Good news
Finding Hope in the Midst of Challenges

It feels like a week when many of us are sorely in need of some good news. In countless arenas, there’s not much of it. It’s enough to overwhelm even those of us that have worked hard at cultivating an appreciative outlook. But the thing that keeps me at it is the astonishing work that can emerge from the ashes (sometimes very literally) when people join together.
I read a story this week that brought me to tears, and at the heart of it is a key principle in Strategic Doing:
What can you do with what you already have?
It’s almost always enough to get started.
Here’s the story:
A Story of Action and Impact
The scale of the wildfires in California is mind-boggling. Almost 40,000 acres have burned and more than 80,000 people are under evacuation orders. I have friends, a husband and wife, who both have a sister who lost her home. In the face of that kind of loss, it feels as though only very large organizations – say FEMA or the Red Cross – can make a difference.
The good news is that if you’re an eighth grader, you might not yet have figured out that’s what you’re supposed to think.
Avery Colbert got to work and started collecting items that she knew her friends and other teenage girls would need and miss (her own school was destroyed).
She didn’t have any real assets of her own except:
- A network of friends
- A social media account
- The courage to speak a really big and appreciative idea out loud
(see here: Imagine Billie Eilish got involved…what would that look like? She probably will have by the time you read this).
Again…it’s almost always enough to get started.
What happens when we put our assets to work
Her network has gotten bigger…a lot bigger.
- Ariana Grande and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (that’s Harry and Meghan) gave money.
- Serious influencers are spreading the word.
- A similar effort for teenage boys has been launched.
I have no question that there are plenty of other small bands of intrepid men and women who are making amazing things happen…they just haven’t (yet) made the New York Times.
What’s Stopping Us?
So what’s stopping us in a week where there’s plenty of bad news? Maybe we’ve just forgotten the power of even a small set of assets put to work in service of a good idea. Want to learn how to put assets to work?
Come join us at a Strategic Doing training.
Photo credit: P. Rivas, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Liz shepherds the expansion of the Lab’s programming and partnerships with other universities interested in deploying agile strategy tools. A co-author of Strategic Doing: 10 Skills for Agile Leadership, she also focuses on the development and growth of innovation and STEM education ecosystems, new tool development, and teaching Strategic Doing.