Latest / Fire That Gathers / What Is Possible If We Disagree Well? With Kirthi Jayakumar

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What Is Possible If We Disagree Well? With Kirthi Jayakumar · Fire That Gathers

• speaker-0: Welcome to Fire That Gathers, fuel for purpose-led leaders forwarding what's next. Leading in a way that meets this moment is a stretch, not just for what must be done, but for how you're called to lead. Fire That Gathers is a movement of leaders choosing to use this moment of breakdown and possibility as a catalyst for the systems you're creating and for who you're becoming. At this hearth, there is fuel for your movement. From the field, real conversations with purpose-led leaders forging what's next. Not the polished case study, the live questions they're walking, where the map runs out. At the edge, breakthrough moments for my coaching rooms and me walking my own developmental edge in real time. I'm gathering too. Come with me. Every episode anchored with an alchemical question, the kind that transforms what you see. Because shifting our paradigm is among the highest leverage points for systems transformation. How we see shapes what's possible. Welcome to Fire The Gathers. I'm so excited to welcome Kirti Jayakumar, a feminist system change and future work practitioner focusing on emerging technology, foreign policy, and women in peace and security. She runs Civitatum Resolutions and is a researcher with Connected Power by Unfurl Ventures, SIA Consulting, and the Inclusive AI Lab, and a knowledge fellow with DIPLO. She is currently doing her PhD at Utrecht University on feminist approaches to governing AI. Something we really know is needed at this moment. So I'm so excited to bring this and her expertise to you today. But I've personally had the pleasure of working with Kirty at WhirlPauls, a social social enterprise with a community spanning 190 countries. We did the original co-facilitation for a group called Power Shifting Inclusive Excellence. It was the organization's committee for bringing community staff and board together. That was creating a new path for shared decision making and shared ownership. And then through our time at Weaving Future, she joined us in our network leadership series. And now, as I am an advisor to Connected Power, what I love about Kirty and what I know you're gonna hear today is the combination of wisdom and warmth. When she communicates, it feels like just spoken poetry. And both are woven into her leadership and her friendship. And that's what I know about her. So I'm so excited to welcome you, Kirty, in this conversation. speaker-1: Thank you so much for having me, Janine. It's always an honor to be in community with you. And I love that we can be so far apart in terms of geographic distance, but so close in our hearts. And that means everything to me. So thank you. Thank you for bringing speaker-0: Thank you for joining. Yes, it's interesting. Someday I will get to meet you in person. But it feels like over all these years it it's almost hard to believe that that hasn't hasn't happened yet. It will happen. ⁓ speaker-1: Absolutely. Setting the intentions. speaker-0: So I want just anchor our question and we're gonna come back to it in a moment, but I feel like so often the story of impact is told through the lens of a soul hero, the one person, the one the one leader that made it happen. But I know that especially in this moment, no one leader, no one technology, no one organization has the insight, resources, perspectives to solve our more complex problems. So the practice shifts from the singular hero creating the vision and putting in the effort to how do we gather well? How do we bring our piece of the puzzle and invite others in? And fire that gathers, I anchor each episode with a question. An alchemical one, the kind we can wrestle with, the kind I hope sits with you as our listeners afterwards, and that we can play with together. And this one comes from Kirti in our time at Network Leadership series, where she shared a question she shared with her own. community she was working with. What might we gain if we disagree well? So hold on to that. We're gonna build towards it. But first I wanted to start with where you are now. So what is the fire tending? What are you what has your attention has you most alive in your work right now? speaker-1: Janine, there's so much that I can talk about on this. I'm going try to keep it super short, but give you the gist of it well enough. So two pathways, and I think then so many ways convergent. On one side, I'm listening to what feminist movements have done historically to mobilize across multiple forms of digital infrastructure. So there's social media, there's basic IMing tools that existed before social media. The feminist collectives have used these tools in such meaningful and powerful ways that these became currency to help them subvert so many systems. And they dreamed. They dreamed through all of these. They woke together. And the act of dreaming and weaving brought so many powerful futures to life along the way. And I'm listening to what these journeys have taught us because if you want to look ahead, you have to be willing to look back. And I love it. I'm looking back at these power. speaker-0: I love the way that you yes, that that there is an intentional looking back as as fuel as foundation, not as speaker-1: Mm. Exactly. Exactly. And there's such a rich trobe of wisdom in that moment of looking back. ⁓ I think of the grandmothers, the mothers, the aunties have that have come and gone before us. I think of those of them that continue to light our spark alongside us in this moment when hope runs thin in a world that is so divisive and polarized. And one of the things I think these groups do so beautifully. Is recognizing that diversity cannot be wished away. And so they invite this space for this diversity to thrive. So that's one space that I'm doing a lot of introspection and reflection on. And the other space where this fire is raging in the most beautiful ways is imagining alternatives. So I'm thinking about how new technology has taken us by storm, but what might it mean for us to think about where we come into the world with expertise? And what we can draw from that expertise to inform governance. Do we need to have governance by law and policy alone? I don't think so. We've had a world with law and policy. Janine, you and I know how the law works. And we want to be creative about shaping what governance can look like. ⁓ so a whole community of people have self-governed without using the word law. What can we learn from them? What can we gain from that journey of stewarding something so cohesive and yet diverse? And that's really what's ⁓ burning for me at the moment. speaker-0: Love it. I love hearing it the fire that's raging, but I can see I'm curious, why this for you? Like why why is this your fire? and what is the piece that you uniquely bring? What's your piece of the puzzle here? speaker-1: Mm. So I always tell people that I am the child that was raised by the proverbial village. You know, we have that phrase which says it takes a village to raise a child. ⁓ I was raised in a very conservative part of India and I was raised by two very progressive women, my mum and my grandmum, who consistently told me that my wings were meant to help me fly and they never. speaker-0: Mm. speaker-1: And they had the audacity to do it. I want to say audacity because it took a lot for them to be able to support the third generation in their lineage in breaking the patterns they knew held them fast. And they did this with the desire of sowing the seed for the future. And I think I see part of my role in the world right now to keep those fires burning because they helped me do that. ⁓ and why why in this moment I think we're at a very critical juncture in the world. Where we know that everything we have seen so far has brought us to this point, one way or another. And we also know that we have an idea of what that secret sauce to get us out of this point can look like, which is so many powerful things we've seen feminist groups do in the past. So to me, it feels like a really powerful moment where I'm sitting with some really beautifully magical witchcraft with a cauldron in front of me. And I have the opportunity to mix all that I want into that cauldron. And so, you know, we've talked about this before. ⁓ one of the things that I'd love for our listeners to do, and maybe if you know Janine, you should try this too. If you're ever stuck in a moment where you don't know what to do, think about what would Janine do. And I do that. So my cauldron also has a bit of what would Janine do in it because it's it's powerful. We're channeling each other, we're learning from each other. speaker-0: Yeah. I love thinking of myself as one spice on your spice rack as you're as as you're playing, as you're making your potion. So I'm you you wear that in my world too. So I'm I'm deeply grateful. I'm curious to even get just a little more concrete. I know the work that you're doing with connected power and the arc there, the the place that we're in of of listening and reflecting back. And I know that that's really the the story from which this question came from, which is, you know, what might this group gain if we disagree well? So maybe you can take a moment to share a little bit about the project and then how this question kind of the how it came to you and and the impact of of playing with that in a shared space. speaker-1: Hmm, of course. So at Connected Power, we are collectively imagining a feminist blueprint for the future of digital public infrastructure, whether that's AI or quantum computing or the internet itself, because we've seen how women's groups, feminist groups and networks have really learned so much from each other, built these vast resource pools. And we wanna be able to leverage that for the future because we know that this is the site where there's so much harm. Everything from extraction to tech festival to gender based violence is being normalized. And we wanna change that. The question of what do we get or gain if this group disagrees well really came from listening deeply to different communities and people representing these communities. Where for example, I was seeing one community say that their idea of feminism was for economic liberation. But another community was saying to me, you know I don't think the buck stops with economic liberation. We've really got to change the systems. We've got to do more. And then there was a completely different community that was looking at a a whole different model to approach the world. And the question then for me at that moment was, are we at odds with each other? Or are we somehow finding different parts that can coexist beautifully? And that's when I came upon the idea of plugiverses. We Don't want a single universe where everybody has to bend a certain way to belong. But we could have these beautiful commons, these wonderful plugers that can sit together and be okay with disagreeing with each other's paths. ⁓ and I I love the airplane analogy when I think of this. So the path from India to the United States could involve flying over a large part of Southwest Asia or through Turkey. Or circumventing both of these and through Europe. But we don't have to negate these rules, right? I could just pick one of these routes and come to see you, Janine. But the point I'm trying to make is that we could we could all make these things work. So if there's a way for us to recognize that we can share some of these interests and advocate for each other through that and learn from each other rather than cancel each other when disagreement emerges, then a group Has really successfully disagreed well. They see disagreement as a site for generative learning, for a site for a whole different pathway. I love the way Carl Jung framed it when he talked about the tension of the opposites. You have side A and side B that might not agree with each other, but we don't have to make it side A versus side B. We can sit with the tension of the opposites and a whole different side emerges from that process. So I would love for that. to emerge and if a group disagrees, well they do it with dignity and care. Yeah. But the emerging path has place for all of us. speaker-0: I mean, that really that resonates so deeply. I think when I talk about collaborative leadership, to me that is three pillars. It's to be willing to know what you want and name it, to to know what's true for your you or your community or organization and to care about another, but the and to listen and to be curious. But the third piece, and I heard you name it, which is the willingness to sit in the unknown, to know that if we hold those two as valid as a contribution that there is possibility for a third, for for more options, for more for that place where it's generative that requires the patience, requires curiosity, requires courage. And I hear that kind of bringing you bringing those three threads into the dialogue. For those that don't know as much about connective power and that path, it might be useful just to share who all are you're speaking with, because I was I'm really amazed by the number of interviews, the the kind of a little the global nature of this project. And I've had it I've had the pleasure of of being involved in a small way in and a small number of the funder interviews. But maybe you can give just a bigger context for the work and maybe one thing that you're celebrating about where where you've gotten in the process as well. speaker-1: Of course. So we've we started out with the vision of having two hundred interviews, but we've far exceeded that number. So what I mean by interviews is we're looking at conversations with people much like the one we're having, where we actually sit down, we have a set of questions in mind that we sort of help to steer the conversation. But we're speaking with feminists, we're speaking with network leaders, we're speaking with organizations in the feminist movement space. funders as well and folks that have been engaged in building technology, whatever be the kind of technology, whether it's a platform, a kind of AI tool, or something that's completely different, like a data set on which these things run. So so far we've actually covered, I think, over 200 conversations. We've also done a couple of interviews asynchronously for folks who didn't have the bandwidth or were in no connectivity areas to actually have a conversation. And then What we wanted to do was to move away from the regular extractive process where if I was talking to you, Janine, and I had your inputs, my old approach would have been to say, Great, thanks, Janine, I'll give you the information when the research is ready, ⁓ which is not going to give you much information that ⁓ makes you a stakeholder in the process. And we wanted to subvert that. So what we decided to do at this point was to create a pathway to make you a co architect in the journey. Where we bring you along to build that blueprint with us. So we take the blueprint, ⁓ so we before we get into that, we draw a synthesis from all of these rich insights without flattening them into a homogeneous block, which means if we have views that are very different from somebody else's views or the dominant views, we make sure to include that and name it as well. Yes. And then we bring folks together in the form of a conversation specific to a blueprint where we try to create some kind of a container that can collectively involve people imagining together. speaker-0: And I've so loved I've really I've really enjoyed those processes, right? Like I've enjoyed facilitating and supporting the team and working with you to have those conversations. to really allow to me the gift in that in some ways was allow parts of that ecosystem to meet each other or to go deeper, build community, but also have a chance to hear and reflect together. yeah, what did you notice? What felt like a highlight for you of seeing those conversations, the the live gathering and in as distinct from the interview process. speaker-1: Hmm. It's the fact that people have arrived with the appetite to imagine together. I think one of the challenges I have seen in sixteen years of work in this sector is that people feel that they must be told what to do. But our session is completely different. We gave them a broad container, we had really vast open-ended questions, and we had a lot of space for folks to imagine and come together with the ideas they had in. So which means we had people come in with something very radical, like asking for the right to remain offline as part of design of a future technology, versus folks who were saying we've got to build a whole complete different approach by building feminist tech from start. So that was fantastic because it meant that we gave them an expansive enough container where people could come up with radical ideas that may not necessarily reconcile or see eye to eye. But still have space to exist in this microcosm. And that felt so heartwarming to really see it ⁓ come to life. Yeah. speaker-0: It moved me too to see the range to see that we created a space where where the differences of opinion were celebrated. We're we're still at the divergent phase in the process. There's not a need to actually build consensus or to prioritize, but it was just at the place of of bubbling up and to see how much could get even more could be bubbled up by by the by the uncommon meetings of folks in the in the conversation. So I appreciated that process. I'm curious because I've heard you mention a couple of times things that actually emerged, whether that was Sanskrit text actually informing AI or the then some reflection from folks from women who were in these conversations about what it meant to them to be there. So I'm curious both the personal outcome and the strategic one of holding a space With this idea that our differences are generative, that we can disagree well. What have you noticed as the outcome of that? speaker-1: Hmm. So I'm gonna switch gears a bit and move away from connected power to a second initiative that I'm working on, which is my own initiative called Civitate and Resolutions. So my work here is to invite people to see themselves as active stakeholders in governing tech. We always think that law and policy will get us there, but what might it mean to have a group of people who've had a lived experience or expertise in a particular field draw from that wisdom they have? And inform you for what they can inform of what they can do to shape governance in the future. So the Sanskrit text that you talked about, Janine, that was a particularly amazing moment for me. I brought together a group of dancers, classical dancers from India. And these dance forms are so old, I think they probably go back several thousands of years, ⁓ no exaggeration. And it's it's massive because these pieces of art Have endured everything from attacks and violence from other tribes and communities, as well as from colonialism, and they continue today to be such an enduring, powerful art form. So I brought together this group of dancers and I asked them to think about one principle that would be a foundation that they can offer for the governance of AI. When one of the participants revived this really powerful line from a Sanskrit text that I will share in the translated version, talks about alignment. So she says where the hand goes, the eye follows. Where the eye follows, the mind follows. Where the mind follows, the feeling follows. And where the feeling follows, there you have art. And what she said, bringing that into this space, was a gift for AI to think about alignment. So if you're collecting data, you're building an algorithm, you're using AI. It's all got to align to a single objective, which means you do not use it to say nudify a person or to manipulate images or to create deep fake pornography, but you use it to actually create something meaningful that it was intended to create. And another artist in the same conversation brought up a really powerful concept called Jugal Bandi, which is a form where there's a call and an action. So the singer provocatively sings a section. And the dancer responds to that section live. And she talked about how this is exactly how we should be in communication with AI. So if you're sitting with a tool like Chat GPT or Cloud, it shouldn't be in a hurry to answer you. It should actually reflect back and say things like, Are you sure I'm the tool you should be asking that question? What more do I need to know before I answer that question? Rather than giving you a flat answer because somebody trained it to do that. And that was so powerful because it tells you that these communities already knew what it was to live in a system. They didn't need a law, they didn't need a regulation and penalty, but they could self regulate because they just knew that these principles are so grounding. speaker-0: I I so appreciate bringing bringing tools, bringing knowledge from systems from art that's lasted, like you said, for thousands of years. What has allowed it to be enduring? And I feel like that we're in this moment where things feel so urgent. They're moving so fast that it seems all new and like how do we possibly get our heads around what's needed to meet this moment and yet some of our most ancient wisdom. can actually serve deeply right now. ⁓ so thank you for bringing those stories. it seems like it was also just meaningful for you to see these pieces of your world meet. Is that true? speaker-1: Absolutely, absolutely. It landed so deeply because it shifted the way I was looking at things as well. This these labs to me were actually an experiment, but to see people come up with it it just felt so Yes, I'm onto something useful. Yeah. speaker-0: Maybe it's worth sharing a little bit about the the work that the PhD that you're doing and the you track the AI the inclusive AI lab, just as context for this work. I'm I'm curious to hear a little bit more. speaker-1: Mm. And this is the sweet spot as a Venn diagram, if you would imagine my work with Connected Power, my work with Civitata, and the PhD's right in between. ⁓ so I'm focusing on feminist approaches to AI governance and it's a PhD by articles, which means that it's not the conventional dissertation based PhD. I produce four journal articles or five journal articles that have to be published. And then that's pretty much it. But ⁓ They should really all tie into the overarching theme of feminist approaches to governing AI. And so from connected power, I'm focusing on themes of what movements have done before. And so one of my articles focuses on networked feminisms and the histories of these movements with tech. And then I'm looking at some of the ways in which the world at large, particularly the majority world, has responded to governance questions. So one of the other articles I'm talking and reflecting on. I'm talking about how an indigenous community once hugged a couple of trees in their village to save it from being felled and extracted. And that's a metaphor for how we can engage with data. Because if we don't want our data to be extracted from us, there's a way for us to treat it as a commons and hold it in trust, just the way they hugged these trees in the nineteen seventies in India. So that's the second article. And the other two articles are more focused on Feminist approaches itself to governance, which for me at the moment looks like listening to community, looking at relationality, where you and I being in relationship with one another means that that relationship is so sacred that it should be indefeatable. So a system can come and ⁓ it can go, but we have to sustain each other. And what does it mean for us to tend to each other, to care for each other? Yeah. No matter the tools and the technologies we work with. And the final piece really ties all of these together. So sorry, Janine. I'll I'll finish this super quickly. But the final piece really talks about what resists quantification. Because to the system, you and I are data points. So if you like toast and I like toast, we're we're actually a data point. But what is it that makes toast special to you? What is it that makes it special to me? you might have a memory of it maybe when you were in college. And for me it could be the one time my grandmum made me toast when I was sick. And so you can't flatten these things into quantification, right? That we live complex lives. So before we reduce each other to a data point, we've got to think about what we risk losing when we atomize each other into numbers. That's where my PhD exploration is. speaker-0: It's so rich. And each one of those articles I think is sparking more questions. So as the articles come out, I hope that you'll come back and share more about them. And also that I I can't wait personally to read them. and I love that you naming the tending. I feel like that is that is a word that is my theme for this year. I'm much more likely to go all in and all out on things. And this is the year I've planted a big garden and have shifted in the way that I know. ⁓ my work and my community is needing in terms of just the slower, smaller, consistent. So that's part of what is my intention. So I appreciate you naming that. But the first one you talked about about networks and feminist networks. And I'm curious to share a little bit about that. And maybe if there's any insights that have been useful, anything in particular from NLS that that is a that that you're drawing in, I'd love to love to be able to name that for our listeners too. speaker-1: Definitely. Well, if you get me started on the NLS bit, there's a risk I may not stop because it was such a rich experience and I've taken home so much wisdom that I can only find words of gratitude for. So thank you for unlocking that for me, Janine. ⁓ but to come back to the network feminisms the piece, I think one of the things women have done really powerfully over time is to see each other as humans. ⁓ just I'm I'm sitting right now in from Bangalore. I'm having this conversation with you, which is the tech hub or the Silicon Valley of India. And this afternoon I was in a room full of people who would be qualified and categorized as tech pros. And I was just observing the way they introduce themselves. They will come up to you and tell you ten different ways in which they are the greatest. By contrast, I see a group of women who are there in that space who come in with a measure of humility and they situate their work always as part of a larger whole. And they're so aware that it's not something that, you know, change is not something that arrives in the back of a single person. And it goes back to what we started this conversation with Janine, the point of how it's never about the single hero or the leader, right? So the whole idea of networked feminisms reminds us of the fact that these movements endure. The faces within those movements could be different. They could be generationally ev evolving. They could have they could start with a grandmother and go all the way to the great, great, great, great, great granddaughters to keep these movements alive. And that's what makes it tick. ⁓ And for me, this program with NLS was particularly pivotal because I was coming into it rich with all of these observations around the feminist network and what it was doing in the world. And the one thing that really stands out for me were the five C's, where we start with clarifying the purpose. Why are we here? What are we doing? And that guides you into convening the right people. You know that you have a room full of empty seats, but who should be on those seats? Why should they be there? And that starts from your purpose. And once you bring them in, it's important for you to build a bridge with every one of them. And give them the space to build that bridge with each other by cultivating trust, which is huge. It's remarkable. And then your role as somebody working with the network is to take a step back and coordinate that. Be that bridge builder, be that resource transfer, be just be whatever it takes to conduct that beautiful orchestra so the music plays by itself. And at the end of the day, all of these instrumentalists in the orchestra are going to work together. And so that's where the collaboration happens. But for me, the five Cs felt like a a rich playbook. I was I I just felt so anchored. if if you were going from place A to place B, you're probably using the GPS in your car. That was my GPS. And it continues to be my GPS. It tells me, You're here. This is where you're going next. And maybe you want to go back a little, and that's healthy as well. speaker-0: Absolutely. It's not that it has to be linear, but it does, I feel like, give an anchor of what are the elements and where the network leader, where do I put my attention? And if something's not working, can I more deeply sense into where where my attention needs to go next? So I'm I'm glad to hear that it it provided an anchor for you. you know, there are two two questions that you named in NLS that feel like they're sort of the the poles of what we're needing to do as network leaders or as leaders that are shifting systems in this moment. One is how do we disagree well? And the other is, am I curating an eco chamber? Am I is are we too uniform in a way that's actually not giving us the tensions we need? Or are we pulling apart too hard in a way we can't see our shared humanity? And so I'm curious if you can speak to the second one of like how What did you what did you learn about this piece around, am I curating an echo chamber? And maybe just yeah, how you hold those two. Cause I feel like one of the themes that came up in NLS and is what true with all of my clients is that is the need to be in the place of generative disagreement, which does not mean everyone agrees. Right. And it also doesn't mean we're in a defensive or an avoidant posture. So it requires the the capacity to bring our differences, ⁓ and to to curate a room with enough difference. That's part of why in my next work bringing out collective counsel, I'm doing a program we're with cross sector leaders. So those from they're all purpose led, but from nonprofit, social enterprise, from foundations, from from these different sectors, because I think if we have too uniform of a room, we lose something. So I'm curious for you, yeah, these two questions. And the second one is, am I curating an echo chamber? How did that what did you learn about holding that question? speaker-1: Hmm. This question actually came to me when I was in a group when I invited the space for them to think about community guidelines that they would come up with to scaffold all of their engagement. And this was a group that was imagining a different way to approach the work they were doing. It's an India based group. And so they had these beautiful ideas and principles which said we'll give each other grace, we'll take the time it will take to settle in an agreement. Beautiful principles. But I noticed they said nothing about disagreement. And so I surfaced that and I said, I'd love to know if this group already has some kind of a process to handle disagreement or conflict, but it didn't feel necessary to name it as part of your community guidelines. And before anyone could answer, the person who was hierarchically positioned ⁓ in a more powerful space as the CEO quickly said, ⁓ we never disagree. And speaker-0: That sounds like a lag I've heard in a while. speaker-1: Exactly, right? Exactly. So it had my Antony up in seconds when I was thinking, is it that this group does not disagree because there is somebody holding the power strings that makes it important to agree with whichever direction the winds are blowing? Or is it that this group just does not have the appetite to disagree? Is there like a fatigue? Is there bandwidth issues that they just decide to let go on issues? ⁓ 'cause it could You could come from conflict, you could come from wanting to let go of conflict because of exhaustion, or you could be dealing with urgency because you've got to submit to a deadline, right? So when I got curious, one of the people in the organization said, you know, I'm surprised we don't disagree. And I'm surprised you said that we don't disagree. Can we have a conversation about that? And that was beautiful, Janine, because the fact that she asked for a conversation. Instead of saying, I disagree with what you said and getting defensive about it, it was wholesome. It was so wholesome because it invited the person in position of power to say, you know, that that actually makes sense because I realized either you're all just saying yes to me, which means I'm doing something to make it unsafe for you to say no to me, or this group just is just so aligned. Then if we're so aligned, why don't we have conversations about the things we're not aligned? We're not having those conversations at all then. And that was beautiful because it made me realize that we can always be at the risk of curating echo chambers if we hyper focus on shared interests to the point that we just don't want to bring up anything that could be a path for disagreement. And I think that's So I would say. speaker-0: Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. There's a little bit of a lag, go ahead. ⁓ speaker-1: Not at all. It was just my finishing thought. I'm so sorry. But my last thought there was I would say it would be a great idea for us to welcome disagreement as one more member in the rooms that we curate these conversations in. And it could be a common denominator, it could be a friend, it could be occupying an empty seat. But I think disagreement should be an important character in the stories we're building together. speaker-0: I agree. I actually see it as like one of the main ingredients next to your cauldron, right? As we were talking about, you know, one of the main things, but as as as fuel, right? As a resource. And so I hear the way you're naming it as is a seat at the table as an ingredient. It is a resource, ⁓ rather than ⁓ something to avoid or a problem. And I think in it often in purpose led spaces and nonprofits and social enterprise, there's a sense of it's important to be nice. It's important to get along. it's imp you know, even if it isn't just because the hierarchy's kind of holding something down, there is something about the culture that wants to create, make a difference that says somehow this disagreement is an antithesis. It's anti the culture. It's right, we want to have a participatory process. We need everyone bought in. and so that can I think there's often underneath that like desire for consensus is a fear of conflict or a worry about raising questions. I'm curious what you've seen, particularly in feminist spaces, that allow for this. I think it's one thing that I see with Connected Power doing really just a beautiful job of holding space for differences of opinion. And in the end, the blueprint is actually going to make some decisions. It's going to make some choices about big bets while still presencing that there's multiple opinions. So I'm I'm curious to get your thoughts. speaker-1: Well, this is such a rich question, Janine. I think what's important for me at this point is to be truthful to what we set out with as a vision. So if we want this network to achieve that blueprint, we've got to be willing to recognize that there's there's parts of that blueprint that we haven't envisioned. We don't have the answers to all of it ourselves. So I think it's an internal process to arrive in these spaces with the recognition that We're not going to be here to be in complete agreement with each other. There's going to be things that will surprise us. There's going to be lots of things we didn't think about. And how we react in response to all of these things is going to be so critical. It can make or break the value of that blueprint because if I responded to something that emerged with defensiveness or a rejection or a refusal, then it also means that I am bringing in a power dynamic to shape the future of that blueprint. Which isn't doing justice to the visionary nature of that blueprint. So I think it's important for us to consider the blueprint as a starting point because, like you said, it is going to make some decisions, but it's also going to give us space so expansively to recognize that some of us might not be written into all of the decisions that are made in the blueprint. So if that blueprint is going to be talking about the rights of communities, it's going to say, this is a list, but it's not exhaustive. These are the rights of communities that have come up time and time again. But we want you to take this blueprint and own it. It's gonna speak to your community a bit differently from the way it's gonna speak to my community. But build, build from there. Think of it as a springboard, because once you jump off that diving board, whether you do a backflip or a front flip or how you land in the water, is yours to play with. And then once you hit the water, you're gonna swim in your own style and speed. And that's what we want that blueprint to do for you. Be that fantastic springboard, give you that space to start with your jump and then give you the creativity and the space to do the printing. speaker-0: I love I love that metaphor and it feels like so much of what we talked about in NLS about impact networks, right? That it's not we are not this is not like collective impact where that's one outcome, one shared metrics, one objective. It we're not in a canoe all rowing together. We are going to have a general direction. We're gonna agree on an overall purpose and some shared values and a way of engaging each other, and then we're gonna be the flotilla of kayaks. And some are going to find different islands to go play in on the way. And our paces are going to be different. And we can make different choices. And there's both space for a collective intention and for autonomy at the same time. And so I hear I love this that we can kind of do our own flip off the off the boat together. beautiful. Maybe as we're coming towards a close on this, I'm curious how is this work? Growing you. My senses, my personal perspective and some of the writing that I've done has been on how our callings, if it really feels like it's burning, if there's a true fire for us, it's not only needed in the world, but the particular way that we're called to engage is there for us too. It brings us to an edge as leaders. There's a growth there. So I'm curious, what have you noticed about how this work is growing? Is your invitation for your own? speaker-1: It's definitely changing me as a person, Janine, every single day. It's making me more empathetic to the life around me and the way it manifests. ⁓ so I did talk about my mum and my grandmum and how powerful their influences were in my life. But it's also true that I am a daughter. And so there are moments where I see my mum as my mum. But this work has helped me humanize her and see her. As somebody who's had a childhood, teenage years, dreams that were taken out of her hands. And then and a lot of people say you begin to humanize your parents in your thirties. But I think this work has been so catalytic to that for me personally. And in India, it is such a loaded question of how you engage with your family and your extended family, because you really don't leave home until you get married. And so you live under your parents' house, whether you're male male or female. ⁓ it's usually problematic if you leave home. You know, society begins to talk about you in in not so nice terms. ⁓ so as adults living with your adult parents, you do step on each other's toes. They don't see you as having grown up. So I think for me, it's a very personal shift. I see this capacity, expansive capacity emerge out of nowhere to see my folks as just parents wanting to do right by their children, no matter the age of their children, no matter how much Their children might know about the world or claim to know about the world, let's say. ⁓ and the other piece that it's given me is a greater and a more expansive appetite for hope. And I think that is so critical at this moment because when you know, just to quote ⁓ a ⁓ a five-year-old who I taught recently at in a class last week, when I see Elon Musk's face, I get so angry, ma'am. So even if that's the norm that we're sitting with in this moment. I'm just finding expansive capacity to hope because we've been through these places, Janine. We have a cell memory of these dark places in our histories. And we've emerged. We've emerged so much that you and I can have this conversation across borders. Never mind that we could otherwise have never been able to do this. ⁓ hopping on a flight to see each other halfway across from the world would have been a whole different journey. But today we've come to this point where our collective imaginations unlocked something that we can thrive today. So everything we know to be true is a product of someone's imagination at some point, right? Yes. So we're here at this point to bring our medicine into the world that emerges from our responsibility to imagine a better future. speaker-0: Just as I imagined poetry from start to finish. I'm such a delight to be with you, to share space. Yes, I think part of them the medicine is our capacity to imagine and our capacity to do it together. I think that that willingness to not just sit in a room alone and dream, although that's useful, but to be able to dream together. And I see what you're doing in these different spaces as holding space, navigating, bringing in voices to dream together. So if there's a final thought for our listeners or maybe coming back to our question around, you know, what might be possible if we disagree well together? What what do you want to leave? speaker-1: I'm gonna invite everyone that's listening in this moment to treat this agreement as a friend. It's arrived to tell you to be curious about something you haven't yet encountered, and the richness of encountering that with an open heart and mind is incomparable. speaker-0: And with that, thank you for being with us today on Fire The Gathers. If you love this episode, you might be a leader who's interested in joining me for the Collective Council. The Collective Council is a curated circle of purpose-led founders, funders, and executives who gather twice monthly for 90 minutes. Together we slow down enough for you to sense into your most alive strategic questions and to be able to not only receive your own insight, but to have peer counsel in my coaching on what's next. You bring Your questions, your opportunities, the tensions and challenges that you're walking, what you're really wrestling with, and we work them here together. This isn't another course. There aren't any modules. It's time for your real work of leadership. Clients who've worked with me include a funder who came in to move a million dollars fast for immigrants and refugees. We're able to pause long enough for her to see what was truly needed. And to shift w from what she could deploy with her team to what she could move with an ecosystem, moving $3.5 million within weeks and funding an additional 80 organizations. There was an executive who stepped into the largest role of her career, feeling the edge of imposter syndrome, moving out of being the expert, and stepping into bold delegation and even more possibility as she gathered leaders. Could challenge and invite her bigger vision. All of this made possible because of exactly the way we're moving inside of collective council. If you're curious, let's have a conversation. You can schedule directly at www.onpurpastogether.com slash call. You'll see the link in the show notes too. On purpose together.