The CEO Perspective, Urgent Patience, and Why Idealism Is Not Naivety

We need all hands on deck. This is a moment of all hands on deck. you know, the ideology and being idealistic has kind of been attributed to naivity and an immaturity almost, right? Because I they're too idealistic. They can't possibly succeed or that's got to get rubbed out of them before they can actually get there. and that but I think I think to your question Sophia the headline is we've been talking a lot about sector changes leadership how individuals are reacting responding um and what that means for the broader change and I think getting an executive level perspective not that you are the only executive level but you know getting an executive level perspect perspective and that's why your journey is important like how has that informed what is happening right now and how you're you're viewing it I think would be the headline is that right guys

yeah okay but I but maybe let's start with um with your story because like for me when we spoke the first time I was super inspired um and it left me in a mood of thinking and reflecting I like your journey in the sector and I felt it speaks to many of us so it would be good to tell us and maybe the people who will listen later to this about your journey.

Well, thank you Ali. Um, and so great to join this dialogues. I've been listening to your three episodes several times actually. Several times because and every time I listen to one of your three episodes so far I get new insights. So these are phenomenal, fantastic and spontaneous conversations and we need more of that rather than that panel talking point style which somehow doesn't nourish our let me say souls. Um but uh it doesn't so thrilled to be here. So I'm I'm from Uruguay. Um that's my home country. I live in Ecuador. Um I am 57 years old. I grew up in my childhood in the 70s. um as a refugee during Uruguay's military regime and many of those regimes at the time in the southern cone of South America.

So I guess uh although I'm from Uruguay, I grew up already in several countries as my parents had to leave the country. Um and uh and then I um studied sociology in Uruguay and joined this line of work in 94 in Cambodia. Um but why Cambodia? How does an Uruguayan make it to Cambodia? I actually was more on a journey of

wanting to

do good in the world and thought that a good vehicle for that maybe volunteering for an NGO. And I was rather kind of backpacking if you see what I mean. I wasn't I didn't arrive in Cambodia as an expatriate.

I wanted to join um an NGO inspired by you know all the um great leaders we have had in the world that want to do good. You know I was reading Gandhi and Martin Luther King and all of the above and I felt this

passion for social change. So I knocked doors. I knocked doors and I knocked the door of Save the Children and Oxfam and Care and I was doing my rounds in Cambodia and I knocked the door of care and they said, "Yeah, why not? You're here." You know, um, so it was in 94. It was actually not very common to have someone from Latin America working in Cambodia in a country office of an international NGO, let alone as a volunteer or as a very junior staff. I was 25 at the time, so I'm revealing my age here. I already have. Why am I saying that? But anyway, um I joined and um it was from day one very odd to me the world that I encountered because at that time 94 in Cambodia there was there were many NOS's in Cambodia after everything that happened there in the 70s in the 80s and um care had probably 10 15 expatriate staff immediately the difference between the expatriate staff and the Cambodian stuff and their conditions was to me impossible to understand and register from that very moment of time.

And I didn't belong to any one of those two worlds, right? Because I wasn't lo I wasn't local staff. I wasn't expatriate staff. I was a foreigner. I didn't speak Cambodian at the time. So, I didn't really belong. So from that vantage point um and that's what I told Ali when we f had our first conversation um I had insights which I actually didn't think um were very unique at the time or different I thought any everybody must be seeing it but only when I joined the sector more formally and got a job a proper job and actually made it um I was my last job with care. I never thought that would be the case when I joined KE at the time I was secretary general of care.

That was my last job with KF. Um after 30 years, three decades with care all and I won't bore you with my trajectory of those 30 years. It was several jobs in many countries and many parts of the world. Always based in the global south, never in the global north. So I also did my secretary uh general role from Ecuador. But what I did is I started this notebook. this notebook when I was 25 in 94 um which I called my colonial page. Imagine that before we ever spoke about decoloniality. I actually have I haven't kept them all but I do have hundreds of pages of annotations of what I observed for example in team meetings in Cambodia where um Cambod and I didn't speak English very well at the time.

It's better now but at that time it was fairly broken. So I was struggling myself to adopt and understand and be part of and express ideas and it wasn't easy. But at that time I noticed very quickly that for example if I was able to package an idea eloquently

in an elevator speechy way better if it was in one two three in proper English then I would be listened to. then I would be listened to. And um and then um Cambodian colleagues that um like me were attempting to put forward an idea in less eloquent ways, maybe even

packaged in a different way which may not have fit that norm were not even listened to. Well, forget about if for example translation was involved. Then everyone

who expected ideas only to be clearly expressed in English would not even attempt to listen carefully. So I found um there a world well what I did was start making annotations of how for example that really happened and I couldn't believe it that a C Cambodian colleague would present an idea in broken English or via translation and I thought oh wow that's a good idea but the colleague that spoke English very well would just take that idea and run with it and then present exactly the same idea and get all the credit for it. There was a lot of even taking knowledge and what I did was like make those specific observations of what happened every day of our lives. So this is not about a big abstract analysis of decoloniality.

This is how it manifests itself in daily life. And um and then we can find probably so many examples of it. But what I never thought um at that time would happen was that you know that we would I don't know 30 years later or 25 years later only start talking about decolonizing eight. I thought it was a more urgent uh agenda and I couldn't understand and since then I have been walking this strange tight rope which is in order to be accepted by the sector I needed to learn to speak in that elevator speechy way of one twos and threes right so I had to because I was otherwise never been listened to so I would not have been I would have been expelled I would not never have gotten the next job you know I would have not been able to

make it. So I had to kind of adapt but at the same time I wanted to be able to be part of it to transform it then from inside and it's walking that tight rope you know like okay let me be part of this but then make space for something different and new and I want to shape it from inside and how do you do it when and have I forgotten enough of about my original intent? Have I been too quickly absorbed by kind of the logic and kind of checking in every day of my life whether I was not being kind of shaped by the system or whether I could still attempt to change the system if that makes sense. So that has been that tight rope which by the way many women walk on you know same thing you know like in order to be accepted by

the sector you may even have to wear a blazer you know you see in a meeting in a world bank meeting or UN meeting that resembles more a male suit you know and um but then when you're in there you know you want to provide a more feminist perspective and influence it and but if you don't wear that suit, you may never be invited to the meeting. And I'm just saying suit in the in a just to illustrate, but I mean much more than that, right? Like and um and it's so hard to continue to walking that tight rope every day of your life and I must say after 30 years and given the sliding bag that we are seeing in the world, I just got very tired.

Yeah. I um I have one question that comes to my mind. Um many CEOs and secretary generals once they reach that um that level and experience and title and influence they mainly position themsel or move to the global north maybe because it give them some kind of access and they are close to the power or something like that. But why you didn't do that? why you didn't move to the global north.

Well, I uh I just felt much more comfortable in my own surroundings in Latin America and um I felt that I could also more easily connect to the work in the global south that care was implementing. And whenever I wanted to visit a program and connect with it deeply, when I needed precisely to when I felt that it was taken

to

maybe one end of that tight rope, I needed to be able to quickly uh re-energize myself and be drawn back to what truly matters. However, um it also had a huge disadvantage because all the influencing, the advocacy happened in DC, in London, in Geneva and I had to get on a plane and I missed many critical meetings and fora in which it felt always baked and decided and then I couldn't add my voice easily and

that was hard that was really hard that um that made it very complex. Um but Ali what I think and I think we all connected via the pledge for change and decolonizing aid and I'm um I was a founder of it together with other CEOs and secretary generals of some of the larger NOS's and that felt like true excitement that we could come up with a promise a pledge is a promise of transforming these deeply and um and that meant that we could hopefully be more impactful and more aligned with the values that I honestly always believed in and I didn't always see them sector manifesting.

Yeah, Sophia, thank you. What some inspiration there. I'm I'm I'm blown away by the way you've narrated that. Um, I particularly love the relationship that the way you depicted eloquence equal power and eloquence equal them privilege and career progression. It's such a simple way of framing something that I think everyone in the aid world would resonate with and be able to understand very clearly. And I love the tension you talked about between that becoming absorbed in a system versus trying to remain resistant to it and not and that con it sounded like a very constant um dilemma, challenge, concern around becoming complicit or not, right? And navigating an incredibly fine line there. But I particularly enjoyed reference you said to um sort of the early stages of when you joined and you described being relatively idealistic in your ambitions trying to change the world and have those motivations for joining and I was thinking recently earlier this week in fact ideology and being idealistic has kind of been attributed to naivity and an immaturity almost right because they're too idealistic, they can't possibly succeed or that's got to get rubbed out of them before they can actually get there.

And that pressure of pragmatism and operational discipline almost kind of erodess that. And so I just wondered with the promise of the pledge that you were able to be an incredibly influential instigator of that's an example of maintaining an ideological idealbased decision-m at that most senior level. It's a demonstration in my mind of being creative, right? Of being curious in the space that you've got. Back in when was the pledge? Five, six years ago, maybe a bit longer. Um when that started the sector was not facing anywhere near the degree of pressure that we're currently experiencing and so there was a bit more freedom and a bit more what bandwidth to think in those more creative ways.

The pressures that we're facing now seem to be squeezing that creativity. So wondered if you would, this might be a bit unfair of a question in terms of putting you on the spot and I certainly not asking you to speak on behalf of other people, but for executive level senior leaders, the CEOs and the sector generals in those positions today, how are they how are they able to maintain that creativity? How are they able to stay thinking a bit more proactively and with an idealistic lens rather than the sort of pragmatism and stopping at that point. That's such a good point. Um you're right when we came up with the pledge. I mean it was a deep moment of reckoning with racism in this sector with white supremacy in the sector.

Um we all know what happened in 2020. George Floyd and how that was an immense wave all across the world in many parts of lives and sectors of life. So, but you're right now we didn't even imagine the pressures we would be under now. And um and what I find um most complex at this moment of time and actually Thomas you mentioned in an amazing article that um that you just wrote and I would love us to discuss that too because it is very powerful um because it's all about you know I think the idea of your article is about slowing down you know the encounter with knowledge that feels important yet you know with the sector now driven even by more urgency even by more urgency than before because you're right for I mean since I joined the sector that is true you know funding cycles crisis um leaders often and mostly rewarded for kind of speed and decisiveness right rather than for holding space and um for disruptive ideas, you know, and to reshape thinking.

But I think right now the real transformation is even more urgent, right? a real transformation is even more essential and um I'm an advocate for let me set use these set of words like for urgent patience if that makes sense to you for urgent patience because unless we have that I just feel that everything might kind of implode because otherwise unless we keep and you're very right to point out that um

idealistic ideology ology is often seen as something which is like in the way of making progress. But I find that unless and this is a tight rope too. We keep both a strategic compass and a moral compass. If we need we need both in order to make a difference in the world and somehow

the urgency of the moment you know kind of puts pressure on us to be only driven by this strategic compass. How to survive? How to get more funding? How do we keep offices

open rather than the moral compass on which all of what is we do is actually based. Both is important but we might forget it along the way. And you're right, it gets some sort of bad press often. The that moral compass, the ideals, um the weed the people that Ali refers to um frequently, which I find so inspiring, the um let me put in a feminist slogan in here into the mix like nothing

about us without us. You know, that's the essence of it all. And if we don't with

urgent patience

listen to precisely that what global south movements what global south mutual aid networks are saying then the whole construct simply serves no purpose. And I do believe we actually do need progressive civil society in the north and south not only in the global south. We need allies. We need all hands on deck. This is a moment of all hands on deck. You know, the world as we know it is literally falling apart. Wars, genocides, um oppression, and uh we can't afford to not be in solidarity with each other. But that requires um connecting deeply and respecting each other and bringing the mainstream of values rather than the survival mode and urgency urgently and patiently into um our dialogues. But another way of saying what you're what you were mentioning, Thomas, is pragmatic optimism.

Because like it's easy to kind of naysay idealism. And it's easy to say, yeah, the common theme or the common, you know, way of working is pra practicality, pragmatism. But there's real power in pragmatic optimism. And for me, that's where that tightroppe is. That's I find the space of tradeoffs so interesting because that's the crux of where you live your values under pressure. And if we now is the time to live your values under pressure. That's the crux of that tightroppe where I have to make a trade-off between practicality and between my you know and uh my values or the moral argument. What do I do? So often, you know, when they're the two are aligned, it's easy to live your values. But when all of a sudden it's do I, you know, do equitable compensation for my staff or do we get the margin we need to survive?

What is your trade-off? And I don't, there's often not an easy answer. So, I'm not saying that it's easy at all, but the first step is to like as you say, Sophia, pause, notice that it's a trade-off, that is a decision to be made, and you have a choice, and then have the discussion with the right set of people around the table. So, not the easy set of people around the table to say, how are we going to do this transparently? That's where I think it's really interesting and there's space and opportunity for growth to say, how are we living our values under pressure? I think things like the pledge give frameworks and frankly cover for some organizations to say, "Well, so and so is doing it this way.

Here's an example, so maybe we should be doing it because it does breed creativity when we can see others doing it." Um, if we don't do it now, then we erode the trust. We already know trust is an issue. Narratives are an issue. Living our values under pressure out loud is a way to build trust in this moment in time.

Yeah. And I think there are two things that comes to my mind. The first one is the real test of values is under pressure. Like it's so easy to say we commit to X Y Z when things are okay. But uh but when we under pressure that's the real test. The second one that comes to my mind um oh my god I could hear my heart is beating. Um I want to share um a personal story. uh when I was in um in a country operation, what happened is that um an armed group um took me as a hostage for several days and um and the organization that was um the organization that employed me um they uh left me behind. So that group took my passport um everything I had, my laptop, my external hard drives, even my clothes, everything and left me in uh one um apartment.

Um I couldn't communicate with anyone. I couldn't speak to anyone. Um I was under extreme level of pressure in a country that technically is not my it's not my country. uh I couldn't even share what's happening with me and there was a colleague with me also going through the same situation and that colleague also was under so much pressure and you know the days will come and go and we are extremely isolated in that apartment and you are just sitting with your thoughts. You are in the middle of a crisis. You are not sure what tomorrow will look like and you are waiting for them to come to the apartment to you know to take you somewhere or see what will happen and when um I don't tell the story that much but when I when I tell people always ask me and how did you manage to deal with that what did you do and all these things so technically what I did I had to pause and I became three versions of myself.

The first version is the past me, the old version of me who also went through so many crisis and struggles and all that. The second version is the present me who's dealing with the

thing that is happening. And the third version is the future me

who is living in the future, went through this current crisis and looking at okay, what could possibly go well? what could go wrong like imagining all the different scenarios and remember I am in that apartment isolated and my other colleague is also in the stress panic mood. So technically I had to speak to myself in those three versions. And because of that technique that I did and later life tested me again and again in similar situations where I had to speak to those three versions became like the

console assessing, thinking looking at the situation from different angles and

agreeing that no matter what we do those three versions those are the values and the things the principles that we are going to stick to and we are going to deal with XY Z in different cases. Now the main reason why I'm I'm saying this story because of course it's so easy when we talk to leaders and tell them oh you should reflect you should think you should pause they will look at this from like a naive perspective or something and when we talk about an organization they will also look at it from organizational side but here I'm talking about one individual who went through extreme level of stress in a crisis tomorrow is

not clear

and the way to deal with that was actually posing reflecting and thinking. Um, yeah, and the same technique hit me so much in my life after. So, I really think like for me personally, it has so much value as an individual.

Wow. Thank you for sharing that, Ali. Um, and it's a fascinating way of recognizing the mental state, the psychological state that you're going through and developing coping strategies that are consciously pulling you back into the calm, more regulated state, recognizing that's the space that you need to be in to be able to think a bit more positively moving forward. Really powerful. Thank you. Okay. Um but what I find so interesting is that we in the sector we went through so many different crisis and emergencies and different shape of shocks but covid is one but funding cut is the classic every year shock and

the access and operational challenges and so many other things. So I do find it a bit interesting why the posing reflecting and thinking of and what you also mentioned in your article Thomas why we didn't really master that skill at executive level

don't think we needed it I mean I'm interested to hear your thoughts Sophia but I mean the guys know I've been thinking about this quite a lot and as the old kind of the old system that you so eloquently described that you had documented which I find so interesting your whole career trajectory that you documented as that is kind of falling away. There are those that are transitioning from that old system to a new future and there are those that have always been building the new futures that for the last 20 30 years have been building new ways of doing things. But how do we how do we take what is worth bringing over and keeping it? And how do we live our values in this process?

I think the leaders that made it in the dominant system, as you said, had to be really good at code switching, had to be good at the eloquent talk, had to be good at not asking for help, at making quick decisions, at doing that kind of hero leadership in the new way. What are the capabilities that we need? I think it's going to be the ability to do self-regulation and co-regulation. I think it's going to be the ability to bring your whole self and be vulnerable and tell stories and try and live those values under pressure because there's going to be more pressure when this crisis is over. There's just going to be a new one. So, we're going to have to get good at doing this and when we mess up and fail repairing and building trust.

What resonate what my first question in your story ollie was what kind of trust was lost in others reactions not just what your reaction was and how you managed yourself but how the system fails you is just the loss of trust there is incredible I don't know Sophia that I mean I don't want to put words in your mouth you're the one that has had to had make these decisions in real time

well I'm um well thank you Kim for those reflections and I am of course very moved and thinking about Ali's um story and trust the word trust also was top of my mind. You know what happens when you're left alone in that way and your ability Ali to then so clearly kind of segment your former you, your present and the future you want to be is just an incredible insight to um what we all should be doing more of amidst of a crisis. And it's nothing compared to what you went through. I mean this is the easy stuff what we're talking about, right? compared to that actual personal experience of being kidnapped. So, um it feels like if you were able to do that at that time, we all should be doing so much better.

I mean, you're you're lead you're leading by example, Ali, and I have so such deep admiration for you. Um how do we do this at this time? I mean, I'm now of course in a very different position than I was. I left care just over a year ago, but um I'm I'm trying to think back and it is always about giving space to leaders like Ali, you know, recognizing also within a large organization uh where the Kim, the Thomas', the alleys of the world are attempting to bring in more of those voices, making space that tightroppe is about there's it is absolutely impossible precisely pretending that you know the leader must be the leader that decides on quickly and fast in front of every camera on their own that's what leads to failure.

It is all about expanding the attempting to transform an organization or a team into a into a movement, an activist movement that sticks together, that trusts each other, that works in a in a way that we can all be who we are in the room rather, you know, speaking eloquently in one, twos, and threes. And um I think that's the only way forward if you attempt to not always successfully to shape your most immediate environment in that way and create that energy and that listening and that urgent patience and that and celebrate the idealism and celebrate the values and but that's an everyday job and it's not about oneself. It's about the collective that uh we try to build and that's true in any one role I have had.

I've tried to do that again not always successfully but again the sector values you know the kind of thought leader that has lots of intelligent things to say and um and is so fantastic on a panel that everyone will be blown away by. And if what you want to do is actually gather as many incredible people in a team and share, let me say the power across horizontally and collectively and as a result feel stronger. Not necessarily will you always be rewarded for it, you know, because also that takes time and the system wants to be fast and wants from you answers rather than, you know, the asking questions all the time and the co-creation rather you have to have responses. You have to have like on a panel if you're like if you say or if I would say to you right now, Kim, I really don't know, you know, How would I be judged now even on this podcast by those?

I personally trust people that say I don't know and I'm trying to figure it out and this is how much more than someone who has an answer because how can anyone have an answer in today's world? It's moving too fast. By the time you have an answer, something's changed.

Absolutely.

Exactly. And that's that's precisely it. And that's why I'm I'm super excited now because in addition to still co-chairing the pledge for change with Amitab from Oxfam International, I'm doing so in my independent capacity, I'm now the coordinator of the Latin American forum on decoloni decolonizing aid which brings together 350 organizations and movements and that are truly grassroots movements. It includes like the Abbyala indigenous movement of Latin America. It includes the clock via campina, the peasant way. It includes a completely different set of actors in which this type of being and connecting is actually everyday life without attempting to have the all answers uh nicely packaged um with um imperfection if that makes sense. So uh it's so liberating so liberating to now be I have been incredibly energized by two major events we have had in the last year which rather than being workshops they felt more like festivals were also music and dancing and connecting in different ways played a role and I'm thinking of all the flip charts

flip charts I was in front of you know not diminishing it but with a pen which als also felt good, but where another kind of idealism of energy never made it to the room. And what we needed then at the end of the day is like was a nicely packaged report that probably then few people may have read or even followed up on. So, how do we bring the sense of deep solidarity of true alliances and partnership and vibrancy and yes that type of leadership and vision and idealism. By the way, most of these leaders have worked for most of their lives without any remuneration. Right? This is who they are. This is what they want to do. This is not a job. This is a cause.

And I do think that many of us in the let me say traditional aid sector may have joined with the spirit of cause but then something else happens along the way and unless you are super careful that tightroppe you know you can fall on the other side. So um this sense of a cause is I think what we need to now bring more to the forefront at this very critical time. And by the way, you're right, Ali, also when you said the sector is so used to complex situation, let alone the story you just told us and trying to find a way out amid some of the most critical moments that one can possibly encounter in life. And so many thousands of colleagues, especially those working in the global south, have had to deal with that.

Now I think it's also a moment where and we are seeing in the global north authoritarianism, rightwing extremism, frankly fascism advancing where all the skills that we have learned in the global south about how to navigate complexity and oppressive authoritarian regimes. Now, you would think that the experts that do that every day of their lives in their own context could actually be really good advisers for our global north colleagues that are now finding um similar situations in their own surroundings. So the solidarity must now also be from the south to the north to share those lessons um to share those insights rather than let's all freak out. Um yeah

I got so inspired by your depiction of festival type atmosphere at conferences and just the way you talked about the collection of entities and people and bodies that are there. And one thing I constantly find myself kind of pushing against is this notion of the other, right? And the fact that as the system we're talking about here is crumbling, the rhetoric, and I don't think people intentionally mean this, but the rhetoric we tend to use is what's the alternative, right? And we talk about a single alternative to what we've currently lost, whereas the future isn't a single thing, right? The future's going to be the culmination of small. and what you just described is a phenomenally exciting articulation, demonstration, celebration of spaces that don't need a globally aggregatable framework to which they have to con um uh conform, right?

They are just where they're convening spaces where individuals that want to exercise that value of humanity as a personal identity, not an institutional marketing slogan where they want to live that they find a space to do that and there's so much requirement for that in the world today. The idea that there'll be another alternative one single structure it's it's it's this fallacy, right?

Yeah. Um you know I want to share just a quick example and hear your reflections on it and I mentioned it pre briefly. Um so recently I came across two organizations or one organization and a group of volunteers. The first organization is international. Their main office is in the global north. They are working for a country operation in the global south. The second group is diaspora group. Um and the second group they were collecting uh money mainly to support with food items for the same country location that is going through crisis. I don't want to name the exact country also to not cause any issues for the international and the diaspora group. So we call that country

Zelda.

Um so the interesting thing is that this diaspora group they collected around $10,000 the international organization managed to get a grant with almost $600,000. So I was looking at what this diagra diaspora group managed

to achieve.

First the communication and their system was mainly a WhatsApp group. So they were just looking how they will send the money to the country and how a group of volunteers in that country will go will buy food items and will come with a list for the people in need in certain villages and then buy the items and then distribute. Um the international organization spent around more than 70% of the money that they got on program support country operational cost regional level headquarter level overhead and all that and less than 30% went to the same location

and of course that disaster group they did the distribution within less than two days the international organization until now they didn't complete it now it's been around 3 four weeks The interesting thing that I see which is an example we I mean we are all familiar with but look at those two systems the ASA group collecting that money it's a small amount but this massive impact on the ground and it went fully 100% to the country even in the country a group of volunteers distributed that the international one they are still waiting going through all that processes and all that and of course I understand the compliance part but I find it interesting that 70% % of that 600,000 went to support that 30%. And day after day I feel like but I am actually like convinced and confident that the future will be those different unique systems.

Maybe that system of the international one will not disappear but they are small ones they are growing and growing because they are proving uh efficiency. That's what I'm seeing. So I'm curious about hearing your thoughts on such examples. I think those that sounds amazing. um Ali and those are the examples that we need to be inspired by and in fact you know I um I'm sure that you have discussed this and I know you have in previous podcasts but the whole term like localization because localization suggests that you know in the global south whatever the more like the global north system did needs to localize but it should be then therefore exactly the same like localizing what all I really don't like that word for that reason and therefore I prefer to use the word like locally led locally led rather than localizing what may already have been there that now the international community is not able to do anymore and if we find truly locally led options like the one you're describing that we can then be in solidarity with and with caution because the minute you know with caution because you can the minute you bring money in it can also be negatively

disrupted.

So the whole do no harm notion must be part of the picture and how you do it so that it's not altered um in its authentic motivation that is idealistic and full of that energy but at the same time supporting it to grow not also keeping it just there as kind of the small local option because something else and bigger must happen. No, how do we do it so that this is what actually goes viral? the example that you just explained goes viral and inspires and it everything else fells falls like a do no effect rather than you know kind of keeping control over and this is where I think this is where we need creativity and options and ideas and they're simply not there if we are just attempting to keep a system as it exists alive and unfortunately a lot of the energy is going to that rather than to you know these kind of phenomenal examples going viral and uh if we could only think of ways and for that we need these dialogues and this energy and this creativity and the I mean what is really dangerous right now is that this could be a moment where we forget about being creative yet there was not ever in my lifetime a moment where that was not more important

agreed I do I do wonder whether I like to think this might just be me being too optimistic, glass half full and things, but I'd like to I'd like to believe that creativity is happening. We're just not looking in the right places for it and we're we're constantly looking to a traditional set of structures to be the origins of that creativity and they're just not and we're feeling disappointed by that. And yet that creativity is taking place elsewhere. And I love the sort of desire for that to become viral because there's something so organic and communicative not in the right word. Um there's something so together about a viral piece, right? Rather than an imposition of something clinical and strategic and well thought through and wordsmith and all the rest of it.

I think that virality is where the future of humanity, the future of that creativity, the future of what is going to come next is going to is going to happen. It's not in a templated one-size fits- all thing. And whatever iteration of the old multilateral aid architectures emerge from this period of transition, there'll be a space for that. But they'll have to shape and it will it will be a space that they are invited into, not a space where they are assuming dominance. And that's a that's a pivotal shift in mindset and approach that's going to have to take place.

Can I just offer because and I'm looking at you Thomas as our informal timekeeper. Um I know I know what you're thinking. I would one common through line that I'm hearing through this entire conversation is authenticity. And Sophia, it started with your story of your journey, which is saying, you know, for your whole career, you had to walk this line of how to, you know, make it in the in the professional world while still staying true to your authenticity. And I heard it in the festival atmosphere of the forums where people are being authentic to themselves and bringing their whole selves. and we're hearing it in the different small models that are coming off that are authentic to and locally led. I think we get stuck when we try and extrapolate, scale out and make truths of things that are authentic.

So that is another tension and a fine line of how do you learn and connect the dots while staying authentic? But if we can find leaders, individuals, and systems that are committed to being authentically themselves, then that feels like we're moving in the right direction. It feels like we're getting closer to the truth. And I'm not saying that's going to be easy. But isn't that a better way of doing it than replicating what's been happening in the past?

I completely agree. And Zafia, you mentioned in the article that I wrote and I talk about assimilated versus accommodating different types of knowledge. And Kim, what you're saying there is we've got to accommodate these differences. And by doing that, we are accepting that this new information, this new knowledge changes our existing frameworks of understanding, right? Assimilating something is where you just you make it fit what you already know. And that's not what we want to do, right? But I do I do wonder this there's a spectrum of that accommodation maybe and I also talk about the disorientating dilemma right if you get to that space that can invite creativity but if it goes too far and you get to these moments of rupture where it becomes existential

I think it stifles the creativity and it just pulls you back into what you think is a safe space you just repetition of pattern behavior you do what's worked before irrespective of whether you know or think that it is going to work now you don't have an alternative and the risks are too high to say I don't know and failure is just not an option. So you go to what you've done before. So I do it we've got to get that sweet spot of accommodating this where we can accept these things. We're receptive to all that new information. But to do that we've got to acknowledge our own emotional state, our own psychological condition, the environment that we're within the circumstances that are taking place.

That's a messy web of things that need a lot of very cognitive thought processes to understand. Yes.

And Thomas, what is dangerous though is that going back to what we know may get the label still of localization, decolonization. That's the big danger that if at least if it's going backwards, let's call it what it is. You know what I'm most scared of is on top of it, it will be packaged in nice ways where we can't so easily then disentangle what is truly new and what is just the old packaged in with fancy labels. So, and um and I'm some I'm glad someone is the timekeeper here because as in fact I want to apologize to everyone who is um might be listening late. I probably have taken too much space, but I hope they will forgive me for the simple reason that I'm new to this crowd and I have been asked some questions.

So, forgive me for that because I probably could forever and ever and ever and ever with the three of you. So, forgive me for that.

Absolutely forgiven. Absolutely forgiven. Um, and Kim has a lovely way of talking about this. This is this is the cool then the conversation that takes place before the panel conversation with scripted remarks. Um,

love it. just absolutely love it.

Um I want to say a quick thing also as we are speaking to the listeners. Um you know last week or within this week uh with what's happening in Middle East and all the things that I was dealing with like friends, colleagues, family um organizations that I'm supporting and all that. I had couple of days I couldn't even leave my uh my room just behind the laptop and from one thing to another. But um I managed to go out for cup of coffee and short walk under the sun and that magical touch that the sun and that cup of coffee had on me like I had I felt like I'm car I'm carrying all that on my shoulders the moment I started walking around in nature with cup of coffee and the sun suddenly I felt extremely relieved.

So I really think those small tiny things maybe we don't realize they value but they do so much especially later when I sat and I started reflecting and writing my own thoughts. I felt like I switched back you know like I went back and then just restarted my thoughts and emotions. So I highly recommend people do those kind of things.

Well why don't we end it there with a commitment that we're each going to go outside and take a little walk. That was nice. That would be wonderful. Hey, thank you for allowing me to join this conversation. I'm I'm so inspired by the three of you. You're just incredible.

Oh, thank you. Well, you've given a lot of inspiration yourself in this call. So, thank you very much for taking the time to join us.

Thank you.

The world is calling. Got to go. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.