Consulting in the Face of Rising Fascism
By Vash Ebbadi-Cook (he/they), Founder & Principal Consultant, Endura Consulting
Over the past few years, many of us working in health, social services, and community-based organizations have felt the ground shift beneath our feet. Policies are hardening. Public narratives are becoming more hostile. In this context, a difficult question keeps resurfacing for me: what does it mean to do “good work” when the systems we work within can produce harm? How can consultants maintain integrity when we are often asked, typically without intention, to help maintain or reinforce those systems?
The title of this article is intended to be provocative. Yet, our team conversations, conference discussions, and partner engagements have consistently grappled with questions relating to changing political and societal landscapes, both locally and globally. Many leaders are now asked to work differently, pivot, and to reframe their “heart work” in ways that create a tension between providing services and maintaining values. Decisions often feel heavier in today’s context; strategic or operational decisions that once felt technical now feel like they carry greater consequences for people’s safety, dignity, and belonging. In this context what is “good work”?
For me, the answer lies in endurance, not just in terms of resilience for survival, but as collective care and a refusal to normalize harm. For Endura Consulting, and our partners and clients, this endurance often comes from “making the invisible, visible”. Together we raise to the surface the inequities in systems that create harm, while also bringing to the surface the opportunities that creating more just and equitable systems offer to organizations and communities. In this way, we use consulting as a lever of positive change; amplifying the voices of the people who care for people, meaningfully empowering the people and communities we care for, and using evidence to challenge perceptions that inform decision-making that leaves people behind.
What does ethical consulting require now? I have reflected on this question and will continue to do so, however a few things are clear:
When harms can’t be eliminated, we will work together to mitigate them.
Understanding the consequences and potential harms from decision-making is a critical step in mitigating those risks to the communities we serve. Every policy, strategic, or operational decision has the potential to create harm. However, creating a plan for how to care for service users, clients, or patients, and care providers when those harms happen is more critical now than it has ever been.
Navigating the complexities of decision-making in the non-profit and public sectors means confronting moral distress at all levels.
Moral distress, or knowing the right thing to do but being limited by the system to do that right thing, is not just experienced by those who work in point-of-care or front-line positions. Moral distress also impacts those in operational or senior leadership roles that are tasked with changing direction, adjusting programming, or sunsetting services. Reflecting on moral distress at all levels, and how it impacts teams in times of change in particular, is extremely valuable in the current context in which we are asked to serve communities.
We must always be careful what data and whose stories are used to inform decisions; if we aren’t bringing the margins in, then we are likely to create new harms.
As a consultancy that is often asked to draw from the evidence and data to help inform organizational decision-making, we are reluctant gatekeepers of how we define and use data. Although we bring our expertise in engagement, analysis, and evidence synthesis to all of our collaborative work, we are not experts in lived-experience. As we help to navigate leaders in the driver’s seat, we often pause to “shoulder check” for what we might not be aware is missing, contradictory, or plainly inappropriate to describe the current context of our client’s work and prescribe solutions to address complex challenges. This reflection requires that we are humble and careful; what we define as “relevant” to the work may inadvertently create harm itself and we strive to address our biases at each step of our collaborative work.
Consulting in the face of rising fascism. This concept is something we will continue to contemplate, and we recognize that maintaining our commitment to our values is a shared responsibility. As you reflect on this, we encourage you to think of the following:
How do you lean on your communities for support?
How do you work to mitigate harms from systems, while navigating harms that you too may be experiencing from those same systems?
What personal or organizational values are driving your work? How can we help to bring that to the forefront of everything you do?
These are conversations we are having daily with our partners. If your organization is grappling with ethical strategy development, mitigating systemic risk, or values-based programming, we invite you to connect with us. Schedule a time to discuss how we can help you turn enduring values into enduring work.
