How to Convert Community Trust into Sustainable Growth Trust is often treated as an intangible asset, an important, but difficult to define and even harder to measure. However, every enduring institution, whether a nonprofit, a social enterprise, a faith-based organization, a civic association, a mission-driven business or a government, depends upon Trust. Communities place their … Read more
Adhocracy and the Business Lifecycle Why many companies start with flexibility and gradually grow into structure This is Part 2 of a 2-part series In Part 1, we explored what adhocracy is and why some organizations rely on flexible structures to encourage innovation and rapid decision-making. But there’s another dimension to understanding adhocracy that often … Read more
Adhocracy Explained: Why Some Businesses Thrive Without Traditional Structure [This is Part 1 of a 2-Part series] If you picture a typical corporate structure, it probably looks something like a pyramid. At the top are executives making strategic decisions. Beneath them are layers of managers, supervisors, and teams. Information flows up and down through clearly … Read more
Understanding the Systems That Shape Your Community [This is Part 2 of a 2-Part Series] We have established that influence begins close to home. Now we must examine how it operates. To understand the architecture of influence, we must first understand how power moves. Power does not simply exist; it circulates through structures, policies, budgets, … Read more
Power does not begin in Washington, DC. It does not begin on cable news panels or in viral social media debates. Power begins on your block, at your school board meeting, inside your city or town council chamber, and within the everyday decisions that shape housing, policing, education, transportation, and public health. Civic engagement has … Read more
During the Cold War, Cuba existed within the gravitational pull of two global superpowers. Its geographic proximity to the United States and its strategic significance within the Caribbean placed the island squarely inside the geopolitical imagination of Washington and Moscow alike. In such an environment, expectations about Cuba’s political direction were rarely subtle or neutral. … Read more
CUBA and the Refusal of Deference Sovereignty is often discussed as a matter of law, borders, and recognition among states. Yet history suggests that sovereignty is not sustained by legal status alone. It is also a matter of posture—how a nation understands its own existence, how it narrates its place in the world, and whether … Read more
In 1804, Haiti declared itself a sovereign nation after defeating one of the most powerful military forces in the world. The revolution that produced the first Black republic was not only a military victory. It was also a rupture in the political imagination of the Atlantic world. Enslaved people who had been told for generations … Read more
After publishing a recent essay on Haiti and sovereignty, a few practical questions naturally followed—about the indemnity, the Duvalier era, and the historical context shaping the present. This short piece remains grounded in the broader framework while addressing those questions directly and clarifying the structural pressures Haiti has faced over time. How much did Haiti … Read more
Sovereign, Yet Constrained HAITI and the Architecture of External Power Sovereignty is often imagined as absolute — either present or absent, intact or erased. In practice, it operates more like a structure than a switch. A nation may possess formal independence, international recognition, and treaty authority, yet still experience constraints that shape how freely it … Read more
