United States: Miracle On The Hill: How To Build Consensus And Achieve Results In Divided Organizations (Podcast)

During some of the most divisive times in U.S. history, a small group of Democrats and Republicans defied all odds and learned to work together to get things done. It's an inspiring story of success that you almost never hear about in Congress. On this episode of There Has to Be a Better Way?, co-hosts Zach Coseglia and Hui Chen talk with Dr. Marian Currinder, a political scientist and former professional staffer to a bipartisan congressional committee during an extremely partisan time, to learn about how a committee that seemed set up to fail thwarted expectations to pass more than 200 recommendations in four years.

Transcript:

Zach Coseglia: Welcome back to the Better Way? podcast, brought to you by R&G Insights Lab. This is a curiosity podcast, where we ask, "There has to be a better way, right?" There just has to be. I'm Zach Coseglia, the co-founder of R&G Insights Lab, and I'm here, as always, with my friend, colleague, and partner in crime, Hui Chen. Hi, Hui—welcome back. We have a really exciting discussion today. I've been looking forward to this for weeks. Our guest today is who, Hui?

Marian Currinder: Great—thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I've been really looking forward to this discussion because if there's anything I enjoy talking about, it's congressional modernization. I came into this work in a roundabout way. My background is mainly in academia. I did a Ph.D. in political science and focused on Congress, political parties, and campaign finance. After finishing up my graduate work, I taught for several years, and then came up to Washington and did a fellowship working in Congress, and that piqued my interest in a more applied career in political science. After teaching for a few more years, I moved up to D.C. permanently. I continued to teach, but I mainly worked in the nonprofit civil society realm, focusing on congressional modernization, transparency, and government reform type issues. And then, that eventually led me to my work in Congress.

Zach Coseglia: Terrific. So, let's talk about why we wanted to talk to you today. Hui and I, we read this article in The Washington Post—it was an opinion piece by Amanda Ripley and the title was "These Radically Simple Changes Help Lawmakers Actually Get Things Done." The article was all about the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. Marian, you were part of this effort, right? So, tell us about your role within the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

Marian Currinder: Sure. The Committee was formed at the beginning of the 116th Congress. Each session of Congress is two years, so that was in January 2019. There had been efforts to create such a committee beginning in 2018, where a number of members were meeting and trying to push the leadership to organize a committee that would be structured around the whole idea of modernizing and reforming how Congress operates. I was involved in those discussions in 2018 through my work with various nonprofit organizations, trying to encourage Congress to do this, and so, when they actually did it, I jumped at the chance to get involved and did my best to make my way around the halls of Congress and talk to staff who I knew were going to be involved in the work, and so, I got myself hired. When I came on board early in 2019, it was just me and the staff director because she had recently been hired, so the two of us were on our own for about a month, trying to figure things out, but that was how I came to the work.

Hui Chen: When you talk about 2019, it was the pre-pandemic era. I think this is how most people think now—it's the pre- or post-pandemic era. It was, if I recall correctly, an extraordinarily divisive time in Congress, even more than the usual divisiveness. In 2019, Trump was President, Pelosi was Speaker of the House, and there was contention on just about every issue. On top of that, for probably decades, I would think—at least based on polls I've read—most of the American public had already been seeing the Congress as a place where things cannot get done. So, you take a very dysfunctional organization in the midst of an extraordinarily divisive time, and on top of that, you want to do a topic like modernize the Congress, an institution that's over 200 years old. So, this is the background into which we have stepped—we're going into this Committee's work. Are there even additional obstacles to this Committee? Based on what Amanda Ripley wrote in her piece, and I'm quoting her, "If any congressional committee were set up to fail, it was the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress." Tell us, why did she say that?

Marian Currinder: You make an interesting point about when the Committee kicked off its work because when the rule passed at the beginning of 2019 creating the Committee, the leadership had to then appoint the members to the Committee: six Democrats and six Republicans. So, we were a totally split bipartisan committee. It took leadership a while to do that, and once the members were finally named, the government shut down because of a standoff over the budget. And so, we then moved into a period of the longest shutdown in history, which delayed the start of our committee being able to actually get up and running until March. Also, keep in mind that when the Committee was first formed, we were given one year to do our work, and so, here we were in March, just getting started with two staffers, and the members just finally getting to meet for the first time. As you say, there was a lot about the structure of the Committee that would make it seemingly impossible to get things done. As Amanda Ripley noted in that piece, we were totally bipartisan, so there was no majority advantage. The rules that created our committee said that the only way we could pass a recommendation is if we had two-thirds of the members supporting it—eight of the 12 would have to vote in favor of a recommendation—so that meant that any recommendation would have to have bipartisan support. I think that was probably what most people saw as working against us, just because, as you know, everything in Congress has become so partisan and so divisive along party lines that a lot of votes that take place in committee are just all Democrats vote one way and all Republicans vote another way. And so, the idea that we would somehow have to have bipartisan consensus to get anything done was something that most people saw as impossible at that time.

Zach Coseglia: This idea of the modernization of Congress sounds like a good one, but, again, we're talking about a 200-plus-year-old institution that maybe isn't thought of, by a lot of folks, as modern at times in its operation. So, what was the impetus for its creation, and how did that then lead into the charter or the remit of the Committee?

Marian Currinder: Our committee was the most recent in a long line of reform committees, but they typically are created every 20 or 30 years. It's an exercise in lifting up the hood of Congress, looking inside, and figuring out what's broken, what could be improved, and what could be replaced. A lot of what we focused on, at least initially—and this was part of our jurisdiction—was looking at things like administrative efficiencies. Are there ways to modernize the process by which members and staff get reimbursed for travel? Are there ways that we can update the way that we distribute technology and approve software that can be used?

In addition to those, I guess, more administrative and technological aspects, there are just also changes that need to happen, in terms of how the institution works. There's been, for example, a lot of frustration over the past decade or two, where members feel like a lot of the power that they have had historically to have control over the legislative process has been usurped by party leadership. All of the big bills get drafted in leadership offices and members don't have any input into that process—committees are left out of the whole process whereby bills are drafted, amended, and debated. Most of what happens is determined by the leaders and just brought to the floor by the leaders, and so, members start to push back on those kinds of processes, saying, "We want more of a say in how things are done." And so, there are those factors that come into play, as well.

Hui Chen: As we go into your work, I also just wanted to point out what really fascinated me right in the beginning of Amanda Ripley's article—there was a predecessor committee to the Committee that you worked on that ended in 2018, and it produced zero recommendations. Tell us how many bipartisan recommendations did the Committee you worked on manage to adopt?

Marian Currinder: We passed 202 recommendations in four years.

Zach Coseglia: That's every single one with a super majority required?

Marian Currinder: Yes. About two-thirds of those have been implemented or partially implemented, and the process is still underway to continue implementing.

Zach Coseglia: Where do you start?

Marian Currinder: I was going to say that the committee that you just referenced that wrapped up in 2018, that was a reform committee that was set up to look at how the budget appropriations process could be restructured and reformed in such a way to make it more meaningful. That committee was set up to last two years, and what they did over the course of those two years was hold hearing after hearing, had budget and appropriations experts come in and talk about what could be done differently and how to improve the process. They drafted a long set of detailed recommendations—some of them were pretty radical, literally to shake things up. This was also a bipartisan committee. But then, the way that they produced their recommendations was the way that almost every other reform committee prior to them has done it, whereby they went through this process over two years, had hearings, produced a massive final report that contained all of the recommendations with the goal of then bringing that report to the floor at the end of their two-year run to get a vote in both the House and the Senate. What happened was that even though they had agreement in the committee on the recommendations and then had run all the traps, gotten leadership to approve, and all those things, once they brought the bill with the recommendations to the floor in the Senate, it failed to pass. It was nothing to do with their recommendations and their package—it was some dispute that had to do with the leadership that didn't want to take that vote at that time. So, it was essentially just some internal dispute that had to do with leadership and nothing to do with the package, but the whole thing went up in smoke, and then, their two years were up, and nothing passed.

Zach Coseglia: So, what did you all do differently?

Marian Currinder: Chairman Kilmer, who was the chair of the Modernization Committee, he served on that Budget and Appropriations Committee, and he's an appropriator in the House—he's very focused on ways to make the budget and appropriations process work better. That experience for him was just terrible—the amount of time and energy that went into it was something that was a great frustration for him. And so, once he was named chair of the Modernization Committee, he decided, "We're not going to do that. I am not waiting until the end to vote on a huge package of recommendations because who knows what's going to happen between now and then, and who knows what might happen when we bring that package to the Floor. So, when we have consensus, we're going to take a vote on the recommendations and pass them right then." We called the process, "Rolling Recommendations," and we would set up the calendar so we would have a hearing on transparency, a hearing on the committee system, a hearing on constituent communications, and then after three hearings, put together a list of recommendations that we got out of those hearings. And then, we'd go through the process with our committee of vetting them, getting rid of some of them, and adding others until we came up with our final list, and then, scheduled a committee markup, where the members would vote on them. As soon as we knew we had consensus, we voted on them, so we just kept the process rolling that way and just kept racking up more and more successes as we went along. So, that was one aspect of how the Committee worked much differently from its predecessor.

Hui Chen: It sounds like what you did was—this is my interpretation—break what could have been a big package into bite-sized successes. Each time you had a little success, it was one more thing that you could actually show people, as, "This is how things could work." And that helped you accumulate more bite-sized wins.

Marian Currinder: Exactly—yes, it created a momentum. Once the members of our committee saw that it was working, they felt great about it, too, and so, it inspired them to keep going. And then, once we reached the end of our first year, when we were supposed to expire, that success that we had had over the course of I guess it was just nine months, really inspired the leadership to extend us. They said, "We think you've done great work so far. Let's see what else you can do, and we'll extend you through the end of the 116th Congress," which was through 2020.

Zach Coseglia: It's an amazing lesson that I think has such direct applicability to so much of the work that we do and so much of the work that our clients and listeners do—this idea of breaking it into pieces, getting those wins, and building momentum toward an idea or toward a project. Honestly, it's advice that I feel like I often need to hear, because I think big, and I want that package—I want all of the bits and pieces. And so, the reminder and the case study of breaking it into pieces and getting the full package through smaller wins and building momentum is, I think, really important—one might call it a "Better Way." But as amazing as that is, it's the actual building of the consensus that seems far harder and far more complex. We talk a lot on this podcast and in the work that we do about the complexity of people, obviously, and as we said at the outset, that's only amplified or even more complex because of the political climate and the culture within the Congress. So, how did we get the people to reach consensus? How did we build from looking at this opinion piece, as different culture within this committee, as compared to many others in the past and many others that were existing in parallel in other parts of Congress?

Marian Currinder: The chair, Derek Kilmer from Washington State, and the vice chair, who in the 116th was Tom Graves, a Republican from Georgia; and in the 117th, it was William Timmons, who was a Republican from South Carolina, there were a number of steps that they took. Initially, with Kilmer and Graves in the 116th, they met each other, essentially for the first time, when they were named chair and co-chair, and recognized together that they had very little time to undertake this task of modernizing Congress and discussed, "How can we get up and running quickly? And how can we create a culture that will be bipartisan in this incredibly partisan institution?" A couple of things that they did from the start that made a huge difference and that were, again, radical when you look at how the rest of Congress functions—the first two things they decided that the Committee had to do was get its budget and hire staff. Typically, with committees in the House, the way that it works is the committee is given its budget, and the majority party gets two-thirds of the budget, and the minority gets one-third, and the majority gets two-thirds of the staff, and minority gets one-third—that's the case even if the majority has a one-seat majority. So, the way they divide it up isn't exactly equal—it doesn't reflect the actual partisan divide. But they said, "Let's just keep this simple. It's six Democrats, six Republicans. Let's have one budget and let's hire one staff, so everyone we hire, we'll both approve." And so, when I was brought on, I interviewed with Mr. Kilmer's office and with Mr. Graves' office, and once they both signed off, then I was hired. I was told when I was brought on, "You are not working for the Democrats on this committee or the Republicans—you are working for all members of this committee." Mr. Kilmer always said, "There are no red jerseys. There are no blue jerseys. There are only fixed Congress jerseys. Everyone who works on this committee has the same mission, and so, there's none of that 'doing things by party.'" So, that created an incredibly different culture than you normally have in Congress. We were the only committee that was set up like that. We had one website. Typically, there's a Democrat website and a Republican website for every committee. We had one Twitter feed. We had one communications director who did press for the entire committee. From the start, we really were all just focused on the same mission instead of, "What's the party line on this?" So, that was from the get-go, just a really different way to structure the way that we moved forward.

Hui Chen: So interesting, though, because you worked in this environment where trust was being built, collaboration was deliberately being built upon, and then came January 6, and that experience, I'm sure, was particularly traumatic for everybody who was actually there on the scene. What did that do to the Committee, and how did the Committee deal with whatever the impact was?

Marian Currinder: The experience for the first two years in the 116th Congress was quite different from the 117th, which as you just said, started right on the heels of January 6th. In the 116th, the Committee had had such a strong bipartisan run—the members worked incredibly well together, and they were all very invested. But once the 116th Congress came to a close, a number of them retired, chose to move off the Committee, or were taken off the Committee. Going into 2021, we had seven new members of the Committee—there's 12 altogether, with seven new members. The chair and vice chair were dealing with a majority of members who had never served on the Committee, didn't know how it had operated in the 116th, and their only experience prior was on the very partisan committees that they served on, so this whole new Modernization Committee with its bipartisan way of doing things was entirely new to them.

But before the Committee had even met, January 6th happened, and there was a period of a few weeks after that, where everyone was trying to process and figure out how to move forward. Chair Kilmer was really struggling with how to do this, and so, he and the vice chair decided that the only way forward was to get all of the Committee members together, as uncomfortable as it might be, and to do a bipartisan planning retreat, where they could introduce the new members to the structure of the Committee and the way that the Committee worked, and then also to just have time and space in private for the members to discuss everything from January 6th and how they felt about what happened that day, to why they decided to run for Congress, what have they most appreciated about being a member of Congress, and what has been their biggest frustrations. The whole idea was just to get them talking and to know each other on a more personal level—they had done that at the beginning of the 116th Congress, and it worked really well. But given January 6th being part of this, they decided that bringing in a mediator or a conflict resolution expert would be a good way forward, so it wouldn't be up to the chair or the vice chair to try to moderate the conversations that could get really tough, and so, a conflict-resolution expert attended the retreat as well. So, when the conversation turned to January 6th, he stepped in and managed the questions and responses, and that was really helpful. I think it was something that they felt uncomfortable doing and a little bit fearful of doing because they weren't sure how the conversation would go, but, I think, in the end, they all heard each other.

I should also mention that one of the goals of both of the retreats was to figure out what the members were interested in working on. I think this is another important aspect of how the Committee worked was getting buy-in from the various members to give them something to run with—by giving them that opportunity to take the lead and to design the recommendations, that was something that really created a sense of belonging and accomplishment. And once those recommendations passed, it gave those members something to really feel like they played a part in, they took the lead on that, and so, that kind of setup, I think, was also very key to the Committee's success.

Hui Chen: You mentioned that the Committee brought in a mediator at the retreat, but that was not the only outside help that the Committee got—the Committee also worked with behavior scientists. Tell us more about what motivated that. How did they help the Committee's work?

Marian Currinder: For me, personally, that was the most fascinating aspect of the work that we did. This was on the heels of January 6th. Chair Kilmer, to his credit, after having this planning retreat with the members and still struggling with how to move the Committee forward, decided that he wanted to talk to anyone and everyone he could who had deep experience with dysfunction. And what he was really interested in was talking to people who didn't know anything about Congress because he felt like, "We just need to get out of this place. This place is dysfunctional. Everyone here can tell us how dysfunctional it is. But in order to get out of this crazy cycle, we need to talk to people who have dealt with this in other settings and just hear what they have to say." I think that the path to all of these talks started off with Adam Grant—he's an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. I think Chair Kilmer, if I'm remembering correctly, had reached out to him because he was a big fan of his podcast and probably knows him through some other means. Adam Grant recommended a bunch of people, and so, as staff, we just started reaching out to all of these people who were recommended to us and explaining to them what it was that we were trying to do. They all found it fascinating—they were like, "Really? Congress wants to hear from us?" And they jumped at the opportunity, too, just because it was so outside their realm of what they normally work in, but really were excited about this idea of trying to apply their skills to a dysfunctional environment like Congress.

We had just dozens of calls because this was during COVID, so a lot of time on Zoom, talking to people and hearing about the work they did and how it might apply to what we were trying to do. We talked to behavioral psychologists, organizational psychologists, and business consultants. We talked to people who were involved in the Northern Ireland peace agreements, where they walked us through the steps that they took to bring the two factions together and made very clear that you don't have to like each other in order to make progress and come to agreement on ways that you can live together and work together. We talked to coaches who were tasked with turning a losing team into a winning one. We learned a lot about just codes of conduct in sports, where if you're a team and you're playing to win, you go out on the field and you fight like hell to win the game, but within that intense competition, there is a code of conduct that every player agrees to before the competition begins. It was just a really mind-opening way to start thinking about how we can apply some of these principles to Congress.

Zach Coseglia: What were some of the ideas? What were some of the Better Ways that these organizational psychologists and behavioral scientists brought to the Committee?

Marian Currinder: Some of them had to do mainly with how you approach conflict. What we did after having all of these conversations was that we set up a series of three hearings, and the first hearing was designed to get everyone at the table to talk about how we got here. The behavioral psychologists who we brought in talked about different ways of structuring how things are done in Congress to try to take attention away from the people who aren't interested in working, producing, or getting things done, and putting the focus on the people who are.

One of the things that we did was change the way that we do hearings. When you watch any congressional hearing, typically the members are up on the dais, they're a couple feet above the witnesses, the witnesses are at a table with bright lights on them, staring up at the members—all the Republicans are on one side of the dais, and all of the Democrats are on the other. There's typically a couple of layers or rows of where the members sit, so they're looking at the back of each other's heads. And so, what we did was we said, "Let's get rid of that setup. Let's sit around a table together so everyone is on the same level, members and witnesses, looking at each other in the eye when they speak, and instead of doing the Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other, we're going to sit D-R-D-R-D-R." As Chair Kilmer would always say, that would mean that during the hearing, when you hear something interesting and you lean over to say something about it to the person next to you, you're not talking to another Democrat—someone from your party—you're talking to someone from the other party. It's just a way of opening up lines of communication.

In addition to that, we switched the rules up and dispensed with what they call the "five-minute rule," where every member gets five minutes to question the witnesses, get their talking points in, and that kind of thing. Instead of doing that, the chair and the vice chair would make their opening statements and then just move into a period of what we called, "open discussion." And what that meant was that every member could jump into the conversation. So, the chair would typically kick things off by asking the witnesses a question. The witnesses would respond. Another member would just signal, "Can I say something?" And they can jump in. That might make another member think of something, then, they can jump in. It just created an atmosphere where people were much more likely to engage in substantive discussion and pick up on what each other were saying, rather than lobbying their partisan bombs and then walking out of the room when their five minutes are up. There were just small things like that that made big differences, in terms of how the Committee operated, and it just created a much more collaborative atmosphere, and encouraged discussion, rather than discouraged it.

Zach Coseglia: It's really fascinating. This was one of the pieces that really got me excited and inspired when I originally read this op-ed piece that we've been referencing throughout because one of the phrases that Amanda Ripley writes is the following, "Sometimes, crises make conflicts worse. Other times, they force radical creativity." That just really hit me hard, but what I also think is so inspirational about what you've shared with us today is that there was certainly radical creativity for Congress, but also a lot of these things were not massive changes. It was these wonderful, little adjustments to the way in which the group sat, the way that they set up the room, the way that they communicated with each other, the way that you hired staff, and developed a budget—these radically creative ideas were also just 100% doable.

Marian Currinder: Given our mission with focusing on the internal workings of Congress, we also did things like, "Let's talk to the people who actually work here." So, over the course of the four years we were in existence, we held regular brown-bag meetings and listening sessions for staff, where we were like, "This week, we want to hear from chiefs of staff. Next week, we'll hear from legislative directors," to just let them vent, essentially, about, "Tell us what makes your job hard." Many of the things that staff shared with us were these very simple things that would just be something like, "It drives me crazy how this switchboard cannot transfer calls, and you have to go through this crazy process." And so, we would just dig into things like that—they were these little things, but little things that drove people crazy, and tried to find fixes for those things.

Zach Coseglia: Now, it is time to get to know you a little bit better. Everyone who comes onto the podcast, we ask a series of questions inspired by Proust, James Lipton, and Inside the Actors Studio, perhaps inspired by Vanity Fair. These are the Better Way? questions, and so, Hui and I are going to trade off odds and evens. I'm going to start with number one—you have a choice of two questions to answer, Marian. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be? Or, you can answer: Is there a quality about yourself that you're currently working to improve? And if so, what is it?

Marian Currinder: I'm going to go with the second question. And that quality, for me, would be speaking out more regularly. One of my goals or things that I'm constantly working on is figuring out how to do a better job with that or to believe I have something to say and just say it.

Hui Chen: The next question is also a choice of one of two. You can answer either: Who is your favorite mentor? Or: Who do you wish you could be mentored by?

Marian Currinder: Thinking about this question, I went all the way back to grad school and thought about a couple of professors who were on my dissertation committee. The reason why they were my favorite mentors was because they showed such tremendous empathy in helping me get through the program. As a quick example that I think about often, which, to me, shows that it's important, was that I was at one point, struggling to get through this major research project. I had a deadline, I had to turn it in, and right at that same time, my cat, who I'd had for about 15 years, passed away. I was just distraught, and I was trying so hard to get this paper done, and I couldn't get through it. I thought, "I can't go to this prestigious professor and talk about this." But I finally reached a point where I was like, "I can't do it. I have to be honest and tell him what's going on and ask for an extension." When I talked to him, he just showed such tremendous empathy, was so caring, told me about his experience losing a pet, and gave me the extension. It just made all the difference in the world, and so, I have always carried that with me about how important it is to show people, whether you're managing them or just working with them, empathy.

Zach Coseglia: That is a great story. All right, we're going to move into the quick-fire round. What is your best job, paid or unpaid, that you've ever had?

Marian Currinder: The work with the Modernization Committee was, by far, the most fascinating, just in terms of the range of issues that I got to work with, the members of Congress that I got to work closely with, all of the witnesses I worked with, and all of the various players involved in the process. There was just never a dull moment, so it was just a great learning experience.

Hui Chen: What is your favorite thing to do?

Marian Currinder: My favorite thing to do is to run by myself very early in the morning, when it's quiet, no one's awake yet, and it's just me running through the park. It's just the best way to set my mind at ease and get me ready for the day. I get to see all kinds of things in the morning that most people don't see.

Zach Coseglia: What's your favorite place?

Marian Currinder: For me, it's by the water, the ocean. I just love the meditative quality of looking at the ocean and the sound of the ocean.

Hui Chen: What makes you proud?

Marian Currinder: I think what makes me most proud is just seeing the results of hard work or hard work paying off. I think probably the most recent was writing the Committee's final report—just cranking out hundreds of pages of work and then seeing the finished product, I feel proud of that. But it can also be my dog—we just finished a basic manners class and she did great. I was so proud of her for her hard work.

Zach Coseglia: Congratulations to her. What email sign-off do you use most frequently?

Marian Currinder: I use, "Best," but I struggle with this because I sometimes get flack for that—it can seem informal, I guess.

Hui Chen: What trend in your field is most overrated?

Marian Currinder: I was trying to think what my field actually is because it spans academia, to the Hill, to now civil society work, and I think the one trend line through all of those is the need to constantly post on social media. I appreciate social media, but I don't think it's necessary to post every step you take.

Zach Coseglia: I like that. All right, the last question: What word would you use to describe your day so far?

Marian Currinder: I would use four words, and that's just, "All over the place."

Zach Coseglia: That sounds about right. Thank you so much for joining us—this has been such a wonderful discussion. Before we go, all of our listeners are folks within organizations—they are looking for Better Ways. Some of them may be trying to tackle longstanding challenges in new and innovative ways. What final words do you have for our listeners that you can draw from your experience with the Committee?

Marian Currinder: I would say, and this actually comes from people whom I've worked with over in the EU during the pandemic, when we were all just trying to figure out, "How do we keep working? How do we do committee hearings and vote on the Floor when we're virtual?" One of the people who I met over there, who was struggling with the same questions that I was, said that he was given the freedom to experiment. I just thought that that was really amazing advice during a pandemic when none of us knew what we were doing. And because of that freedom, they wound up with some really innovative ways of continuing their work that Congress did not get there because we did not have that same freedom. To just take that kind of approach to try new things, and if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world—you move on and you learn it doesn't work—but if it does work, great things can happen.

Zach Coseglia: I love that, "The freedom to experiment." Thank you for that. And thank you so much for joining us—we really enjoyed talking to you.

Marian Currinder: Thank you so much. I enjoyed this, as well.

Zach Coseglia: Thank you, Marian, so much for joining us. And thank you all for tuning in to the Better Way? podcast and exploring all of these Better Ways with us. For more information about this or anything else that's happening with R&G Insights Lab, please visit our website at www.ropesgray.com/rginsightslab. You can also subscribe to this series wherever you regularly listen to podcasts, including on Apple, Google, and Spotify. And, if you have thoughts about what we talked about today, the work the Lab does, or just have ideas for Better Ways we should explore, please don't hesitate to reach out—we'd love to hear from you. Thanks again for listening.

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