Ep 370: Madeleine Grynsztejn - Fearless - Fast

Fearless Creative Leadership

Edited highlights of our full conversation.

Here’s a question. What are you going to preserve?

This week’s guest is Madeleine Grynsztejn. She’s the Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

She sees society from a distinctive vantage point, through the lens of an organization that exists to generate inquiry. Her work is to encourage communities to learn from themselves and from each other. To help us examine our past and be intentioned about our future.

Leading a creative business demands that we look ahead, vigorously, bravely and relentlessly. Where are we going, how will we know when we get there, and who’s joining us on the journey?

We hold on to the past at great risk. Risk to our success and sometimes to our survival.

But Madeleine’s point frames the future through an important question. Because, while we must fight the status quo, our future is built on the pillars of the past.

You can’t build a monument to modern thinking on sand. You need substantive foundations and platforms. You need to bring lessons from the past forward with you, so that we don’t make the same mistakes twice, and so that we have something to lean on that we can trust.

Which parts of the past do you need to let go of?

And which parts are you going to preserve?