E119: Decolonizing Nonprofit Leadership: Redefining Risk, Safety & Imagination with Pierre Berastain

Speaker A: Hello, Podcast fam. Um, I am thrilled to share some exciting news. My book, so Grow Lead is officially live on Amazon. This book is more than just my story of starting a nonprofit and building a peanut butter factory in Malawi. So trust me, the ups and downs of that journey are worth the read. It's also packed with practical strategies to help nonprofit leaders like you tackle challenges with clarity, clarity, courage and a whole lot of heart. If you've ever wondered how to turn your vision into reality, navigate the inevitable hurdles, and build something meaningful, um, whether in your organization or in your own life, this book is for you. I'd be so grateful for your support in spreading the word. Grab your copy of Sow Grow Lead in the show notes and on Amazon today. Let's keep sowing seeds of impact together. Welcome to the Lead With Heart podcast, which is dedicated to nonprofit leaders who are passionate about making a difference. I'm your host, Hayley Cooper, and I'm thrilled to have you join us on a journey of growth, inspiration and transformation. At UH Lead With Heart, we believe that leading with heart means embracing empathy, compassion and authenticity in every aspect aspect of our work. It's about putting people first, fostering genuine connections and creating a positive impact that goes beyond numbers and metrics. In the non profit world, it can often feel like we're carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders. The challenges are immense and the road can be lonely. But here, you're not alone. This podcast is a community where we support each other, share our stories and learn together. Each episode we'll dive into personal and professional development topics tailored specifically for non profit leaders. From innovative fundraising strategies and effective team management to self care practices and leadership insights, we're here to provide you with practical strategies that you can apply to your life and work. My goal is to empower you, elevate your leadership and engage your heart in all that you do. I want to help you navigate the unique challenges of the nonprofit sector with confidence and resilience so you can continue to create meaningful change in the world. So whether you're driving to a meeting, taking a break, or winding down for the day, tune in and join us on this journey. Together we'll discover what it truly means means to lead with heart. Thank you for being here. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the Lead with Heart podcast. This is your host, Hayley Cooper, and I am so excited to be joined by Pierre, the former Regional Director for North America at the center for Public Impact and the co founder of Kaminar Latino Latinos United for Peace and Equity. With over 15 years of experience in organizational management and program implementation, Pierre has been recognized nationally for his leadership in addressing gender based violence, immigration, LGBTQ advocacy and restorative justice. In our conversation, we are going to be diving deep into culturally informed leadership and his approach to decolonizing for a new era. Welcome to the podcast, Pierre.

Speaker B: Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here.

Speaker A: Well, I would love to know a little bit more about you, your background and what you got to really focus on where you are today.

Speaker B: Happy to. Yes, thanks for having me here again. Most of my work has been in nonprofits and my background is in public health, gender based violence, working at the margins really, and how we reimagine systems to bring the margins to the center. So I've done work again in direct services, in gender based violence organizations, domestic sexual violence. I've done work at the federal level around training, technical assistance, capacity building, public policy and research, and most recently at, uh, the center for Public Impact, where I was until recently, I focused on systems change with, in partnership with governments, so local and state governments mostly, uh, but also some demonstrations with the federal government. And I've always brought both kind of my lived experience and my professional, my professional lens to that or academic background to the work that I do in terms of centering communities.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that is such important work. What drew you to this specific work and what keeps you motivated today?

Speaker B: That's quite a personal answer that I'm happy to share in that. I grew up in PERU in the 90s, in the 80s and 90s. And during that time period, Peru was going through an internal warfare. It was going through, uh, if you will, a civil war that tore the country apart and created tremendous instability. And that created the push factors for my family to leave the country and move to the United States. And we came with that kind of promise or ambition, that dream of having a more stable, secure, safe future. And so as a child, I saw firsthand how systems that were failing or government that had left a vacuum, left vulnerable populations or left people vulnerable or at risk of exploitation and violence. But what I noticed as I grew up in the United States as well is that many of those same systems that sought to help migrants or people who were from underprivileged or neglected communities further marginalized those communities. Right. So I grew up as a gay, Latino, undocumented kid in the suburbs of Dallas. And there I had some of the best experiences with my high school, my middle school friends, elementary school, like my community was all supportive. And I Also saw how systems and how people sometimes exploited my parents. And so, um, I think that living through that complexity of navigating systems gave me a passion for social justice and calibrating this desire to be in a country that had the promise of a better tomorrow with the realities that we're not there yet. And it takes systems, it takes community to push the boundaries of what we have imagined, to create systems that are more inclusive.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for sharing your story. And I appreciate what motivates you to do this work from what you saw in your upbringing. And you are just truly inspiring. And I just admire the work that you're doing, and I'm excited to dive deep into this conversation. So you talk about colonizing mindsets and how, uh, there's often universal risk and safety from a Western lens. And you talk about what is unsafe or risky for a white Western leader who may not be the same reality for black or bipoc colleagues whose lived experience equips them differently. So how do colonizing narratives show up in how leaders define risk and safety?

Speaker B: Yeah, when we talk about safety and risk, these concepts, we have to recognize that those wars are not just neutral. Right? Because I think they're defined through a colonizing lens. And I've been in situations where a Western white leader said, for instance, we can't go to X country anymore because it's not safe, or we can't go to X part of the United States even because it's not safe. But the entire team that is traveling to that unsafe place is comes from that community or looks like the community where they're going. And so what felt unsafe for that leader who says it's not safe is that this person might be coming from a, uh, country that is the colonizing country. And that wasn't the same reality for colleagues who had a different lived experience. Right. Whose lived experience is different in the world. And that's what a colonizing narrative does. Right. They universalize one particular perspective of risk, I should say, and make that the standard. When in fact, I think safety is experienced very differently depending on who you are and where you're situated. And I felt this dynamic personally as well. So I'm often criticized for being too compliance focused, for example, or too risk averse. And usually those critiques have come from leaders with privilege or people who can afford to be more flexible. Right. Because the consequences for them might be lighter. And the truth is that I love taking risks, but I take really calculated strategic risks as a leader. Here's where my background comes into play because I grew up in a country that lived under a dictatorship where stepping out of line could literally cost someone their life. And when you grow up in that context, you're conditioned to be cautious, to measure every move, because you've seen what happens when people get punished for coloring outside those lines. And that is the very mechanism that we employ in colonialism, right? Where the colonizing folks, if you will, have, ah, much more latitude to break the rules. But one tiny step outside the boundaries for the colonized can lead to death. And of course, that's not just my story. As I've mentioned, it's a story of many people of color. It's of colonized communities that we've inherited, right? Those legacies from generation to generation. And so when we step out of line, the punishment is swift, the punishment is severe. And for others with privilege, stepping out of line might even be celebrated, I think, sometimes as innovation or celebrated as courageous. And that's inequity, right? Without realizing that we're doing that, that's inequity. So when people critique leaders of color for being too cautious, right. I think what they're missing is the history, the conditioning, the lift survival strategies that we carry. And I think that decolonizing leadership means asking, whose safety are we centering? Whose risk taking are we valorizing? Those questions are really important because I think until we confront that, we're just going to be reinforcing the very systems where privilege of risk belongs to some people and the burden of compliance just ends up, uh, belonging to others.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's such an important point, and I love the way that you explain that. And how can, you know, Western leaders, which often dominate the C suite, how can we begin to shift those narratives or colonizing narratives and begin to open up the ability for other people to create that safety?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question. I think that one of the most overlooked ways that colonizing mindsets shows up in organizations is how labor, how imagination gets distributed. So certain people, right? And it's often white leaders, people with privilege, people at the top of the hierarchy. They're given the space to imagine, to think about the future, to design strategy, to innovate, right? Like you sit down and you're the armchair anthropologist if you know that imagery of just sitting back and philosophizing around the world and thinking about what solution you might present, right? And that's presented as visionary leadership, which it is, right? But meanwhile, leaders of color and frontline staff, who are often people of color, right, in human serving organizations, they get stuck in the day to day of keeping the wheels running, keeping the wheels turning, moving things along. And they're overloaded with execution, they're overloaded with compliance, with putting out fires, right? They're in this hamster wheel of emergency. And I think that the reality is that if you can't rest, if you can't take space for disconnecting from the day to day grind, you can't be creative. You just can't be creative when you're exhausted. And it's not actually about bad management. It's about how privilege works. In my mind. I, uh, think privilege creates a buffer that gives some leaders the time and the psychological safety to imagine bold new systems. But the people closest to the ground, who often have the sharpest insight into what's actually broken, what's marginalizing people further, they don't get that same space, right? So instead they're expected to carry untenable workloads. I worked with someone who had 300 people, 400 people in their caseload, right? And so when that burden hits. No, seriously, I mean, it's just ridiculous. So I think when that burden becomes overwhelming, right, we tell them, you're not resilient enough, you haven't done time management in the way that you should. Right. You should be compartmentalizing your day in a better way. And I'll just end by saying I think that decolonizing leadership asks us to flip that script. It means that you have to recognize that imagination is actually not a luxury. In my mind. I think imagination is a right and it's a responsibility that we should share. And organizations need to intentionally carve out the space for leaders of color and frontline staff to step out of survivor mode and into spaces of creativity, spaces of rest. And that could look like redistributing the workload, rethinking whose labor is invisible, creating structures where the frontline staff are part of the innovation conversations instead of just the implementation that happens afterwards. And I think that the best systems don't just come from the people, as I've mentioned, who are protecting, protected from harm. It comes from those who've had to navigate broken systems who know where the cracks are because they've lived through those cracks.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: But if we only give imagination to the privileged, we lose the wisdom of those lived experiences. So to me, decolonizing leadership means asking, who gets to dream here? Who gets to rest? How do we redesign our organization so that those answers aren't always given by the same people? I think that's important.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's beautiful. And I definitely experienced that working in the nonprofit field where leaders come in and they're like, this is a program we're going to offer because it worked for us and this is my approach to leadership. So we're going to go train the community in this way. But there's no community voice, there's no program voice which often come from the community in which they're serving and have gone through the program and now we're hired into the organization. And those come with the conversations of what you think over here isn't necessarily what's going to work for the community. And ah, there is no buy in and belonging. So you can't just go into a community and present a program without the buy in and the understanding of what they're seeking. Right. Like you don't necessarily understand like what they need unless you ask. And I think that's where nonprofits miss the mark sometimes is when they don't listen to the community and they just come in and decide on a program that might work for them.

Speaker B: Yeah, I, uh, couldn't agree more. True.

Speaker A: So you were talking about unequal distribution of labor and imagination. And I love that you said imagination is a right. And I also think rest is a right. Like we have to create these spaces for rest and not just expect people to deliver, uh, all the time and also be able to bring their whole selves to work. And obviously that is easier said than done. And you talk about there are certain identities that get the privilege of imagining systems. We just talked about that while leaders of color are often burned out with exhaustion, overwork or keeping things running. We talked a bit about the overview, but I guess how, like in theory, how can organizations restructure to ensure leaders of color and frontline staff have equal space for creativity and rest?

Speaker B: The restructuring is really difficult because it requires resources. Right. Privilege is tied to resources oftentimes. And so when you're thinking about restructuring, how you restructure the way that you work. Right. One of the things that we did at CPI at the center for Public Impact, for instance, is we created a buffer for people about 10 to 20% of their time to be dedicated to something like professional development, to connecting with colleagues to grow in themselves to think creatively. And sometimes some of those best ideas in terms of program design that we had came from that. In fact, I remember that there was a program off site that the team did where all they did was create this program. Recipes from your work on the ground. What would you create in terms of a CPI Offering and the staff came up with some brilliant ideas that leadership none of us could have ever come across, uh, none of us could have concocted. And we were so excited about some of them that we just said, let's pilot some of these. Let's try start thinking about how we would design some of these. And when I left, I know that the staff was thinking about more intentionally how to bring those ideas to fruition. That only happened because we created the space to do it right in people's time. We created in our off site, we created that space for people to, to be able to connect. Uh, a lot of innovation, a lot of creativity happens in community as well, rather than individualistically. And whenever possible, having people work together, having people interact, just sparks creativity in a different way. The problem oftentimes is that we've compartmentalize our work so much that people just oftentimes just go into their own box and just move forward with their own kind of work stream. And that lack of connection, especially in a remote environment, hampers creativity, hampers imagination, innovation. So especially for organizations that are working in remote environments, I think that the power of coming together, prioritizing that becomes even more important. So those are just some kind of tidbits that come to mind.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I've worked in a lot of nonprofits that, uh, operate in silos, and it seems like the leader has purposely separated each department from working with each other. And at the end of the day, like, it's hard to build those relationships because people don't understand the work that you're doing, or they don't understand why you need them or what the purpose is. And at the end of the day, you all have a shared mission. And yes, it does stunt that. I've seen it stunt that creativity. But when we build those relationships, when we come together, we were able to come up with so many better ideas than what we could on our own, or if someone was stuck. Right. Like we were able to problem solve together, come up with a better solution, or get rid of a program that might have not been serving the community in the way that we had envisioned. And so I think that is so important for leaders to bridge those gaps. And in theory, I would love to ask you, like, how can leaders do that in organizations that have historically operated in different departments? Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That's Donorbox, A Comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that give fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges. Helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs. Helping you help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more.

Speaker B: We talked about, uh, some tactical pieces, but I think that there is an underlying kind of culture change that needs to happen in organizations. And that starts with trust and vulnerability, right? In fostering meaningful, true connections with people. And uh, that's not the same as uh, saying everybody in the organization needs to be friends. I don't believe that's true. But in the organization you have to foster trust and you have to foster vulnerability. And one of the ways that I think that it's important that we think about trust is tangentially speaking, for me at least I have trust in my colleagues when I know that what they say, they're going to follow through. When I see a pattern of reliability and accountability in my colleagues, I foster trust through vulnerability as well. When I am hurt by something, when something has caused harm, I can be open to my colleague and see how my colleague reacts and holds that vulnerability in a tender manner so that we can grow from that harm. And that requires teaching the skills of conflict transformation. And I've talked about this in other spaces, that it's not just conflict resolution. It's not about how you and I tie up the conflict that we had in a nice bow. It's about how we transform our relationship as a result of the conflict that we had. How we are differently relating to each other, how we relate to ourselves, how a conflict uncovers or reveals something about us as individuals. Right? Those kind of juicy questions, existential questions, become really important. And I'll give you an example. I had um, a colleague, senior colleague, who was co facilitating a workshop with another senior colleague from a university. And this they thought they were co facilitating. And this professor just took over and started asking my other colleague to take notes and describe. And there was a power imbalance there, even though they were both senior people. And this, my colleague was a woman of color and she came to me later and said, I don't mind doing that at all, but I would like some recognition of the power imbalance and the optics that this creates. This colleague is a close friend of mine. Now it's a good friend of mine who at first this happened in literally in the first two weeks of my, when I was at the organization. But she brought it up to me and I think we worked through that in a way that transformed our relationship, that strengthened our relationship where we just had tremendous amount of trust that when we were vulnerable, it would be held in a tender way and in a way that was. That would help grow and that would help us move forward. So I think, to answer your question about desiloing, I think desiloing departments, deciloing teams, begins with trust and vulnerability.

Speaker A: Yes, I 100% agree. And I'm trained in this process called EMC leadership. And it is. Dr. Lola Gershfeld has been on the podcast and she is a mentor of mine, and she talks about what you talked about around conflict. And we go through what you were saying earlier. What are some of those automatic thoughts and triggers? Like what? From your background experiences, how you react in those ways of not feeling seen, not feeling heard, not feeling valued, not feeling like you have a seat at the table. And everyone wants that, Everyone wants to feel that way. We want to feel connected to each other. And when we feel that disconnection, that's where the conflict arises. And so it's not necessarily about the content, but it is about, like you said with your friend, like, sometimes we just need someone to validate our experience. They know that what we are experiencing is valid and real. And you were able to open that up for your colleague. And when we feel that way, then we're able to collaborate or think about how we want to be able to move forward, but we can't in those places of, uh, feeling unseen, which are totally valid feelings. And when you just say, I see you, I'm here for you, what you're experiencing is valid, opens up that door for more trust and more vulnerability.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: So you talk as culture as a lens and not a liability. You talk about how leadership isn't culturally neutral, and all leaders bring cultural scripts, whether examined or not. So I love to ask this question on the podcast because everyone has a different answer. How do you define culture for an organization?

Speaker B: Culture becomes, I think, or one aspect of culture is the unspoken norms, unspoken scripts that everybody just abides by and that get passed down, right? From to the new employee to the new team member, generation to generation, right? And that creates the culture of the organization. Cultures are also quite, uh, adaptive and emergent, right? They're not static. And so when you have a new leader who comes in, their culture gets shifted. When you have your staff member, their cultures gets shifted as well. And that's not a bad thing, right? Because I always say, when I hire, I don't hire for cultural fit. I do hire for cultural contribution, for cultural impact. And I don't think how Is this person going to just fit in the culture that we already have? I think how is this person going to enhance the culture that we've created? How is it going to push us to examine our biases, our perspectives, our assumptions? Right. And that becomes really critical. That becomes really important for me as a hiring manager. So I see culture as not static. I see culture as, uh, something that needs to be examined, interrogated. Because it just means that we have all inherited cultural scripts, norms that undergird how we communicate, how we interact with each other, how we move through a certain work stream or deliverables. All of that is part of organizational culture.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that perspective. And also that you said. I've talked about this on the podcast before because I've heard, do you hire for culture fit or culture contribution or culture ad? Right. Like, how is this person gonna add. Because culture fit can sometimes be defined as like, conformity, Right. Where, like, you have to conform to a certain way of whatever is set with the culture. And if you go outside the line, then there is fear of retribution. And so how do you incorporate that into your hiring processes to make sure that you are adding value in a multiple different of ways?

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: So what does it mean to be culturally competent? And why is it dangerous when we pretend that leadership is culturally neutral?

Speaker B: So we just talked about culture, organizational culture. But there is a difference between organizational culture and, um, the cultures that we bring, the backgrounds we bring as individuals to the work. And I think that one of the biggest myths that we carry in leadership is that there is such a thing as cultural neutrality, that as a leader, you have to just understand other people's cultures to work with them. And so we say things like, be professional. But what that really means in most contexts is conform to a dominant norm. Right. Conform to a dominant script. And in the United States and in many Western institutions, that usually means wide Western individualistic norms. Right. But I think the truth is that no leader comes into the room as a blank slate. We all bring cultural scripts. We all bring the values that we were raised with, the stories that shaped us. Right. The ways that we've learned to navigate conflict as we talked about, or silence. Right. And some of those scripts empower us, and some of them harm us, some of them wound us, but they're always there. And when we pretend that leadership is neutral, what we're really doing is making one culture invisible and turning that just into the default. And that's dangerous. I think that's dangerous because it often erases differences and makes people feel like their culture is a liability rather than a strength. And I've experienced this firsthand. Right. I give you an example. I oftentimes when I go into organizations where I first join, I get told that I come across as too serious and too aloof, too direct even. And almost always that critique has come from people in the dominant culture in the United States. I always say, I respond by saying, in the United States, people often introduce themselves in very friendly, bubbly ways. Oh, my God. How are you? It's so nice to meet you. It's just like this burst of energy and excitement to meet you. But in my cultural context, especially in professional environments, that kind of bubbliness, I think that's a word. We're going to make it a word.

Speaker A: It is a word.

Speaker B: It is a word now.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm picking up what you're putting down.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. Uh, but honestly, that kind of energy, that bubbliness, it just feels suspicious. I think, what does the person want from me? So my instinct is to mistrust it. And meanwhile, my American colleague sees my seriousness and thinks, what the heck is he hiding?

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: And so we're both misreading each other because we're each bringing our cultural scripts into the room, into the conversation. And I remember a manager one time told me that at first she was scared to work with me. And we often conflate scared with intimidated. She meant that she was intimidated to work with me because of how serious I seemed. But a few months later, she came back and she asked me to be her permanent manager because she realized that I actually wasn't that cultural. I was deeply collaborative. I was deeply. One of my colleagues told me one time, people need to see the more fun side of you in general. And so her first impression was shaped by that cultural bias that we all carry, just as mine was also shaped by my cultural bias in assuming that someone's warmth is manipulation or that they're hiding something. So as a leader, I've had to unlearn, uh, that reflex and remind myself that this isn't someone being manipulative.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: This is someone expressing warmth in their own cultural context. And I have to be open to that. And therapy has helped a lot on that. Right. I understand my own cultural competence. So that's what cultural competence really is. It's not about memorizing facts about other people's traditions as a leader or memorizing when their holidays are. Those are nice. Of course they are. But it's about having the humility and self awareness to Examine your own defaults, right? To ask questions like, what has shaped me here? What do I carry into every room? What are the gifts of my cultural background? And what are the habits or biases that I might need to unlearn? So, um, going back to decolonizing leadership, I think that decolonizing leadership and your mindset requires this kind of reflection. Right. If we don't name our own culture, we risk replicating harms unconsciously. And when we do name it, we can begin to see a cultural lens, not a liability. And that's when leadership, I think, becomes more authentic, just more human, more capable of just holding difference with integrity. I always say, or sometimes I say, you can't build belonging for others if you disown or you are unaware of your own story. I really think that's true.

Speaker A: That is so good. I love that you talk about redistributing voice and authority. And in colonizing structures, authority flows from the top down and is usually held by those with the most privilege, which we have talked about. So let's talk a little bit more about what does it look like to center lived experience in leadership rather than professional credentials alone?

Speaker B: You're so right. It's so right that in colonizing structures, authority does flow from the top down. It's hierarchical. Right? Decisions are made by those who have, in your words, the most privileged. Right. And then the people most affected by those decisions are rarely in the room. And that's what reinforces harms, that's what reinforces conflict. Because systems are designed, uh, about those people rather than with those people. Right. Rather than with us. And so decolonizing leadership, I think, flips that logic. It asks, what if lived experience, you ask about lived experience was treated as expertise? What if we navigated a problem with people who have experienced the cracks in a system, and those folks were the ones helping to redesign it? And that requires a, uh, redistribution of voice, a redistribution of authority. And it's not only about inviting people to share a story. There are so many times that I've been in conferences where we bring the experts in the front and then we bring the person who's lived experience, who's gone through domestic violence or has gone through immigration. They just tell the story, and then the experts comment on it. M And those folks who are telling the story, they are experts in the system too. We just are asking the right questions. And so it's giving the space, but also the power to reshape the system and to shape the decisions that are going to affect their lives. And I think I have a powerful example on how we do this or how I've done this in my career with colleagues. And it's the work that we've done through the SAFES center and the SAFE center, it's a federal initiative that looks at, uh, safe access to child support for survivors of domestic violence. And historically, policies around child support have been written without survivors voices, right? Which means that the very systems that were supposed to provide financial stability support, right, they often end up jeopardizing safety for survivors of domestic violence. So to change that, we work with a number of demonstration sites, different states, 13, 12 states and one tribal nation that we're looking at how they could create survivor to improve survivor access to the child support system in a safer banner. And to do this, they created survivor advisory councils. So survivors of domestic violence sat at the table. They examined policies, they give direct feedback on what might decrease safety, what's unintentionally placing survivors at harm or greater risk. So that's what it looks like to center people with lived experience as experts rather than just as a token or as an ornament to your process. And I think that the key is that again, that input is not treated as an add on. It actually shapes the actual policy recommendations that it informs what states we're testing. In practice, it changes how agency understand responsibility. That's what the redistribution of authority, of decision making looks like in action. And for me, this is the heart of decolonizing leadership. Again, moving from tokenizing people, tokenizing lived experience to centering it. Because I think professional credentials can give you a title, right? But lived experience gives you the wisdom about the realities of a system. Right? I have a doctorate, but I can tell you that I've learned more about how broken systems are as I've navigated those systems than from my doctoral program. Right? And until we honor that wisdom as equal or even greater the credentials, right. We're just going to help reproduce harm. And I'll just end by saying, you know, I've often heard coaches say that we should ask questions like, they're very trite questions like, well, who gets to define the problem? Who gets to design the solution? Whose authority are we elevating in the process? Those are great questions, don't get me wrong. But they're the first layer diagnostic questions. And I think we can go deeper in our questions in our own examination. So, for example, I jotted down a couple of things as I was thinking about this. I said, instead of asking who designs the solution, we could ask questions like who carries the consequences if the solution fails?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Who shoulders the risk and who gets the credit if it works? Right. Instead of asking, uh, who's defining the problem? You could ask who benefits from the problem being defined in this way? And who is silenced by that definition, when you're looking at outcomes, it might be better to ask questions like, what would it look like if we measure success by the definition of the people most impacted, not by the funders, not by the executives? Here's another one. Whose safety, whose dignity, whose imagination expands as a result of this decision and whose is shrinking? I think those are the kinds of questions that shift us from tokenizing lived experience to actually redistributing authority. So I hope that's helpful.

Speaker A: Yes, so helpful. And I love the real examples of the questions that we should be asking. And it is just so powerful to reimagine how we can decolonize leadership. If people want to learn more about you and the work that you do and what you are up to, where can they find you?

Speaker B: Sure. My personal website is pierreberastein.com or just berastain.com so it's just my name and I have quite a bit of information there on the work that I do, that kind of consulting opportunities that I'm open to. So yeah, I hope people check me out and also on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with folks who listen to this episode.

Speaker A: Well, we will make sure to link to all of that in the show notes. I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Speaker B: Thank you for the invitation. This was lovely, absolutely lovely to have a chance to dive into some of these deeper topics.

Speaker A: Foreign M hey, before you go, want to watch? Yes. Watch the best moments from the Lead with Heart episodes. We're sharing the most powerful highlights and takeaways over on our brand new YouTube channel. Yes, we are on YouTube. Just search for the savvy fundraiser on YouTube and hit subscribe so you never miss a moment of insight and inspiration. Inspiration. The link is in the show notes as well. Thanks for listening and as always, keep leading with Heart.