Find The Outside

What leadership is needed now? What are we learning in community, in business and globally about leadership? Join Tim and Tuesday as they dive into these questions, and more, for episode seventeen of season two.Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.17 — SHOW NOTESTim: This week on the podcast we dig into leadership - a much talked about topic in the world but very specifically leadership right now. Leadership in the time of COVID. What does it mean? What are the leadership challenges and conversations we’re facing inside ourselves and in our work. As we look out at the political landscape, the leadership landscape in the world, where are we turning for inspiration?Tim: On the personal level, part of what I’ve been experiencing is the tension between the multiple experiences I’m having - this experience of horror, in a lot of ways, at what’s happening in the world and how COVID-19 is making visible the inequities that we all knew were there, let alone the shooting we had in Nova Scotia where 22 people were killed, let alone the struggle I see for parents who I love and care about in terms of caring for their kids right now. There is so much going on that’s hard to witness and sad. There has been a big piece of letting myself be sad. On the other side, there are beautiful things happening: my relationship to my kids and wife and feeling the fittest and healthiest I’ve ever felt. How can I hold both [sadness and happiness] and not let them be in contradiction to each other? That’s a lot of what my personal leadership is right now. Not swinging between but rather holding both.Tues: Last week we talked about our stress behaviours and I think that is what I would bring forward in my own personal leadership and what is being called out. There is such a level of stress in the air that when we think about leadership, many of us - in any given moment - are absolutely at our best and also not at our best. My stress behaviour/response is irritability. I experience it as hard-headed, not hard-hearted. I find that uncomfortable and have a huge amount of self judgement about it. I’m really interrogating that. What brings up irritability versus sadness or defeat. Is there a flavour to when I become irritable or not. That has my attention at the moment. What this brings up for me as we talk about this leadership piece is that many people, at any given moment especially right now, are in their stress behaviours. That feels like a question of leadership - how to understand and navigate their own and how do you meet people where they are? Tues: Part of what I am interested in, or at least has my attention, is sexism / gender depression. The experience of women in this moment. Here in Ohio, there is a viral video about our Department of Health Leader, Dr. Amy Acton, everyone wants to be her. I’m curious about the difference in women responding to this pandemic and their leadership and what we are learning there. I’m also really starting to notice that the backlash is focusing on women. As women step up into their power in this pandemic, then the backlash against them seems to be so intense. This is really up for me right now.Tim: One of the things that has struck me over 20+ years in this field - I would say 70% of the time, it is women who are stepping up to get the ground-breaking work done in all kinds of contexts. There has been a really significant pattern of women leveraging their positions of power to do good work in the world and to seek transformation. It struck me because when you talk about sexism becoming a default response, because it is more comfortable, what is that doing to our ability, within our countries, to have a good response?Tues: If we quiet the voice of the woman who is leading one of the most aggressive, successful responses to COVID in the country all of us are hurt by that - more people get sick, more people die. There is also certainly a race and class dimension to that. If you begin to look at all of these “isms” coming up; we are hobbling ourselves in our response because these structural issues are rearing their ugly heads and we don’t have access to some of the minds, action, thinking, skill, capacity and effort of the majority of people. Tim: We are talking on a national level at this point but we are also seeing this in the teams we are working with as well. As a result, some of the bigger picture of the work is getting lost. Seeing this enables us to be more tactical in our response / more deliberate in how we design our process. This is not about just identifying gender bias but if we can build these types of analysis, then we can organize ourselves more effectively to counterbalance them. This analysis can provide for a deliberate response and ultimately for a more equitable world. Tues: When people are in their stress behaviour, when they pull back, I think these biases are more likely to come out. Less reflective, going faster, more impatience, less able to listen. When those personal pieces begin to have patterns that show bias then it’s worth us bringing them to bear. Have compassion and notice the pattern and work with the pattern. Tim: I’m finding that shaming is being given permission during COVID. Are you finding that? Tues: Yes. I have not heard direct shaming but I have seen rants on Facebook about what other people are doing. To be fair, I can feel it. When I am on the trail and cannot get 6 feet away from people, there is a sense that we have to take care of each other. When people have a sense of threat, then shaming becomes justified. I was listening to a podcast with Esther Perel, a famous relationship expert, and she said that the problem here is that we all think we have the right information. With this lack of clarity around COVID, everyone thinks their position is right. Class-wise, I am wondering if this is happening more in middle class communities?Tim: I wonder if we could chat about what it has been like to lead an organization in the midst of all of this? We’ve had to pivot and redesign and not take massive risks and really change our plans and really distribute leadership to our teams. Tues: What I am holding that I want to share out is that we are trying to think of “who are we” in this crisis and give some real attention to that. We went through the purpose and principles of the company with our team to ask who we want to be, as a company, in this crisis. We are trying to be as thoughtful and transparent as we can be together and share with the team as much as possible. There has been a lot of thoughtfulness, and trying to have a lot of thoughtfulness around equity, in our leadership. I feel proud that we are trying to live by, expand, think through our principles as a company as this happens in this pivot. We are not just surviving, we are trying to figure this out as we go. Tim: What’s been interesting for me is not wanting to compromise on quality even though we are reducing cost. I feel proud that we are taking a stand for quality. We are taking time to think things through. Although we are contracting, we are simultaneously expanding. That makes it exciting to come to work that both those things are happening. Tues: COVID will be a huge period of transformation for The Outside and I will look back and be proud. Song: “Makhloogh” by GoogooshPoem: “Old and Black, A Prayer” by Charlene CarruthersI will watch my relativesgrow old. so oldthat they remember battling twenty five tyrannical presidentsso oldthat they knowpaper food stamps and free landso oldthat they meetmy great grandaughters daughters best friendso oldthat they rememberthat one time so I don't have toso oldthat they watchthis empire fall and never strike backso oldthat they rest and witnessus win.Subscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 46:25Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For episode sixteen of season two, Tim and Tuesday reflect on how sheltering in place, during COVID-19, is presenting an opportunity for the discovery of other parts of ourselves and how unsettling that can be. Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.16 — SHOW NOTESTim: This week on the podcast we are going to talk about being “unsettled.”Tues: I think this feels really timely. Last week we hit the month mark and folks had been doing so much to get everything pulled together - how do I get my kids figuring school out, how do I figure out what I am going to do for work? The first month of quarantine was filled with activity, of figuring it out, and then last week it was like, “oh, this is what we are doing” and I feel like things just kind of busted loose. Last week you saw people get more anxious, more depressed, more angry. The first month was all hands on deck and last week it turned to “oh, my gosh, we are doing this thing” and I think it’s deeply unsettling. Tues: Several headlines I’ve read have talked about the second COVID crisis will be around mental health. There is no place to go for our coping besides internal and often that spills out to the people external to us. Tim: What I am beginning to discover, under the boredom piece for me, is a thirst for freedom. The desire to not feel trapped. A lot of that is related to being sent away to school for so long at such a young age and then essentially being confined within an institution for so much of my young life. So I am doing a lot of things that allow me to seek that feeling of not being trapped. Walking has been one of those. Tim: I’ve been roaming through boredom, depression and desperately trying to find tasks to keep me busy. I put on a mixed tape the other day and it was perfect. It was like 25 year old me had made it for me for this moment. I wonder what other parts of us we are discovering to help us in these times? Tim: I’m finding in the midst of what feels trapped, and quite dark and quite uncomfortable, and quite painful for me sometimes in terms of what I am encountering inside myself, I’m also finding there are these moments where something just clicks. A little bit of beauty happens, a little bit of synchronicity takes place that creates that feeling of freedom. It’s a funny world right now because I feel like I am wandering between these multiple different states. Tues: I know what you mean! I feel like at the beginning of this sheltering in place/quarantine it was day-by-day and now it feels like hour-by-hour. I listen to a lot of podcasts and people are talking about a going back to things that gave them comfort earlier in their life - music, old TV show, old clothes, old friends from high school… familiarity. People are seeking some of that in the midst of all this uncertainty. That feels really interesting to me because I think we are both pretty self-reflective people and yet this period is almost making us go to the root, of the root, of the root. Now we can’t get away from it - you have to go into that particular thing and get to know the nuances of it. Right now I try to turn toward it - walk/run, journal, etc. Tim: There is a lot of forgiveness in our house at the moment; not making things bigger than they already are in our house and that seems to be very healthy. There is a lot of letting things go in terms of the emotional tennis that is happening in households right now. Tues: A lot of it is acknowledging that it is a hard time for everyone so you can give grace. Tim: We are all facing our shadows. I know it might sound trite but now we are getting the opportunity to deal with our deepest, darkest shit. So many of the structures that are in place are now falling away and we are now being faced with things that we structured our lives to avoid. Tues: It might be trite… but it is also true and it is a choice. We can or we can’t. We will or we won’t. I don’t think we have too. I think that we could all stumble through this, coping the best we can - in good ways and in bad ways - and come out the other side with not a bit more insight or self-reflection and just having survived. I feel really strongly that if my mind is going to try and take me to these places, I am going to go. I am going to try and use it as an opportunity, and I won’t take every opportunity and I won’t do it perfectly, but the world doesn’t get to stop and slow down that often and you don’t get to really look and have these things come up. The things, the very things, we have tried to avoid are coming up. We do have a choice and we don’t have to make it everyday… some days you can just listen to really loud music. Tim: In addition to all this personal practice that is going on, some of the stuff we have been navigating is in our business. How do you and I distribute wealth between us during this period? How are we tending to, and looking after, our subcontractors? Who needs what during a period of crisis? Tues: We know that conversations on equity can be a challenge at the best of times and then when you have a lot of economic uncertainty, that we’re facing, it’s quite interesting. We just said that this gives us the opportunity to look at things we haven’t had to look at, we’ve structured ourselves in a way that we haven’t had to look at them and so that would also be true in terms of any money issues. We haven’t, either personally or professionally, had to go too deeply into them. We’ve had some really good conversations that had to be quite explicit and frank. What does it mean that you [Tim] have family money and I don’t? What does that mean when we are running a business together that is having some contraction and the partners in the business have a different level of wealth to fall back into / that they can count on? What does that mean going forward? What does that mean as we do things that are building the business but are not billable hours? Because I [Tues] have less family wealth, we should give me more billable hours but you [Tim] are still working? It’s quite complex and emotional and it’s about our good friendship and it’s about this lens we have. How do we build a company together across class?Tues: This is what is happening now with The Outside. This is part of the “unsettled” part of this pandemic. The decisions now are not just short-term, it’s medium and long-term and what does this mean for us across time, and what does that mean for us in our different circumstances and what does this mean for our different perspectives around our company income and revenue. All of it is up now. It’s coming up for us personally, for our company, and for our clients. One of the things we’ve talked about is that there is a tendency to go back to a more traditional, mechanistic, command and control leadership right now. But, some of the people in our client base are thinking this is a time when we could choose do be different here. It’s a choice point in the organization. That’s happening at every level we’re working with right now. It’s all levels, all the time. Tues & Tim: All of our online courses are free right now until the end of June 2020. Check them out!Song: “A message to myself,” by Roo PanesPoem: “Untitled,” from the book “Lele Kawa: The rituals of Pele," by Taupouri TangaroOlelo i ke akaKa hele ho’okahi eMamina ka leoHe leo wale no eSpeaking to the shadowIs what one does when travelling aloneTreasure the voiceFor it gives sound to the thoughts otherwise dormant.Subscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 35:29Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For episode fifteen of season two, Tim and Tuesday are excited to introduce you to two members of the Outside Team, Bronagh Gallagher and Sommer Sibilly-Brown. We hear their perspectives, from two different parts of the world, on COVID-19 and talk about how we are not all experiencing this pandemic in the same way.Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.15 — SHOW NOTESTues: Today on the podcast, we have two Outsiders with us! Welcome, Sommer & Bronagh. Our podcast continues to be about this pandemic. We wanted to talk with some other folks on our team as it has become clear that not all of us are affected in the same way. We’re seeing in the news more and more everyday about how people are disproportionally affected. We thought it might be great to hear from the two of you, who are in very different parts of the world than Tim and I, to hear what’s happening there, what you’re noticing and we can ground this conversation of it’s happening to all of us but it’s not the same for all of us in our own lived experience. Tim: I feel this podcast is juxtaposed to a lot of the stuff that turns up on my social media - themes which are like, “now we’re discovering the great equalizer,” “we’re all in this together,” “finally there is a shared human experience”… and we are not all experiencing this the same. And so I think this podcast, is somewhat in response to that. Sommer Sibilly-Brown: I live in the St. Croix US Virgin Islands and in my day job, when I am not an Outsider, I run a food systems organization that focuses on food systems change. I live in a predominantly black and brown community and I have the awesome opportunity to work and learn with The Outside and its multiplicity of Outsiders; learning a lot more about equity, complexity science and really how we attack large-scale systems change so I can bring some of that work and that lens here to the Virgin Islands. Bronagh Gallagher: Based in Glasgow, Scotland. Been working for The Outside for over 1 year now - involved in prototyping, how to work with complex systems and also in this inquiry with you all around how to make systems change, equity systems change, and not just changing a system for the sake of it and building in old patterns. Bronagh: Some of the other work that I am actively involved in is around economic systems change related to climate breakdown and so really finding the parallels with the conversations I’ve been in around that versus where we are now with the pandemic in which a lot of the stuff that we have been arguing for, in order to create a better world for everyone, was completely off the table 3-4 months ago is now suddenly moving from the “politically impossible” to the “politically inevitable.” We’re seeing conversations about universal basic income, we’re seeing massive amounts of money suddenly being available when we were told that they weren’t… so that is really fascinating from a political perspective. The flip side of this is that around us, there is a really horrible virus killing people, it is being massively disruptive to people’s lives. Everyone I know is negotiating huge amounts of personal stress, health stress, family stress, work stress, and it’s such an intensely exhausting moment to be in.Bronagh: Sitting in Glasgow, I’m just noticing where the numbers of people testing positive are considerably higher than in comparable areas and really wondering what that means and what that is? There is not a real analysis coming through yet but one thing that Glasgow is well-known for is being the “sick man” of Europe. This is known as the “Glasgow Effect” where the death rate is significantly higher than similar post-industrial cities… so really curious to see if the existing health inequalities will be a part of why we are recording such considerably higher numbers. Tues: This feels like it is quite analogous with what’s happening in the US where we’re seeing more COVID-19 deaths among black folks and there are just a few cities who are just starting to track by race; who is being infected and who is dying from COVID. It’s disproportionally black and brown people; black people specifically and it’s because of long-term health disparities. Are you saying that is what’s happening in Glasgow… that the long-term disparities are manifesting through COVID? Can you say more, Bronagh?Bronagh: I’m noticing that the numbers in Glasgow are significantly higher than I think for comparable cities… but we don’t have the analysis on that yet but I am wondering if the pre-existing health inequalities in this city are one of the reasons why folks are experiencing it a lot more. I think we are just seeing that ill health is often socially determined and so communities which have a lot of socially determined ill health are going to be the most “vulnerable.”Tim: Bronagh, when you say “heath inequalities’ can you just make that very, very laymen’s terms for me? What exactly are you pointing to? Can you also break down “social determinants?” Bronagh: So one of the ways of thinking about this is how poverty is actually a social determinant - how your lived experience of poverty actually makes you more vulnerable to illness, to heart attacks, to strokes, to cancer. The stress of that kind of existence makes you more vulnerable to those experiences of ill heath. Poverty is a social determinant.Tues: As we go into this conversation and we say that not all of us are experiencing this the same; this is a key part of it. This idea of class, race, different marginalized groups are going be more vulnerable simply because of pre-existing conditions. Sommer: St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, is a territory. We are an unincorporated territory and I think the largest fare for me is how invisible we tend to be to our nation. As you talk about structural inequalities, we talk about communities that have high level of vulnerabilities… we import 98% of our food, my sister territories have predominantly huge instances of obesity so 60% of my population (20-40yrs) are all vulnerable. When you couple that with two devastating back-to-back hurricanes, that we experienced in 2017, and a hospital that is in recovery where we don’t have access to respirators… those structural inequalities also puts another layer/lens of equity, and service and what justice means for people. What health justice means for people for whom the disaster was created way before COVID. While we are dealing with COVID-19, the other issue is how do we manage what is here in a system that was not made to see me and my community. Tues: Sommer, you’ve been so clear here and careful in calling the US Virgin Islands a territory but I’ve also heard you refer to it as a colony and I’m asking you to go a little deeper into what you understand around the relationship with the US as a territory. What does that look like? What does it mean to be a territory?Sommer: What it means to be a territory of the US is that we are owned property. We are run through the Department of Interior. As an unincorporated territory that means we cannot apply for statehood. So Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth and statehood is an option. For unincorporated territories it means our territory has not been officially incorporated into the American status. It’s still a level of ownership… and so we are in that regard a colony because technically the United States owns us and we are probably four major steps away from being able to ever consider statehood. Tim: How much of this is class? And Bronagh, are you seeing a geographical parallel as Sommer described it?Bronagh: For me, it is being experienced/witnessed as having a very direct class relationship. A really basic framing of it is the rich went to their private islands and yachts, the middle classes stayed home and worried about their kids, and the working class folks had to go and stock shelves, drive buses and take people around and they got very, very, very sick. That is really basic but pretty accurate reading of how this is impacting people.Tues: That’s such a clear way of showing the stratification. To keep us all integrated, we can sometimes be that clear when the classes are all white. Just to name that class is a huge factor and here, at least, we cannot separate from race. Class here is so inextricably tied with race and often gender. Here in the US, people want to say it’s about class, not race. It’s a clear way to not talk about race here instead of really talking about the fact that we have structurally stratified our economy so that black and brown folks are in the lower class. Here there is a real overlay with race. Tim: We’re beginning a conversation and we are inviting you in. As always with The Outside, there are no simple answers but by seeing it and hearing these perspectives from the different parts of the world we get to understand this in a completely different level and way then we would if I was just living in sweet, little Mahone Bay. Tues: We’ll be having these conversations together as Outsiders. Bronagh & Sommer, you are both are so brilliant. This is why I leave our team meetings so happy. Thank you for being here! Song: “Take The Power Back” by Rage Against The Machine Poem: “Untitled,” by Sommer Sibilly-BrownDoes a Black Heart Bleed Black Blood?Does a Black man make Black Love?Does Being Black now signify everything that I am ?Or will ever be?Am I Black?Or is Being Black Me?Does Being Black, mean seeing Black?Black Vision The Black Decision Do the Right thing. Not the White thing !And Manifest your Black Destiny Black DaysBlack Ways Black MagicBLACK MAJESTY Brought on BlackshipsBeaten with Black Whips Stole Freedom in the Black NightFought the Black Fight That one day Black might Escape the Black lagoon And Break the Black Cocoon And Fly high Black Butterfly And Celebrate myself and my way of lifeThan more than some Black HolidaySubscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 31:59Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For episode fourteen of season two, Tim and Tuesday host a conversation with members of the NYC Administration for Children Services Operations Team where they reflect on the work so far, their learnings and their advice for those helping to lead large-scale change across a system.Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.14 —— SHOW NOTESTues: Today on the podcast, we have guests!! We have three members - Zachary Howard, Marc Santora & Cherika Wilson - of our Operations Team from a project, “Equity Throughout Our System (ETHOS),” we are working on at the NYC Administration for Children’s Services Workforce Institute. Marc: ACS Workforce Institute is a collaboration between ACS, which is a city agency, and CUNY, which is a city university in New York, and there are two layers of that - there’s CUNY School of Professional Studies and CUNY Hunter Collage and so all those entities work together to provide training for direct service staff in child welfare and juvenile justice. We are impacting that system. We are training people to do that work. ACS is an agency of approx. 12,000 people and we work with 63 contracted provider agencies.Tues: There are about 24,000 workers that you are training that then move out to the families. That’s quite a reach. Tues: As an organization, I have been really impressed with the insistence and practice of racial and gender equity in your work. I’d love to hear you talk about that. Zachary: Everyone in the Workforce Institute makes sure that it’s always on the table. We make sure our language is consistent and it becomes part of our everyday. Cherika: We have a highly disproportionate number of children of colour that are affected by and come into contact with the system and so as we go about doing our jobs, regardless of whatever part of the organization we’re in, that is something that we are constantly thinking about. How do we make sure that there is equity throughout our system for the families that we work with. This initiative [ETHOS] is part of how we really engage in that to move that work to the next level.Marc: We surround ourselves all the time with people who that is their work. We know that there is inequity in the system, we know that that exists and so we use it as a springboard to inform the rest of our work so we’ve done things like having a reflective process every couple of weeks, we’ve done racism trainings and this work that we are doing with The Outside is very much centred around that. It’s been 2+ years of us priming the pump to talk about this. Tim: In some of the early conversations, David would talk about ACS and the Workforce institute, as a whole, is positioned to lead transformation across the child welfare system… If the mandate is systems change through capacity building… how’s that feel? What’s it like to have that mandate and scope? Marc: We have really passionate people who this is their life’s work so that is a really good starting point for us because this is not just a job for most people; this is what they want to do with their lives. It makes it easier on one end but it also makes it harder because there are so many different directions that it can go in. Because we are three different entities working together as one, there are so many hoops that we need to jump through just to make things work and so there is so much passion but how do you put a process to that? That’s been the thing that has been the most difficult for us. Zachary: I’ve only been in this job a year and I struggled a bit not being closer to the families directly but I participated in the fiscal year retreat where we saw the numbers of learners and families that we affected and it made it easier to wake up in the morning to do the work knowing you are helping on such a large scale. There’s going to be trips and falls but you can trip to get back up to make it work, which is what we’ve been doing. Cherika: I think something the organization tries to do, regardless of your role, is connecting you back to your role. What is my sphere of control and influence? We make a commitment to this work every single day.Tues: What is the ETHOS project? What do the three of you tell the folks who are not in the Core Team?Marc: This is my third day in training with TO and yesterday, Tuesday you said “coming home is often the hardest thing to do.” I think that’s true for us. We are all really good at knowing this is what is wrong here and we couldn’t necessarily figure out how to bring it back to us and I think this is where this initiative started. How do we set up a system and structure that we can then push out? If we don’t have the system ourselves, how do we then tell other people how to do it? We wanted to not only tell them, but show them - model it - and I think we just couldn’t figure out how to do that because there are so many voices and so many people that have so much passion around how to do it and we all have the answers… how do we take that and make it all true and make it move. Zachary: When my co-workers ask who are The Outside and what do they do? I describe it as they come in when organizations want a systems change. They help organizations to pinpoint the issues or problems and then get everyone on the same playing ground and take these problems and move them to something successful. A lot of people are used to prescribed answers but with The Outside you delve deep into what is going on in the organization and move in that direction. I appreciate that you don’t work in the prescribed. It’s hard to get 30 people to talk and share their ideas in a constructive plateau to move forward. Cherika: As I think about it, I think the ETHOS initiative has given us the permission to take the steps and make the changes that we need to make sure that the walk matches our talk. TO has guided us through a process to help us figure out the answers and it’s been a really interesting, and sometimes challenging, road to be on and I’ve been grateful to be in the process.Marc: There is also an element of slowing us down. That is a thing that we don’t do well. Everything is results, results, drive, drive. This is making us practice not moving so fast and being more thoughtful around things that we are doing. In an outcome-driven environment, we’re not taking the time to think about things in the way that we should. This is giving us a platform and space to do it and it’s also feeding into everyone’s psychological safety in doing that. Tues: I want to pull out that safety piece. We had a moment with the Leadership Team where we had them doing a walk with their eyes closed. It’s quite a vulnerable space. What came out was that someone said, “I felt safe because I was with this person.” We didn’t do the things that would normally do to make a safe environment. People found their safety with each other. It felt like a really good learning moment.Cherika: What I appreciate about the work that you’ve [The Outside] done with us is that we have to commit to the same level of vulnerable and it makes a difference in terms of building relationship and building trust. We’re all figuring this out together. Zachary: When it comes to safety, between reflective process and Open Space, we are slowing down to have the little moments to build relationship and safety. I think we can work together when everyone is in the best mindset. Tim: Hearing all of you speak blows me away… some of the most significant and transformative moments happen between two individuals and somehow that ends up changing the culture of the initiative as a whole which ends up impacting the future of a system. You’ve all talked about matching our rhetoric with our action - truly beginning to behave how we would like the system to behave. Tues + Tim: I’d love for you to share something that you’ve learned through the ETHOS project? Or any advice that you’d give people based upon what you are learning.Marc: Be nice to yourself and each other and notice one another. Care for each other in the process.Cherika: Be patient and be okay with the questions and trust the process. Relationships are important. As you go through the work, remember to bring it back to the people who are not as intimately involved. Zachary: It’s okay to be uncomfortable - lean in when you are uncomfortable. Song: "Paradigm of Lies,” by Zach’s band Ocean of IllusionsFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/OceanOfIllus... Twitter: @OOI_NJ Instagram: oceanofillusionsnj Bandcamp: https://oceanofillusions.bandcamp.com Poem: “Harlem” by Langston HughesWhat happens to a dream deferred?      Does it dry up      like a raisin in the sun?      Or fester like a sore—      And then run?      Does it stink like rotten meat?      Or crust and sugar over—      like a syrupy sweet?      Maybe it just sags      like a heavy load.      Or does it explode?Subscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 47:20Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For episode thirteen of season two, Tim and Tuesday reach out to explain what they are doing, both personally and professionally, during the Coronavirus outbreak.Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.13 —— SHOW NOTESReading: “Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times: Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times,” by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola EstésMy friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for. Tim + Tuesday: Today, we are talking about Coronavirus… it’s here and it’s real and it feels like the elephant in the room if we don’t talk about it. Tues: Her [Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés] words were what I know in my bones but have had trouble remembering. In some ways I can feel in interactions, that I might be viewed as “Pollyanna"; not based in reality as what is… in my bones I know that I cannot accept the invitation to fear and despair. Tim: What does ‘Pollyanna” mean?Tues: “Pollyanna” is a person who is always on the bright side, positive thinker, not based on reality. Tim: You are choosing how you are going to turn up. One of the things that have blown me away over the last few weeks are the Facebook groups that have kicked off all across Canada. One woman started a small Facebook group and called it “Care Mongering” - it was a group where people in her community could come together and identify offers or needs that they have and exchange them… and now they are all across Canada. Two of the things I really like about this is (1) It’s just so kind; and (2) It was emergent - it was not organized. Tues: We just wanted to be with people though this podcast. Tim, what are the things that you are doing to take care of yourself?Tim: Today, in particular, I am wearing a rather fetching tweed tie - in a funny way I am doing little things that give me pleasure. It feels fun and nice. I am getting a lot of time with my kids - we are playing a lot and talking a lot. I am also getting out and walking three times a day. This really helps me to stay centered. If there is a theme to this podcast it is choices. I definitely have more anxiety then I would normally have… and I have to look after the part of me that is worried. I need to look after it and be kind. Tues: Late last week, I decided to really limit social media. As a person who has a tendency towards anxiety, I had a sense of the amount of collective anxiety. I felt like I could not continue to keep reading… but I keep myself informed by reputable people. I am also committed to being active everyday and eating good food. I am being responsible and responsive. Tim: Let’s talk about The Outside. In 10 minutes time, we are jumping on with one of many organizations around online collaboration platforms. Our major clients that we are working with right now are front-line responders to situations like the Coronavirus outbreak. And so, we are in this tension between, obviously you have to respond to the immediate and urgent but it cannot be in complete dismissal of the long-term systemic changes that we are trying to overcome together or make progress on together. Everything is being pushed out - the virus itself is going to take 4 months to push through a region - and so we are looking at online collaboration platforms that we can start building. These are not event- based; we are going after something that can hold collaboration over an extended period of time. We’ve set up a whole bunch of demos and conversations - this fits a whole bunch of things we are doing at The Outside. It fits the declaration of climate emergency that we are beginning to craft, which is looking at what is our responsibility to carbon emissions, how do we respond to that and it also looks at how do you deal with increasing global crisis that results in increasing fragmentation globally and still organize together systemically together to solve major problems. Tues: We are trying to respond and meet people where they are in the crisis as well as seeing what is possible in this moment… which could be a really different way of gathering people virtually that is better for our planet and actually allows more voices in. There is all sorts of implications for equity that working in a different way could bring us. I can feel the fragility of this moment and I can also feel the possibility of it. Tim: We are deliberately looking at how we can combine synchronize and asynchronous efforts. Tues: I’m really curious to see what we [The Outside] can create and put out into the world as more time and space opens up.Tim: On that note, all of The Outside online courses - Leading Effective Meetings & Shared Work - are now available for FREE to anyone that is interested… right now until June 30, 2020. Also, we are brainstorming a weekly update from us and developing a list of resources that we have that we could make available. Song: “Sweet Inspiration” by the Derek Trucks BandSubscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 31:53Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For episode twelve of season two, Tim and Tuesday speak directly to the invitations they are receiving in the work of getting big change done. At this particular time in the world, what new dimensions and new experiences might we say ‘yes’ to in order to stay awake, see clearly and take action?Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.12 —— SHOW NOTESTues: When we talk about invitation we tend to focus outward - how do we invite folks in; which is really important and a key part of our work, but I like this different twist you are inviting, Tim. What are the invitations we are saying yes to?Tim: One of the recent invitations I said yes too was Bioneers in California. It was an invitation that engaged me and my life in things I would never experience otherwise—to engage with cultures and beliefs and song and poetry and ways of thinking about the world that kind of expand me and my family’s view.Tues: At this moment, I am in a cycle of saying “yes” to intuition. I was invited to a three-day Collective Consciousness Retreat exploring ritual, meditation and a more structured dialogue practice to surface what was between us. It felt like one of those little side doors. Within the first 10 minutes someone in the group talked about ‘trustlessness’ - the idea that trust isn’t even the currency we should be using. It was for me as radical an idea as getting rid of capitalism. I want to be with people who are really pushing an idea.Tim: The idea of “side doors” significantly informs our work together. Some of those journeys are therapeutic, some are courses we do, some are events we attend, some of those journeys are conversations we have with people we are close to. These “side doors” are pushing us and expanding us.Tim: At Bioneers, I went to a panel discussion hosted by Jerry Tello, where he talked about his experience of working with the sacred masculine… and he finished on this line: “do your own work.” This is what you are pointing too, Tues. Trust your own intuition to take you to places that take you beyond your own comfort, that focus you into your own work, that force you to grow.Tues: There is an old Art of Hosting question that says, “If you were born a question, what question would it be?” My question is “How do I help these people be together better?” It goes right back to the guiding principals of The Outside. The bones of it are collective liberation.Tim: I would love our listeners to go to our Facebook page or Instagram and post their question there. My question would be “How do we create the conditions for people to solve their own problems?”Tues: Do you think this is a different time in human history for this? Is there something possible at this time?Tim: I think you are asking a question that someone like Gibrán Rivera or my brother, Peter Merry, who have done very specific investigation into evolutionary leadership can answer. I don’t know whether this is a unique time in the world… but what I do know is that I am alive and I want to make the best of it.Tues: What I want to end on is asking our listeners to get a little quiet and see what the invitations are that they are receiving now. You can also post this to our social media as well.Poem turned into Song: “Switch It On,” an original song by Merry And Derkee (Tim Merry & Marc Derkee), produced by Gary Blakemore.Subscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 41:21Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For episode eleven of season two, Tim and Tuesday reflect on how hope can — and must — co-exist with an acknowledgement of where we are, even in crisis or struggle. If we are to respond massively to an emerging future, and grapple with our current reality, what steps can we take to preserve optimism?Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.10 —— SHOW NOTESTim: There’s a Thomas Merton quote about finding rightness in the work itself, to surrender the hope of results. And I came across this quote from William the Silent: “It is not necessary to hope in order to persevere.” There is one story that I’ve come across in our work - how important hope has been to persevere.Tues: The quote that comes to me is a Toni Morrison quote: “You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” I believe my ancestors, on both sides, had deep hope as they left their shores - that there was something different, something better.Tim: I feel like we are in the midst of a level of crisis that is now beginning to truly impact the middle and middle-upper classes in a way it hasn’t before in such a pervasive scale, scope and reach. I think that’s a piece of the class response that I want to identify and have some compassion for and not pretend it’s not a product of privilege. It makes me think of the quote from Rumi: “Sit down and be quiet. You are drunk, and this is the edge of the roof.”Tues: I wonder about my own lens and perspective; I feel there is no lack of material for hope for me. My vantage point is of people who are actively working and trying.Tim: This kind of analysis that becoming acquainted with despair, but still maintaining hope, is an issue of how insulated your life has been.Tues: Whose going to make it and who is not? Disaster capitalists are moving into Puerto Rico right now and beginning to set themselves up for when it all goes down and the question is what will happen to the Puerto Ricans who are there?Tim: What does it mean to not prioritize engaging with the emergence of consciousness among the privileged classes and the fragility that comes with that? This kind of awakening to the level of despair, because you are experiencing it… I am intrigued by that. How this get’s integrated into how we think about significant change happening. I also don’t want it to be the thing that slows us down.Tues: It’s not do we engage it or don’t we - it’s how and when and why. Everyone gets to decide what their own energy level is.Tim: When we go into those stories that are so intimately connected to us, we find both the “You are drunk, and this is the edge of the roof” and we find the hope, the gift, the power to stand in the face of it and take the next step.Poem: Build the Arks (King Kong Song) by Tim MerryI just read about the coming of the ice ageEarth’s rageThe mighty mother, the sage,Turning another pageOf evolutionA natural solutionThe vibrationOf creationMelting ice caps into the gulf stream flowsThe European heating system blowsBeyond repairMy mother, father, sister, brother live thereStop, bear witness, take a long good stareDigest our reality and start to careThe planet is movin’ onWe all be livin’ in the final swan songThe future’s comin’ on strongLike King KongWe all be the hapless maidenLooking in his big brown eyesBeginning to realiseIt’s all beyond our controlBigger than we’ll ever beSee?Fuck the swan song,This is the King Kong songWe ain’t got no choice but to go along. No more prizes for predicting the rainThe painNew startsTime to build the arks What’s my contributionAt this crazy time?Am I gonna whineComplainAbout the pain?The fact we all seem to be going insane?No!Trust in surpriseIntegrity has no compromiseRelease all tiesOpen the eyes. Our survival seems hit and missLike the world is taking the pissA final good night kissAll this material wealthThe illusion of blissIt’s a big mis –stakeTime to rakeThe fallen leavesAutumn choicesWinter bereavesNot everyone will make itWe can’t fake itThere’s no hidingFrom this collidingWith the end of an eraIt’s never been clearerSome will get left behindLinger in our mindsTheir remains to findIn millions of yearsAs we learn again our evolutionFrom homo-confusionHomo-luminumNo more prizes for predicting the rainThe painNew startsTime to build the arks Gather now at our community centresWith friends and mentorsAnd EldersWe all be the weldersOf fragmentationOn the edges of the new creationThe builders of the New Space StationRight here in the arms of the motherWhere the heroes gather undercoverSensing the future with sonar soundThe builders of boats aboundReadying for the coming stormsTrainers of the warriors who break the normsYield to the fieldDrop the shieldWhat are the skills we need to survive?To be one of ones aliveWho looks backThinking“holy shit how did we survive that?”What does it take to make the warrior casteTo see our king kong future comin’ on fastThen look back and know it as the past?This ain’t about seekin’ thrillsWe need to know the survival skillsGet into trainingI’m not exaggeratingI wish I wasThis is real,nowhereIt’s time to get clear.There’s no more prizes for predicting the rainThe painNew startsIt’s time to build the arksSong: Faith’s Hymn by Beautiful ChorusSubscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 47:20Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For episode ten of season two, Tim and Tuesday contemplate what exactly we mean by the concept of power — intergroup, structural or systemic. How can we best share it, and invite more people to pick it up? How can we wield the power we have with integrity?Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.10 —— SHOW NOTESTues: As we are getting ready to release a new online course on Shared Work, we realized we never did a podcast on Power. When we say power, we’re talking about multiple different kinds of power — intergroup, structural or systemic. There are three major kinds of power: (1) Power OVER: one group has more, and one group has less (i.e. race, gender, heterosexism, class, ability); (2) Power FOR: based on an advocacy model - I have power and I will use it on your behalf (i.e. therapist in family violence). Comes from a place of good intent but a challenging place to keep your ego and ethics in check; and (3) Power WITH: Coalitions/collaboratives - use our power together to move something forward (i.e. action, agenda). One of the dangers is that it can make us quite transactional with each other.Tim: The therapeutic lens called ‘transactional analysis’ is a lens that can help us understand wherever power is turning up in our world.Tues: Of course there is an element of personal power… and that still exists within this context of power in a larger societal or structural way. I can evolve and transform and be as aligned with my own power as I want but still in this moment, in North America, I have a very different future than you. Could we begin to conceive that, Tim, if you have more power; I have more power? Does power rest among us that we can tap into that is unlimited?Tim: There is something quite natural about power among (i.e. schools of fish).Tues: Cyndi Suarez wrote The Power Manual: How to Master Complex Power Dynamics. I’d love to bring her on to talk to her about what she is uncovering on power.Tim: Power has been misused pretty consistently and therefore has become untrustworthy. It wasn’t until I met Toke Møller that I met a man attempting to wield his power with some integrity.Tues: If you don’t have a great model of power, it is quite hard to determine how you will use it. So instead I pretend I don’t have any and wield it unconsciously or I can pretend it is happening out there and, again, wield it unconsciously. Fear of our own use of power keeps us from some real conversations and real change.Tim: The more I engaged through my work, with people in positions I perceived as powerful, the more I had to deal with my own issues of power. Suddenly, I’m realizing that I am arriving with a fundamental distrust of all these people because of the position they hold. That’s an indicator to me that I had work to do.Tues: For me, I showed up in those rooms not trusting and really because of societal positioning not feeling worthy being in those rooms. As a result, I had to get comfortable with my power.Tim: A lot of the analysis have become codified in our heads and then we become inflexible and then we only see power through those lenses. I feel that one of the essential ingredients of engaging with power is curiosity.Tues: You’re right and so if you don’t engage around power at all, the invitation is to get curious around how power is playing out in your organization and in your work and get curious about it. If you have a sophisticated discourse around power then I think the invitation is to really look at where that’s helpful and where it forwards your work and where it might be holding you back and what else can you get curious about. Let’s not pretend that it does not matter and have some agility and flexibility with it.Poem: “Sometimes” by Sheenagh PughSometimes things don't go, after all,from bad to worse. Some years, muscadelfaces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,sometimes we aim high, and all goes well.A people sometimes will step back from war;elect an honest man, decide they careenough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.Some men become what they were born for.Sometimes our best efforts do not goamiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrowthat seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.Song: The Power by SnapSubscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 42:26Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.09 - SHOW NOTESTim: As we grow, we’re putting in place legal structures to support our work and build the principals of our organization.Tues: It’s the idea that we are a fractal of what we are trying to do in the world. In this period of year-turning, there is always a space of reflection and putting your mind to where you want to be going forward. Often, with our clients, there is a pace and urgency. We could be swept along by the work and if we don’t pause and reflect and be intentional, we’ll just get more of what we are seeking to shift in our clients. Inner reflection for the organization cannot be left to chance.Tim: We often find ourselves asking for things that the professionals we are working with are like, “what?” One that was interesting for me recently was when we were sitting down with the lawyers to pull together our subcontractor contracts. We are getting to draw up contracts that reflect our values and the relationships we are building with our subcontractors.Tues: We want this to happen to everyone we work with. I hope their work gets better and deeper and more nuanced.Tim: One of our principals is generosity and we are trying to institutionalize / legalize it.Tues: One of the things we’ve done recently was brought The Outside principals to our team - how we want to be as an organization: Generosity, Love, Clarity, A society that serves all & Collective.Tues: I am not building a white organization; that is not what I am here to do. This is a declaration so folks know what we are intending, which is not a white organization. I am here to build an organization that actually knows how to work in difference because we are deeply different from each other. And very explicitly, that means racially.Tim: We’ve been actively seeking senior members for our team that are people of colour and building apprentices into The Outside.Tues: We are still looking for folks who have the capacity to be ‘managers of one’ and even that is evolving. I can feel like we are weaving something that is far more than individual folks doing really great work to deliver a project. We are developing a weaved fabric of people and work that will take a wide net that will move things forward.Tim: We really hope that what we shared today will help you to think about how you form your team(s), how you build out your organization or your practices in relationship to others, how that’s manifested, not just as a set of principals or practices, but how that’s manifested in structures and legality.Poem: “to all you young poets” from the book milk and honey, by Rupi KaurYour artis not about how many peopleIike your workyour artis aboutif your heart likes your workif your soul likes your workit’s about how honestyou are with yourselfand youmust nevertrade honestyfor relatability.Song: Los Ejes De Mi Carreta by Atahualpa YupanquiSubscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 37:48Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For episode eight of season two, Tim and Tuesday talk about the fix-it phenomenon we all share: on seeing a problem, we rush to fix it. But when we rush to solutions, we’re likely to repeat the very problems that gave us the challenge in the first place. How can we cultivate a new pattern of pause and examination?Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.2.08 —— SHOW NOTESTues: When we feel the problem is urgent, it is much harder for us to wait. The good intention of problem —> fix feels like a generous, well-intended response to something that has urgency.Tim: 'Problem, fix it’ is not inherently bad (i.e. when in a crisis response). The idea that ‘problem, fix it’ makes good leadership is so pervasive in the places we are working… that’s the issue. On its own ‘problem, fix it’ is insufficient. We need better understandings before we act.Tues: We’ve started to respond to everything as a crisis. Part of the discernment is what are we actually in here? That pause before you act is where the possibility will come. This has been rich in my own life practice.Tim: This is a leadership practice. Otto Scharmer, out of MIT, has developed “U-Theory.” It has gained traction and it’s an archetypal process it takes people through. It journeys you through the “U” and I think we can all relate to it. What Tues and Otto are both describing is about pulling us out of the urgent into the important. Pulling us out of the day-to-day, hamster wheel, business as usual to say what a minute, what is actually important?Tues: What we know about shifting approaches is it requires you to let go of some things - beliefs, assumptions, etc. This requires a whole lot of work, thought, practice and understanding.Tim: If you are the ‘problem, fix it’ hero leader, every time you step in and solve people’s problems for them, you remove their ability to solve it themselves. I feel we [The Outside] are a real antidote to that. Answers are out of date so quickly. Inquiries will last you. What happens when we work in this way, is that your decisions become more considered; they do not become easier. We don’t opt for the easy answer, we engage with the nuance.Tues: 'Problem, wait/pause’ takes courage. Wishing people courage to try it out and see where it lands them.Poem: “…is God.” from A Book of Light, by Lucille Cliftonso.having no need to speakYou sent Your tonguesplintered into angels.even I, with my little piece of ithave said too much.to ask You to explainis to deny You.before the wordYou were.You kiss my brother mouth.the rest is silence.Song: Landslide by Tony ClarkeSubscribe to the podcast now—in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you find podcasts. New episodes will be available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to get in touch with us about something you heard on the show, reach us at podcast@findtheoutside.com. Find the song we played in today’s show—and every song we’ve played in previous shows—on the playlist. Just search ‘Find the Outside’ on Spotify.Duration: 37:15Produced by: Mark Coffin @ Sound Good StudiosTheme music: Gary BlakemoreEpisode cover image: source Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.