So let’s say that you wake up one day and say: “Living without intention is no fun. I thought that living a care-free, happy-go-lucky life would be the way to go, but here I am, stuck in a dead-end job with no idea what comes next.” This is a great step forward, but to move from where you are to living with intention requires some work. It’s not possible to live without intention one day and begin living with it the next. So what are the necessary conditions for living with intent?

The reason I wasn’t surprised by their response is that I’ve become accustomed to marketers and business owners who ask for feedback, but then completely ignore it—opting instead for canned, automated responses. Remember the Seinfeld episode where they “take the reservation, they just don’t hold the reservation?” That’s how this makes me feel as a consumer. I find this behavior astonishing because why ask for feedback if you’re not going to do anything with it. Nothing says “I could care less about my customer” more than asking for feedback and then ignoring it.

Put as simply as possible, this is empathy—the willingness and ability to take oneself out of their own view of a situation and to ask how the other party feels about it. So if you’re looking for a quick tip on how to improve your empathy skills, use this simple question: “I wonder how ___ feels about x?”

You might be asking, what does this have to do with business? The answer is that organizational health relies heavily on the net giver status of the employee population. If everyone is operating as a net taker, then team dynamics will suffer, fiefdoms will be built, and everyone will be looking over their shoulder for the next jab in the back. Trust cannot flourish in a net taker environment. In contrast, if you foster a culture of net giving, then alignment around goals becomes easier, teamwork and collaboration become the norm, and the success of the organization becomes a shared mindset.

This is why measurement and transparency are key components of any effective management operating system. If everyone has access to the same information and that information is shared consistently through time, then the gap, dare I say gulf, that can exist between the information that makes its way up to the C-suite and the reality of operations at ground level can be closed. 

In my experience, run rate and momentum are the most important things that determine a business’s performance early in the new year. You can have glorious PowerPoint presentations that illustrate a bright, shiny New Year, but if there’s no momentum and your teams haven’t already upskilled and allocated significant resources to the plan, then you’re almost certainly going to face disappointment in Q1.

What we know about resolutions, is that most of them fail. Why do they fail? Because they’re typically not integrated into a broader long-term personal plan. Loads of energy and attention get poured into resolutions early in the year. Then time passes, entropy sets in, the inertia of the previous status quo sets in, and the hopes and dreams of New Year’s Eve are eventually dashed—leading to disappointment and regret.

As a global society, let’s use the Holiday Season to reflect on how we approach interactions with our fellow cosmic travelers. When alignment is a challenge and viewpoints don’t seamlessly calibrate, seek first to understand—not immediately jump to tearing others down who don’t share our opinions or worldview.

If more of us seek to understand, we will continue to make progress toward a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive future state.

To be “bankable” requires an understanding of how the business functions, what your role is in the value streams that you influence, and how the value you help create generates revenue and operating income.

Ever hear someone say “Trust me,” or “To Be Honest With You…?” These are phrases that some of us say out of habit and I believe we should actively work to jettison them from our vocabulary. 

When I hear someone repeat one of these phrases, the first thing that comes to mind is: “so are you lying to me the rest of the time?” My ability to trust individuals who overuse these phrases is challenged, and in a workplace where balancing trust with accountability is paramount, we don’t need to be injecting language into conversations that immediately makes us question the veracity of what our colleagues say.

Moreover, what does hardcore even mean? To some, that might be five 10 hour days a week. To others, it might literally mean working around the clock and catching a few zzz’s—leaving a pool of drool on the break room couch! This lack of clarity, coupled with mass terminations and ultimatums will create an environment of suspicion, insecurity, and self-doubt. Trust and accountability have no way to take root in an organizational culture like this. Active disengagement, obfuscation, mistrust, and a$$ kissing are the most likely results.

This coming Tuesday is “Giving Tuesday,” where charitable organizations around the world make appeals for year-end contributions. My ask of you today is to include your local United Way in your philanthropic plans as we close out 2022.