I had been gardening for at least fifteen years when my father passed away. It was September 17, 2006, and I felt as if my heart had been severed and half buried with my dad.  My father and I had been very close and I was devastated. I needed to redirect my sadness toward something positive. I decided to take a half-acre of my property that was unkempt, full of woody pepper trees and cast aside lawn debris, and design a garden for my dad. I turned my pain into a goal that both honored my father and filled a void with a different love—creating a place of solace and natural beauty.

For example, while extricating the dense layers of mint vines, the pervasiveness of weeds and my efforts to eradicate them reminded me of the competing forces in the workplace and the competition for resources and sustainability.

Some days I felt as if I walked into a war zone when entering my garden and I was reminded of Kurt Lewin’s theory of competing forces: the driving and resisting forces toward reaching our goals, in his Force Field Analysis (FFA).  Firsthand I came to appreciate the significance of Porter’s Model of Five Forces—understanding the critical need to scan and assess one’s competitive forces.