As mentioned before, the next few CEO messages will be leveraging past communications. After reviewing the past December messages, I decided I would like to use all of them as the basis for this one, since there seems to be a thread I would like to bring forward.
My first December with TEDCO was in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic; I had only started at TEDCO in September and we were still not doing a lot of in-person sessions, meaning I had not met many of our TEDCO family in person. In fact, I was at TEDCO for over a year before I meet the Chair at that time, Myra Norton, in person. My message showed the team my love affair with words and their usage as I was discussing the “words of the year” various sites were considering for the 2020 word of the year.
There is no doubt that COVID has dominated 2020 and will be part of our verbiage for some time to come. It is a word that not only dominates our US conversations but every nation on this third rock from the sun. It represents a combination of challenges - public health, economic, healthcare access and racial justice – to name a few. It will define not just a year, but I believe a generation, as events like WWII, Vietnam and 9/11, have done.
I do not intend to minimize the tremendous challenges any of you and/or someone close to you are dealing with due to COVID. However, as what occurred after WW1I and 9/11, we as a country preserved and innovation led the way. I tend to see a different set of candidates for the WotY (“word of the year”; I didn’t include them all in this excerpt):
- Perseverance
- Endurance
- This too shall pass
- Innovation
- Opportunity
- Unyielding faith
- Hope
As we all know, 2021 saw us moving toward being in-person, but as I mentioned above, the impact of COVID remained clear, as it still does today. But as a TEDCO family we were reading “The Wisdom of Teams.” This is from the first two sections of Part 2, “Becoming a Team,”
“Team performance levels, ultimately requires the TEAM to be decisive, the TEAM to be in control, and the TEAM to be the hero.”
And my observation, was that -
Achieving the team’s goals, requires that risks – for both the individual and team – be taken. The leader “must give up some command and control” thus taking on individual risk, and by giving up that control, the leader “must give up decision space only when and as much as the group is ready to accept and use,” which creates individual risks for each team member and collective risk for the team. But isn’t that what we are asking of our entrepreneurs and ourselves when investing in them? We are asking them to take that leap of faith (risk) in their innovation and more importantly themselves. For a team to become high performing each team member must risk their professional reputation and individual performance on others and the “leader” must risk that collective decision-making exceeds that person’s individual command/control/intuition.
But like our entrepreneurs, great risk brings even greater reward.
In December 2022, we were reading “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace” and I asked that we use this knowledge from the book not just with each other but our villages:
Take the time to explore the words, times, services, gifts and touches, our friends and family need to hear “you are truly appreciated at this time of the year and throughout the year.”
The end of year in 2023 saw me explore 2 themes; the first was recognizing and appreciating the collective diversity of our 1TEDCO team in how they might be celebrating in December.
December not only represents the end of the calendar it also has a number of celebrations – most of know about Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve. But did you also know about St. Nicholas Day (5th or 6th), Immaculate Conception (8th), Bodhi (8th), Feast Day of our Lady Guadalupe (12th), Yule (21Dec-1Jan), Boxing Day (26th), Zarathosht (26th) and or course Festivus (23rd)!
Whatever you and your tribe celebrate do it safely and sanely.
But also, during 2023, as we were learning about our individual appreciation languages, I used this space to get to know our team members better by asking 3 random questions to our colleagues. In December-2023, I profiled Tammi Thomas, Geyssel Gonzalez, Alex Choi, Dr. Tammira Lucas, Retired Major General Dr. Linda Singh, DeJonna Farrar, Stephanie Meighan, and (drumroll) Diana Smith. Not gonna recreate that but I am gonna throw in some song lyrics from some of them.
From Diana, it is always Bill Withers’ Lovely Day
When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way
Then I look at you
And the world's alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it's gonna be
A lovely day
DeJonna sees the world similarly in that she wants to Heal the World (by Michael Jackson)
Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me, and the entire human race
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make a better place for you and for me
And Alex ties them together by focusing on the work, excuse me the hustle, which according to Jay-Z, Can’t Knock the Hustle
'Cause you can't knock the hustle I'm just trying to get mine,
I don't have the time
To knock the hustle for real
But what’s a lovely day that is helping others through our hustle if we don’t have some fun along the way, and that leads to Stephanie being in another place and Geyssel being in another orbit.
Off the Florida Keys
There's a place called Kokomo
That's where you wanna go
To get away from it all
Kokomo, The Beach Boys
There's a party goin' on right here
A celebration to last throughout the years
So bring your good times and your laughter too
We gonna celebrate your party with you
Celebration, Kool & The Gang
I said in the beginning, there was a thread across these. There is a message of hope, faith, appreciation, family and celebration. That leads to my December 2024 message, and it leads to the retreat we are about to have. I am a big fan of the Avatar movies (and yes a new one is coming out this month), and in December 2024, I wrote:
Many of you know I like the movie “Avatar” – I especially appreciate the line the when the Na’vi say “I see you.” When they say that it is not about seeing you through a window or your own reflection in a mirror. When a Na’vi says “I see you,” they see you beyond a reflection and see who you truly are, a recognition of what you truly bring to life and an acknowledgment of your being.
My hope is that at our upcoming retreat your faith in each other and our collective mission is strengthened and that we begin to better see you and your appreciation language so that through it all we build stronger 1TEDCO family bonds that we celebrate throughout the year.
Until next time, please stay safe, sane, healthy and blessed.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!