08/18/2026
I’ve been working on something for a while, and, if I’m being transparent, figuring out my lane.
For more than two decades, my work has involved racial equity, organizational change, leadership, community engagement and what it actually takes to move institutions from stated values toward different policies, practices and ways of operating.
But there’s another part of this work I want to talk about more publicly: What can happen to people while we are trying to change systems?
Especially the people who are expected to lead change inside institutions that may not actually be ready to change.
That question is part of the thinking behind my YouTube series, On the Ground with Kimberlee Archie. In the newest episode, I use one of my own professional experiences to examine the difference between individual and institutional accountability, organizational power, racialized gendered scrutiny, leadership, workplace wellbeing and the consequences that can remain long after an organizational process ends.
I also draw from current research on Black leadership and women of color leaders to ask a question that organizations interested in equity should be willing to sit with:
What do Black women do while institutions are failing to meet their responsibility?
And there's an organizational question on the other side of it:
What responsibility does an institution have to examine itself instead of locating the problem, and the responsibility for change, primarily in the individual?
That's a conversation I want KSO Consulting to keep having. Not equity as performance. More than organizational values sitting on a website.
And not “resilience” as the solution to harmful working conditions. Systems. Power. Accountability. Practice. Change.
🎥 Watch the full On the Ground episode on YouTube:
What Do Black Women Do While Institutions Are Failing Them?
https://youtube.com/?si=sk4pXyv_fW6NlkaP
I’d especially welcome thoughts from organizational leaders, consultants, HR/people leaders and change practitioners:
How does your organization distinguish between something an individual needs to learn or change and something the institution itself needs to learn or change?
