Leadership

Resilience buys you time; adaptability buys you a future. This concept is just as true for individuals as it is for companies.

America! America? How did we get here? How did we become so divided? The Right. The Left. You’re with us or against us. Good or bad. Right or wrong. Little room in the middle for a third way or compromise. For so many in local and national government, compromise has become a negative word.

Two years ago today, MEA had to shut down due to the announcement of a global pandemic. What an anxiety-producing time! A year later, I wrote this blog post about all of the pandemic pivots we made.

Nearly a century ago, social psychologist Kurt Lewin suggested that great organizations need both locomotion and cohesion. In other words, cohesion leads to the formation and maintenance of groups, while locomotion facilitates the normal operation and functioning of groups.

So Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King would have been 93 years today had he not been assassinated. As an African-American woman raised in California at a particular time, I grew up, first noticing, then celebrating the legacy of the renowned civil rights, global peace advocate and spiritual-faith based leader.

At Airbnb, I was a Socrates-wannabe. I liked asking questions. Most of the time, this worked. It helped us to see our blind spots, both personally and organizationally. But occasionally, I would get a response like this one from a mid-level manager: "Okay, Mr. Modern Elder, enough with the curiosity! Let's get shit done!"

Are you ready to ditch your business partner? Are you fighting or avoiding each other? Four years ago, my co-founder journey began with my dear friend Juletta. Setting out to make our mark, we created a coaching business. We rode the typical start-up rollercoaster of highs and lows. Then we hit a brick wall that rocked our partnership, a make-or-break stage.

I recently made the pilgrimage to southern Albuquerque and, more specifically, to Christian mystic Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. Richard has become a modern elder to me as he’s grown his movement for the past fifty years.

I have known for a long time that I wanted to create meaningful connections for the generations above mine – I just didn't know exactly what to build to make that happen. So, I did what most entrepreneurs do – I talked to potential users and reached out to anyone who was active in this space.

I felt like a complete failure. The 2001 dot-com bust made me question everything I believed to be true. In just one year, I was laid off, the twin towers fell on 9/11, and my dad was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer.