Last year I penned a “Leaders Letter” 1 that I hoped would give readers of this blog a springboard or starting point to craft something to share with their teams and colleagues.

It spoke about being more vulnerable as a leader, being more willing to accept mistakes and failures, being more transparent and more trusting.

It spoke of recognizing loss while not losing sight of hope, of the collective ability of committed and caring people to achieve great things over time regardless of how long that time might take, of seeing beyond titles, seniority, tenure and understanding that accountability must exist for all if we’re all to flourish.

It spoke of being honest with ourselves first – warts and all as the saying goes – before we can build, nurture, lift, support, and lead others.

Today I believe in the concepts and attributes I wrote about in 2021 more passionately than I did a year ago.

So, with that baseline established, I offer another Leaders Letter for the start of 2022.

If it gives you pause to reflect on your leadership aspirations – and commitments – then I’m delighted.

If it gives you language and license then please take it, modify and adapt it, and share with your colleagues. I’ll be overjoyed.

If all it does is serve as a reminder of what a privilege supporting, caring for and helping others grow and flourish – after all isn’t that what leadership is? – then my own (somewhat selfish) objective has been met.

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Dear Colleagues,

‘We’re all in this together”

As we head into the 3rd year of this pandemic, I’ve been reflecting on the phrases we use and the actions we take, and I’ve begun to question if they still serve us as well as they did in 2020 when this all started.

I’m keen to share four promises with you today. Four promises in how I intend to lead this organization in the year ahead. Four promises that I hope to look back on in December of this year and see that I’ve kept. Four promises that, as I asked you in January of 2021, you’ll hold me accountable too and, like my gym partner, you’ll tell me early and often when I miss.

Before we get to the four, let me tell you why I think the phrase “we’re all in this together” is a misguided platitude.

We’re not all in this together.

Looking across our offices, departments, teams and, most importantly, at each of you individually, our Covid experiences are not universal.

Some of you have been touched deeply. You’ve lost loved one’s or been in lockdowns that have stretched your sanity to a breaking point. Some of you have missed important milestones, birthdays, weddings, or funerals. Some have had to endure the perpetual yo-yo of being able to gather with family or having to ask friends to stay away because you fear someone might fall ill. The pandemic has shaken your world and every day is a struggle.

Others have had a different experience entirely. You’ve learned new skills, started a new hobby, deeply reconnected with your family and spouse, got back into personal fitness, or just enjoyed not commuting for hours each day to our offices. The pandemic has provided you opportunity and you’ve grabbed it with both hands.

You’ve all experienced this pandemic differently, individually, and uniquely.

That’s an important consideration as I look to the year ahead. Recognizing the unequal burden this pandemic has placed on each of you and trying to ensure that we lead this organization with a heightened sensitivity to that inequality.

So, the four promises…

A promise of Compassion

There’s a popular business narrative many of us were taught at an early age. Win at all costs, crush your competition, and exercise a hardcore Darwinian mentality daily. In my time I’ve heard the phrase “it ain’t personal it’s just business” glibly used to excuse some truly horrendous actions and behaviours. The pre-Holiday story about the CEO of Better.com firing 900 people over Zoom2 was a stark example. And while I might adore Logan Roy on “Succession” I know he’s a TV character, not a role model.

Yes, we are a business and yes, I will continue to drive for us to grow and succeed at every turn.

HOW we do that will be with compassion.

I firmly believe that every business has an opportunity to be a net-positive contributor to society.

That means leading with compassion and caring. For the people that allow us to operate this business – that’s you. For the people who make us better – that’s our partners and vendors. For the people we’re looking to assist – that’s our clients. And let’s not forget we have a responsibility to the cities and geographies we operate in to.

Compassion will be the lens by which we review when, if and how we return to the office. It won’t be a carte blanche edict but one that considers the unique situations faced by all our people. Compassion will inform how we look at our current set of policies from paid sick leave to paternity/maternity leave to considering how we allow our people to volunteer locally or look after a sick family member. In line with our stated values, compassion will inform what we reward and how we pay our people too.

Don’t mistake kindness and compassion as something incongruous with winning or being the best this company can be. Showing kindness and compassion for the people who enable us to succeed is why we’re going to win.

An increased focus on genuine Compassion is the promise I’m making here.

A promise of Connection

Businesses talk effusively about collaboration, about trust, about cohesion. None of those are possible without connection. Deep, earnest, genuine human connection.

One book I read over the Holidays3 highlighted that we have a shadow pandemic of loneliness around the world and that business – particularly remote and virtual work – is a significant contributor to that. Loneliness impacts our physical health, our mental health, our resilience, our optimism, and our productivity. As a business leader, all of those matter to me because they all impact our ability to succeed both individually and collectively.

A promise of connection will mean we do things a little differently in the year ahead.

Connecting means deliberately taking time to check in on your colleagues about life outside of work. Particularly the colleagues we know are struggling or the colleagues new to our company who’ve yet to get settled. Ask about the kids, their parents, their spouse. Connect with them as a human being, not as a source for a deliverable. Enquire about them as a person, not because they owe you an update. I know I’m guilty of being so outcome focused that I forget that there is another human at the end of my requests. Someone who misses the office chit-chat and team lunches as much as I do.

I recognize few of us want to be on more Zoom or Teams calls. But all of us – and that includes me – want to feel more connected to the wonderful humans we work with. Connect with that human! And do it today.

We’re also exploring more formal ways of mapping the connections that exist informally across our organization4 too. I’ve recently been introduced to some great tools that enable us to see which people, which teams, which departments are well and deeply connected. And which one’s aren’t. As I encourage you to informally (and frequently) connect with your peers and colleagues, we’ll be formally looking at ways of ensuring we’re as connected across the organization as we can be.

An increased focus on deep Connection is a promise I make here.

A promise of Communication

In 2021 I promised to communicate more frequently and more openly. Even when we had little to report or when we had bad news to share, we tried to ensure we communicated to you transparently and respectfully. I think we made great strides here and will continue to raise the bar.

I also asked that each of you communicated to me about areas of improvement we could make in the business, and I could make in my leadership. I thank each of you who took me up on that request and, particularly those who gave me candid (often necessary) feedback.

I truly believe the business, and me as a leader, are better for creating real transparency in how we behave around here. I also believe the trust we have in each other and the level of accountability we each feel can be directly attributed to our increased communication.

A promise of communication means we’ll continue to honour that transparency and candour in 2022. And we’ll actively seek ways to get even better at it.

More communication around projects that go well. More communications around what we learned from projects that didn’t. More communications and recognition for peers who live our values and epitomize the organization we want to be. More communications around why we make the executive decisions we do – particularly when we make tough decisions that affect our colleagues.

An increased focus on explicit Communication is a promise I make here.

A promise of Commitment

The final promise is the most obvious but also the hardest.

Committing to anything in this current turbulent and uncertain environment seems foolhardy or dangerously naïve but it’s critical.

The first commitment is to each of you reading this letter. Your passion, ingenuity, creativity is why we won in 2021 and will continue to win in 2022. Your commitment to this organization is the secret sauce of our success and this culture. My commitment to providing you opportunities to grow, to learn, to be challenged, and to succeed is what I will continue to do in 2022.

My second commitment is to seek self-improvement in how I lead this organization. That means generous servings of self-awareness and humility and leaving the door open for feedback and comments from you. Those of you who touch our clients, tell me where we’re missing the mark. Those of you who touch our products, tell me how we can make that world class. As I said in 2021, I do not have all the answers and I certainly do not have a monopoly on great ideas. If you commit to making this organization better – and commit to helping me be a better leader – there is nothing I believe we can’t achieve.

An increased focus on pure Commitment is a promise I make here.

That’s it team. Four simple promises for the year ahead.

Genuine compassion

Deep connection

Explicit communication

Pure commitment

Let’s get it done.

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There you go. My Leaders Letter for 2022.

My choice of Archbishop Desmond Tutu as the cover for this post was easy. As a person who went through University in South Africa in the dying days of apartheid Desmond Tutu was a legend and role model to many.

His charisma, passion, deeply empathetic manner, selflessness, and his advocacy of opportunity for all were characteristics that made him, in every sense of the word, a true leader. Let’s not forget that razor sharp wit or that brilliant smile.

Part of me thinks that he’d advocate for the four promises outlined above.

The world is poorer for his departure in December.

The world is richer for the example he set during his 90 years with us.

This video interview remains a personal favourite. His reflexive response to the question “what makes a good leader” is priceless.