The Great Conversation

There is no one way to look at PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) there are 636,120 ways to have PTSD.

However, those of us who have not been diagnosed with PTSD can learn a lot from those who have served our combat veterans on how to deal with stress and trauma, especially in these uncertain times.

One of our Great Conversation leaders introduced us to Dr. Dan Libby, Executive Director of the Veterans Yoga Project (VYP), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization whose mission is to support recovery and resilience among our veterans, families, and communities. He and his organization are working with hundreds, if not thousands, each week, helping them to navigate a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world. Here is a quote from Dr. Libby based on an early recognition of the power of yoga on one of his early clients:

“A turning point in the founding of VYP occurred before the fourth “mindful yoga” class I had ever taught. One of my veterans approached me and told me that he had stopped taking his sleep medications, because now he could meditate to go to sleep. That moment was profound. The pride with which he told me this was palpable. It is as if he were no longer a broken man who could not manage the simplest of human functions; instead, he was empowered to use his own mind, his own breath, his own body to live and sleep, in a way that brought him more ease and more joy. He practiced every day. Eventually, he went on to lead morning meditations in his own community at a local yoga center.”

 We have a Great Conversation around the unique benefits of yoga in training the body and mind, eventually training yourself to be at peace with what you find in any moment. I came away with the sense that if I could get to that state, as a leader, I could see more clearly the people around me and the circumstances that were confronting them with empathy and without judgement. In a sense, we wake up, freed from emotional constructs that can lead us astray.

Dr. Libby is much more eloquent. Enjoy the conversation.

Something is wrong. We have so many tools within our reach that would position our organizations more strategically, improve our processes exponentially, and create value within our market ecosystems. But for some reason, we cannot get our people to believe that their work is essential to their life and well-being. Work has become something you do while you are waiting for life to begin. You can see it and hear it. Just listen:

TGIF (Thank God it is Friday)

I am only working here until I get a better offer somewhere else

One day I can retire and not have to do this anymore

Our leaders only care about money and power

How did this happen?

There is a company, Quantum Leaders, that would tell you that all the Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecarding, and Wellness Programs you have put into place are good. But they would point you to the facts: People are still not engaged. We explore this ugly truth and how we might begin a journey of discovery that might lead to change in how we view the world, and ourselves in it. And it might just make your organization more competitive, more efficient, and more resilient.

Welcome to The Great Conversation around a radical concept: Your organization is a living person.

In business, we start with how people think, feel, and respond. We put tools in their hands. The tools inspire behavior. They become personal and professional. And if you are one of the fortunate, yet small minority, that is successful harnessing their positive reaction to your tool, you are on the path to value.

I seldom see the agents of change be motivated by purely money. They usually seek impact. They consider their legacy; and they want to win. Winning to them is about seizing the opportunity so that they, the market, and their customer, flourish.

I am fortunate to be able to speak with these people at different stages of their thinking. Stephen Pineau, the CEO of Gloocel is my latest. Gloocel seeks to dramatically lower the cost and improve the experience of building owners and their stakeholders, by cutting the cord using mobile and the cloud.

But enjoy the lessons that lurk below the specific market and product. It is another Great Conversation.

If you think about it, protecting those who lead us must be one of the oldest professions.

Today there is a professional practice called “Executive Protection”. In most companies, it is one of many spokes of their security program wheel.

But for some time now, the practice of risk management and security has been undergoing a radical transformation. The deluge of information and the ability to collect it, organize it, understand it, and communicate it for appropriate defense measures and actionable incident response, can no longer depend on a single person or department. Technology is advancing to bring a vast aggregation engine from on the ground resources to online media outlets (including social). And there is an opportunity to bring executive level purview into the mix from HR, Legal, Compliance, and Operations through a comprehensive and integrated cross functional communication platform.

I turned to Michael Trott, a thought leader, author (The Protected), and security executive leader for Discovery Land Company, to seek his counsel and wisdom, from experience, in advance of the Protective Intelligence Summit we will be at in Austin, Texas February 21-23, 2022. We begin to unpack what executive protection and security might look like in the years to come.

It was a great conversation.

Every week we work, we strive, we fear, and we love. If we are fortunate, we take time to listen to music. If we are even more fortunate, we find ourselves in a small, comfortable venue listening to live music.

It could be jazz, the blues, reggae, or rock and roll. It doesn’t matter. Because music, according to psychology experts, can reduce your stress level. And stress is impacts are brain and memory. If it is jazz, the musician also stretches the brain by having to think critically and creatively through their technical knowledge of playing their instrument and the challenge of integrating what they are hearing from their fellow performers. The resulting “collaboration” is the performance we experience.

But what if the performer pauses mid-stream to take us on another journey that could be defined as “the breath of life.”

We meet up with a global-trotting world-class musician by the name of Levi Huffman who takes us on this journey of his that has touched so many of his followers.

With the rapid pace of change in technology, the need for the strategic integration of the technology to leverage the data it is aggregating and consuming, and, finally, the cost of labor vs. the return, new business models have emerged.

We explore one such company riding these changes. The CEO, Daniel Forest, shares his entrepreneurial background and nature and how it informed and infused his company.

Eyeforce Inc. is a remote video guarding company stationed in Houston, TX. They specialize in the remote guarding of outdoor critical infrastructures such as water treatment facilities, solar and wind farms, oil and gas pipeline, parking areas, construction sites, and many more.

We love finding people of passion who have connected their passion and calling in such a way that they influence executives and companies around the world.

Recently we connected with the President of Parks Associates, Elizabeth Parks, a second-generation business owner with a legacy of aggregating information about the residential and small business security market. Because of their compendium of knowledge, they provide unique perspectives on how the market is functioning and where it might be going; incredibly useful for the current ecosystem of companies as well as the new emerging entrepreneurs.

Our conversation explored how the unique identity of work and home has shifted and what that portends for the industry.

Elizabeth has a unique seat at the table. She oversees research topics and coverage areas for the company and directs the integrated strategic communications plan for Parks Associates, including advertising, public relations, and marketing. Elizabeth has also supported the growth of Parks Associates business and marketing services for twenty-three years and is the key organizer for all of Parks Associates' events, including Parks Associates signature event CONNECTIONS™.

Since the time of the ancients, Arcadia has been the inspiration for poets, painters, and writers attracted to an idyllic time and place. Arcadia was and is that place. It is a real location (southern Greece) as well as a mythological one. It is where many of the myths were born. And myths are ideas. And ideas are real things. They can shape us, inspire us, and define us.

How this happens is through a culture of learning anchored by how we uniquely perceive, consume, understand, apply, and communicate information. This “central processing” technology is the foundation behind the word “cognition.” And you might say the humans who have collectively pursued the optimization and actualization of this skill are the “cognerati.”

Putting these two terms together becomes the genesis of a story of warriors translating their experiences and learnings into an applied practice of thinking that helps enhance the situational awareness and actionable response of executives in the risk, resilience, and security industry.

Can “struggle” be our best chance at discovering who we are? We found an author who explores this with us in The Great Conversation.

Bobby Herrera is the author of The Gift of Struggle, a book about leadership and the life-changing lessons we learn through our struggles. He is also the co-founder and president of Populus Group. With a passion for building strong culture and communities through trust and storytelling, his leadership style is about empowerment, connections, and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to succeed.

Bobby grew up in a big family with parents who immigrated to America without much. While this is not an uncommon story, the leadership style and company culture that it inspired is. The belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to succeed is at the core of Bobby’s philosophy in business and in life.

Everyone has struggles and business leaders are no exception. Bobby’s passion is helping others understand how their individual struggles can help them connect with their communities and inspire others is what will transform their leadership style.

Bobby is a proud Army veteran and currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

We wanted to be a fly on the wall when an integrator interviewed a potential technology vendor that happened to be offering an enterprise platform for integrating video management into access control, health monitoring, IoT integration, and analytics at the edge.

While we listened in they discussed the current state of best-in-class video monitoring, the value of the data center platforms like Google, the roadblocks to creating a compelling value proposition with the CSO and the CISO, and the nature of evaluating technology and technology vendor relationships.

It was a new grand experiment for The Great Conversation. Listen in and see if you can extract some value out of their discussion.

The participants are Nigel Waterton, Chief Revenue Officer for Arcules; Brian Cox, Regional Manager for Arcules in Texas; Joe Harris, Chief Solutions Officer for STAR Asset Security; and Jack Johnson, VP of Sales and Marketing for STAR.

Our learnings: serendipitously, we had just interviewed another cloud platform vendor. We found an overwhelming demand for cloud solutions due to labor shortages, budget constraints, the need for rapid application development, and the ease of use and administration.