For the first time, I feel change and connections happening organically. I’m meeting people and talking about new ideas at a clip that I can almost feel but that I did not “push”.

The challenge with connections and ideas bubbling up like this is that too often, you notice it happening only through a passing glance or in complete retrospect, sometimes when it’s too late to take full advantage of an opportunity, or sometimes when it’s too early and you’re not ready to trust the potential.

In the past, this hasn’t set well with someone like me, who believes challenges should be anticipated, opportunities are everywhere, and personal expectations have to be high to be prepared. I’ve believed that a good plan is the only bridge from where I am now to those opportunities.

This was obvious in how I planned for this year. I said I wanted to have a more creative year. I shaped that goal into a stringent plan, believing the disconnect between my life and its creativity was a matter of structure. What I’ve learned is that my creativity was actually lacking space.

This year feels like it could be one of my most creative yet, despite having abandoned the rigorous system I established for myself, as well as my structured definition of creativity. I wanted to finish a book, write a lot of poetry, and be a creative writer. Instead, I’ve met a lot of new people, identified a lot of new opportunities, and discovered new questions to ask about myself and my community.

I didn’t wake up one morning and decide this would happen. I don’t know what clicked along the way that left me with this approach, but I can point to a few factors that must have been influential:

Space. Without a doubt, working on a mix of projects between my family businesses, consulting, and community groups has allowed me to explore opportunities freely. Time is my own currency now… my success is judged based on the results of my efforts rather than the number of hours invested (and when and where they were invested).

Experience. I’m starting to sense the difference experience makes, and now I want to reframe that word. The mistake we’ve made as it relates to experience is equating it to qualification. The power of my life and professional experiences is not that they make me more or less qualified… instead, they make me more steady and empathetic, help me gain exposure more easily to new people and networks, and in turn reduce some of the risk of living without a tight plan.

Trust. Planning is a great way to cover deficiencies in experience. You might plan more the first time you visit a city than the second time. This urgency to plan and anticipate is connected in some way to matters of trust. I didn’t trust my college advisor and her thoughts on my college journey, so I created a plan that showed her it’s possible to graduate in three years. Ok, impressive maybe. But it reinforced an unhealthy expectation/assumption: if you have a great plan, you’ll get to a great spot, and you’ll get there more efficiently than the next guy. Or, put another way, trust the plan more than the desired outcome.

This isn’t about regret, but it is about reflection. Regret undermines experience, which in turn would change where I am now. And I like where I’m at. Appreciating that one way of living (and planning) got me here helps me realize I’m in the midst of recreating that (or letting it recreate itself, I guess) to see where I land next.

As I’ve thought about this, I’ve mentioned it to some of my favorite older, wiser people locally. One person who essentially makes plans for a living told me she’s never had one for her life… I was probably unreasonably surprised by this. I’m really curious now about other people’s stories and their own process for planning or not planning, identifying new opportunities, etc. Especially as we lose some of the traditional structures for getting from point A to point B, will flexibility and space become the values, rather than structures, formulas, and plans?

I’m back from a blogging hiatus, caused by a combination of less-than-positive thinking and cheating on my blog with Twitter. While I’ve been away, I’ve been thinking a lot about learning, people who learn and innovate, and how that relates to the holy grail known as the knowledge economy.

The knowledge economy appears to be the next desired stop on our way out of this recession. It’s a nice concept – transition from a world where we make widgets and produce things in a linear fashion to a world that is more open and flat, with a focus on people, how they think, how they learn, and what that means in terms of what and how they exchange.

But we’re in a mushy spot on the road to this shift, and that’s where my frustration has been over the past few months.

Why should you or I care? Because how we approach an emerging economy has huge implications for how we build our communities and who is included in that effort. How we adapt at the most local level will determine how we transition on the larger scale… I guess I believe the knowledge economy is inherently a grassroots change. (Your thoughts?)

I’m noodling through how to express this constructively, but for now, here’s what I’m chewing on – you could call these missed opportunities or manageable factors on the way to a new kind of working:

A lot of emphasis is on pathways – but what about practices?
Particularly in Michigan, new efforts have focused on increasing the number of college graduates, connecting students with internships, and other initiatives that build a knowledge workforce. What about internal culture, business models, and practices? My sense is that small businesses will be more nimble in this regard, but I wonder how large organizations are making visible shifts or assessing their readiness for new ways of working.

Some companies hire for innovation but manage for status quo.
If organizations want to embrace new ways of working and a new economy, one of the easiest things to do is hire innovators and learners and explore how they think. Sometimes cultural shifts require individual champions. But in my experience, there’s a disconnect between hiring innovators and welcoming the change they bring.

You know your company is struggling with this if they talk about new ideas and bold projects with public stakeholders but internally scoff ideas for improving process, require exhaustive rationale whenever suggesting a different approach, or fail to understand the value of learning if it can’t be directly quantified or monetized. (Maybe this is a regional issue?)

Some choose short-term production over long-term progress.
Maybe we just can’t help ourselves — maybe we’re so darned used to building cars and furniture and parts. If we can build a functional chair and cut some corners along the way, why not? A chair is still a chair, right? And any time you can make a process more efficient, you’re helping the bottom line, right?

It seems knowledge-driven work requires a new kind of logic and new definitions of what makes process and products successful. Efficiency isn’t enough anymore, and it doesn’t mean the same thing. I imagine the organizations that add value to their process and articulate this sense of savvy to customers will be the winners… even if at face value they are selling a similar “end product”: a chair, a car, a website, etc. (For example, would consumer demand for green products be the same if consumers were still only interested in end products like hand soap, detergent, and clothing? We can’t underestimate or ignore the fact that consumers are changing, too, and are already ahead of some companies in terms of this thinking.)

• Again, these are initial thoughts based on personal experiences, conversations, and reading. What has been your experience? What are the hiccups on the way to a new kind of economy, and what does this mean at the local or individual level?

Learning and action go hand in hand for me, so as I’ve started to build more creative activity in to the new year, I’ve sought lots of connections and resources for ongoing learning about creative process, inspiration, etc. These are four of my favorite finds from this week:

Some thoughts on writing, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Because I’m reading Eat, Pray, Love and because I really like Gilbert’s style, I was hoping she’d have a blog I could become similarly infatuated with. Not so, but I did find this page with her ideas on writing process, including her take on how to learn as a writer. What she offers, especially her perspective on workshops and formal training, is pretty refreshing.

Cultivating a Writing Habit, by Chris Brogan. This blog is a must if you’re someone who cares about social media and online communications, but it was great to read this post on writing process outside the scope of a particular content area. It goes without saying that I’m in agreement on the notion of reading first, writing second, as Chris recommends. I also like the suggestion that writing is something bigger than action that happens on a page, with a specific intention to Write Something. It happens when we’re brainstorming, talking, jotting notes, sending off a quick email.

Passion vs. Practicality, by Susan at twenty(or)something. Good thoughts and questions on the struggle to balance personal passion with paying the bills, from another twenty-something who seems to be where I am in terms of craving a more creative life (and who also keeps looking back at college, thinking — seriously, was that the best incubator I was going to get for this work?).

Writers, abandon your muses, by Iain of Write for Your Life. Given my attempt at a no-nonsense plan for writing, this post’s no-nonsense approach to the muse cliche is appealing. Anything that assists in excuse-making, as a muse sometimes does, really has no place in a plan for building a creative life. Because even when you’re “on”, the muse isn’t any more or less a tool for writing well (or writing at all, for that matter).

With all the reading I’ve done this week, I continue to see some threads: people want to introduce more creativity in their lives, but not just creativity for creativity’s sake. Creativity is both a desired goal and an intentional process, one that has to be married with other parts of life — like business and paying the bills — for it to be meaningful and sustainable.

It makes me wonder what kind of resources or communities could emerge this year to help people find the intersection of creavity, practicality, and process. I hope that blogs like Write for Your Life fill this role, but wonder if there are tools that might also crop up to support this kind of work?

This is the last of three parts about my resolution to develop a creative life in 2009. I’ve shared my reasons for doing this and the realities at play, as well as the requirements and rules. Now it’s time to talk about the goodies — those that will support me during this process and those that await me if I am successful. 

Resources

Much like a business plan, this creativity plan needs resources attached to it. The most critical resource will be my own dedication to the plan, but there are other elements that I feel are important to articulate:

• Time: I estimate that at least 10 to 15 hours will be needed to successfully and happily work this plan. I currently have Fridays off, which is very helpful, but I’ll need to structure my time throughout the week so I don’t simply arrive at Friday and feel uninspired to plow through a day’s worth of creating.
• Money: I think the plan requirements, including events and supplies, will need a budget of about $500 over the course of the year. That’s assuming that every event I attend costs at least $25, but I’m sure I’ll be able to do better than that. I’m not about making this an elite experience, but I do realize that if I want to pursue so many diverse events and opportunities, money will be a factor. (Virginia Woolf got this so right.)
• Support: I am sharing this plan for input, ideas and awareness. I hope my blog will be an informal support, and I will share the plan with my husband Carl, as he’s been very supportive of me getting back in to writing, and I know he’ll enjoy the opportunity to help me be accountable.

Rewards

When I discussed this plan with my friend Tania, she was pretty adamant that a reward system was needed. She probably knows my creative tendencies and barriers better than anyone else, as we spent a lot of time together in poetry workshops and literature classes at Michigan State. So as much as I wanted to dismiss a rewards system (I’m so altruistic like that), I trusted her judgment and created one:

• By the end of the first quarter, if I have met my monthly reading and writing requirements, I will buy a subscription to Poets & Writers. 
• By the end of the second quarter, if I have met my monthly reading and writing requirements, I will buy a new set of nice pens (a budget of $25). 
• By the end of the third quarter, if I have met my monthly reading and writing requirements, I will spend $25 in new music on iTunes.
• By the end of the year, if I have met all my requirements, I will get a new laptop. Yeah. Blammo. Had to run that one by the hubby so I don’t shock our year-end finances. But honestly, if there is anything that I’d really love and that would be a good tool in my ongoing creative pursuits, it’s a new computer. That’s a pretty big reward, but it’s the one thing I can think of that has practical relevance and the thrill of a new toy.

As always, I appreciate your comments and ideas, either here on the blog or on Twitter! I’m starting to dive in to my plan and will continue posting to the blog as a way of keeping myself on task.

Yesterday I shared the first of three parts of my plan for developing a creative life in 2009, basically the initial set-up for why I am approaching the new year in this way… the cozy part where I get honest with myself and think broadly about what this plan means.

But again, I can’t fight my analytical side, so my plan had to have some hard details — a set of requirements that I could quantify and measure, as well as a set of rules to guide me from the start.

Requirements

I would love my goals to simply be to read and write more, but I know I’ll need a lot of structure if I want to do this right and hold myself accountable. Ambiguity creates room for excuses, so I’m calling these “requirements” intentionally… “goals” is surprisingly lofty terminology, when I think about it. So, the requirements for my creative life in 2009 are as follows:

• I will read one book each month. Not 12 books total at any time during the year – at least one each month so I am consistently immersed in someone else’s writing.
• I will write at least 10,000 words each month, of any combination of journaling, blogging, poetry, fiction, etc.
• I will post to my blog on average* at least three times per week.
• I will attend four writing-related events, of any size and style, at any location.
• I will buy a new Moleskine and fill it with doodles and ideas during the year.
• I will pay at least four visits to cultural attractions, such as the art museum.
• I will sing and/or surround myself with music everywhere it is “appropriate” – in the car, at home, at work. (And in the grocery store if Carl can handle that.)
• I will add at least 200 songs to my iPhone. This is arbitrary and probably exceeded by 99% of iPod users on their first sync, but I need a number, so there.
• I will attend four musical events. Concerts are acceptable, but festivals with multiple bands/shows may only count as one event.

So, by the end of 2009, I will have achieved the following:

• 12 books read.
• 120,000 words written.
• 156 blog posts shared.
• 1 Moleskine decked out in doodles.
• 12 creative events attended.
• Many hours of music enjoyed.

Of course, the hope is that by seeking structure in a few creative areas, I will become more open to other creative endeavors. Perhaps by the end of 2009 I’ll be attempting painting, sewing, or a musical instrument. No promises or requirements for that, but it would be a great side effect and indicator of success.

Rules

These are somewhat overarching, and I could call some of them rights as much as I can rules. I believe one of the greatest creative barriers is that of personal permission… I have failed to prioritize creativity in my life, because I haven’t given myself permission to let it matter to me like it once did. With the right rules in place, I will have no choice but to refuse distractions that may have derailed my creativity before:

• This is not about publishing, it’s about creating. There was a time when I had bylines in newspapers. This is not that time, and that is not the goal.
• I may not accept ANY new volunteer work. NONE. I currently serve in four volunteer roles, and it is already more than I can handle. I love volunteering, but it’s the top competitor for my free time, and consequently, my creative time.
• Every week, I must schedule my creative time to the best of my ability and honor that time as if it is a job with a very intolerant boss.
• I may not buy any new books until I have met my quota for the year. I own many books that I have never read, so it’s time I give them some attention. Books received unexpectedly as a gift are allowed, but I may not request books as a gift.
• I must revisit my planning document at the beginning of every month and create a report on my progress.

Tomorrow, I will share the final two segments of my plan: resources and rewards. In the meantime, feedback is welcome on the requirements and rules — are they aggressive enough? Too much to tackle? It’s too late to change them (I have released them to the blogging gods after all), but I always appreciate honest feedback when it comes to this kind of thing. Thanks to everyone who read the first post and shared comments on the blog or Twitter!

* Update on blogging requirement: With some thoughts from some smarties on Twitter (thanks especially to @susiewee), I am shooting for an average of three blog posts weekly, so I can accommodate spurts in blogging and times when I just don’t have a moment to blog or am away.

As I shared recently, the new year has been a catalyst for me to think more intentionally about creativity and my struggle to get it back in to my life in meaningful ways. So today, and over the next few days, I’m going to share my plan to tackle that challenge in 2009.

Even though creativity is often stereotyped as being carefree or willy-nilly, my creative life in 2009 will be anything but haphazard. I need structure to get started and hold myself accountable, so my plan (a 2500+ word document that I’ll edit into small blog posts) consists of the following parts:

• Reasons
• Realities
• Requirements
• Rules
• Resources
• Rewards

Each part will be explained as I share it. Today I’m sharing my reasons for creating this plan and realities to acknowledge as I work on it.

Reasons

Why am I doing this? I want to be a creative person again. I mean creative in a holistic sense. Creativity as a way of thinking and as an approach to living, as well as in the more traditional expressions of creativity: reading, writing, art, music, and so on.

I have not invited creativity and imagination into my life with great intention since college, when coursework kept me focused and provided me with a venue for sharing my progress. I’ve become a more analytical person since college. I’ve always had a tendency to sacrifice anything that could appear to be frivolous when more practical matters or choices demand my attention. My analytical decision-making can be pretty exacting – and it has smothered my creative attempts over the past few years.

Here is the hard truth about my creative life in 2008: I wrote next to nothing, if you don’t count a collection of journal entries. Maybe two poems? I did not read any novels. I read blogs almost exclusively, save for a few books of poetry. I did not listen to music nearly as much as I used to. I doodled a little, tried to teach myself embroidery, but never followed through on much in the way of art. I attended a few performances and events, probably my most active area of creative participation. But that was always as a spectator.

In 2008, the best thing I created was a new excuse for not attempting to be creative. I disallowed myself from participating in creative opportunities because I felt I had not earned it. This sounds really melodramatic, but here’s an example: Billy Collins judged a local poetry contest. Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets. Just getting my work in front of him would be a special thrill, regardless of whether I placed in the contest.

I didn’t allow myself to enter the contest. Maybe it’s a good old Catholic sensibility about guilt and punishment, but I felt that if I wasn’t going to take my writing seriously enough to practice it regularly, I didn’t deserve to start trying just because Billy Collins was judging a contest and I was all starry-eyed about that.

I regret being so stubborn. Stubborn about not writing, stubborn about taking away my own opportunities. Pretty stupid.

So 2009 has to be different. I need to be creative, and I need structure to avoid making excuses or unnecessarily punishing myself. Ironically, creating a plan to do this is a very analytical approach, but perhaps it’s a good exercise in beginning to marry the two parts.

Realities

Intentionally building a creative life is affected by a set of realities. I believe the more I acknowledge these realities at the outset, the less likely I am to make assumptions about my process or take my progress for granted.

• I have stability, support, and flexibility. I know these are luxuries that not everyone has, and I can’t take that for granted. If I do, it will be that much easier to take my creative life for granted.
• This is a personal commitment. No one or nothing else can be held accountable for any stumbles along the way, and in the same way, the successes will be uniquely mine.
• There are only so many hours in a day. I need to stop scheduling my time unrealistically and become more comfortable with the idea that not all time has to be actionable, and not all days need to produce something that makes a big contribution.
• I am human. (Ta da!) The truth is, I have not written or read consistently in a long time. I will make mistakes. I may even produce some crappy stuff. If it bothers me, I’ll make 2010 a year of polishing up and perfecting my craft (although “craft” seems like a highly evolved state from where I am right now, so maybe 2011? 2012?).

I expect these realities to change as I change, and it’s safe to assume I’m operating with more assumptions than I know right now. That’s part of the learning I hope to do… to get familiar with the underlying factors that affect my creativity and figure out how to manage them.

I’d love anyone’s thoughts on any of this, or links to your plans for the new year! My next post will share my requirements and rules for becoming creative in 2009. That means I have one more night to change them before I commit to anything publicly. :)

I’ve been meaning to post about my experience last month getting to know members of the Young Women for Change program, part of the Michigan Women’s Foundation. The program has grown a lot since I participated in high school, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the strength of the young women involved. Speaking to the group of young women was admittedly more exciting (and intimidating) than participating in the foundation’s board meetings… Young Women for Change members always remind me that being young and not yet very attached (politically, personally, and otherwise) affords an individual a kind of fierce authenticity that is thrilling and terrifying.

I’ve thought a lot about things like that lately, particularly as they relate to women of my generation. I’ve had conversations with friends who are frustrated with personal dissatisfaction. Some have bemoaned the overwhelming sense of having the power to do everything and having no idea where to get started. Others have told me they feel like maybe they are just “too picky” to work anywhere happily–maybe they just don’t fit in the box as well as others might. And another young woman looked at me and said quite directly, “You keep telling me to get out there and network. What does that even mean?”

These frustrations led me to wonder if typical language of empowerment and professional development are still relevant to my generation. As I prepared to speak at the Young Women for Change conference, I decided to tackle networking and mentoring, which is probably just one piece of this potential new territory. In lieu of telling the Young Women for Change members to simply get out there and network , I decided to rethink an approach for how an individual might learn and grow continuously. Because as my friend reminded me, it’s actually pretty meaningless, even intimidating, to suggest that you should just get out there and network to be successful.

So I boiled it down to the three steps: Identify, observe and connect. As I thought more about this, I realized that the whole time I thought Young Women for Change helped me network with others and discover my career path, it was actually simply providing me with space and people that helped me identify, observe and connect:

Identify
Something important happens when you identify, appreciate, and nurture what makes you great. We live in a world that would prefer to pick us apart flaw by flaw. We all need to create a safe place and a challenging environment where we have the opportunity to get to know ourselves and see ourselves in new ways.

I think each one of us is a leader in different ways—some are more visible and vocal, some are more quiet but influential. The only way we can benefit from this diversity of leadership is to start within ourselves and identify our strengths, our talents, and our dreams. To help Young Women for Change members think about this, I suggested the following:

Think of a moment when you felt like you were totally energized by a conversation or making a big contribution to some work. What were you talking about? What were you working on? How were you approaching it?

Observe
The process of identifying your strengths and passions is never-ending. That’s probably one of the most frustrating things for me… I’m impatient. I want to know what I have to offer and then attack a problem or seize a really good opportunity to create big change. One of the ways I’ve been able to manage my stubborn impatience is to take the time to observe others.

This reminds me of the phrase “learn by doing.” I am starting to think that phrase is focused too much on the self… autonomy is good, but when does it become isolation? When it comes to knowing what makes you who you are, I don’t think you can learn about that and act on it in isolation. I’d like to suggest that we all need to understand by observing:

Think of a time when one of your peers got really passionate about something she was talking about. Think about a time when she said something that surprised you or made you learn something new. What was she talking about? How did she approach the situation?

Connect
Finally, so many of the young women I meet have a penchant for action, and we have really high expectations about it. We believe that when you bring people together with different but complementary strengths and perspectives, incredible things can happen. And because we take the time to identify those strengths within ourselves and then observe them in others, we have real confidence in our ability to connect people and ideas in unexpected, powerful ways.

This is really the crux of it all for me. Forget what people tell you about networking—even, to some extent, forget what they say about mentoring. I think our generation of women realizes that while these things are still important in some ways, they can imply too much of a one-way street. They often put you, as the young person, in the position of simply receiving perspective, knowledge or help from another source.

I think our generation can be and wants to be co-creators and connectors. Especially when we identify our own strengths and observe what others offer, we have the potential to learn, grow, and achieve in new ways. And I think by starting with our mutual strengths, we may be able to bypass some of the traditional barriers to networking or mentoring… such as gender, cultural, or generational differences.

What if we refine the language of mentoring and networking with language that’s more focused on swapping strengths?

Identify one of your strengths and one you’d like to develop, learn from, or even apply to do something new. Think of your peers and colleagues. Who has that strength? Observe her in action. See how she responds in the group. Then, make the connection. Share what you’ve learned from her, and share what you’ve identified in yourself—swap your strengths and seek opportunities (e.g., collaborative projects, informal lunch dates, etc.) to continue learning from one another.

I don’t aspire to live to be 95, but if I do, I hope I am just like Maria Amelia, a Spanish woman and the world’s oldest blogger. She blogs at amis95.blogspot.com and told The Boston Globe:

“I thought, ‘What is this thing of the devil?’ ” she recalled, speaking in the computer room at the town hall of this quiet town on Spain’s northwestern coast.

When her grandson explained, López seized on the Internet as a way of keeping up with the world.

“I told him, ‘Between the life that I have led and the life into which you were born, there is an enormous difference. I want to understand your culture. I want to be on top of things,’ ” she said.

I hope I always have the kind of open mind it takes to keep learning… and the tenacity it takes to want to understand and stay on top of things.

Originally posted at Upside Down Bananas (former blog)

The NP 2020 conference wrapped up today, and in our final open sessions, we were encouraged to reach some systemic recommendations regarding next steps.

An opportunity that surfaced again and again related to mentoring in the sector. As I’ve alluded to before, mentoring always gives me pause because of its varied interpretations. Those variations came through today both in terms of the problem-solving that groups did and in terms of the tension that could be sensed as we debriefed on key themes from our previous day’s work.

After Susan Morales-Barias (our facilitator from GVSU’s Johnson Center) shared key themes from Friday’s sessions, she invited participants to add comments. One participant, a Baby Boomer, asked that we all be more mindful of the language we use as we try to engage in conversations about mentoring, professional development, and transition in the sector. She said she felt that the tone of the group seemed to put the blame on another generation while also making large generalizations about the intentions of Boomer leadership.

Rather than dwelling on “Boomers do this to me…”, this attendee asked that we consider outside factors that affect Boomer and young leadership alike. Rather than relying on generalizations or assumptions about Boomers, she encouraged us to speak based on how we perceive Boomer leadership.

This comment provoked exactly the kind of fresh dialogue I was hoping to find at a conference like this. Some of the younger participants seemed to agree with the woman, but others argued that our generation needs the space to come together and put concerns on the table without semantics, politics, and feelings getting in the way. One participant went so far as to say that such interjections from Boomers had made her feel like she was being “scolded by a parent.”

I’ll be honest, the notion of being scolded by a Boomer hits home for me. I have definitely felt that way before, and tried hard not to feel that way at NP 2020 in a couple instances (like when one Boomer participant chided that we all “need to read our history”). At the same time, I count many Boomers as friends and mentors. I could never devalue or dismiss their role in getting me to where I am. But…I definitely feel that their approach to mentoring differs from the approaches of some of their Boomer peers.

So I say, yes, let’s propose mentoring as a solution. But let’s also clarify the language of intergenerational dialogue, which obviously needs attention based on exchanges like the one at NP 2020. If we fail to clarify this language, our generations will continue to merge haphazardly, perhaps even oblivious of one another.

With that clarification, I think mentoring itself will be strengthened. Mentoring is too often viewed as a transfer of knowledge—one person transferring a skill set, content expertise, etc. to a less-experienced person. In reality, it’s time for mentoring to be viewed as a vehicle for advancing the sector, not just an add-on for getting into the sector. One Boomer in my dinner group told me she’s participated in an approach called “appreciative inquiry”—I love that term and am going to look into it.

To set some sort of direction for all this, here’s my take: Mentoring needs to be as much an organizational development process as it is a talent development tool. As Susan pointed out, the leadership deficit is happening now—it’s not going to happen when 640,000 executive leaders leave their positions. We don’t simply mean people when we refer to a deficit. There is a deficit in meaningful exchange of knowledge and perspectives. There is a deficit in common understanding and common ground to voice concerns and celebrate progress. And if we don’t have candid conversations about that now, the changing of the guard could be the least of our worries…