Three things we’re taking into 2022
When you ask someone to close their eyes and then ask them to point to the future and to the past, most people will point in front of them towards the future and behind them to the past. This is an interesting demonstration of how our minds work with metaphors. Perhaps we point to the future because we usually walk forward and we want to see where we are going?
Sometimes people point in front of them towards the past as well. The reasons given are that they can see the past, it has been experienced, there are memories that have been in front of their faces. This also makes sense. And what it highlights is that we are all different and we process things in different ways.
As we head into a new year, we’ve been looking at what we can learn from our recent past and take forward into 2022.
1. Strengthening our empathy
Thriving was an important theme of our retrospective, particularly recognising the link between thriving as individuals and thriving as an organisation. As a young organisation that was born into working remotely, it has often been difficult to recognise when colleagues are at their best and when they are being asked to do something far outside their comfort zone or when already overwhelmed. We’ve re-affirmed our team agreements to say and accept statements like: “It’s okay, I’ve got this” and also importantly “Hey, I know I said I could do this, but I would really like to go over it again with you”, and for this to not be seen as a weakness.
These sorts of discussions are helped hugely by common language, and we found that reading the same book beforehand gave us a great starting point!
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work - Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson (Book)
2. Staying focused to go further
After two years of uncovering all the ways that purpose-driven business could be better supported, one of our biggest challenges has been where to focus. Our ambition has extended to both the number of things we would like to affect, and the scale of them. We’ve re-learned an age-old lesson that focusing on doing a few things well will serve our mission better than skimming across many.
And so what for 2022? We’ve set ourselves a set of bold questions to ask before starting something new, the scope changes or there is a big new development, inspired by this podcast:
Dare to lead, habits and productivity - Brene Brown, Charles Duhigg (Podcast)
3. Recognising that change takes time
We are really excited about 2022. We recognise that it might take years for the impact of the work we do to be fully realised and that not everything is instantaneous. With careful planning and a solid test and learn approach we do believe that the activities we carry out will be like dominoes that are lining up. Eventually, the ecosystem will be right for all businesses to contribute positively to society and the environment and to not profit from creating harm. We are not there yet, but a path is emerging from the mist. Approaches for ensuring our thinking truly applies to the stakeholders we seek to affect was inspired by:
The Lean Startup - Eric Ries (Book)
A final thought: It’s easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world
While we looked at our ambitions for 2022 we also reflected on our existing cultural norms and looked at some cultural artifacts that have found their way into our organisation's DNA. I for one find the image of me not being able to wear slippers all day every day a toe-curling thought.
