
LEAP UPDATES
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
--Peter Drucker
Each month, we publish a Leap of Reason Update to share insights, tools, and learning opportunities for those who are working to raise their performance.
A Tribute to a Giant
Last week, the world lost two intellectual and moral giants, one who was 6ā 7ā (Bill Gates Sr.) and one who was only 5ā 1ā (Ruth Bader Ginsburg). Both deaths hit us hard. While we never had the honor of meeting RBG, Bill Sr. was a mentor to Lowell. In the essay below, Lowell shares a few personal reflections on Bill Sr. and his towering legacy.
The Big Reset
America has never needed more from civil society. Thatās because our country is being rocked by a health pandemic, an age-old racism pandemic, economic upheaval, sweeping cuts in safety-net programs, and the increasing political vitriol thatās killing efforts to address these daunting challenges. We feel like weāre in the midst of the 1918 flu pandemic, the Civil Rights/Vietnam era, and the Great Recession all at the same time! If the virus continues to surge and the restart of the economy sputters…
Itās M*A*S*H Time
I grew up in an immigrant family of blue-collar workers in Ohio and coal miners in Pennsylvania. My family experienced plenty of anti-immigrant bigotryāand, of course, we saw Black families getting far worse treatment. Even so, I grew up in a household with deep faith in America. If you were from our part of town and of our ethnicity, the ladder of upward mobility wasnāt quite as safe or sturdy as the ladder for ābetterā families from the communities where my mom cleaned houses. But at least we had a chance to…
āA Change Is Gonna Comeā
Sam Cooke composed āA Change Is Gonna Comeā in 1963, shortly after āI Have a Dream,ā the Birmingham church bombings, and his own imprisonment for ādisturbing the peaceā after he was refused a room at a Holiday Inn because of his race. The song is considered one of the greatest of all time because of the way it captured the hope and despair of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Hardest Leadership Decisions Youāve Ever Faced
This month, weāll get right to practical advice for social-sector leaders trying to captain ships through the dark, stormy seas of this pandemic. Weāre by no means leadership experts. But Mario is a longtime student of crisis leadership and has been forced to navigateāas a CEO, director, advisor, investor, and donorāthrough many different periods of turmoil. Sometimes he was successful. Sometimes he screwed up. Hereās what he learned from both.