Happy Sunday Reader...

A few days ago, Google Maps made me cry.

I pulled up the corner of Dort and Davison in Flint, Michigan. Across the street from the General Motors complex were the parking lots where my mom worked when I was a kid.

Years later, I worked inside that factory myself.

Now there are trees growing through the cracks where factories once stood. TREES!
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That doesn't happen overnight.

Looking at that image, I could suddenly see all the ripples that never showed up GM's spreadsheets: the workers, their families, the parking attendant whose job existed because those workers had jobs, the restaurants, the schools, the tax base, the thousands of lives built around an ecosystem that once seemed permanent.

It gave me language for something I'm calling Consequence Gap: The distance between the people who have the authority to make a decision and the people who have to live with what that decision does.

The wider that gap becomes, the easier it is to focus solely on the numbers instead of what those numbers actually represent.

That's where Quiet Compliance ends and protest, strikes, lawsuits, and regulatory intervention often begin.

I wrote about Flint, bomb-sniffing bees, the French Revolution, and what all of that might be telling us about the decisions organizations are making right now.

You can read the full piece here:

​The Consequence Gap: When People Become Numbers and Quiet Compliance Runs Out​

Because the spreadsheet can tell you a lot, but it can't begin to tell you everything you're about to set in motion.

Until next time,

- Lisa

P.S. Tomorrow the doors open for the Creative Freedom Archive All-Access Pass at 9AM Pacific time! Watch for an email!