Leading across great divides: Ian Bassin, Protect Democracy Executive Director
Mar 19, 2024
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Discover how Ian Bassin crafted Protect Democracy to preserve democratic norms and combat authoritarian threats. Explore the challenges of leading a distributed team, building inclusive organizations, and driving positive change in business and society. Gain insights on effective leadership, customer-centric strategies, and the importance of optimism in shaping a better future.
Protect Democracy bridges political divides to develop governance solutions.
Ian Bassin champions ethical governance and distributed teamwork for impactful change.
Deep dives
The Importance of Effective Communication with Grammarly
Using Grammarly has significantly improved the producer's communication efficiency in tasks like composing emails and coordinating production tasks for Masters of Scale. Grammarly aids in adjusting writing for different audiences while ensuring the brand voice consistency. By spotting redundancies and enhancing sentence structures, Grammarly's AI prompts enhance content quality.
Essential Traditions in Government Ethics
Ian Bassen highlights the significance of unwritten traditions in White House governance, passed down from administration to administration. These traditions, stored in binders since the Eisenhower era, guide ethical practices. Despite not being legally binding, they form the ethical compass for White House officials, promoting consistency across administrations.
Protecting American Democracy with Norms and Standards
Ian Bassen's experience with safeguarding ethics led him to found Protect Democracy, dedicated to upholding democratic standards. The organization, rooted in preserving democratic norms, ensures the continuity of ethical governance practices. Through initiatives like Vote Shield and legal counsel provisions, Protect Democracy defends democratic principles.
Building a Distributed Workforce and Nurturing Organizational Culture
Protect Democracy's unique approach involves structuring as a fully distributed organization, fostering intentional culture and deep connections among team members. Practices like after-action sessions and emotional state sharing enrich team dynamics. Ian emphasizes establishing a headquarters-free environment, prioritizing inclusivity and efficiency for impactful teamwork.
Just like private companies, many not-for-profit organizations begin when a founder sees a gap in the market and makes something new to fill it. Ian Bassin is a lawyer, former White House counsel and not-for-profit leader who saw a need to better protect and preserve the building blocks of America’s democratic systems, and steer things away from authoritarianism. His organization, Protect Democracy, brings together stakeholders across political divides to develop products, systems and services related to good governance. And Ian’s workforce has been entirely distributed — with employees now in more than 20 states — from the very beginning.
Host Jeff Berman draws out Ian’s story of crafting Protect Democracy’s mission alongside its culture. Hear how Ian gained the confidence, political and financial capital to start his work, and how he aligns an all-remote team. This episode is packed with insights for business leaders who navigate difference, and who aim to drive positive change.