About Us

About ORANS

ORANS is an all-volunteer organization founded in 2015 and it exists to promote relational leadership. Relational leadership is leadership guided by a relentless pursuit of quality interaction with others, even bitter enemies, and also leadership that insists on action to create lasting change — not momentary improvement, but lasting change built on an unshakable foundation. It is leadership applied on a micro and macro level: in every small personal interaction in the course of a day and in every major decision affecting the interaction between entities and groups of all types and sizes, from small mom-and-pop businesses to the most powerful nation states.

Relational leadership seeks to address a fundamental problem. The problem is what might be called a transactional approach to interaction — placing little value on the other person and their well-being. A transactional approach views interactions with others as transactions where the goal is to get the maximum value for oneself. A transactional approach, while effective short term, fails to create lasting and sustainable agreements and outcomes. A transactional approach on a group level becomes tribalism that demonizes the opposition, does not tolerate dissenting voices, and uses power over others to gain more power and influence for the benefit of in-group members. Tribalism divides and destroys societies. Relational leadership unifies and builds stronger societies.

The challenge for leaders — the ones with power and influence — and the hope for cultural evolution, is to change the paradigm of interaction: how we use our power, how we negotiate, how we relate — shifting from being transactional to being relational, from focusing on self and maximizing gain, to focusing on both self and other and maximizing well-being. There is a special calling for those with wealth and power to be relational with others. That is the reason for our support of the Billionaire Program.

We invite you to #JoinORANS and to find solutions to problems through collaboration and active nonviolence. Together, if we embrace relational leadership as a standard that we demand from those with wealth and power, we can create lasting positive change in our world, one interaction at a time. When there is a problem or conflict, it only takes one person to change the interaction — and that person can be you. Be a relational leader, make more relational leaders, demand relational leadership from those in power, and you can stop the escalation of tribalism in America and the world.

ORANS is an all-volunteer organization started in 2015 to promote relational leadership. It is not a charity and only exists to promote ideas. We want to help find solutions to difficult problems, improve dialogue and create lasting positive change.