What makes people want to stay on your team for the long haul?

In this episode, Chris is joined by Des Moines County Conservation’s Environmental Education Manager, Marcus Nack, for a conversation about workplace culture, leadership, and the kind of organizational ecosystem that makes people want to stay, grow, and do their best work. The discussion starts with a real example: an intern who came to the team looking for clarity and left saying, “I want to do this forever.” From there, Chris and Marcus unpack what creates that kind of environment—and why great culture is never an accident.

Marcus shares his own path into conservation and environmental education, from growing up in suburban Illinois and hunting with his dad in Wisconsin, to college, grad school, camp leadership, and eventually landing in southeast Iowa during the chaos of 2020. Along the way, he reflects on the experiences that shaped his leadership style and why fun, play, reflection, and emotional awareness matter more than most managers realize.

The conversation also explores the overlap between leadership and ecology—a theme longtime listeners will recognize. Chris and Marcus talk about how creating a thriving workplace is a lot like creating habitat: when people feel supported, energized, and safe to grow, better outcomes follow. They also dig into Marcus’s approach to leading the education team, including how he uses reflection, after-action reviews, and curiosity instead of blame to help people improve.

They also touch on Marcus’s new podcast, Paid Time Outdoors (find it on YouTube and Facebook), which explores how people choose to spend the time they work so hard to earn. It’s a fun side conversation, but one that ties right back into the episode’s bigger point: people thrive when they stay connected to what gives them energy.

A few takeaways from this episode:
A great workplace is built on trust, fun, and genuine human connection—not just productivity.
Reflection matters. Teams improve faster when they regularly ask what worked, what didn’t, and what they can do better next time.
Play is not a distraction from growth. It’s often how growth happens.

About Parks and Restoration:
Parks and Restoration is the podcast for parks and conservation professionals who want to be better leaders for their teams, agencies, and communities. Through conversations on leadership, culture, personal growth, and the work of conservation, the show helps listeners build healthier organizations and more meaningful careers. Learn more at ParksandRestoration.com.

What do prescribed burns have to do with leading a team?

More than you’d think.

In this episode, Chris and Jeremy break down leadership lessons pulled straight from burn season — burn plans, clear objectives, contingency planning, and the kind of flexibility you need when conditions change. They talk through real examples from recent burns (including an 800-acre day at Hitchcock) and connect the dots to the workplace: performance issues, meetings that drain people, programs you’ve “always done,” and the importance of building a culture where people can question decisions in real time.

Key themes in this episode:

• Disturbance is necessary — in ecosystems and in organizations

• Clear objectives matter: why this, why now?

• Share the “why” (internally and publicly) to build trust and reduce confusion

• Contingencies aren’t pessimism — they’re how you set yourself up for success

• Plans are meant to guide, not rigidly control: adapt to conditions and seasons of life

• The ultimate goal: build an organization that can run without you for a while

Join the Next Level Leadership community:Go to parksandrestoration.com and drop your email to get updates, leadership insights, and invites to upcoming Zoom meetups.

Also find us on Facebook and Instagram — everything points back to parksandrestoration.com.

About Parks and Restoration
Parks and Restoration is the podcast for parks and conservation professionals who want to become better leaders for their teams, their communities, and future generations. Hosted by Chris Lee and Jeremy Yost, each episode explores leadership through the lens of ecology — blending real stories from the field with practical takeaways you can apply in your agency, your career, and your life.

What’s the ROI of a prairie? A bat you’ll never see? A fence line removed to stitch habitat back together?

In this episode, Chris and Jeremy dig into a pressure most parks and conservation leaders feel right now: the growing expectation to put a dollar value on everything—habitat work, land protection, restoration, even species existence. There’s usefulness in ecosystem services and economic arguments… but there are also real limitations (and risks) when money becomes the only language we speak.

Discussion points:

• Why “ecosystem services” keeps showing up in conservation conversations—and hiring interviews
• The core tension: Does nature need to serve humans to be worth protecting?
• A real-world example: wind energy vs. endangered bats—and how messy “value” gets in practice
• The bald eagle recovery story (and the Rachel Carson backlash) as a reminder that this debate isn’t new
• What we lose when a species disappears: the hidden ecological relationships we don’t even understand yet (passenger pigeon + oak savannas)
• A better approach than arguing abstract philosophy: local knowledge + relentless storytelling
• Why good stewardship starts with intimate knowledge of place—and using your community’s “amateur experts” (birders, herpers, photographers, banders)
• The Hitchcock/Loess Hills example: removing fence lines to reconnect prairies isn’t just a “project”—it’s landscape-scale restoration people can see
• Bringing it full circle: you may still need to write grants and justify budgets, but the deeper case is about connection, continuity, and responsibility

Join the Next Level Leadership Community at ParksandRestoration.com for invites to upcoming live virtual meetups including:

• Dr. Kathleen Allen, author of Leading from the Roots
• Dr. Nick Askew, UK-based host of the Conservation Careers podcast that explores wildlife conservation internationally.

About Parks and Restoration

Parks and Restoration is the podcast for parks and conservation professionals who want to lead better—building strong teams, healthier cultures, and thriving public lands. Hosted by Chris Lee (Des Moines County Conservation) and Jeremy Yost (Pottawattamie County Conservation).

What if the key to better leadership isn’t “managing harder”…but managing like an ecologist?

From a difficult conversation where Chris was told he could be "intimidating" to his questioning whether he was cut out for a leadership role, this episode unpacks Chris' leadership journey and the origins of his Organizational Ecology framework — a leadership approach rooted in the idea that you don’t force results, you create the conditions for people to thrive and let performance follow.

Key takeaways:

• Conservation work is ultimately people work — nothing sustains without humans who care.

• Leadership isn’t a title or a system; it’s how you show up, especially under pressure.

• You don’t command ecosystems into productivity — you build habitat. The same is true for teams.

• The 5 Ps of a thriving organization: People, Perspective, Purpose, Proactive, and Process.

• Fulfillment and connection are the real “energy sources” that drive performance.

• Perspective matters: behavior at work is often a symptom of unseen burdens.

• Proactive leaders slow down reactions and invest in real one-on-one relationships.

Want to go deeper? Head over to ParksandRestoration.com

• Join the Next Level Leadership Community

• Bring these concepts to your organization through trainings, workshops, or keynotes

About Parks and Restoration

Parks and Restoration is the show for parks and conservation professionals who want to lead better for their teams, their communities, and future generations. Hosted by Chris Lee and Jeremy Yost, the podcast blends real-world stories, practical leadership tools, and lessons from nature to help organizations - and the people that lead them - thrive.

What if “performance evaluations” weren’t a dreaded, once-a-year formality… but one of the best tools you have to build culture?

In this episode, Chris and Jeremy talk about a different way to look at performance evaluations—less as a grading system, and more as a structured, intentional check-in that helps you understand your people, clarify expectations, and keep the workplace ecosystem healthy.

They dig into why annual evals can create recency bias, and why real performance issues should be addressed in real time (not stored up for a “gotcha” conversation months later). They also talk about what makes a performance system work even when it’s informal: clarity on your “why,” a shared way to prioritize work, and regular check-ins that keep your finger on the pulse.

Chris shares the review questions he uses (and why), including:

• What energized you most this year—and what are you most looking forward to next?

• What could have been better, and how do we improve it?

• How would you describe our workplace culture? Has it changed?

• What exemplary work have you seen from coworkers that should be recognized?

• How did our work deliver on our mission?

• What do you want to do better going forward—and what resources do you need?

• How can I (as a leader) be a better resource to help you succeed?

• What challenges do you expect, and how can you preempt them?

A big theme here: culture isn’t built by policies and manuals. It’s built by creating the conditions where people can thrive—and then actually acting on the feedback you invite. Because if you ask for input and nothing changes, you don’t just waste time… you lose trust.

Chris also shares a simple leadership “ninja move” that works everywhere: secondhand compliments. When you pass along praise someone heard from someone else, it lands differently—and it reinforces the behavior you want to see repeated.

If you’re trying to build a high-performing team without building a fear-based workplace, this episode is for you.

Episodes referenced:

• Finding energy in the work you're wired for (discussion of Working Genius)
• The power of partnerships (eating elephants reference)
• Culture eats strategy (and elephants)
• SPF2 framework for effective recognition

About Parks and Restoration

Parks and Restoration is a podcast for park professionals, land stewards, and the people doing the often unseen work of caring for public lands and natural resources. We share stories, lessons, and practical ideas to help you lead well, build healthy workplace cultures, and create thriving systems—outdoors and at work.

Back in November, we invited the Parks and Restoration Next Level Leader Community to an exclusive meetup with Jessica DeAngelo, author of the new book The Wild Advantage: Why Your Brain on Nature is Your Boldest Business Move. With help from the community, the book hit bestseller status in multiple categories on Amazon.

Jessica doesn't have a parks or conservation background. She comes from the corporate world. Yet she discovered the undeniable value of time unplugged in nature and now has built an entire business around connecting business leaders with the very places that parks and conservation people like us strive to provide and protect everyday.

This meetup was both insightful and entertaining and we can't wait to see what's next for Jessica and her company, Hike to Become.

If you would like invites to future meetups with the community, simply sign up at www.ParksandRestoration.com.

Thanks for all you do and we'll chat again in 2026!

Are you trying to sell a plan… when what people really need is a vision?

In this episode, Chris and Jeremy dig into why vision—not strategy documents, timelines, or step-by-step plans—is what actually gets people to care, to say yes, and to get involved. Using examples from JFK’s moonshot and Teddy Roosevelt’s conservation legacy, they connect big, historic visions to very real, very local parks and conservation projects.

They share stories from Big Hollow and Hitchcock Nature Center to show how long-term visions survive leadership changes, funding gaps, and skeptics—and how those visions eventually attract donors, partners, and community champions who help turn ideas into reality.

Along the way, they unpack what makes a vision compelling in the first place. A strong vision pushes the edge of what feels possible, connects to who we want to be as a community, and is tangible enough that people can picture themselves in it. It doesn’t have to be perfectly planned, time-bound, or even fully realistic at the start—but it does have to be communicated relentlessly.

They also talk about the role of the leader as the storyteller, not the hero. “It’s not yours—it’s just your turn.” The real heroes are the landowners, donors, neighbors, and supporters who believe in the vision and help carry it forward. Celebrating small wins, resisting naysayers, and knowing when to launch the next vision are all part of keeping momentum alive.

If you’re leading a park, a conservation program, or any community-focused organization—and you’ve ever wondered why some projects seem to effortlessly attract support while others stall—this episode will change how you think about vision.

About Parks and Restoration:Parks and Restoration is a podcast for park, conservation, and outdoor recreation professionals who want to build stronger teams, healthier landscapes, and communities that care. Hosted by Chris Lee and Jeremy Yost, each episode shares real-world stories and practical leadership insights to help you become the next-level leader your organization, your community, and future generations need. Learn more at parksandrestoration.com.

Why do we cut cedars out of prairies? Why do we thin trees in forests and oak savannas? Why do we burn?

For many of us, the answers to those questions are fairly straightforward. But some people think about land management on a deeper level. They see thinning operations as managing the flow of energy in a system. Or they seek to understand the microclimate impacts from prescribed fire.

Some people focus on the "why" before the "what" and the "how" when it comes to working in conservation. My guest for this episode, Chad Graeve, is definitely one of those people.

Note: This episode was recorded and originally posted back in 2023 and has been downloaded more than any other episode to date.

Chad has spent three decades honing his "why" and in this conversation, we dive deep into the evolution of his philosophies regarding land stewardship, hiring practices, team building, balancing outdoor recreation with natural area management, and much more.

I left this conversation with a new way of looking at the lands I manage and it's reignited my passion for understanding the "why" behind our decisions as an organization, a theme you hear often in our newer episodes.

We'll be back with a brand new episode on December 16.

Change isn’t just hard—it’s biologically, psychologically, and culturally designed to be hard. In this episode, Chris and Jeremy break down why teams resist change, especially in legacy organizations like parks, conservation agencies, and natural resource departments.

Whether you’re rolling out digital campground registration or shifting from a mow-everything mentality to a pollinator-friendly rewilding approach, resistance is guaranteed. But it’s also manageable—if you know what’s driving it.

Drawing from behavioral science, real-world field examples, organizational leadership concepts, and another elephant analogy, this episode gives you a practical framework anyone can use to guide their team through change without burnout, frustration, or unnecessary conflict.

This isn’t about forcing people to change. It’s about guiding them through it—using clarity, psychology, and purpose.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The three types of resistance you’ll encounter in organizational change

• Why “loss aversion” makes change feel threatening

• How to spot emotional, cognitive, and cultural pushback in your team

• What rewilding and campground QR codes can teach us about real-world change

• Why change fails without clear purpose and storytelling

• How to reduce friction so the new behavior becomes the easy behavior

• Why celebrating early wins creates cultural momentum

• Ten practical tools you can use to lead teams through change

• Why identity—not logic—is often the real barrier

Download the free Change Leader’s Field Guide

A PDF summary with the three types of resistance and ten concrete strategies to lead your team through change.

Key Takeaways:

• People don’t resist change—they resist loss

• Confusion is one of the biggest sources of resistance

• Culture shifts when identity shifts

• Pilots and small wins build psychological safety

• Leaders guide change by reducing fear, increasing clarity, and reinforcing identity

• Change sticks when the conditions for growth are right
  

About Parks and Restoration

Parks and Restoration is a story-driven podcast for aspiring leaders who care about the outdoors and the organizations that protect it. From leadership lessons and workplace culture to ecology, fieldcraft, and community impact, each episode helps parks and natural resource professionals thrive in the work they love.

Are you still leading with the habits that got you promoted—or the ones that will actually move your team forward?

This week Chris and Jeremy unpack “What got you here won’t get you there” through an ecological lens. Just like trees drop their leaves to grow stronger roots, next-level leaders let go of mindsets that once worked but now hold their teams back. They share 10 practical mindset shifts to help you move from output to impact, from control to clarity, and from extraction to regeneration. They cover a lot, so grab the free PDF summary here.

Key takeaways

• Hustle → Balance: Model boundaries and build sustainable energy, don’t extract it.

• Me → Team: Your success scales when theirs does.

• Competition → Cooperation: Mature systems (and great orgs) run on partnership and win-win.

• Work → Culture: When the culture is healthy, results follow without you being the bottleneck.

• Tradition → Flexibility: Policies guide; leaders adapt (like shifting burn seasons for better outcomes).

• Control → Clarity & Trust: State leader’s intent—what “done” looks like—then empower execution.

• Correcting → Coaching: Develop people with questions, reps, and feedback, not just directives.

• Answers → Better Questions: Context matters; ask “Why do you ask?” before solving.

• Perfection → Progress: Ecosystems—and organizations—are never “done.” Ship, learn, iterate.

• Habit → Intentionality: Step back, scan for drift, and prune what no longer serves.

If you’re moving from individual contributor to leader (or leveling up as a leader), these shifts are the difference between a tired team and a thriving one. Listen in to trade short-term output for long-term impact—and walk away with tools you can use immediately.

About Parks & Restoration

Parks & Restoration is the show for parks and natural resource professionals who want to be better leaders for their organizations, communities, and the lands and waters they steward. Every other Tuesday, Chris Lee and Jeremy Yost share practical strategies—grounded in ecology and culture-building—to help you become the leader your team needs.

Join the Next Level Leadership community at parksandrestoration.com for bi-weekly insights, free tools like the Team Energy Audit, and invites to exclusive meetups.

Subscribe, leave a review, and follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube by searching “Parks and Restoration Podcast.”