I KEEP FINDING MYSELF IN DIFFERENT ROOMS ASKING THE SAME QUESTION.
What happens in the space between what we say we value and what people can actually practice?
The rooms have changed. The question underneath them hasn't.
I study the space between intention and practice.
My work moves across leadership, learning, openness, care, technology, and institutional change, but I keep returning to the same problem: what has to exist around an idea for people to actually be able to participate in it?
Explore My Work
Ideas in Public
Essays, features, interviews, podcasts, and places my thinking has traveled.
Ideas in Conversation
Talks, presentations, workshops, webinars, panels, and ideas worked through with other people.
Ideas in Practice
Frameworks, resources, books, learning experiences, and projects built from the questions I study.
From Field Notes
The Open Practice Academy
I founded The Open Practice Academy as a place to put these ideas to work. TOPA builds learning, tools, communities, and support for people and organizations trying to practice their values, not just name them.
I collaborate with educators, researchers, institutions, nonprofits, and values-aligned organizations through advisory work, research, writing, learning design, facilitation, and speaking.
What if encouragement doesn’t simply follow evidence of potential? What if, sometimes, evidence of potential follows encouragement? Drawing connections between research on teacher expectations and leader-member relationships, I’m thinking through how the patience, trust, challenge, attention, and opportunities we give people may help shape the potential we later believe we simply recognized.