Latest news, alerts, and events.
Latest news, alerts, and events.
We Produce Our Own Energy
A portrait poem by Na Mee
(All the words that appear in this poem were heard at some point during The Foraker Group’s 2025 Leadership Summit, April 14 & 15, 2025. They have been lifted out of their specific context and written into this found poem, intended as a group portrait. You can watch the video of the performance here.)
All of the leaders across Alaska
owe at least eight people here an email.
We did our list!
It’s get shit done week
How many hyper achievers are in the room?
I don’t need to see hands. I know it’s over half of you
We know you’re wearing many hats.
We’re all spread really thin
Quick start
Troubleshooting
Keeping heritage alive
Activating that community
Tightening up those systems
Making sure everyone gets what they need
Meditating
And leveraging the strengths and talents of our teams across generations
We’re elevating and raising our voices
And focused on listening
Thinking of ideas from many perspectives
And being present
Letting it go where it needs to go
But maybe not too far
Set the agenda, stick to the agenda
We keep that thing on continuous loop these days
It’s head spinning.
Just when you’ve made a little progress on one issue, there’s another.
Reduction, thawing, freezing, releasing
It’s a challenging
Dismantled
Uncomfortable
time
It’s called “against the law”
How do you actually do your job?
Asking for a friend
Tell your friend:
Inhale and exhale.
Remind ourselves that we’re human.
Every once in a while, we need to smell each other.
Acknowledge we’re tired and that it’s OK to be tired.
Take the hard news and sit with it
Unwind
Touch grass
Give yourself a loving hug.
It’s good to feel things.
That is what we are actually designed to do.
Nourish yourself to nourish your organization.
Take the time to be together
Be ready for questions
Questions that bring out the best of us
Stay extra curious and listen
Everything we do
Every person in this room
Our work is emotional
Rugged independence and rugged interdependence
And, inside is a softer part of us
All these pieces
Are where our energy and power is going to be
Collaboration is not just a theme, it’s a way of being.
You get to model.
Thinking about it together
Look for surprising connections
There’s so many iceberg models
This is our iceberg model
Just noticing what’s right in front of us
The power of all of us together
That’s when we might flip the iceberg
From very hyper local to regional to national
We need one another, and in fact, we create each other
What’s the difference that makes the difference?
Our power is our collective power
True inclusion is when we join our communities
Walk together
Building on our intuition, our relationships, our experience
It’s difficult when so many of us are feeling the
Drama and tension
Trust the process!
Sometimes it’s viewed as confrontational,
sometimes it’s viewed as using my mother’s charm
Protest can be a very affirmative word
Honor the hard parts
The magical spaces
Over time, these are in deep synergy
Alaskans:
Hello my people!
We can
Look across the boundaries
Salvage something
Find abundance out of nothing
I need to see a wink or a nod or something 😉
You all know how to help each other,
Rally around each other
We take care of our seniors, we take care of our kids
Our work, ourselves, our family members, our neighbors
Collaboration and cooperation is happening at any time
We love a group chat
We bring cookies
We are not alone
We don’t
wait for batman
We don’t
run from bears
We take care of each other, even when we disagree
We produce our own energy
the energy in the room when we’re talking about our stories
Alaska is in our heart
Anything we can do we will do
We adapt
And we celebrate What we’re going to keep
See ourselves, see each other,
see our community in their fullness and their richness
Your work matters today and it will matter tomorrow
Find the courage
To bring your whole selves
up here to the front
You’re welcome to do it quietly or you’re welcome to do it out loud
Please don’t be shy
There’s no better place to do this than right here, right now