Nancy Margolis has an incredible résumé.
She’s served as the executive director of the Jewish Community Center and the Jewish Community Foundation, and she was a founder of both Jewish Family Services and the Corner Health Center. As the person who’s been in charge of assembling our annual City Guide for the last three years, I can say that these organizations do a lot of incredible work in our community — JFS makes up like 10 percent of the Community Services section.
Now Margolis is launching the Michigan chapter of the national nonprofit Embracing Our Differences, which uses art to champion diversity. She told us all about it in her keynote speech at a Washtenaw Women’s Executive Council Luncheon I was fortunate enough to attend.
Her speech impacted me for two reasons: what she said and how she said it.
What she said: the three constants in all of her work were conflict, collaboration, and creation. As she elaborated on conflict and how to handle it, I noticed several women around the room nodding knowingly, and others looking like they’d been seen — WHEW, it’s not just me! When confronted with conflict, Margolis elaborated, it’s important to listen, to not try to change people’s concerns, and to help them see how the proposed change stands to help them.
How she said it: she was sweet and pushy, and I was blown away. What a powerful set of qualities to inspire a team! What a cool way to command respect! No bluster, no condescension, no iron fist of discipline. Just a capable, intelligent, principled woman with a clear strength of vision, and a kind demeanor. I hope she never stops trying to make the world a better place.
As she was getting across the importance of diversity, she pointed out, sweetly and matter-of-factly, “There’s not a lot of diversity in this room.” She noted it, we noticed it, and noticing the issue is the first step to addressing it.
Which brings me to one last thing. We were served a beautiful lunch, a salad with grilled chicken, and the folks who organized the event were kind enough to provide clamshell containers. But as I looked around, very few people saved the food. Plate after plate of perfectly good chicken was cleared from the tables, presumably to be thrown away.
I wanted to say something — an animal gave its life for this lunch and people in our community are going hungry! I’m sure if we gathered up all that chicken and offered it to someone in need, they’d eat it! — but I didn’t want to seem weird, accusatory, impolite, ungrateful, pushy. I still feel guilty that I had an opportunity to do the right thing and let my fear tell me to just stay quiet.
How many of the other attendees were thinking the same thing? How many of us wished we had the guts to just say something?
I hope that if I find myself in that situation again, I can be brave enough to say something.