Isabelle Moses and Katherine Golub
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[00:00:00]

Katherine Golub: thank you, Isabelle, for taking this time to have this conversation. I’d love to start with what called you to do your work that you do now.

Isabelle Moses: Thank you Catherine, for having me. It’s a delight to be with you today. Gosh, there’s so many different inputs into why I do this work.

I wanna lift up a, maybe a few different sources. So one is I just always like to bring my parents into the conversation. I feel so grateful for the example that they set of leadership. My mom at the age of 77, continues to run a nonprofit that she’s been running for over 40 years that does arts advocacy and kind of at the intersection of the arts and the environment, arts and, and justice reform, arts and education.

and her. Leadership legacy is really profound. She is, been leading this organization in California for a very long time. my father who’s an immigrant from Nigeria, he, was a public servant and served the city of San Francisco for many [00:01:00] decades. And, I really do think my work is very much in their lineage of working with leaders to support leaders.

and frankly like working in a multiracial, multicultural context is something that my parents have always modeled. And, growing up in San Francisco, which is a very diversity city, unfortunately the black community has largely been gentrified out. However, they continue to live in a majority of people of color neighborhood.

my dad was the president and founder of the African American Democratic Club of San Francisco. And so he, they always found ways to sort of lift up the black community while working in a very multi-racial context. And, and I feel like that’s something that really roots and grounds the work that I do.

Katherine Golub: Something you were just saying about the importance of doing work with multiracial, multicultural organizations and really believing in that work. Could you share a bit about why that’s important to you or what helped shape your belief in that work?

Isabelle Moses: Yeah, I think that’s a few different [00:02:00] things. one, like I was, as I said, I grew up in San Francisco and while I grew up in a majority black neighborhood, when I was a child, I was sent across town to go to school in a very, essentially elite environment on Pacific Heights, and was raised, in a private school environment and was educated in that, in that context.

And, while when I look back, I, I actually look at pictures and I, I see that we were actually pretty multiracial as a school. It was relatively diverse. It was also under a very strong frame of assimilation. And I was really socialized and conditioned towards whiteness as a child. And that was sort of a survival strategy that I learned how to inhabit.

And as I, as I grew up, grew older and was able to really sort of shed that. Assimilated mindset and really grow more into my full identity as a black woman. I realized, okay, like I have been cultivated in an environment [00:03:00] where I actually can now really be a bridge builder. Like I really see a lot of my purpose in life as as being a bridge builder and that.

I grew up in a context where I had a lot of white friends and and friends of all different identities. And now living in Los Angeles, working closely with Carla, I realize that, that I actually have the most joy in multiracial spaces and, being part of a salsa dance community. And I feel like, I love being in all black spaces and I really love being in multiracial spaces.

It just brings me a lot of joy. I feel like I can be the most full version of myself when all different parts of me are able to be integrated and present at the same time. and I think that in our work in institutions. We often see that, the society that we long for is one that where everyone belongs, where everyone can be their full selves, where all parts of you are celebrated and welcomed.

I feel that multiracial multicultural institutions are often like little mini sites of liberation where we get to practice [00:04:00] that on a day-to-day basis. And if we can practice that in our institutions where we spend a lot of our waking hours, then perhaps we can transfer those skills and practices into society and ultimately have a society that feels more liberated and free and where we get to be all parts of ourselves.

Katherine Golub: we’re about to go into talking about very necessary sacrifices and also some sacrifices are not necessary and are really harmful. And so just the context that you just shared of. Growing up in this multiracial space, but was also really a space of assimilation and whiteness that parts of people’s selves were not welcome, were not given a place of belonging

I wanna name the harm, and the hurt of that and I’m curious what comes up for you when I say that

Isabelle Moses: you know, it’s interesting if you look down from above in assimilated space in an integrated space can look very similar.

But the feelings are very different and the experiences inside those spaces are very different. And I actually now serve [00:05:00] on the board of the school that I went to as a child, which frankly was a harmful experience. and the sacrifice was that little girls like me, didn’t really discover who I was until much later in life.

And now with a black woman leader who is so embodied, so clear about who she is and what her purpose is, she is able to create a space that centers love in her leadership and in the teaching practices and in the community that’s curated. And when I go to board meetings or when I go and attend school events, and I witness the way that the little black girls who, looked like me once upon a time, got to just be in their fullness, in their joy with their hair and every different kind of style, and just laughing and playing.

I see. A healed version of myself. And it is so powerful and I see that the sacrifice that I had to make as a kid to just cut off parts of myself in order to [00:06:00] fit into this mold came at such a high cost. like I, I don’t actually remember a lot of my early childhood. Like I think I disassociated quite a bit of it.

Like I was not an embodied version of myself until much later in life. And I think that the way that we disassociate in order to survive like cuts off so much of our humanity. And creates distance between us and ourselves, between us and the people that we’re in community with. I think about this neighborhood where I live in Los Angeles that’s majority white and so cold.

Like I live near the ocean, but the energy is so cold and it is sad. It’s sad sometimes, like, it’s like the way that we’ve been divorced from the wisdom and the beauty of the natural world, even in a place as beautiful as where I live by the ocean, makes me really sad. And I, I chose this community not with a whole lot of understanding of what I was setting up for.

And now I realize, you know, that’s another place where I’ve unintentionally sacrificed. I thought I was choosing the [00:07:00] beauty of being in proximity to the ocean, but what I actually chose was like a level of coldness that you often find in like majority white spaces that have not reconciled with how to be more integrated and how to be in harmony with the land.

Katherine Golub: When you name the importance of embodiment, I think about a practice that you and Carla start a lot of your workshops with, which is talking about your emotional cup. And we actually just did that. I have some personal stuff that I’m holding that I just was like, okay, it’s in the room with us. I wanna share that and you shared some things that you’re holding, can you share with listeners about this practice that I think in your workshop you said you often start conversations about strategic sacrifice and prioritization by talking about the emotional cup.

Can you share that with listeners?

Isabelle Moses: Yes, absolutely. So we also do this as a practice at Brava for our meetings. sometimes in our one-on-one check-ins. It’s really just a way to be clear about like what you’re [00:08:00] bringing into a space and what other people are bringing into this space so that you’re, you understand what you actually have the capacity to talk about in a particular conversation.

The concept of an emotional cup is really simple. I often use the metaphor of a chemistry beaker that starts empty, right? When it’s empty, it’s spacious. It has lots of room. Then over time, you add different things to it. By the time it gets to 8, 9, 10, it might be about to bubble over and explode.

So the goal is to try to keep your cup in the range of like a zero to four. Like, I’m good. I have a lot of spaciousness. Four to six is like a yellow zone. That might be a time when you think about, okay, what could I do to have more space? Maybe you go for a walk. Maybe you take a break, put your phone down. Maybe you even take a nap.

You wanna reduce some of the pressure before it continues to escalate. If you get to like a 7, 8, 9, 10, it’s probably time to shut it down. You might need to really disengage. Maybe schedule a [00:09:00] vacation.Maybe even exit the conversation and just really take a break.

This also helps us prime for, can we have a difficult conversation? If you wanna have a strategy conversation, or if you wanna really talk about challenging things that might be happening, when folks are at a 7, 8, 9 is not the time to do that.

you wanna have those conversations when folks have more spaciousness, more capacity to hold complexity or things that might be challenging. if somebody names a, a number, that’s. Five or above, like, we’ll ask like, what do you need? Like, what would community care look like for you today?

Like, perhaps this is a off-camera day, or perhaps this is a day when you clock out at a little bit of an earlier time. or maybe somebody takes something off your plate so that you can, rebalance your workload a little bit.

Katherine Golub: at the end of like a six month period of working with a coaching client, I’ll ask them, what are three things that you’ve learned in the last six months that you want to remind yourself of in the future when you forget them? Like, just a little bit of a homeopathic dose of

Isabelle Moses: Yeah.

Katherine Golub: You [00:10:00] know, we’re, we’re gonna continue learning and the importance of pausing before deciding, Pausing when we’re triggered or pausing at all, is one of the things that people repeat most frequently. So I really, through supporting clients and learning from them, really the pause. Mm-hmm. The pause is the like predecessor of, or thenecessary ingredient before making hard decisions.

So I’m so glad that you all do this and prioritize it in your conversations about decision making.

Isabelle Moses: Yeah.

Katherine Golub: Yeah. So can you introduce listeners to the triangle of Tension? What this is.

Isabelle Moses: Sure. Yeah. This is another one of our favorite frameworks at Brava. the Triangle of Tension is a tool that we use to support leaders and organizations to kind of wrestle with three things that every organization is always grappling with, and every leader is always grappling with, which are.

Impact [00:11:00] culture and money. And when we talk about impact, we’re really talking about the mission over the organization, like why it exists, the thing that everyone is coming together to, to do what or to, to work towards solving. when we think about culture at the organizational level, what we typically mean is sort of the, the wellbeing of the team, the daily experience of the workplace.

We’re talking about, the how you do the work in addition to impact really being the what of the work. and we’re really talking about the relationships between the people in the organization and outside of the organization. when we talk about, culture at the individual level, we’re really talking about your wellbeing.

We’re talking about the interplay between your work and your life. We’re talking about, How well your personal practices sort of set you up to be whole and to be somebody who feels fulfilled inside of work and outside of work.

Impact can also from a personal standpoint, be about your sense of purpose. Like what is the [00:12:00] purpose that you’re called to do in the world and how do you live that? And culture as at a personal level is really about, you know, sort of the personal practices that support you to live into your purpose.

Then money at the organizational level, we, you know, we think about money and money out, you know, how sustainable are you, how well is your organization doing in terms of stewarding the existing resources? And, you know, from a personal standpoint, you know, it’s very similar, how’s your personal balance sheet, right?

thinking about the trade offs that people make individually and collectively, you know, can be very similar in your personal life as they are in your kinda organizational life. And so we think of the kinda your personal triangle tension and your organizational triangle tension are always both present for any leader.

in terms of how we use this tool, we generally find that it’s really hard for almost anybody to be prioritizing sort of more than two of these at a time. And so there’s always something that is potentially being sacrificed at whether consciously or [00:13:00] unconsciously. And you’re often placing bets around what you wanna prioritize for a particular period of time.

and the concept of the bets is really about in order to have as much as possible across the full triangle of tension, sometimes one thing needs to get sacrificed in order to make the hole stronger. In the current moment that we’re in right now where the funding landscape is really atrocious for racial justice and social justice organizations, many organizations are grappling with how do we hold the tension around impact, culture, and money and what are the strategic bets and sacrifices that we need to make. Particularly trade offs between culture and money come up quite a bit in the work that we see with organizations.

Many organizations have sometimes experienced an us versus them dynamic between leadership and staff. Leadership often feels very responsible for impact and also holding financial stewardship and money. And staff might feel a little less agency around money, but has [00:14:00] lots of agency oftentimes around culture and wanting to see staff wellbeing get prioritized,maintaining staff size as much as possible, or staff pay as much as possible. And while, certainly, staff are not unaware that these things cost money, oftentimes how to share that ownership of those decisions can be quite challenging.

So one of the things that we like to do with organizations is really support folks to really be in dialogue around all parts of the triangle: What is the impact that we’re trying to have? What are the resources that we have to achieve that impact both money and people? And how do we make trade-offs across money and people often is like the really big question that folks need to grapple with.

And how do you create space to actually live in that tension together so that it doesn’t feel like an us versus them dynamic. That you actually can create more of a sense of team in solving this challenge together.

Katherine Golub: like that polarization between like leaders are holding like a real loyalty to [00:15:00] financial survival, right? And staff are really holding a loyalty to like, how are we together?

It occurs to me that one first step, and I’m curious if this is reflected in your work, is seeing the dynamics and like a create space from the dynamic so that they don’t feel like they have to hold their loyalty to each.

So much so that both groups of people can sit like stand side by side as opposed to like in a, a face off confrontation. Like the stepping back and seeing it together before they can even start being creative about what do we do about this challenge that we face together.

how does that show up in your work? or is there something else that you do First? Like, what does it look like to help?

Isabelle Moses: Yeah. People

Katherine Golub: work through this.

Isabelle Moses: Absolutely. Well, I could give an example. There’s an organization that we’re working with that’s a software company in the education space, and they [00:16:00] have been having a lot of these challenges around how do we prioritize across culture and particularly living equity values.

And financial stewardship and money. And one of the things that we illuminated as we were working with them is that in centering equity values, they actually didn’t have very clear beliefs or values around money. And that’s actually often something that is missing in organizations. Something that we’re coming to realize is that, when we talk about being value centered or values rooted organizations, the values around money are often very implicit and not very explicit.

Whereas the values around equity, the values around inclusion, the values around justice are often very explicit. And so there actually ends up being a bit of an imbalance around what’s being centered explicitly and what’s being centered implicitly. Andwhat we often see is that, absent super clear beliefs around money, what ends up prevailing is kind of dominant norms around a capitalist, sort of white [00:17:00] supremacist orientation to how resources get distributed. And so one of the ways that that sometimes shows up is that the most acceptable sacrifice in any particular organization is often whoever is the most marginalized. And I know I’ve experienced as a black woman that layoffs of black women as we see in the current federal context have been extraordinary. More than 300,000 black women have lost their jobs in the first 18 months of the current presidential administration. And that’s not an accident. That’s those implicit and frankly, explicit, beliefs in this administration operating exactly as they have been designed to do.

And you often see that play out in even our social justice spaces in ways that can sometimes confound people. Like, how, why do we keep doing this? How do we keep doing this? And it’s because, frankly, those beliefs. are still very present in our society. It’s the water many of us swim in. And so, even when we have intentions of operating out of equity or justice values, it doesn’t [00:18:00] always translate to the way that we hold beliefs around money.

And when, when those implicit beliefs start to operate at that subconscious level, you know, we don’t always act in the ways that we think are most aligned with what we believe. So I think a lot of our work is actually starting to support organizations to surface and to be able to disrupt what are our beliefs around money?

What does it mean to operate a for-profit with values that actually have a collective management structure in mind? And how do we wrestle with that sort of inherent contradiction? And it’s been super interesting as we’ve started to work with them to really articulate this particular software company that I mentioned, their beliefs around money.

they’re seeing. That their structure does not actually support collective decision making around money. And that they might have to revisit some of their, operating frameworks around having a 70% ownership model with one person being the primary owner while trying to hold collective decision making.

[00:19:00] it’s just not fundamentally possible. so it’s been super interesting.

Katherine Golub: so not only are you supporting folks to step back and look at the apparent dynamics of the conflict that they’re in, but you’re helping them look at the beliefs that they currently hold that are undergirding the conflict that they’re in, and also re-articulate ones that may not serve them.

And so shining light on what has been implicit and articulating what they want to hold true.

Isabelle Moses: Right?

Katherine Golub: Yeah. How do you do that around, specifically around money?

for the, the past 14 years, I’ve rented what is the old, poor farm in my town, it was the home that folks would live in before Social Security. It has 12 units. It, hasn’t felt like a class divide until now where some people have access to family wealth and some people are on housing vouchers and receive that support to be able to rent here.

And it’s always been my vision to [00:20:00] own this place collectively in some way to. We had hoped that would be through like a land trust or something, but the funding dynamics have changed dramatically in the last, in the last year. And so we’re facing this possibility that some of us might buy and some of us might rent, and how do we do this while holding values around, around equity, around access and affordability.

And so we’re, I’m in very much, conversations about this right now. And so this is a different dynamic, right? A housing collective, is a different dynamic than a tech company or a nonprofit. so you don’t need to share exactly what you would do in the tenure. Sure, sure. And I’m so curious with this organization that you’re working with, when there is like one person that might be able to own 70% right?

And others that don’t have the money to put into own. how do you support people with challenging conversations like that?

Isabelle Moses: The vast majority of our clients are in the, uh, social impact [00:21:00] space, either as philanthropies or as nonprofit. So this is a little bit of a unique example. one of the things we help them realize is that their budget. Allowed quite a bit of flexibility around setting profit targets and that they actually have quite a lot of decision making authority and that the 70% ownership stake only really kicks in on profit that they generate.

And so if they actually create a budget that’s relatively low profit, then the owner doesn’t actually get that much of the residual profit because 70% of a dollar is 70 cents, 70% of a hundred thousand dollars is $70,000. So if you structure the budget where you have much less profit, there’s much less for that person to claim and in an equitable way relative to the labor that went into producing that profit.

And so we gave them an opportunity to really revisit what does it look like to be a for profit business when your goal is to actually. Be collectively managed and to share in the, the profits of your labor [00:22:00] more in an equitably distributed way so that the person who’s not on staff, who has a majority ownership stake is not disproportionately benefiting from everybody else’s labor in a way that feels very extractive.

And so as we sort of brought that awareness to their attention, they realized, oh, they’ve been seeding more of their power than they realized that they had been seeding by not actually managing the resources before it became profit in a way that they could actually have more control over the distribution before they, before they closed the books at the end of the year.

So whether that’s through bonuses or other ways that they can redistribute resources before the books are closed, like they actually have quite a bit of power over how resources get allocated before profit is officially de declared.

Katherine Golub: are there questions that you would recommend that.

Listeners be asking themselves to help them make their money beliefs more explicit, or the money beliefs in their organizations more explicit. And are [00:23:00] there any particular beliefs that you recommend people hold?

Isabelle Moses: I’m wary of recommending anything related to my beliefs, but I would say that one of the things that we do, even before we get into naming your beliefs, is really looking at the triangle of tension and asking yourself, which sacrifices am I most comfortable with?

And which sacrifices am I least comfortable with in my own life, in my own experience? And because that’s often a clue about where your beliefs come from.

Katherine Golub: when I think about my own life, a lot of this is socialized actually from quite a young age. So when I was young, I think my parents really prioritized making sure that we had access to, purpose, like figuring out, you know, what we were good at as kids.

Isabelle Moses: Like we were all really encouraged to try lots of different things and, you know, figure out, you know, our unique purpose in the worlds and they prioritized, Long-term money over short-term money, meaning they sent us to these schools on the other side of town where they knew that we could get the tools and skills that we needed in order to be well [00:24:00] off in the future.

And so they sacrificed, you know, their own financial success, so that we could, go to private school. Like they could have sent a civil local public school. They chose not to do that. they also sacrificed culture. we spent a lot of time driving around the city going back and forth.

we were not as rooted in the black community when I was growing up as we might have been if we had gone to school locally or gone to a local church. And I think that in some ways, they really put kind of our long-term interests above our short-term interests. and I think when I think about that, I know that that was a sacrifice that they made that was with our long-term wellbeing in mind.

But it did have real short-term consequences in terms of. even though I had the ability to develop a sense of self leader, I didn’t have a strong sense of self as a kid. Like I think I, you know, I realized, you know, all the ways that I was socialized sort of in these kind of very white adjacency kind of ways.

Like I had to unlearn a lot of that as an adult. And I’m still unlearning a lot of that. I mean, I think even, even to this day. And so [00:25:00] I think when I think about my beliefs around money, I, I think I realized like I’ve always wanted to have enough. And for me, you know, a really hard sacrifice I had to make was choosing not to become a mom.

Like, and that’s a hard sacrifice. Like, I didn’t think I could have enough and also be a mom in my own personal life. And that’s, that’s real. And that’s something that, makes me sad because I think I would’ve been a great mom, but I never believed I could afford it. And, and so I just, you know, I think that some of our beliefs around money, like are, are painful,

And so I think, in the context of an organization, what do you believe you can afford? What do you not believe you can afford? When you have to make tough choices around money, who’s the first to go? those are real questions. And when we have organizations that are increasingly majority people of color, increasingly black and brown, those questions get even harder.

And we really have to be rooted in what is the impact we’re trying to have? What is the culture that we’re trying to have? What can we [00:26:00] afford? And there are no easy answers. And I think the more that we are able to really look at all parts of the triangle and really think about what do I wanna place a bet on, what is the sacrifice that I am choosing to make so that the organization can be as whole and as well as possible collectively with the folks who, who choose to stay in it or who are able to stay in it.

those are not easy conversations. I think being able to really look at each piece as its own piece and then how the interplay of these pieces fit together is a muscle that we’re supporting organizations to develop because there genuinely are no right answers. It’s just hard decisions that need to get made.

Katherine Golub: so asking people what trade offs they’re most comfortable with and most uncomfortable with,

I think is a really important part of making the implicit explicit. Then I’m curious about when people shine light on things that they’re uncomfortable with, but then there’s one part of themselves that’s really uncomfortable with [00:27:00] something and then another part of themselves is uncomfortable with the fact that they’re uncomfortable,

like I may feel discomfort with sacrificing my individual privileges or access. Because I’m taught to prioritize my own wellbeing, and so it may be uncomfortable to do that. But when I zoom out and look at the whole, and my commitment to, prioritizing the whole and the collective, then I also may have a lot of discomfort with my, privileges that I, that I hold and my proclivity to prioritize those.

And so there may be trade-offs there. do I prioritize the individual? Do I prioritize the collective? And so there may be a transformation of beliefs that’s needed, I’m, I’m,

So curious how you support people through that,

Isabelle Moses: Well, actually this goes back to what you said before, which is about emotional regulation. So a big part of what we work with our organizational clients and and leaders to do is to increase comfort with [00:28:00] discomfort, increase the capacity for comfort with discomfort.

And we do that through a lot of the somatic coaching, and that’s part of leadership coaching that we offer or, through these emotional cup type practices that help people to be more aware of the degree to which people are regulated or dysregulated and in a particular moment or in a context, and supporting people to practice collective regulation.

Because dysregulation is often what means to organizations sort of blowing up right? Is highly dysregulated environments and. When you have a more regulated environment, people tend to make better decisions. When you have a more dysregulated environment, people tend not to make the best decisions. And so we find that when you are able to practice regulation in a healthy way in an institution and you’re able to look at your beliefs and you’re able to then weigh the strategic priorities against the strategic sacrifices, then you have more of a chance of the [00:29:00] organization remaining.

Cool. And well, even when you had to make a difficult decision, that may have required a very hard sacrifice. And we also support organizations to have rituals around sacrifice, whether that’s grieving rituals or other kind of practices that really honor the sacrifice that you’ve made so that you can acknowledge it, you can honor it, and then you can create the space to, to move forward without sort of sweeping them under the rug or pretending it never happened.

we also believe that in order to be in deep joy, you also have to have capacity for grief. That you can’t have joy without grief, that they go together. They’re super important to acknowledge as part of a whole, and we think that that’s another piece that’s often missing in institutions that are having to make difficult, often painful decisions, is that without practicing grief, it’s less possible to feel the fullness of the joy that you can also have sometimes even in the same, in the same experience.

Katherine Golub: Yeah. are there any practices [00:30:00] in addition to the emotional cup that you recommend for that collective regulation?

Isabelle Moses: we do a lot of art and play, in our work. We think that, play is really important practice for regulation. I mean, who is having a bad day when you’re coloring or when you’re like in a lot of art.

The retreats, we facilitate, we encourage creating skits of some kind or doing community theater within your team I just think play is such an underused tool for regulation and who’s having a bad time when you’re laughing out loud, it just makes it easier to do the hard things when you have fun with the people that you work with in a genuine way,

Katherine Golub: I am holding our shared love of salsa and, and dance and how important that’s been for me the last year and a half, and Absolutely. And any recommendations for those rituals around honoring sacrifice and grief?

Isabelle Moses: We’ve often done a ritual where we get a bunch of rocks and name a [00:31:00] sacrifice on a rock and throw it if you can, if there’s a river nearby or if not, if you’re in a conference room, you can put it in a bowl of water and honor it in that way.

And then perhaps somebody can take that bowl of rocks and put it in a water stream, so that it can be kind of carried in the flow. So just naming a sacrifice, acknowledging it, and holding space for it, you could do that in a variety of different ways.

Katherine Golub: We have a brook in front and a river in the back, so Yeah. I’m holding onto that one. Yeah. Any other suggestions for listeners who are like, Ooh, yeah, I need to, or we need to get clearer or more explicit about the beliefs and values we’re holding. Any other recommendations for practices around that?

Isabelle Moses: Again, like we think the triangle of tension can’t be a relatively easy framework as a starting point. You know, like what are our beliefs around impact? What are our beliefs around money? What are our beliefs around culture? And doing it individually and then collectively can be helpful to surface.

Like where is there overlap and [00:32:00] where is there distance between your personal beliefs and organizational beliefs? it’s important to have some distance between the two. If it’s a hundred percent overlap, that’s often where codependency happens, right? Or unhealthy levels of founder behavior, or founder syndrome.

it’s also important to be clear, I am making this trade off between my personal beliefs in order to be in the collective, because if you wanna operate outta your own personal beliefs all day long, like you can be a solopreneur and that’s cool and you can be by yourself on an island, but maybe that’s actually not the life you wanna live.

and even as a solopreneur, like I know you work for yourself, I’ve worked for myself in the past. You don’t like to do that all the time, right? Like, and so you might join a collective of other solopreneurs, or you might get on a team at some point for a particular project, and you’re still making trade-offs around, okay, in order to be part of this collective or part of this team, here’s the thing, I’m willing to sacrifice.

Like, do I like getting up at 7:00 AM for meetings? No, but I’ll do it sometimes. do I [00:33:00] prefer to do X, Y, or Z? No. But I’ll do it sometimes in order to be part of a collective. particularly, you know, living in LA and working with clients on the east coast,

there are different things that you make trade-offs about in order to be part of a collective and having an individual beliefs, clarity and organizational beliefs. Clarity helps people to be clear about, I’m opting in, I’m choosing to be part of this collective.

And beliefs should be a little bit controversial.

we talk about values as being universal and generally the kind of thing most people would agree with. That’s not always helpful, frankly. If you have a belief that’s a little bit more controversial because it’s so clear what’s in and what’s out, you are gonna attract the people who are met to be part of this particular collective.

And folks who are not attracted to that are gonna opt to go somewhere else. One example that comes to mind is just around, you know, some of the things that are, in the social justice movement, you know, there’s a lot of ways that people can have different beliefs around exactly how we practice [00:34:00] equity or exactly how we practice justice.

I think a relatively straightforward example is the spectrum of things within abolition. For some folks, that meansabolish the carceral system. For some folks, that just means abolish ice. For some folks, that means totally get rid of the police. That means different things to different people.

You can be an abolitionist organization but have wildly different beliefs around what that means. The more clear you can be around what do we mean when we say we’re abolitionists? What’s inside of that? What’s not inside of that? Can help attract the people who are meant to be part of your particular collective that’s working towards abolition. Because that does not mean the same thing to everybody.

Katherine Golub: my wheels are turning around being on city council and the decisions that I continuously need to make related to the policewe just elected a, like a really amazing, queer, young, progressive council and many of us identify as abolitionist and how that plays out strategically and what choices we [00:35:00] make.

it’s an ongoing dance

and yet we can’t all meet, we can’t all meet together because of open meeting laws. Sure. Unless they were in public. And then, there’s the bridge building and the code switching and the being strategic

Isabelle Moses: I think it’s a really good example. It’s like you can name abolition as a value and what are all the beliefs there? It’s, yeah. I appreciate how you articulate the importance of val of values and beliefs. Yeah, I mean, I really wanna, I haven’t lifted up Carla Monterosso, the founder of Bravas explicitly, and I, I need to say that she’s brilliant and she founded Brava five years ago in the wake of the, really, the implosion of many progressive organizations that did not know how to live into their values, to their, in ways that were, that felt good to all members of a team in particular.

the dissonance between people who might’ve wanted equity to be practiced one way versus another way, or the people who wanted a mission to be lived into this way versus that way. Like it just imploded so many organizations. And I think that the lack of clarity. Around beliefs is one of the sources of, of, [00:36:00] friction that has not often gotten, the light is not always shining on that.

And so I do think, the pedagogy that Carla has innovated, which is specifically designed to support multiracial multicultural institutions, is really meant to help people hold conflict generatively rather than dysfunctionally. Because it is inevitable that you will have conflict in organizations with people with so many different lived experiences.

And so it’s really more about how do you create the conditions for productive conflict so that the conflict does not eat you alive from the inside out.

Katherine Golub: Precisely, and that’s something that I so value about your work in Carla’s work, and I will link to my interview with Carla from a few months ago in the show notes. I highly recommend people listen to that around what is power and power dynamics and all of that.

And I kinda see this as a, a continuation of that conversation, even though you and I haven’t talked about power that much explicitly that all of that we talked, all that we talked [00:37:00] about, Carla and I in that conversation really undergirds what we’re talking about now. So I highly recommend and hope people will listen to that yet.

Isabelle Moses: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we have been talking about more recently is that a lot of our work is about. Shining light on all the different ways that power can show up in an organization. And we call that kind of throwing flower on the ghost. And so that, often power isn’t visualized.

And held in all kinds of ways that are not super explicit. Again, like we’ve been talking a lot about making the implicit more explicit. And when you throw flower on the ghost and you can see the way that power moves in an institution, you have a lot more ability to do something with it than when you can’t see it.

Katherine Golub: I’m going to hold that one. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Isabelle Moses: Yeah.

Katherine Golub: what do you recommend people do when they have these conversations and they realize that they disagree with the beliefs of other people in the group or organization? They’re a part of?

[00:38:00] And that disagreement might be with someone that they are in a similar power, place with, or it may be someone they may disagree with, someone who has more power or less power, or different types of power. what do you recommend people do when they find themselves in those disagreements?

we welcome disagreement at Bravo because one of our beliefs is that friction creates the opportunity for strategy.

Isabelle Moses: And so if you can say in the disagreement in a kind and compassionate way, you will often find that there’s a third way, right? Like, if Karla and I are having a disagreement about something, it’s usually because we can’t quite see the whole. It’s like my point of view is holding a piece, and her point of view is holding the piece.

And then when we can see each other’s points of view, it’s like the piece becomes bigger. And when we can stay in it long enough, usually between the two of us, we can get to a place where it’s like, “Oh, what about X? Or what about Y? And we get better ideas because we’re [00:39:00] able to stay in the disagreement in a caring and compassionate way.

And Okay, yeah, that’s like, sounds like rainbows and you know, like butterflies and like, oh, that’s so great. Like, sometimes you’re just mad at a person. that’s true too. You know, so that’s where you know, you gotta work on your emotional cup and I’m, if I’m at a six or a seven, no, I’m not gonna have a productive conversation with you.

I’m just mad. And so like, I’m gonna go take a walk and I can get to the two or the three, let’s revisit, you know? And then you can actually have the conversation where you get to some better ideas.

Katherine Golub: so when I came onto the city council, I was. Perhaps the most progressive member, and this is just four years ago that I’ve been there and it has gotten way more progressive.

And so I just repeat that over and over and over to my colleagues. Like, bring the disagreement. We need to shine light on all the things. And so it’s, it’s been fascinating now, like we have just, we have longer conversations, more questions are asked than when it was, more politically different.

Like there’s all [00:40:00] these, there’s like this shared sense of reality that we value basic, basic things and from that place can ask more questions and like, and bring the disagreements, especially if that’s, if that’s a belief. If friction, if your fundamental belief is, is that friction,

Isabelle Moses: friction is an opportunity for strategy.

Katherine Golub: Right? Opportunity

Isabelle Moses: for strategy.

Katherine Golub: Yeah. If your basic belief is that friction is an opportunity for strategy, it’s like bring it, like what can we discover? And of course, yeah. Sometimes we get mad and can’t talk to that person right. Right now and then come back to it. But yeah, we can do really cool things together when, when we can bring the different parts of the whole and

Isabelle Moses: And I find that if you can’t be in productive disagreement with folks. Then there’s something else going on, right? Like maybe the difference in beliefs is too stark, because like that’s rooted in a shared belief that like, we are gonna disagree productively, but if that’s not actually a belief that you hold, then it’s gonna be really, really, really hard to have productive disagreements.

So, so yeah, I think it can [00:41:00] help me. And also, you know, one of the things I love to coach people around is graceful exits. Not everybody is meant to be everywhere. And I’m somebody who’s changed jobs like more times than I care to admit. But when I’ve been clear, when it was time for me to go, the next opportunity always showed up for me.

And if I’m clear about my purpose and what I’m here to do, then staying at an institution for the sake of that institution is not always the best way for me to express my purpose. And I’ve been so clear about that sometimes when, my beliefs and the beliefs of this place or this leader that I’m collaborating with, are not in alignment.

And it’s okay. It’s okay to say, I think this is my time to go. Mm-hmm. Or it’s okay to say, I think there’s something else that’s out there for me and I’m gonna look towards what’s next or what’s on the horizon. And the graceful exit, I think is potentially something we don’t talk enough about. how do we cultivate graceful exits and leave with integrity and leave with as much relationship as possible?

Because if, like we’re committed to the shared pursuit of liberation, there are a million ways to go about that. [00:42:00] And we’re creating new ones all the time. And sometimes they’re sunset because it’s their time to sunset.

And all of it is okay. You know, things can get composted towards what’s next. And I am grateful for every organization that I had the opportunity to contribute to. And frankly, like when it was my time to go, it was my time to go and that’s okay.

Katherine Golub: that makes me think about in 2020, there were about five of us that created a collective that at that point we named Greenfield Racial Justice.

I live in a 17,000 person town that’s like 93ish percent white in rural western Massachusetts. the change that we saw that we could make is, around racial justice in the schools.

But through a lot of discussion, none of us had kids in the public school. None of us were teachers in the public school. None of us were students in the public school. And we just said this collective unit doesn’t make sense.

And so we said, let’s just remain friends and do our other organizing projects, that [00:43:00] integrate a commitment to racial justice, but look differently. And that was a really hard decision. Because that’s how some of us met each other. we wanted that to exist. And now, several years later, thinking about our, city council subcommittee meeting last night, two of us are on the same subcommittee.

Another one of us was actually bringing an ordinance proposal around a rental registry for housing safety and justice in the town. And we’re all there at the table. Another one is, you know, was at my birthday table chosen family like two nights ago.

We do tend to clinging to either our role in an organization or the group, or the organization itself. And sometimes that death really creates space for something new to emerge. So I really appreciate you Yeah. Highlighting that.

are there any other words of wisdom that you would like to share with listeners who are grappling with conflict in their organizations?

Isabelle Moses: Yeah. I would just say that [00:44:00] conflict is, is a gift in many ways. And if we choose to receive it as a gift. It’s usually a flag that there’s something else that’s possible. And and we have to sort of be willing to be in the hard conversation to listen to the other perspectives, to like hear or what’s beneath and then what’s beneath that and what’s beneath that.

Or either the thing that’s shared or perhaps the thing that’s really ir, irreparably broken. And both of those things can reveal what’s next. So I think that irreparably broken is, is fewer and farther between, and yet also sometimes true. And so, so I don’t wanna, again, be overly rainbows and butterflies about this.

Like sometimes it’s a clue that there’s different paths that need to be taken by different parties and sometimes it’s a clue that there’s a bridge that hasn’t been built yet. And so, all of that can be beautiful on the other side of getting really clear about what’s going on.

Katherine Golub: Well, I, I’ve really, really enjoyed this conversation with you

Isabelle Moses: how can [00:45:00] people learn about the amazing work that you and Carla are doing? I share it with as many people who I think could participate as possible. and I do that with a lot of, a lot of respect for the work that you do. So how can people find out about it benefit?

Carla’s book is coming out in July of this year, how to Share Power, A Practical Guide to Building and Sustaining Multiracial and Multicultural Institutions.

We’re really excited about, with the support of a funding partner and, bravo leaders.com is where you can go. We have our juicy, joyful blog that we invite folks to sign up for. You can also see our blog archives on the website, which gives little snippets of the book that’s coming out, and a great way to kind of get up to speed on some of our core concepts in a more accessible way.

And we currently have our training program on pause, but we’re hoping to, share more information about that towards the latter half of the year as we, are kind of updating our curriculum this spring. And looking towards next [00:46:00] year, we have the Bravo Leadership Institute, which is a year long cohort program that, we’re hoping to be able to offer again.

And if so, stay tuned. opportunities to apply will come out again later in the year.

Katherine Golub: I also really hope that you all run the program again next year. I’ve referred many people to it, and I’m excited to, see that continue.

Isabelle Moses: So thank you so much for this conversation Thank you, Catherine. Hope you have a wonderful rest of the day.