 Lane Live. This is our Alpha cohort. I also want to say hello to whoever might be watching out there on the internet. We're streaming live so hey everybody, thank you for deciding to join us. And I also want to acknowledge that this is going to be the lead podcast in our Lane podcast called Tactile. Tactile is standing for Transformation Practical Ways, Art and Culture Transforms the World. So it's really amazing that we get to start that off with this amazing group of brilliant thinkers in our field and this Alpha cohort that we're really excited to be a part of and learn from. So why don't we do introductions first because that will be important somewhere down down the road when someone's listening to this, right? I'm Sage Crump. I am the program specialist for Leveraging Network for Equity Lane. It's a program of National Performance Network. My name is Jonathan Clark. I am the executive support manager at the Carpet Bag Theater in Knoxville, Tennessee. I use he and his pronouns. Hi, I'm Linda Parris Bailey. I'm the executive and artistic director of the Carpet Bag Theater in Knoxville, Tennessee. She, her, are my pronouns. And good afternoon. Hi there. I'm Tanya Boe. I'm the associate director at Sul Piatro in Denver, Colorado. And I use she and her pronouns. Hi, I'm Damia Kanboubi. She, her. I am the director of community collaboration and marketing at Junebug Productions in New Orleans, Louisiana. I am Stephanie McKee Anderson. She, her. I'm the executive artistic director of Junebug Productions in New Orleans. Hi, I'm Adonis White Price. My pronouns are she, her, hers. And I'm the director of finance at Junebug Productions in New Orleans, Louisiana. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Nina Yarbrough. I'm the business development manager at the Central District Form for Arts and Ideas located in Seattle, Washington. And I use she, her, pronouns. What's good? My name is Sharon Ari Williams. I'm the executive director for the Central District Form for Arts and Ideas in Seattle, Washington. And I use she, her, pronouns. Tony Garcia, executive artistic director at Sul Piatro Cultural Performing Arts Center in Denver, Colorado. Hi, I'm Mika Garcia-Lupinavillas. She, her. I'm the managing director at Sul Piatro in Denver. And we want to say a big shout out to Makla, who is our other cohort member. Who is based out of San Jose, California. Who could not be with us today but just want to bring Makla in the mix because that rounds out the six organizations, the six brave, brave souls. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And also, the Bernaloy is also one of our cohort members. Thank you. Thank you. And also, the Bernaloy is also one of our cohort members that is not in the room with us. So much love to... So much love to Bernaloy and I'd appreciate that. But when I say brave souls, what I mean is, we're in three years ago, the people in front of you decided to embark on a deep organizational change on a journey to think about how the organizations function, what does health look like for themselves, and how they can take advantage of the resources of this program called Lane to make those changes. I always say one of my favorite lines or the best line of opening of any book is Tony K. Lamar as the salt eaters. And the first line of the salt eaters is, are you sure you want to be made well, honey? Because being made well is no easy thing. And so that's why we're calling this panel transformation is necessary, because it's not just about what's happening outside, but what happens inside the organizations that make the greatest difference, right? So they have graciously come in today to share some of what their journey has been. It's a four-year process with Lane and they are two and a half in. So change is happening. Change is happening. So we're going to do this in a couple of rounds. We reached out to the network. We asked people to send in some questions that they wanted to ask the Alpha cohort. So I'm going to kind of moderate a little bit of that. And then I'm going to step out of the way and let them ask questions of each other, because that's also really rich, because they're inside. So they ask questions that those of us on the outside sort of looking in wouldn't even think to ask, right? So we want to have an opportunity for them to just ask each other things and see what comes up. And then we'll just kind of have a moment of synthesis at the tail end. Does that sound okay? Yes. So the first question we've got is, what tools are you using to navigate this time of great change? And I say tools in the largest sense of the word. What tools are you using to navigate this time of great change within your organizations? The spreadsheet queen. We were, part of this program gave us some tools to look into our finances in a completely different framework. So one of the things that has been transformative about the Myrna Roy was the idea that we could use our financial spreadsheets as a moral document to look into how are we perpetuating the structure of the Myrna Roy to exploit people in order to keep the organization alive. So we work on underpaying and overworking everybody because that's the assumption that how nonprofits should work and because, you know, as Rosie has said, that's how we all have done it over all these years. And is that really a good method for sustainability? So we not only had to challenge our finances and really query into where's the money coming from and how much does this really cost, but because of the equity framework of Lane, the true cost is not just in dollars. The true cost is also in how healthy are you as a human being? How intent is your organization? How are your structures designed to make you sick or to drive your best employees away so that they can support their families? And when you are looking at long-term sustainability, you have to look at that, and that has been really transformative for our organization and I think for a lot of other folks. I think one of the first things that we learned in this Lane process was that one of the first things that happened with the non-profit finance fund looked into our finances and gave us all of these beautiful spreadsheets and tools to really use and really one of the first things we learned was that we tell stories all the time. That's part of the work that everyone does in telling our stories, but we don't think about making sure that funders and others understand our whole story, our financial outlook and hearing it from our words and understanding what we know what it is and what waters we're navigating and how to get the NFF really providing empowerment and navigate those waters and have ownership of that story. Utilizing those tools and being able to start to clean up that picture, start to make it come from a better, from not just to understand where it's coming from from a better place. The first thing that the first NFF first thing we talked to was fire your auditor, fire your bookkeeper because your books look awful and they're not being kept the way that they need to be kept and it's been a process but just having knowing that I knew something was wrong but I didn't know that I was right that something was wrong so just knowing that I could say, okay, these people are really smart, they know what they're doing and they're looking at this and they're telling you that I'm looking at it correctly and then we need to fix it and we need to be able to do that so that's been super valuable. Hi everybody. I'm new to NPN, new to CD Forum and loving it. I would say from a sort of an outsider in perspective even though I'm slowly becoming an insider the longer that I'm with the organization I think the process itself of being with Lane has been like the greatest tool because I came to CD Forum as an intern four years ago when I moved to Seattle and met Sharon and seeing what she was doing with the organization as a sole employee and then coming back as a hired staff I can see that the process of having to go through the Lane application of LOI, being in community with these people I've seen the transformation of the Central District Forum because in that process what's had to happen is an excavation of everything that's CD Forum and I'm sure the other organizations, what is it that we do and you have to question all of your assumptions whether it's financial, whether it's mission, whether it's succession and future I would say that that's my observation is that the greatest tool has been being in Lane and I think it's a testament to NPN and to the Mellon Foundation for recognizing that this is something that needs to be invested in and hopefully they'll be able to leverage their own power to get their other fellow large funders to replicate it because having organizations go through this process is how sustainability happens because you have to do all of those things in order to move forward. I think also, I think one of our greatest tools is actually the artwork itself and in the many ways that we apply artistic practice to organizing practices, apply that internally and externally I think it's been really helpful. I mean for us, I think it's looking at communication being one of those things and really kind of improving improving how we communicate but also having the space, having being in Lane allows us the space to really understand and be able to really, I think, communicate effectively what it is that we're doing. I'll give an example. This idea around evaluation processes or as I say, what happens between point A and point B is very linear when we sit and we think about that. One of the ways that we've begun to talk about our work and the complexity of our work is that that is not the journey and the learning doesn't just happen between point A and point B but with a lot of us because we're talking about communities of color that either we're working in or communities of color that are leading these organizations that that work is circular and if you look at it as revolutions around the sun that each time it goes around you're going to find something else in that journey and that was probably the clearest that I had ever really described what happens and why I was feeling a way about being pushed to talk about what happens between in a year what happens in a year. Well, I can tell you about what happened in a year but that doesn't mean that if I apply and do all the same things in that year that the same outcome will happen. That was one of the things that I felt really good about and felt confident in our ability to have those conversations and this was one of the few spaces that understood that thinking. Well, one of the things for Carpathetic was that when we started the van project we had been doing succession planning so there was we had tilled some soil we had dug in, you know and we began to think about what the future was looking like and we began from that point of view and what happened in Lane is that we got a tractor, you know and we had to learn to drive the tractor and we had to figure out what tools came behind the tractor and Lane provided that in a way of advisors and consultants and certainly resources but I kind of can't go just to like the rose without talking about the soil that was tilled before and how we had been able to use that. We looked at our resource pool what did we have and what could we build upon and we did that then Lane was there to help us build upon those things that we had as assets but couldn't use so that was one of the, I think that's an important tool that we used. I think for me one of the things that I found most valuable as a tool is the idea, the concept of emergent strategy which is one of the fullers for the Lane program an emergent strategy is a distillation of some movement building values, some of them that are originated with Grace Lee Boggs in Detroit but it pulls on a lot of other realms of movement building thinking including Octavia Butler's work and Margaret Wheatney her book The Leadership from the New Science and some of the pieces of that that I found most helpful is the idea that change happens incrementally and that it's a practice and that there are many iterations and it really changed my thinking about what's happening for us is it is emergent and it's very much adjusting and adapting and moving slowly and practicing and not necessarily getting it right and it's not, Lane is not like a lightning bolt that just happens and some of your organization has changed it's a continuation of work that you've been doing just with a lot more support also the idea that when we talk about change and we talk about scaling doesn't necessarily have to be scaling up and becoming a much larger organization it can be working in a small context and continuing to work in a small context and then lastly that a lot of the change that we're trying to make starts with individual change and individual transformation so especially as we're going through this time that is forcing us to shift and to grow that that's personal transformation as much as it is institutional transformation and trying to just hold myself accountable during that time to push my comfort zone and to really look at some of the things that keep me from being successful individually and being more vulnerable and transparent about that has been really important Thank you all I'm over here like taking notes you all are as well there's so many gems so many gems in that from communications to complexities between individual and organizational and I'm going to kind of circle back around to something you started Stephanie around this what does change look like it's not like between A and B and we have a monthly call in which we all talk and we had a call in September and I was like look I think there's some more money for consulting we can maybe find something like I have enough change I need a minute to breathe stop asking me what I need stop I need to finish what's on my plate so I would love to hear some reflections about how do you navigate great change when does it feel overwhelming when you decide okay I need to take a pause how does reflection play into how you all are thinking about so the ways in which organizations are shifting the surprise reaction for me was once we got to change capital was the breakdown as soon as right after that happened and now not only having enough money and being excited about having enough money but then being fearful of what that meant it all became all too real that yes my budget went from 150 per year we're trying to push it to 350 per year I haven't been able to do that in five years and now this is what my future looks like and so I was crying and I was scared and I was talking to my dog and my dog listens I don't know if that one got a dog and I didn't want to accept something as simple as the raise of what I was working I started backpedaling on well I know we put that in our proposal but I don't think I need that raise I mean I've been making it this far and so I called one of the consultants and I was like I need to have a one on one because I don't think I deserve this and it was like what? and then what ultimately ended up happening was she ended up saying to me this isn't just about you this is about the future of the industry so that the people after you get paid with your work, with their work and you didn't get paid with what you was worth when you first came in but now you're going to get it and it's not about you anymore I'm like that, I'm calling a bookie for tomorrow Yeah, that moment of panic is real and I probably sat for a few months without making any decisions because it's just really scary to sit and think about I will say that even before Lane because Junebug was in a pretty difficult transition process but so before that happened we were already thinking about some of the things that we were like if only we had the money to make sure this happened that Lane just came around at the right time so we were already sitting down and thinking about we've got to have time for reflection and I will say that's something that doesn't happen as much or as often as it should I always give the analogy of hamsters on a wheel is how the work seems to happen and it seems to come to you I can't say that this was it wasn't easy it wasn't easy looking at some of the things and asking some of the questions it wasn't a fast process it's something that is slow and sometimes requires you stepping away from and coming back to the same question I will say we probably sat with some questions four years ago that the answer we gave four years ago finally makes sense now we were asking the right question so I think that you may ask that question over and over again it's about stepping away and coming back to it when I came on board with Junebug they were already in conversation about lanes like I walked in the middle of conversations about change capital and dreaming and all of these things and we were making preparations for when this big change happened and we got the money but the thing that we I think all of us can attest to is that you can only prepare so much for change because you really don't know exactly what that change is going to look like until you arrive in a place and it's there so like everyone say when the money showed up it was like okay we know we're getting the money you got these emails you got these confirmations that it was coming and when it showed up there was a sense of panic because then it's now okay I'm in it and what do I do how do we make these decisions and move forward in them so we were in a lot of preparation for the change but then when the change actually happened it's like okay you step back and you say okay is that really the best thing to do you know and how to maneuver so it's some things that we're still learning to work through and one of the best tools that I found is us being able to come together as a collective cohort and have these open discussions about what frightens us and what the next move should be and if we think that's a really a good way to do things and hiring new staff and making the changes within our organizations to keep up the capacity of what we've been given and making sure that it lasts and it's something that we can keep up in the future for those who come behind us so I think one of the greatest tools is being able for all of us to sit together and be very open and honest about our challenges and the things that we're struggling with and how we're moving past them and seeing if those things can help assist each other in us growing in this new change that has already taken place in our organizations and making sure it's calling on me I have not gotten to the point of reflection in the work that we're doing it's called on me to be more of an ED executive director and artist director and contrary to what I think a lot of people think of people like me is that I actually like the ED work it's not just administrative stuff it's I find it's a place where you can really craft a vision for a whole organization and bring all the little pieces so I actually like that work in the meantime though I've written two new pieces and directed three new plays so nothing has slowed down in that process it's like a great example though of dialectics in the sense that every action has another reaction and another shape to it so what we've already changed we just don't realize it it's like when you go work out your bodies are changed from that you just may not, you may feel sore but there's other things that are happening already from the moment you do it it's the same thing when you eat whatever you ingest so being in the room with these great people was part of that change feeling that we had to we had to pool our share of the weight and also a test for other groups coming forward we had the conversation about we need to be successful at this so that this becomes the standard for other organizations so that we can have advanced the argument of you deserve to be treated this way you deserve to be able to have that level of work that level of compensation your community, we have a right to this and our community deserves the best so that's a change in philosophy just under hearing that changes, we haven't seen it I'm not big and muscular now but the organization is transforming we haven't stopped to really look at ourselves in the mirror we can feel it on a day to day on a day to day basis everybody on the senior staff is required because everybody my expectations are very different you better do it you said you can do this but this time we need to do it because it's a big responsibility you guys have to suffer for our mistake and that's not what we want to happen and our junior staff sees that we're expecting more out of our senior staff consequently they feel they need to step up too so I don't know all the answers to this and half from now would look a little bit clearer to us but right now you're right in the middle it's like we're right in the middle of the workout so all in all we feel that we're sweating and we're sweating we're sweating and we're breathing we'll see how it happens after this maybe think of listening to you Tony when you don't actually get on the scale but your clothes just fit a little loose and you're like what's happening I appreciate this conversation I'm hearing a couple of things and I want to highlight that for folks who are thinking about their own organizations about what you all are sharing one is that you all were thinking about change and priming yourselves for change before they never got here like that before Chen Lei was not what pushed these organizations to life they were on a trajectory and we just had some support a little bit of wind but I want to highlight that because I think that that is a testament to maybe I'm feeling a little proud this cohort is great because we're already thinking about how our organization shift and where we need to go and that made it so much easier to decide to think about who's going to be the alpha cohort because it wasn't someone starting from scratch trying to figure it out but just here's a support mechanism for what you are already doing what you are already thinking about and I want to highlight that thinking about your organizations that you are like okay let's start thinking now about what change looks like because when they wrote their LOIs their letters of intent and their applications we could see in that information okay they are already having a vision for their own organizations and their plans and that was a beautiful thing the other thing that I love about this conversation is time has started off with the relationship between the individual and the organizational most of us and I don't know about everyone in this room I know most of the people here we didn't come from families of wealth or communities of wealth so this idea of having access to large sums is a shift in psychology because we know systemic oppression shift our psychology so what we are actually working ourselves out of the psychology of oppression into what is abundance for ourselves I appreciate christen spreadsheets and there is also this inner work that folks are alluding to so it is worth it to think about just in your life how do you what does change look like how do you react to change what happens when you change the coffee in the coffee maker because I don't know about job at an NPN that's a thing so I am really appreciating that for you about what sparks your imagination change is is something different but like transformation like this idea where is needed questioning everything like how do you what drives you there right okay so I think that and this kind of will this is how I have been feeling about all of these questions in the lame process in general is that it is kind of easy to dream vaguely to just have an imagination of like oh I just want things to be great and then when you are given the resources you need to have things be as great as you want them to be then you have to ask yourself the question well how do I get there how do I get to these things and what are the steps necessary with what I have with this easy lofty dream I think the imagination really comes out of how do I get from here to there that's where I find my imagination blowing it's like okay that sounds good and how are you going to do it and that's where the imagination comes I want to add on that I love that it's easy to dream vaguely what it reminds me of and kind of a picture that I have had because when you are working out of a kind of scarcity envy is a huge part of your emotional landscape I want this, I want I wish I had what this theater had I wish I had what other places have and I remember this kind of compilation they made one day I was little so this was a long time ago and they took all of the Miss Americas and decided who had the prettiest eyes who had the most gorgeous hair and they put together this compilation of the ideal Miss America and she looked really creepy so I don't know who did that or why but it was a really, I remember this picture in my head and it's like when we are dreaming vaguely is that really us I think the genius of the Lane program is that it derives us and reminds us in so many ways how can you be your truest self as an individual as an artist as an organization as a member of the cohort as a member in the NPN network and in the field and all those layers work together and all those visions harmonize with one another so what sparks my imagination Sage is what would that look like in my inner landscape in the landscape of the Myrna Lloyd in Helena, Montana as we become more deeply ourselves and Lane is shaped to bring that out in this and to make us question that you know we're mostly artists and administrators we're some of us who are hybrid organizations and hybrid people and we can imagine so many things it's a mile a minute I was in a conversation earlier and we were almost about to take on three new projects for our anniversary here and I'm like hello so we imagine a lot I think what Lane brings is the ability to focus that imagination and to say you know I am imagining these things but I know that I can bring together the resources inner and outer to accomplish these things and then to take the imagination back from there and to dream around those things that we kind of can focus in on and I think that was key for me I would say it's the a little bit of an opposite experience I came into the world one who imagined quite a bit and through just life and different experiences and being beat down I lost that sense of imagination and I'm an artist I lost that sense of imagination and I found myself dreaming really small and and I asked myself well who am I you know and I'm not even bringing my best asset to the organization which is thinking creatively so I think that part of it is creating the space for someone who their best asset is to be able to you know to think creatively and to imagine big and to have the blue sky moments which we're not encouraged to do we're not encouraged to have blue sky moments and so this is the thing that I'm trying to get like as an office culture is let's dream big we still have the ability to be very pragmatic but let's not start at a deficit let's start big and then let's then go back and kind of look at those things and I would also like to say this is the place that the innovation happens this is the place that this is why you want to be able to dream big because this is the place that the innovation really happens and if we were talking about something that was inside the corporate field this would be a very different conversation we'd be encouraged to try and to feel right and so that's I think I just kind of want to leave that out there about that innovation I've been preaching it a lot but it's important one of the things that I have watched strategically happen at Jumbug with this practice that Stephanie has talked about with us dreaming big and then kind of going back and seeing how to make those dreams happen it's been intentional about how we produce our work and I can just share something that's very small scale but has a very large impact that even in our productions like when we did homecoming project we were very strategic about where the vendors came from that the money went back into the community and that even when we bring in chairs from that the money went back into the community and it's that big impact that we want to see our community change that we want to see the businesses come back and the businesses be powerful but that small part of what we did is igniting that big vision so I'm learning that even in dreaming the big vision like every little piece of the puzzle every little thing that we do impacts if that big part of the vision is going to actually take place so even in applying that to my work like Tanya said the way that we live in our own lives and the things that we do in our own lives and how the organization impacts how we move and operate in our own lives and it impacts you on a greater level so we are doing some of those great works and I hope and I pray that we get to see the flouration of it and still be here when those things, when those seeds start sprouting out Thank you Donna I think this is a good segue to our next just to kind of open questions from each other and from you all because you left us with this gem of Stephanie of this question around failing like how do we get ourselves out of this binary of success and failure and into a culture of inquiry innovation, creativity and most importantly learning and continually learning learning and so we want to move into a moment of inquiry right now and I know there are some questions we'll have of each other and if you'll have any questions we'll run some minds out here to you all as well I love all of you guys so if you all have your your cathode, your infusion of cash and your moment to see it on your ballot sheets is there a difference in the atmosphere in your organizations can you feel it in the air is that exciting that you're yet or is it still too soon? The atmosphere is exciting in our space some of you know the people out there in the world may not know when this process started I was a one employee operation and now there's three of us and I changed my office into a space for three people and so we dance on a regular we sing on a regular we we have fun and what we're doing we encourage each other not only with the work that we're doing but with the most high-fives and celebrate dance dance dance dance dance yeah yeah yeah we got a new CRM and we was all up in the air we was partying exactly so it was just like you can feel the atmosphere and you can feel that not only when you come into our space but you can feel that when we're out in the community talking about our work programs and we're interacting with our audience they can see the release people come up to me and say you have this glow about you and I was I'm like things are good I'm not going to lie it's not the easiest road there's bumps and there's roller coaster rides there's days where we're just like dang I messed that up and we're just like okay get over it and so but you can feel it in everything that we're doing right now the energy is good even when we walked into this space for our meeting on Thursday I didn't have to cry I think it was the first meeting I didn't cry you know and I can just smile and be me and be my truthful self not the one that's trying to say oh we're doing good we're struggling yeah we're good yeah you can feel it yeah I don't want to act that because the CRM actually made me think of this so I can definitely feel the changes and the excitement and having more staff like feeling this added capacity feeling this team this core strengthening and then there are also things that you find yourself having to do that are part of this change process to get you where you want to be that are really really hard and for instance learning this customer relationship management software is one of those things that's really really complicated and I remember telling Stephanie I was like this really sucks right now but I can tell it's going to be really great for us like and so even that and the painstaking like building and learning new things it's all filled with this energy of like but we're going where we want to go so I'm definitely feeling that change I would echo both of those sentiments but also for me having come from like a having come from a larger organization where you could see resources being wasted in a way that like damn if that were given to the folks that actually do the work and make it happen like what kind of amazing things could happen or when you see people who do artwork that is just like why would you put that on stage that is offensive that is not truthful or authentic and you know that there are organizations that if they were just given the resources and the access to do what they already do how amazing would the community be and to now be in a space where that I can say that I'm a part of that change is probably the greatest joy for me as a new person coming into the process because I'm with an organization where I can be proud of everything that you put on stage because I can be proud of the partnerships and just the office space like to not wake up with a sense of dread about going into a place where you don't really believe in the mission and that you can as bumpy or smooth as it might be you know you're actively doing good work to not just make an organization good but to really affect your community like we're in a space where black people are disappearing because of the economics of our city and to be part of a legacy in an organization 20 Armstrong that is actively a part of that and an arts organization is beautiful and amazing and for me that's where that joy and like yes it's great to have a salary and it's really amazing and I can live and work in the city but to be a part of that process and to be a part of that history is what's really like that's for me where the joy comes from as a newbie into this so I've been with my organization for 46 years and we came from my brother from San Antonio we began performing out in the streets our first building that we walked into I mean I lied and said I had $5,000 in the bank to the city I told them yeah I got that and I was lying and then we went out and raced it so having nothing is where we came from I'm cool if I ever go back to that space you guys know we need to do a show we can find a space to do a show but there's something knowing that the change is but I can say okay fine let's do that and I know that we have it I'll give you a concrete example we received one of our pieces of money it was for some marketing money now I don't believe in buying I think newspapers are dead and they buy ads and there's ways to money what we did is we went to community groups that they're doing their breakfast they're doing the little fundraiser here and we've been able to underwrite some of their events $500 here $250 there and for advertising space in their in their program and they talk about us from the stage they have our ads this is our community this is our hope this is different from us going to them and saying hey can you underwrite our season can you be a part of this and us being this place where we take that money from these small groups rather than now we can be looking at it as a place where you know what I can give you 100 tickets to come and see our show take all your employees to come and see our show because that'll benefit us in the end because they come and they buy stuff and they engage with us and that what I think is I think you see it as a marketing piece but what it really does is it's much more connected we did we did in the past I think they were giving us $250 for us to do something with it and we would send performers to do stuff this year we said we're going to give you $500 so that we can help underwrite it and we'll pay for our performers to go there big change what that gave us in terms of attraction was tremendous plus it was right that's what the difference makes you say that I don't have anything I was passing by that was a mic drop I think for us and we've had quite a few changes we've added employees people have health insurance but it still feels disjointed but here's this piece we'll get this piece and make it happen and this piece we've made it happen but I'm waiting for the moment when I feel flow you know and I haven't felt that yet and I know that it's a matter of making sure that all of these disjointed pieces are in and it's not the staff, it's not the board heading in the same direction it's the changes you know we've had some setbacks and the train is moving a little slower than we wanted to but I'm waiting for that moment and I wonder if anybody is there yet in the cohort not yet but there's something shifting we're not quite there yet but there's something shifting I think the first shift I felt was internally because we condition ourselves to think that there are real people who are doing this work so even where as we're sitting down and talking about the money and the price there's always a cost to everything there is a cost to everything and I'm not just talking in the office right and so there's a cost on the individuals who push to even get to where they are right now so that first thing that I felt that first day I was like we're all when the money was in the bank I panicked first because I was like wait a minute something's wrong and then I forgot that the money was supposed to come into the bank I was like this is a lot of zero that's not right I panicked and then I was like we should take the day off and my poor husband he was so excited because he was like the first time I had a mule in a long time he was like you should get melon money more often because I felt that internal shift just a little bit of a breath for a moment even for a moment I think what's happened also is that that's been a continuum of a little bit more breathing space right and so my breathing is not I haven't really like just a let go but I'm finding a little bit more space in here to breathe a little bit but it's a journey I'm waiting for the flow to start but I feel like we're headed in the right direction like we're going in the right direction it just takes some time for that journey to really fully materialize I think for me if locating that flow is really understanding what it means to build capacity and I think that part of building capacity isn't necessarily around getting to this place where things are easier it's about growing the capacity to navigate adversity more successfully so I've just kind of come around to the place of the challenges in the obstacles are never going to go away at least in our lifetime even if we're wildly successful and you know we have values and goals to change the world that we're always going to be involved with struggle but to grow our capacity to be able to negotiate that better and to be able to take it in stride in a different way that that's just kind of a part of life so that's kind of how I see it in terms of flow is not perfection it's flow is knowing that you can make it through whatever's going to come up I feel like I'm talking too much but in that flow I have to really look humbly and from a this is kind of a professional moment one of the obstacles I think to our finding flow is there is a certain culture of poverty that our organizations always operate in I grew up I'm a child of a minister and my mother my mother said as a minister's wife we always expect to be poor and busy and I thought well that was a perfect skill to grow up with and sometimes and having gone through a real financial crisis Sharon and I were like in lockstep holding each other for that too so we were already in our rebuilding moment or rebuilding struggle when we entered the Lane program I really acknowledge that sense of almost PTSD in the culture of the organization the board and the staff was traumatized by that long persistent danger and all the hits that you keep taking when you're in that position and that really affected my psyche as a leader so I still am leading from that position where I have to stop I couldn't take the raise because it scared me to think about when the Lane program is over what I'm going to have to come up with that money I can't get myself out of that sort of I gotta throw myself in front of that you know I gotta have my body be the bridge that the train runs across this band and that's not healthy and it's not good leadership and I have to start recognizing where my own personal fears are not allowing the organization to flourish so there is this joy and there's this excitement and there's this other thing that we all I think share and have to it's part of the challenge I appreciate it because I just want to highlight because you were saying you were talking too much but you dropped gems things you said on Thursday was that you recognized that you were prepared to lead the organization as it was and so that in the midst of great change you realized you had to become a different type of leader for the organization for the organization it was becoming for the organization that was being born out of this change and I thought that was really an insightful moment as a leader who's going to navigate change it's not as if you're going whatever you've been doing that's been great so far as the organization changes that also means your leadership shifts and how about yes that's really real and I was going to say something else but since you said that the whole thing of not having a staff now having a staff and used to be able to do everything yourself and you know you still can do everything and then as you start to hand stuff off you start to question what's your value for the organization because you're no longer doing everything and you have to shift your mindset of oh I can just sit back and oversee the process oh I can allow them to do it okay so what am I supposed to be doing and you have to constantly remind yourself okay now that they're doing that you can do this thing that you've never been able to do before you can leave the office go out in the community and not worry about checking in your email 100 times because you can actually be present for that conversation with that new partner or present for that potential funder or donor in those conversations and so for me as a leader and it's not that I hadn't led staff before it's just I hadn't left staff in this situation it was me and my board and it was creepy and it was scary and some days it would appear and be like I'm at home, I'm good, y'all cool but I'm really trying to learn that process and get yourself back into the game and at the same time back to what Chris was saying before I took this job I was doing something else and somebody said you have to be one of my mentors told me you have to be okay with failure you have to be willing to fail you have to love what you do so much with this or that doesn't work out that you're okay because you've loved it and I take that with me and I repeat it over and over again and as we're moving through this workflow now my eyes are trying to be in this moment but at the same time trying to keep myself from going too far in the future because that's scary so how do we build right now learn what I need to learn put the systems in place of my organization but also remind us that this is going to continue in some way but not in the exact same way and then that's another leadership change so being adaptable as you go through the process and I think one of the things is and it goes along with that fear is being risk adverse right so we have been around we're going to celebrate our 50th anniversary next year and when we looked at our financials you know we were like oh you have you know so many months of something in the bank well that's because I didn't do this and I didn't do that I didn't take risks because I was fearful that we wouldn't have what we needed if I spent this we wouldn't have what we needed and it's crippling you know and I'm kind of you know we spend this money we got health insurance but you know it does and these are psychological problems that we have to overcome I just want to say to that risk there's something real about that risk we are not this gets to that system change like corporate world that risk can happen all day every day all the time in some other white led organizations that risk and that failure can happen all day every day all the time it is real because if we fail there's a lot more at stake so I feel like as a leader of an organization as black led that that is on our shoulders all the time if we bring that in with us is that this isn't about just us if we fail at this there may not ever be something else like this so that's a heavy burden to carry and it's true it is not just happens we're not just saying that it's true and so it makes you afraid of what that risk because the cost if you fail is so great and so deep and it's the thing that I think that lane is trying to is trying to lay out is the systems change the systems need to change and hopefully I mean we have all said I think we have all said that in these meetings and that is exactly the kind of information philanthropy and other fields need to know is that the system needs to shift and to change because or we will carry that burden with us all the time and we'll always be afraid of risk and if we're afraid of risk then we're afraid of failure then we're not dreaming and that innovation never comes we've been spending a lot of time talking about inside organizations but this idea of transformation is necessary is not just the organizations themselves right? one of the things we talk about is where that lane is not designed to create an arts version of the talent attack it's not designed just to make 12 healthy arts organizations because you can't take a really healthy fish fishbowl imported to a polluted pond and expect the fish to thrive but that we have to intentionally be pushing against the systems around making sure that our humanity, our dignity our value in our space is equally as recognized everywhere else so we do have the same access to try to try that's a basic thing to try and feel like we can I think that's one of the biggest things that's what I was talking about Thursday I didn't want to morbid and be like we've got to succeed it's never happening again but that's how it feels and that's what it is that was what I phrase success is we've got to have a really strong determination for success and that was the goal to make sure we change ourselves and make sure that we complete the change and the change is noticeable from the outside in and that was I think with Linda and I with the transition with succession planning I'm more eager and with Linda having that wisdom, having years to have a decades of experience knowing what it's like to have no money in the bank and skipping a paycheck so you can make sure that your artist gets paid like that I never want to go through that again and I'll be damned if I do it again but I know that having Linda with those experiences and having me saying we've got to make decisions we have to make decisions we're finding that medium we're finding that middle road and I know if we I'd already had money spent but I know it would also we would have been doing like what has to be done it wouldn't have been just throwing money away just lightning on fire and saying oh we got it, why not but it's also going to be like Linda's voice of saying hold on, slow down pulling the reins a little bit and just saying let's make sure this is steered the way that we need to go and I feel like that's a really beautiful mixture and a beautiful kind of pair of what we have that dichotomy is a strange one but it also makes for really good decisions to come out with what we're able to come with together so I'm a little terrified of what's going to happen when Linda's not around I just want y'all to know but Linda's going to beat around for a long time so I wanted to offer kind of dovetailing with what you're saying Jonathan is that on the reverse side of that is that we get to be an experiment we get to be a place where where we can pull others with us we were in the bigger meeting we were all talking about succession and transition and in Denver there's probably about five, six major Latino arts organizations their leadership, the longest leadership position they have is like three years one of them I mean they've all transitioned they're all three years or less in the ED position so Teatro is in a different position now of being able to go to those guys and say hey maybe we have some resources maybe we have some mentorship maybe we've learned from this process and not just I mean I do not believe that it has to be going only within our own communities but other communities to say hey this is what we've learned this is the way we can move forward these are the possibilities and to make what we're doing the norm rather than the exception and the other piece of that that other people mentioned is that within the dominant culture that's where they live you ever go into somebody else's house and you go damn this is I remember going to a school out in the suburbs one and they had everything it's like what the hell is that and they go oh we're not wealthy we just do okay but we live in this other place but we can bring people into that house this whole piece of raising our capacity is one of I teach the Chicano Studies Department of Metropolitan State University and one of the things I try to tell my students is that you know one of the most transformative pieces of legislation was actually the GI Bill because the GI Bill allowed for working class and people of color to start going to the university to use education as a tool for social mobility so it was an infrastructural change and in some ways what we've got and an opportunity is to go and take whatever transformative transformative experiences and structures that we have and share those with our community so that's that it spreads out and it has a like long beyond the times that we're here working thank you Tony I think that's a part of our wonderful signaling the transition and actually following you was perfect because as I was listening to all I was thinking back to what Damia said earlier about creativity being the practice and that movement history tells us that it's not always one thing that makes the shift so I hear y'all talking about your fear of failure and like it will never happen again no it may not but something else will because the movement doesn't stop right so we'll keep trying and we'll keep trying something else and something else right now we're in Lane and we are rocking it and you all are brilliant and thank you so much for your courage for sharing today and all that you all have offered and we'll catch up with these folks and for those of you who are watching live and also listening on the podcast please continue to listen and follow and we're going to have Monica, Damia and Jonathan give us those synthesis moments so we can hold on to change for ourselves and the world and the work that we do thank you