Leadership Lessons from Reimagining Maternal Health

From Tweaks to Transformation During COVID-19

How many times have we heard leaders use the expression ‘burning platform’ in their failed efforts to get us to change? Leaders incessantly call for transformation and the best we seem to be capable of are tweaks to the way our stubborn mindsets, industrial era institutions and social systems work today. All of that has changed overnight as together, we face the mother of all burning platforms, COVID-19. Transformation is our only choice in this crisis.There is no shortage of urgent problems screaming for transformative solutions amidst the COVID-19 crisis. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the breadth and immediacy of all the life-changing and life-threatening risks around us. What if, after we ensured the safety of ourselves and our families, we leveraged our personal privilege to take action today to help those less privileged around us in our local communities? As if our call-to-action isn’t dramatic enough, we need to do it all remotely while hunkered down in our homes.

15 years ago I founded the non-profit Business Innovation Factory (BIF), in Providence, Rhode Island, with the mission of making transformation safer and easier to manage in healthcare, education and social services. After 70 amazing business model design projects across the country, 15 inspiring Collaborative Innovation Summits, catalyzing a network connecting thousands of human-centered innovation junkies and developing the superpowers of human-centered…