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Eric Martin
Adaptive Leadership Expert • Team Coach • Facilitator • Author, Your Leadership Moment
Eric Martin is a renowned author and Managing Director at Adaptive Change Advisors (ACA) with a passion for democratizing leadership globally.
With his roots in Detroit, Eric has become a leading expert in leadership development, impacting over 300,000 individuals across 146 countries.
Through his affiliation with ACA, Eric leverages his collaborative work with Harvard faculty to promote the application of Adaptive Leadership principles on a global scale, addressing complex challenges and driving positive change.
Eric is the author of 'Your Leadership Moment' and an esteemed contributor to publications like Fast Company, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and Environmental Leader.
His expertise extends to areas such as advancing health equity, fostering a transition to a low-carbon economy, and exploring the implications of emerging technologies like blockchain in society.
Eric's notable collaborations include partnering with organizations like Google, Microsoft, the White House, United Nations Innovation Network, and the World Bank, among others, to drive impactful initiatives.
Eric's educational background includes a Master's degree in Management Science in Organizational Change Management and a Bachelor's degree in Systems Analysis and Operations Research.
His academic journey spans institutions like GMI Engineering and Management Institute, University of Michigan, The New School, and Harvard Kennedy School, where he studied 'Leadership from the Inside Out' in J-Term 2011.
In addition to his current role at ACA, Eric has served in various capacities at esteemed organizations, such as the Clean Energy Leadership Institute, MAVA Foundation, and the American Resilience Project.
With a diverse professional history that includes roles in governmental liaison, international development, instructional design, and strategic planning, Eric brings a wealth of experience to his current endeavors in leadership development and organizational change.
Highlights
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞: 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬
In leadership, timing is everything. When tackling significant challenges, there’s a balance between readiness and ripeness—a balance that can determine whether your team is poised to make meaningful progress.
𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑣𝑠. 𝑅𝑖𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 Readiness reflects your team’s willingness and ability to engage with a challenge, while ripeness is the moment when conditions are right for change. When aligned, these two lead to transformation. When they don’t, progress stalls, leading to frustration and resistance.
𝘈𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘉𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 Readiness is about evaluating “will and skill.” Do your people have the competencies and, more importantly, the desire to engage deeply? High readiness means your team is prepared for transformative action. Low readiness sees people seeking easy solutions.
Early in my career, I was on a team tasked with "centering marginalized voices." On paper, we were ready — we had the right theory of change. But as time passed without action, it became clear that we lacked the will. While we were technically ready, a shift was needed in our readiness to do the deeper personal work to let go of power and control for other voices to be heard.
𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘪𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘹𝘵 Ripeness is about timing and context. Even if your team is ready, the environment must also be ripe. High ripeness occurs when there’s collective agreement that now is the time to act. When ripeness is low, people cling to old solutions or deny there’s a problem.
In that same scenario, the broader environment wasn’t ripe for change. Centering marginalized voices was priority number 17 on the organization’s list. Research shows that people focus on their top three priorities. Instead of pushing forward, we addressed fears and raised awareness of the gap between the organization’s stated values and its lived values. Once this groundwork was laid, real change could begin.
The lesson is clear: pushing forward without ripeness is like planting seeds in frozen ground—no matter how ready you are, nothing grows until conditions are right.
𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘪𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 How do you, as a leader, align readiness and ripeness? Start by ‘getting on the balcony’—understanding where your team stands on both axes. When readiness and ripeness are high, take action. If either is low, build adaptive capacity or develop partnerships to prepare for change.
Readiness and ripeness remind us that leadership is as much about timing as skills. It’s knowing when to push forward and when to step back and create conditions for progress.
Success in leadership isn’t about charging ahead—it’s about knowing when the apple is ready to pick.
(Full article at: https://bit.ly/3XeMmf2)
Why “holding space as leadership” is important right now
It’s impossible to overlook the waves of adaptive challenges reshaping our world — geopolitical conflicts, environmental derangement, and political polarization. In the US, our politics is fraught with division, testing our democratic values. Meanwhile, half the world’s population casts a vote in democratic elections this year, highlighting the need for leaders who can navigate divides.
Leaders must embrace deep personal growth to meet these challenges head-on. Leadership isn’t just about mobilizing others. It’s about the deep personal work needed to lead in a traumatized and uncertain world that gets reflected within our teams and ourselves.
To paraphrase La Tzu: Who can make the muddy water clear? Hold it still, and it will gradually become clear. One of the most vital skills for any leader in turbulent times, then, is to “hold space”.
- Balancing the Balcony and the Dance Floor
Effective leadership requires the ability to shift between the “balcony” and the “dance floor” — a concept central to Adaptive Leadership. Being on the balcony means gaining perspective, seeing the bigger picture, and understanding the broader dynamics at play. On the dance floor, you’re in the thick of things, engaging directly with your team. Holding space effectively requires leaders to master this balance, staying attuned to the emotional currents while also keeping an eye on the overarching goals.
- Nurturing the Heart of Democracy
Parker Palmer speaks of the “heart of democracy,” which is about creating spaces where conflict can be held in creative, life-affirming ways. This principle is crucial not just in organizations but also in our political discourse. As leaders, we must foster environments where people can engage in nuanced conversations, rather than attacking each other across the aisle. Holding space for such dialogue can bridge divides and promote collective progress.
- Embracing Self as System
Leadership requires an understanding that we are not separate from the systems we aim to influence. Picture the self not as an isolated individual but as part of an interconnected whole that encompasses your surround (team or organization) and the broader system or environment. This expanded sense of self reveals that change doesn’t unfold in a simple, linear path, or even as a non-linear ripple or butterfly effect. Instead, change happens everywhere all at once. It’s the subtle shifts within this expanded self — those small, consistent adjustments in mindset, behavior, and interactions — that truly drive transformation.
As we move through this moment of leadership, let’s look for opportunities to hold space for the humanity within all of us, especially those with whom we most disagree. By embracing this notion of leadership we can help build organizations and communities defined by compassion, hope, and democratic values, driven by—not despite — adversity.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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