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this is a collaborative post: concepts and words by Christina Chan and josh martinez. My friend Christina and I are no stranger to complicated workplaces. We worked together for a while before we both moved on to better pastures. We collaborated on this post, as people who’ve been there,
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Think back to a time about six years ago. Hillary Clinton was in Minnesota. While campaigning for president, she spoke with a voter in a Minneapolis coffeeshop. The voter, Stacey Rosana, spoke with a quiet voice that mingled with the sounds of the coffeeshop. Rosana started by reminding Clinton of
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Out near Port Angeles, Washington, the Elwha river winds through the Olympic peninsula. The river meets the ocean where the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has lived since time immemorial. More than 80% of the river exists within the Olympic National Park, one of my favorite parks in the country. For
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Many of us spend our entire lives simmering in white dominant culture. These days, so many people are working to change the balance of society. We want a just, inclusive society. No group of people should hold the choking dominance that white supremacy has over all of us. This work
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What makes a strong leader? In my experience, leaders need to convey a clear and understandable vision. They must know how to make their vision a reality. They need the respect of their peers and the people who follow them. What makes an expert? Like leaders, they should have the
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This post is narrated! Listen below… What is a sunk cost? In the business world, a sunk cost is an expense that you have already paid for. You can’t recover the money you spent. You may have sunk costs into buying a piece of equipment or spending time to
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I have a philosophy that I often share with the teams I work with. Mistakes are a natural part of life. I make mistakes all the time. But I try to understand the mistakes I make. I try to figure out what I can learn from them. A mistake, repeated,
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This post is narrated! Listen below… There is a photo near the desk where I worked full-time before the pandemic. I used to look at it every time I walked past. It’s a photo from the eighties, as far as I know, though the image is not in color.
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I heard a story years ago about a strange partnership struck between Toyota and GM. In 1984 they came together to create a factory called NUMMI. This factory ran under the Toyota Production System, whose principles by now are world-famous as Lean Six Sigma. (Emphasis here that I’m suspicious
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This post is narrated! Listen below… Last week, I was in a meeting to discuss dividing grant funds between two groups. I work with two coalitions that provide social services to people in need. One coalition receives about a third of the funding that the other group does. Neither coalition
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I had a great chat with my friend Clara recently. They and their friend Melo are the hosts of a podcast, Intersectionality in the Diaspora. We talked for a while about our experiences surviving predominantly white institutions (PWIs). We discussed the harms that they can visit on BIPOCs existing in
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Many in the non-profit industrial complex are pivoting to meet a newish trend. They hope to elevate the voices of people who have long borne the brunt of a racist, capitalist, and artificially-white-supremacist society. In the united states, a narrowing majority has spent generations as the only ones whose voices
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