I’m saddened that, in 2021, I have to start a personal blog post with a legal disclaimer but that seems to be the unfortunate reality of the divided world we live in.

Here goes – this is not a partisan or political post. This is a post that encapsulates all people regardless of race, gender, creed, sexual orientation, religious denomination, country of birth or country they presently call home.

This was a landmark week in North America.

Monday January 18th was Martin Luther King Day in the United States.

Doctor King is widely recognised as one of the pivotal figures in the Civil Rights Movement in America. A movement intended to bring equality and equal representation to people of colour across the US.

His “I Have A Dream” speech is regarded by many as a towering example of oration and one of the most recognizable and oft-quoted speeches of all time.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.”

Wednesday January 20th was the day Joseph R Biden became the 46th President of the United States.

Without any irony, the setting of President Biden’s inauguration speech was directly in sight of Doctor King’s speech all those years before.

From President Biden’s speech:

“And together, we shall write an American story of hope, not fear.

Of unity, not division.

Of light, not darkness.

An American story of decency and dignity.”

Both speeches had all the hallmarks of great political oration.

Stirring rhetoric. Deeply personal anecdotes. Unambiguous commitments. Exhortations to the crowd to join in. Challenges to face and hurdles to overcome.

But, most of all, both speeches carried messages of hope.

Hope.

A better day. A brighter future. An opportunity for all not just a few. An environment of equality not inequity. A chance to succeed because of meritocracy not to struggle because of autocracy. A place to unleash talent, creativity, possibility and potential not a place to starve and subjugate those inherently human attributes.

Hope.

Those of us given the opportunity and privilege of leading others would do well to look at the cultures and the organizations we’ve created and ask if Hope is woven into that fabric.

Erroneously people typically think about culture in terms like “good”, “bad”, “happy”, “toxic” but these reductionist terms miss the entire point about why culture is so critical to an organization’s success or such a clear indicator of its downfall.

Your culture exists to accelerate the execution of your strategy.

It doesn’t exist to ensure free access to foosball tables and rousing anthems of Koombayah every Friday at an All Staff.

And that difference, between Collaboration and Koombayah, couldn’t be more critical than in this moment right now.

Right now, our people – and I imagine even you Dear Reader – are buckling under the weight of these uncertain times. The fatigue, the constant stress, the emotional roller-coaster of lockdowns and stay-at-home mandates, the relentless Zoom calls and the unbroken monotony of working from your dining room table.

Hope is in desperately short supply.

Hope, though, is one element that you need to urgently instil into your people and into your culture.

We’ve talked at length about building cultures of agility, of adaptability, of courage, and of resilience but, to my mind, none of those attributes are possible without a bedrock of hope. Hope is the fertile soil that all of these attributes – and all of these cultures – spring from. Without hope, there is no reason to toil, to believe, to commit and to adapt.

Here’s the other crucial biological reason why we need to be building cultures of hope. As neuroscientists remind us, our lizard brains are capable of many remarkable things, but they cannot hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously.

We can be invigorated or fatigued.

We can be optimistic or pessimistic.

We can be inspired or deflated.

We can be hopeful or hopeless.

We can be one or we can be the other. We cannot be both at the same time.

Sadly, in Canada this same week, we witnessed the unravelling of a high-profile political appointment that was the true anthesis of hope. Our Governor General Julie Payette was forced to resign following a scathing report detailing a culture of systemic bullying, abuse and blatant narcissism in her Office. If anything, this was a culture of hopelessness, not hope.

Beyond the tsunami of incredible (and incredibly troubling) stories that are emerging, there are two components that extinguish the hope I’ve been talking about. One is that this is a political appointment and requires the highest level of scrutiny and review. Apparently, this abusive behaviour has been common in Ms Payette’s past and was conveniently or deliberately ignored. Two, in her resignation letter Ms Payette took no accountability or responsibility for her actions choosing instead to lay the blame at her Secretary’s feet and issue a ham-fisted “non apology”

I mention this Canadian story only because there still remain far too many leaders unwilling or incapable to creating environments of opportunity and possibility. Too many who trade in hopelessness than grasping their obligation to build hope.

In closing, I share these words from, arguably the most inspirational person on Inauguration Day, the young poet-laureate Amanda Gorman whose poem contained this incredibly hopeful passage:

We are striving to forge a union with purpose

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and

conditions of man

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us

but what stands before us

It’s all about Hope my friends.