Jul-Sept 2020

Jul-Sept 2020

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Transformative Times Demand We Adapt
Transformation is frequently forged in the crucible of a crisis. As a result, the speed and degree at which we respond is often masked, obscured by intense feelings of fear, loss and uncertainty. Media headlines highlight the extreme, the dramatic and the sensational, further exacerbating these emotions and heightening our sense of frustration and powerlessness. We are left with the impression that life and progress has been brought to a standstill. Nothing could be further from the truth; we have already begun to adapt.

The pandemic has been catastrophic. It has impacted or suspended virtually every aspect of daily life and massively disrupted the economy. But this head-on collision with a virus has had another effect. It has catapulted us into the future by accelerating our embrace of ideas and technical solutions that seemed provocative just a short time ago.

The most obvious and immediate adaptation has been the way we connect for work and with our family and our community. A shift in policies and methods, along with expanded use of collaborative technologies, facilitated the deployment of legions of remote workers seemingly overnight. The education sector experienced the same. Renowned for its glacial approach to change, education institutions from school districts to universities moved with both speed and urgency to implement remote learning solutions to meet the needs of their students in their newly assigned home classrooms.

Contents

Jul-Sept 2020
Leadership: Stepping Forward
by Shilo A. Harris
Pick your core values, lead
yourself first and others will follow.
Penguins on an iceberg
by Francis Wiese
Rethinking interaction with the natural ecosystem.
A Vegan meal
by Karl Mundorff
Impacting outcomes – there’s no shortcut for gaining market acceptance.
Three women working on deisgns
by Leah Boltz
Creating healthy human environments that better serve the public.
Female cashier taking a credit card
by Bob Bagga
How a collective is establishing a future post COVID-19.
Rainbow paint of building design
by Alison Kear
Helping youth recover from homelessness takes a village.
Person with nose growing
by Heather Kinzie
Leadership presented with honesty and candor can be a beacon to others.
Closeup of poppies
by Erin Sedor
Do you believe in yourself? It can be one of the most important strategies.
Women comparing products
by Rich Carte
Enabling higher education to reward entrepreneurship.
Women putting on her shoes
by Rachael Petro
Grieving, learning and growing – your career is not your identity.
Publisher
Rick Thomas

Editor
Nance Larsen

Cover Story Photo
Joanne McCurry
moon-glade.com

Visualizer
Scott Mlynarczyk

Administration
Karin Norgard
Kelsey Richardson

Sales
sales@thestriveproject.com
907.278.7483

info@thestriveproject.com

Published By
The STRIVE Group, LLC

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Copyright © 2020
The Strive Group, LLC
All rights reserved.

Going Beyond Climate Change Awareness
Shifting behavior is everyone’s social responsibility
by Francis K. Wiese, Ph.D.
I

step up to the podium in the small lecture theater and look over 120 people assembled from more than a dozen nations. To my right, I see tabular icebergs passing by beyond the oval-shaped windows. My challenge will be to keep the audience focused on my talk rather than the breathtaking nature beyond the ship’s steel hull. The amazing scenery and wildlife are what they are here for, after all, but they are also here to be immersed in nature, to learn and experience, not just to observe. The date is December 21, 2006, and I am giving a lecture on climate change aboard the MS Nordnorge while cruising along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula.

There was some anticipation about this talk, especially for the North Americans in the audience. George W. Bush was president of the United States, and it was a few months prior to the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which would ultimately change his official stance on the reality of man-made climate change.

After my presentation and a constructive discussion, a woman approached to thank me. I politely accepted her compliment but was somewhat bewildered until she explained; the thanks were for publicly explaining and speaking out about climate change, something she, as a U.S. federal employee, was not allowed to do prior to the 2007 IPCC Report.

Photos courtesy of Dr. Francis Wiese
I

step up to the podium in the small lecture theater and look over 120 people assembled from more than a dozen nations. To my right, I see tabular icebergs passing by beyond the oval-shaped windows. My challenge will be to keep the audience focused on my talk rather than the breathtaking nature beyond the ship’s steel hull. The amazing scenery and wildlife are what they are here for, after all, but they are also here to be immersed in nature, to learn and experience, not just to observe. The date is December 21, 2006, and I am giving a lecture on climate change aboard the MS Nordnorge while cruising along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula.

There was some anticipation about this talk, especially for the North Americans in the audience. George W. Bush was president of the United States, and it was a few months prior to the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which would ultimately change his official stance on the reality of man-made climate change.

After my presentation and a constructive discussion, a woman approached to thank me. I politely accepted her compliment but was somewhat bewildered until she explained; the thanks were for publicly explaining and speaking out about climate change, something she, as a U.S. federal employee, was not allowed to do prior to the 2007 IPCC Report.

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Choose Christie and turn your inspired ideas into innovative solutions. We create a complete range of high-quality AV solutions for business, education, entertainment and industry. And protect your investment with industry-leading customer care, warranties and technical support.
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Let's Imagine title
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Christie Ultra Series - Titled LCD panels image
Christie MicroTiles LED image
Christie®️ APDS Series
Choose Christie and turn your inspired ideas into innovative solutions. We create a complete range of high-quality AV solutions for business, education, entertainment and industry. And protect your investment with industry-leading customer care, warranties and technical support.
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Christie
Christie
Table of vegetables
Not “Meating” Our Customer’s Needs
A pre-history of the meatless burger craze
by Karl Mundorff

I

knew we had a hit when we received an order from the food service supplier for the Enid, Oklahoma school district. I turned to Paul Wenner, CEO of Gardenburger™, and said, “If we can sell it there, we can sell it anywhere in America.” “It” was the Gardenburger™, a meatless burger patty made from mushroom, onions, rolled oats, brown rice, cheeses and a few other things. It was the first meatless burger patty to go mainstream.

I came across Gardenburgers™ in the natural food section of my local grocery store in Anchorage, Alaska, in the late 1980s. The males in my family have a history of heart disease, and not too many years before my father underwent a quadruple bypass. My diet at the time was generally healthy, but his event caused me to seek out new foods, especially entrées. I found this meatless patty that was pre-baked, frozen, fit on a bun and could be prepared in numerous ways. Additionally, it did not taste like the other meatless products on the market, all of which tried to mimic the taste of meat and failed.

Design Matters
Global Impacts
Beyond a Pandemic
by Leah Boltz

T

he built environment and the ways we use spaces will be forever changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The design community is working as quickly as we can to research, respond and guide the world through this complete pivot in the places where we live, work and play. Something akin to designing and building a plane while flying it full of passengers. The goal: Change the course of this pandemic through design, create healthier spaces that improve human outcomes, help communities thrive, and return the economy to its former glory. Easy, right?

In a recent Inc. Real Talk interview series, I heard two of today’s most transformational CEOs and innovators stumble over this question: “What are you doing about your physical spaces in a post-COVID world?” For those who have poured their creativity and hundreds of millions of dollars into some of the world’s most innovative, open-concept collaboration spaces and iconic commercial spaces (think of your favorite tech or retail stores)—places meant for gathering—they seemed at a loss for the right answer.

Building a Bartering Community
We are better working together
by Bob Bagga

I

t would be far from an exaggeration to state that COVID-19 has completely upended the business landscape throughout the world. This is without even mentioning the incredible toll it has taken on families, frontline workers and vulnerable populations.

The economic toll – businesses empty or shuttered, employees furloughed, bottom lines and markets reaching new lows – along with the physical and emotional impact, will be felt for years if not decades.

Rather than competing with each other, we are now seeing business owners coming together in formal and informal ways, developing networks and supporting each other in identifying creative solutions to weather the pandemic. As business owners, we are greater than the sum of our parts, and in order to keep things moving forward we need to start talking and find synergies wherever they may exist.

Cashier taking a biz card as payment
Photos courtesy of BizX
Building a Bartering Community
We are better working together
by Bob Bagga

I

t would be far from an exaggeration to state that COVID-19 has completely upended the business landscape throughout the world. This is without even mentioning the incredible toll it has taken on families, frontline workers and vulnerable populations.

The economic toll – businesses empty or shuttered, employees furloughed, bottom lines and markets reaching new lows – along with the physical and emotional impact, will be felt for years if not decades.

Rather than competing with each other, we are now seeing business owners coming together in formal and informal ways, developing networks and supporting each other in identifying creative solutions to weather the pandemic. As business owners, we are greater than the sum of our parts, and in order to keep things moving forward we need to start talking and find synergies wherever they may exist.

Photos courtesy of BizX

When the pandemic accelerated in early 2020, I and a few Seattle-area small business owners began wondering what we could do. This conversation evolved into a Facebook group for small business owners, Business Saving Business, which as I write has nearly 2,300 members and has been the common ground for regional business owners in Washington State to discuss and share resources and inspiration each day.

Online in real-time
REMOTE READINESS
Thriving in the Remote Work Environment
The ability to effectively work remotely has become a necessity, upgrading the action to include relationshipbuilding, video conferencing, and ensuring safety and wellbeing of workers. These challenges are magnifed when working virtually. Enabling a remote worker with the right technology and tools can improve communication, generate engagement and create a productive virtual work environment for all.
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Creating and Enabling a Remote Workforce
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I Can Do It!
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Using Brain Science to Maximize Your Effectiveness Working Remotely
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Managing Virtual Teams
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There’s an App for That!
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Communicating Effectively Over Distance
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Facilitating and Mastering Virtual Meetings
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Leading People Through Challenge and Change
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Safety Matters, Even Remotely!
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Using Brain Science to Maximize Your Effectiveness Leading Remotely
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Accountability on Remote Teams
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Tips to be Effective and Productive while Working from Home
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Maintaining Mental and Emotional Wellness Through Challenging Times
For class descriptions and registration, visit
thestrivegroup.com/remote-readiness
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SSG Ret Shilo A. Harris. Photo by Joanne McCurry
Leadership: Stepping Forward
Motivating others starts with setting core values for yourself
by SSG Ret Shilo A. Harris
F

ebruary 19, 2007: That was the day my life became the motto “from tragedy to triumph.” I was proudly and confidently serving in the United States Army. My platoon was traveling to investigate a potential improved explosive device (IED) down a famously explosive road called Route Metallica. All the roads in the area were named after heavy metal bands, and rightfully so.

I was the vehicle commander, riding in the third vehicle in the convoy. All eyes and ears were active, everyone engaged in tactical communication and patrol while navigating around IED holes in the asphalt. The noise, the shatter and the impact happened so fast. My Humvee was blown apart by a 700-pound bomb that took the lives of three of my brothers and changed the lives of everyone in the platoon. For me, it was catastrophic. I was taken from the battlefield and induced into a coma that lasted about 48 days. When I woke up, I learned that I had lost three fingers, my nose and both ears, broke my clavicle, chipped a vertebra in my neck, and endured third-degree burns over 35 percent of my body. This is one of those moments that can break anyone: physically, spiritually and psychologically.

Building a Successful, Caring Community
by Alison Kear
M

ore than 20 years ago, I signed up as a volunteer at Covenant House Alaska – the only shelter for youth experiencing homelessness in the Southcentral region of the state – and it changed the trajectory of my life. I was so inspired by the young people I met that I decided to make a career here and contribute however I could to building and improving not just our programs, but all the systems and services for young people in Anchorage.

My community had to face some hard truths about our longstanding problem of chronic homelessness. Everything we had been doing was focused on stopping the suffering that comes with homelessness, meeting people’s basic needs and trying to prevent early mortality. What became apparent was that we had to get in front of the problem rather than simply react to it. Creating the right services and interventions for youth at an early age, before years of complex trauma makes stability so much more difficult to achieve, seemed the only way to lift people out of a terrible cycle. I had already seen enough of where that path leads. Every time one of our youth was lost to the dangers of the street, it broke every heart on my team.

Staying homeless for long all but guarantees that kids and youth will face repeated trauma and become targets for exploitation, driving them farther into isolation and just-survive-the-day lifestyles in which childhood dreams start to seem more like distant fantasies. There is no stopping adult homelessness without first addressing youth homelessness and all the factors that lead to this unacceptable reality.

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Truth Be Told
Truth Be Told
Honesty is a critical leadership quality
by Heather Kinzie

I

lie a lot.

I’m not proud of it and I am working on improving, but alas, it’s true.

I’m talking about the lies I tell myself. They’re numerous, they’re consistent and they’re often quite easy to justify. Sometimes I lie so much to myself that it’s difficult to remember fact from fiction.

I’d be lying if I claimed to be unique; I am certain you lie to yourself, too. I am equally confident those lies are holding us both back. That said, I think we owe it to ourselves, our loved ones, our teams and our communities to strive for truth.

In Search of Tall Poppies
by Erin Sedor

T

all Poppies: An analogy for those who stand above their peers due to their skills, accomplishments and personal success and who are, by virtue of what they’ve accomplished, often targeted by their peers and society in general. The phenomenon has become so predominant that we now identify it as TPS, Tall Poppy Syndrome.

The origin of the term came from Australia, where cultivators of poppies felt that all flowers in their fields should grow uniformly, and thus would snip the taller ones down to size. It has been historically used as a cautionary tale of what happens when you fail to maintain modesty and humility. It does not apply only to the rich and famous; high achievers in virtually any environment can be targeted. If you have ever been exposed to “tall poppying” it is not likely a good memory. Even when you have survived such attempts at pruning, it leaves you a bit more hardened and a bit more isolated with every round. Is it enough to stop the best and brightest among us? Of course not. However, it is worth a bit of exploration into how you might minimize the downside of being a tall poppy so that you may enjoy the fruits of your labor and aspiration.

Valuing Innovation at Universities
by Rich Carter, Ph.D.
M

y dream of becoming a university faculty member conducting research in organic chemistry, the study of molecules that contain the element carbon, began in 1990. My inspiration came when I was a student in Professor Alex Rowland’s CH-203 Organic Chemistry class at Gettysburg College, where I found the ability to manipulate molecules at the atomic level fascinating. Later, upon joining Professor Phil Magnus’s research laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin to complete my Ph.D., I saw the true power of my chosen craft – making molecules that can improve human existence. My graduate research focused on the chemical synthesis of potential treatments for cancer.

Trust Your Strengths
by Rachael Petro
A

major career change accompanied by a major move set in motion a domino effect from which I’m still grieving, learning and growing after realizing my career was my identity. I know I’m not alone; it’s common in our culture.

A frequent mantra we hear in business is that “what gets measured gets done.” We derive serious satisfaction when we deliver on the goals that we set for ourselves or that were established by our leaders. Likewise, we suffer when we fail to meet these goals. This affects our self-worth, our financial security, and our overall mental and physical well-being. We wear our work accomplishments as our identity.

Life perspective is gained only through the trials of time and experience. While my story isn’t unique, I tell it now with the hope that others can avoid the same mistake. My case of mistaken identity forced me to learn how to grieve, but it also gave me the tools to move forward.

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Thanks for reading our Jul-Sept 2020 issue!