeing and being seen. This is why I emphasize question thinking, active listening, storytelling and narrative development in my work – it creates the understanding needed for effective cross-sector collaboration.
“The main thing is to keep the main thing – the main thing. Great artists, inventors, and world change agents do not bear greater gifts than anyone else, they just live truer to the gifts. You too have powerful gifts and contributions to offer; you just have to let them be more important than trivial tasks or obligations that do not add to your joy.” – Author unknown
This reminds me to help organizations and colleagues focus on the “what of the what” in conversations. It helps remind us to focus on core strengths, unique value propositions, and how we are the artists. We do this with sincere curiosity by way of question thinking, active listening, respectful engagement properly channeled towards sustainable impact.
