Humanitarian Leadership Under Pressure, Identity vs Strategy, and What Comes Next

Hey guys. Hey.

Hello. Hello. How you doing?

Feel like you have you have a plan. Go for it.

Well, I we just before we hit record, Ali, you were very briefly referring to a trip you just had in Geneva. Um and you had some unfinished thoughts. Why don't you should start by sharing what you'd like to from that trip.

Um, so it's still work in progress because I'm still reflecting and thinking about it. But just to give a bit of context, last time I visited Geneva, it was around a year and a half. So it was before this institutional shock, before funding cuts and all that. And just a week ago I visited it again and I had the opportunity to meet several people who are at executive level uh or organization representatives and um and I think I just had this um some kind of like a shock to be honest um and it's mainly because suddenly I realized that we are moving in this sector we are trying to survive in different totally different ways and maybe we are moving in different directions. Maybe the incentives are not the same and maybe our tactics are maybe clashing or something and the main reason why I'm saying that because you know in the past year and a half something like that I've been engaged so much with those local organizations and some international organizations who are rethinking their governance reimagining their program design um building new partnerships um even integrating AI within their processes.

is u trying to focus to go back to the basics and build from first principles and all that and it was all experimenting and trying new things and when I had those conversation in Geneva the themes and the trends in those conversations were a bit different. They were about um finding new donors. there they were about more individual survival not like ecosystem or institution or you know being a humanitarian or something like that and of course there were so many who were trying to um building your partnerships and think in different way and all that but I felt that before going there I had this assumption that you Geneva is holding the promise like Geneva is a place where organizations and institutions and so many individuals they are doing something big like they are working on a reform they are way advanced than those let's say organizations that I was working with and all that when I went there I felt that the local organizations that I work with and the initiatives that they were born from what happened last year or from the access limitations, uh, operational challenges and funding cuts and all that, they were way more advanced.

And I think I had this assumption that our generational fight is around not only localization but inventing new ways of humanitarism like new approach not dropping the old or something like that just thinking and try to build something new. Um and maybe that bubble that I was in those initiatives and organizations and even social enterprise they are trying to do it. But then when I saw those um large institutions I feel they are just trying to survive um and their way of surviving. nothing shameful about it but it was you know new funding and it I feel like to be honest like in a simple way I think there I got the feeling that the future is the past and tomorrow is yesterday something like that um yeah so I feel there is a bit of failure in imagination I know I'm being harsh on them and

there I was just going to say I feel like you're trying to be measured and fair. But when you first were telling me about this, it was visceral. It was like real. Like it you can't divorce the like that this is what's happening intellectually with the okay this is not what I signed up for and why is this happening and like all of these things. And I don't know I don't want you to discount that because it's real.

For me, of course, it's personal. It's 100% personal.

But I think them you know like sometimes when you think about cities like Geneva, Brussels, New York and even amand Dhaka Bangkok etc because they are hub it's leadership hub for those who are working and collaborating at ecosystem level at global level at so you think that there are maybe certain kind of like work or initiatives looking at the ecosystem from that side and of course there are many like I met some people they are trying to do that but I didn't expect that they are not at a large scale and I didn't expect that people are concerned about things we were concerned about a year or two ago and I don't know maybe because I live so much sometimes in the future and I try to think about the future and I take it as our generational fight to do that but I just think that there is um a missing link or there is a gap between what grassroot local organizations are trying to do and what's happening at that level and the last thing that I want to mention on this and what I've been thinking about so much that I understand the struggles I felt it but in country operations we've been struggling with funding cuts since the like I don't think we ever had like enough funding and we've been struggling with operational challenges and access constraints and strategic gaps and political pressure like that was that's our classic struggle like we've been struggling this for ages.

So now when I when I am speaking with those at that level and they are now talking like how can we do we are very good at this like we've been always struggling with this and we always found our way. So I feel like our experiences also are not the same.

The Why do you think the this kind of gap that you've you've identified between the reality of your experience in Geneva versus the hope that you took with that trip? Why do you think that gap in observing that gap, why do you think it affected you so much?

Um I think because you know like sometimes when you try when you because I have hope that we are going to um make a change and do things differently and part of that hope was that we have leaders somewhere working on something while we are working on something else and others working on something else. So when I went there and I found like wait a second that's not reality that's an assumption of course like you know large part of my hope comes from those people who I collaborate with at global level grassroot level um and those initiatives they are trying to do things differently um but you know I also had some kind of like hope that maybe there is something different there um and again I want to be fair Maybe I had some high expectations.

Maybe that's the that's the issue because they are working on things, but I just had a bit higher expectations.

I think the reality is that yeah, like we always think the adults in the room, those in power have the answers, but I there are no answers. We're all muddling through this thing together and the more you sit in it and the more you do, you realize that. But what you made me real as you were just saying that out loud I was thinking in real time Ali like I have for the lot for the last year assumed okay the single dominant system is dying multiple systems are coming out and I have been okay with that because for me we're all moving in the same direction we're just going to get there in different ways right so some of them are going to be the old dominant system is going to kind of carry through and some of it's going to be hyper local and some of it's going to be more businessoriented but I've always assumed we're moving in the same direction but what you just made me think was, "Oh gosh, what if what if the different streams are going in opposite directions or if they're clashing?" It sounds naive, but I honestly didn't think then what happens.

Um, and I don't know

that principles is the language to use because if we use the same set of principles, there's going to be a hark to humanitarian principles, right? and I think those not necessarily invalid, but certainly the way they've been operationalized and institutionalized and lived needs reframing and repositioning and so principles is probably going to take us off on a tangent, but the value point you mention I think is true and I don't personally think it needs to be any more complicated than a value of humanity and holding a value of humanity. However you want to then interpret that, whatever that needs from an operational point of view to be able to then uphold is going to be different and that will look different. And in some instances, maybe it will go like that.

But maybe that's okay.

Why is that not okay?

Yeah. This is why I' I've been thinking so much for the last year about values under pressure because we can all say we believe in equality and humanity and all of these things, but under pressure, it's like, well, you're getting to it at about survival, Ali. How do different people, different entities make different trade-offs and choices? And there's no exact there's no one has the answer. There's no perfect answer. Sometimes there's just a bad choice and a worse choice. But how are you making these tradeoffs under pressure and it sounds like to me, Ali, like depending on in the different spaces you're in, you're seeing different things.

That's um I see those different things. Um because I and I think I think it's normal. It's totally normal because it's different environments. Um so that's why I don't even expect that we will look at and see the future in the same way. That's totally normal. But I think maybe because I spend so much time and energy working at new ways like inventing in new ways, imagining in new ways, redesigning, thinking things in new ways, going back to the basics, you know, like an engine and then take it into small parts and then build it again. So maybe because that was my bubble. um those who are like we are going to make this change and take actions and then I realized that the institutions not only in Geneva but also in other in other locations and other countries they are approaching it in a in a bit different way because they had maybe other things to look to look at but you know there was this thing I want to show you it's it's actually what's triggered my thinking uh when I was leaving the airport I saw like advertisements It's not that clear.

Is it clear?

Um at the airport to children.

Yeah. And you know I was at the airport and I read that and but the first thing was like I wonder how many people in the at this airport understand what does that mean? You know what that terminology means or something. But then I was thinking about it. The first thing came to mind. But it's not the future. It's been always like local. Um I just think we approach it in different ways and this is number one. The second thing that sometimes to be honest I feel a bit worried that we are becoming a bit harsh on those we are one of them but those who were before you know being deployed doing XY Z and because I feel like you know the international organizations and experts

or international employees you know they were doing it in a at that time it worked it fit for purpose it was what was needed at that time. So I feel that sometimes that we are being a bit harsh on them um

because I know that even right now whatever we are going to do maybe in the future they will realize that we were doing something wrong at this moment or something. So I had all those different thoughts and then I went to into this thinking mode and I'm still now you see like I'm still thinking and reflecting it.

Fascinating you say that Hi. I'm one of those, right? I lived that characture expat humanitarian piece, right? A white British male. I flew out from the UK at the drop of a hat and I went in and I was coordinating and leading responses in retrospect and from my own position now I had no right to have such an influential authorative position in and yet the system enabled me and positioned me and invited me to do that. And so I've spent a lot of time over the last six or seven years really um reflecting on that and thinking about very minutia encounters and conversations and comments and feedback that I received then that at the time I glossed over and ignored and moved past very quickly.

But in retrospect I'm like wow that was incredibly loaded and actually very accurate. But I've had to do a lot of work on myself and I've had many conversations with other people in a similar space trying to understand and reflect what was our intention, what was the motive behind that and was the was the action and the activity and was our presence were the things we did there wrong or right. And I can't get past that. I don't I don't think that terminology is helpful to your point um around we've been too harsh. I don't know of anybody and speaking very personally I never went and did anything with mal intent right and yet times have moved on and arguably time had moved on that model was still in place but the intentionality was still very honest I think um and I think a lot of people and let's let's sort of be generalistic about it a lot of the current influential decision-m leaders of multilateral institutions had the same background, right?

Started from the same position, had the and now they are the ones where they're in the spotlight. And this kind of accusation of that model's bad is probably and I've not had any individual in a position dulge to me so I am speculating now but is probably causing a deepseated anxiety challenge to identity and their own value and their own presence in here which could well be impacting how they make decisions moving forward because do they want to admit that their whole career to date has been based on something that is not right? So to speak. I don't know. It's

and it's one thing it's one thing to be able to kind of have the openness to have those deep honest hard reflective moments within yourself when it's just you. But when you're doing it while trying to run a ship and everyone and all eyes are on you, it's a lot harder to be kind of, you know, vulnerable, open, etc. So I mean it's so interesting. I think that I we've all I think alluded to this in the past. this the sector itself is rupturing but so is broader society is rupturing right now. So it's like a microcosm within the broader context and in that moment there are many people not all but many people are navigating this complex change individually and within their communities and it's just it's it's it's so complex.

There are so many different threads and it feels like a big old tangle right now. And I but I think that's a good thing because this is the moment where something new can get birthed out of it. Like it needs to be this mess so that something good can come out of it. And I think we've all also talked about this. We need to be comfortable sitting in it because if we don't, we snap back to the old way.

But that's emotionally demanding. It carries a lot because you're grieving a lot. you're you're you're full of tension between optimism, hope, positivity, and jeopardy, anxiety, uncertainty, and they conflict. Um, so it's it's really hard work. But there's two things that you've each said that has stayed in my mind so far. One, Kim, was your reference to um how difficult it is to stay true to the values under pressure, right? And to me, the word pressure is doing a hell of a lot of work in that sentence. Mhm. What is the pressure? Where is the pressure coming from? Who is experiencing the pressure? And my assumption, and I'm sure it's far more complicated and nuanced, but my assumption is the pressure from most organizations at a decision-m seauite leadership level is fiscal and it's survival, right?

The pressure that they're feeling isn't unmet need. Whilst they'd never publicly admit that, right? because the unmet needs to always be there from a mission point of view. But I don't think that's the element that is driving a lot of pressurebased conversations. I might be cynical here that might you might challenge me on that. Please do and I hope that it is challenged. And the other bit that was said and is linked here. It was your bit Ali about a machine and an engine and you painted that picture of dismantling the engine and then rebuilding it. And I get what you mean. I totally get that. But in dismantling the engine, the assumption that we rebuild another engine in a single form that replaces the previous engine.

Surely actually we're talking about dismantling the engine and building a dozen engines and that actually those engines get built by very different people. And maybe they're not engines, right? Maybe they're other entities and things that get built. I think it's this mindset this sense that we've come from one thing that's big and it's the roll out of big and the pressures that exist within that big thing is this tension between financing survivability business model not necessarily profitable but certainly viable and this delivery of need against this sense of that's ruptured and now lots of things are coming and they're going to be going in different directions and having different motives with them. This is hard stuff to process and get your head around. And if it's all wrapped up in was everything I've done and is my career legitimate and is my background and experience right and valid and am I being accused of being neoconalist for the last 20 30 years?

How on earth are we coming up with creative solutions? I don't know how it's possible in that mindset.

Yeah. I think from my side and the way I look at it is that if I want to put my operational hat I think what one of the things that I learned in being in country operations and dealing with crisis non-stop is moving on and this is one number two continue building even if you know you are struggling with XY Z you continue moving forward even if you don't really know exactly which direction but you continue But there are some moments where I like to pause, zoom out and think about the whole system and what I mentioned for example about um Geneva and the other cities and the engine and all that.

It's one of those moments where I try to understand how the all this is functioning and what's happening and how can we all feed into each other and in a way or another it takes me back to our last um conversation the last episodes when we were talking about you know this one umbrella or one container as Kim described it and you know because I try sometimes to see how can we all feed into something um but I really like what you mentioned because it's you know when I'm saying an engine and take into pieces and try to build it again something you are right maybe we are not going to build one maybe it will be 100 or maybe we are not going to build an engine or something like that in the end of the day I think we will have to look at this from different perspectives and different angles and maybe we are going to do it in different ways and I think that's totally fine

so Thomas what you made me think of it in a different way which is interesting so in this analogy made me think of like so let's say energy we had one dominant way of meeting our energy needs and then there was wind and solar and wave power and all these things and you're right I think that is going to be the way right it's going to be a mix a combination and in every community the combination looks different based on like what your needs are etc but there is not going to be one dominant way to meet the energy needs but to what I had said earlier this process has not been smooth or linear it has very much been bumpy and oftentimes clashing because of competing interests and motivations etc.

And I don't know why that somehow makes me feel better because there is an analogy that I can kind of fit it in and it's hopefully going to be okay because I think in general we are moving in a direction. We know that it's kind of inevitable that there is going to have to be a mix of ways that we meet our energy needs. But if the container is meeting social good needs, the needs of humanity, if that's the container, there's going to be so many modalities to get there. And we're so used to having just like that one common dominant one.

And I think this is where hope comes in um and optimism because I think the human spirit and people having a value of humanity and wanting to enact it is going to embody and will shape that container. Um the challenge is in letting go of the control over defining that container and having nice neat terminology and packaging of said container component parts that's going to be messy. Um,

but I think as someone who really enjoys control that this is it has been a learning journey, a real journey.

There's there's there's there's so much in psychoynamic theory about this sense of lack, the sense of desire, the desire for control that you have and the lack of control feeding anxiety and activating nervous systems and all the rest of it. And it's it's I'm I've written a blog that's going to come out soon about knowledge encounters and how you embrace different bits of knowledge. And it's it's not actually about the knowledge that you're receiving because you get that everywhere, right? Um people will have knowledge encounters when they're they're listening to this whilst they're driving or walking the dog or whatever, right? They'll hear something. It's not about the knowledge you receive. It's about your ability to receive said knowledge, right? What moment are you in?

Is there too many distractions? What mindset have you got? Who's presenting the knowledge? Is it an authoritative, credible voice that you respect? Is it packaged in a visual way, a written way, an audible way? Right? The way you receive information is central, paramount here. And you've got to have uh an enabling and open ability to receive this knowledge. And a way to do that is by calming down your nervous system.

Yes, I'm also on that journey. you mentioned before um you mentioned before that there's a lot of you know both within what's happening within our work world and within the world um there's so much change and it takes a hit on your nervous system and it and I have been feeling that frankly the last couple weeks really strongly and it's in it's in your body and the other day I was so tired and I was just kind of wandering around you know when you're like in that days and you're just kind of wandering around and either you're doom scrolling or you're staring out the window and I was trying to figure out what was wrong cuz I couldn't pinpoint. There wasn't anything one thing that I was reacting to and then I realized my body was processing grief.

There was no one moment. No one had died. Nothing bad, you know, it was just the collective grief that was trying to be processed in just trying to exist through this moment and do so by while living my values under pressure. And so you talked about values under pressure at the institutional level, Thomas, but I like thinking about it in that way because every micro moment of interaction of relation is an opportunity to live your values under pressure. But it does take a toll and I don't I think we need we will burn out if we don't acknowledge that. So sometimes I am proactive and I paint and I exercise and sometimes I get under the covers and I watch a TV show

and both are fine. Um there was there was something we spoke about slightly before this about walking the talk in this sense, right? And both of you have got experiences and lived experiences of recognizing this that this requirement to shift mindset and to open up and be reflective to enable you to embrace the change in a more constructive, open, reflective, creative, curious way. I just wondered if either of both of you wanted to say a little bit about how you are going about that as current practitioners within your worlds.

Yeah, let me let me give you some examples. Just few hours before this conversation, I was having um a meeting with a CEO and executive management and they've been working on changing the model both governance model as well as program design and operations model and like from different angles and it's been over a year journey extremely challenging but in the beginning of the journey the decision was we want to do things differently and whatever risks will come with it challenges issues we will um accept them and proceed. So when we started that journey we identified the values and the main vision or goal that we have we locked them and then we started experimenting. So I felt at that time the leadership and the exe executive management they share their message they share their value and then walked it and then went through this journey.

That's that's one example. Another one I think last year I have worked with so many local organizations that they wanted to have this hyper model where they could break that dependency and they have certain ways to generate their own income and have revenue and XY Z and of course they had this identity question between whether they are they nonprofit or profit are they still humanitarian or not and all these different identity questions but the decision was that we need to do things differently and we need to invent that. So they had they started experimenting and all that and for me the values and the principles and the vision about breaking that dependency they put it blocked it and then they started experimenting. So just those are simple examples of people who uh put certain values or principles and then they walk the talk.

Kim, what's your experience? You talking about at the personal or at the institutional level?

I was referring to institutional but if you've got a personal reflection love to hear that as well.

I mean at the personal level I would say that you know how as a as a parent when you're teaching your kids to name their emotions you actually parent you teach yourself to at the same time like often times you are growing with them because you're trying to model for them and then you realize that you're evolving at the same time. It's not a perfect analogy. I'm not saying that that people that I work with are like children. [laughter] But I do think the last year of holding space for others has taught me a whole lot about myself because in order to hold a safe space for others to process their feelings, you have to come as an authentic, vulnerable human yourself. If you don't, it doesn't work.

And so I don't know that I would have done that if I hadn't done had to do it for others to be quite honest with you because it's not necessarily what I'm most comfortable with. But doing it in a professional setting for that purpose has helped me to kind of be open and honest about um about how I'm processing things with myself so I could do it for others. So that's at a personal level I think at walking the talk. So my ex my um my experience comes from working for Himementum. I've been here for over a decade. It's shifted and evolved in many different ways while I've been here, but one of our values is actually walk the talk. It's one of the values and the organization I will say actually does live its values.

It's embedded in kind of our meetings and our everything the whole thing and whether you know nothing is perfect. We don't always do it perfectly, but it is very much front of mind of how do we do this in every encounter. And one of the things I mean, Ali, you're talking about survival that we've been internally kind of acknowledging and struggling with attention is we're a mission-based nonprofit, right? Which is trying to do what we want to do and what we set out to do, but you also have your business model. And so the tension and some of that business model is fee for service and some of it is grant-based and it's a whole mix. So how do you and right now that is under a lot of constraint.

So how do you live the tension of meeting the mission and making like forwardleaning decisions and not kind of locking yourself into reactive survival mode when you're, you know, you're on this line, you're in this environment. It's constant tension that we're like actively surfacing and trying to talk about so that you can make at least the trade-offs with eyes wide open, I guess, is how you walk the talk because they're all trade-offs and none of the trade-offs are going to be 100% perfect.

What about you? I agreed.

Well, I it's interesting. I had a six or sevenyear journey with SAVE in Eastern Southern Africa going through this process and I was helped along that journey by the requirements of operational pivot during COVID and the sort of internal depth reflections that we all went through collectively during Black Lives Matter movement and things like that. I' I've I've had a I think quite and in retrospect I've had a lengthy probably privileged journey through this change that many have had to very abruptly be forced to go through over the last 12 month process. Um and so I'm quite at peace with myself on that journey. Um and I've made my career choices to reflect that I think. But I was recently this week having a conversation with someone who is sort of spearheading the strategy refresh of their organization and they as a sort of strategy team had embraced and recognized the fact that ecosically was the direction of travel.

Um but what they were struggling with was two things. One which was the presentation of the problem to me was how do we do that? we've not done that before. So, how do we do that? What does that look like? Um, and so we had a conversation about that. But then what unearthed in the conversation was the second thing which was actually that speaks to core identity of the individuals in that team because suddenly it's positioning them in a different place to where they have from their own point of view come to the work through an attempt to live their purpose, right? And so by kind of unearthing this, you're you're you're you're sharing and you're circulating and socializing some quite raw emotion um that people are either suppressing or they're they're they're on their own internal narrative journey to understand.

And that needs that needs sensitive handling. um it needs intentional handling and people shouldn't shy away from that and recognize that cuz the way I frame that, the way I imagine that is it's it's people going through trauma. Um it's not kind of, you know, gunshot trauma, but it's it's trauma. It's it's self-reflective in uncomfortable ways, but we need to and that's a central to me that's a central tenet of thinking ecosmically is having that whole visibility of your position within an ecosystem. The influence you have on that ecosystem and the powers and the forces that are shaping your presence and how you show up in that system and these are forces shaping the way people show up in ecosystems. If you ignore them, then you're only doing

the job. Can I push back on that just a little bit? And I don't, maybe it's not pushing back. I don't even know if I agree with what I'm about to say, but I'm gonna say, so I agree with you, Thomas. Like, I think this is a moment, right? And there's a lot of people that are navigating a lot of complex things at a personal level, at the organizational level, while all trying to keep the lights on. And that should not be minimized or discounted. And maybe we can invent new ways to do navigate this better because so many people are going through it collectively. And at the same time, Ali, you said in the beginning like people in country offices have been dealing with this stuff forever.

Like money comes, money goes, we have to pivot. Like we don't the rug gets pulled out from under us. We've just gotten on with it and not really complained because we didn't have the luxury of dealing with it. So I mean that I don't know. I'm not saying that's good or bad. It's just like it's it's a truth. It's a fact. I don't know. I think

I think from my perspective we have that experience like and okay if the leadership at certain level they didn't practice that let's say because it's a bit stable they are focusing more strategic direction portfolio management liquidity XY Z that's totally fine but maybe that's exactly the right time to tap into the other you know the team members who has that experience but I also want to mention something um here I think it's very important to distinguish between strategic decision and identity decision because in the past year I think that was one of the dilemas that I faced personally and also those organizations that I was supporting they there were certain decisions they were strategic they could bring them certain benefits when it comes to positioning financial gains XY Z but they were not meeting their identity so they let go of that to take identity decisions and the same on the other side sometimes there are some identity decisions that might not give you strategic position.

So I think sometimes it's very important to distinguish between those both but from my perspective if we are trying to make a change will not happen if we are excluding people and especially in a sector that is complex it's organized complexity with all those different layers and area size country region global XY Z we need to bring people together and we need to bring those bridges and tap into the different experiences that the people have and there are some meetings where I sit there and we are talking about liquidity, exchange rate, um diversify funding and donors and XY Z. There are certain meetings where I sit there and we talk about impact program and uh optimize optimizing operations etc. I think that's fine but the main important thing is that we keep the core those values that we were talking about or that's the core of our works.

It must be there regardless what type of conversation that we are having. It's

fascinating. You talk about identity versus strategy decisions. Ali, I was teaching on a on a course with a group of civil society representatives this week and we talked exactly about that. We talked about identity based decision-making and in identity we referred to um kind of how people's relationship with power, their relationship with voice, visibility, legitimacy, tolerance for compromise. How do they as an individual show up against those topics? Right? And how does their identity against those connect with or push against the issue with which they are approaching? Now the context of that was in advocacy. So it was talking about advocacy based issues and the strategy side were the kind of modes of activity for advocacy. Is it public? Is it media? Is it civil rights?

Um grassroots activism, diplomacy, you know, there's different approaches to advocacy. and is someone's identity shaping the strategy and actually that's not what's required for the cause and the issue. And so the session was talking about maturing your identity starting with an awareness of where you are to then be able to understand is that the right approach or not. And that's a that takes a lot though, right? It's there's a lot of internal reflection that's required on that. The other thing that I heard that I thought was resonant was on decision- making. There are decisions that you can roll back on and there are decisions that you can't. And this came completely outside the sector. It was this guy Rory Sutherland in the marketing world, Ogal V space.

He used an example of Amazon, right? He's like introducing Amazon Prime is a decision you can roll back on, right? If suddenly the finances don't work on it or the people reject the concept of subscribing to it, then you just stop it and you go back to what you were doing. the decision to open up a $3 billion distribution plant in City X, that's not really a decision you can roll back on, right? So, the due diligence and the degrees of certainty that you need to start going into each of those is very different. But I do worry that maybe we're we're we're applying same levels of due diligence on problems regardless of whether they're ones you can roll back on or not.

Well, it's also a question of time. I mean, this came up in a webinar that Ali and I were on a couple weeks ago where it's like, you know, short medium-term time and then deep time. So, you know, all of what you're talking about is when you're making real big strategic decisions for like even medium to deep time, yeah, you want to really make the right calls, but then some it's sometimes you're having to make a decision in like a very short period of time from a survival perspective. So, how do you acknowledge how the constraints you're in shape your choices while still not trying to get locked into that reactive survival mode? Like, it is a it is a balance knowing that like, yeah, I want to be able to sit and reflect and make the right strategic choice, but sometimes like, can I make payroll, you know?

And that speaks to I think a topic that we'll have to pick up on the next episode that you came about navigating nuance, right? Um and how does this come and how does this play out? And I'm also thinking as someone who might be listening to this conversation. I'd imagine I'd like to think that there's a lot of resonance and understanding and connection with what we're saying, but I can imagine the question that they'd be screaming at us if they could have a two-way conversation was so what? Right? what do we do about all this? And that's one that I mean there are ways to talk about that and are things that people can look at and do, but we certainly haven't touched on that today.

So maybe that's something else we should pick up on a future conversation.

What I usually tell my friends and also even the leaders that I work with that in order to create the future, you have to live in the future long enough before it happens. So you have to sit first reflect and think then imagine that future and sit with it like sit with that future that you are imagining and then go back to the present. So I feel like and for me that's what I learned in also in this sector and especially working at strategic level that sometimes you need to live in the future before it happens and then you go back and build the present. But to be honest and we I think we say this in each episode that as long as we have um more questions and we are approaching them with curiosity, things are okay.

No need to rush for the answers.

The one of the final lines in this blog I'm putting out is the future is unlikely to yield answers, but that's not the point. I think for me it's not about answers. It's about better questions. Um and that's I think what you're saying, Ali. That's exactly it, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. Should we end it there?

Thanks, folks.

Yeah, that was good. Any final comment remark?

How are you closing it? How you be in this conversation? Staying curious. I like that, honey. Kim, how are you leaving this?

I'm leaving it reflecting on the fact that we always start talking about structures and we always end talking about interpersonal.

That's nice.

I'm leaving thinking um about have the next conversation um what comes next. So may maybe we will call up tomorrow and uh and release in a few time.

Yeah. But um it was really nice actually expressing those thoughts and sharing with you what's um in my head. It also feels a bit of relief.

You got to get it out. You don't even if it doesn't get untangled. It feels better when it's out there.

Yeah. Yeah.

But I do like to help process.

You want to be invited back.

Yes. Nice job.

Good conversation. There's there's a lot that sentence of let's not go back to Geneva is doing a lot of

work. So let's let's just leave that there. [laughter] I'll see you all next time. Bye. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Take care. Bye.