2022 was another year with ups, downs, and sideways. War broke out in Ukraine. Elon tried to buy Twitter, decided he didn't want it after all, and then bought it anyway. Kanye (Ye) was dumped en masse. Our friends in the tech industry experienced mass layoffs. Lizz Truss failed to outlast a head of lettuce. Protests erupted in China and Iran, and we lost the great leader, Queen Elizabeth, Gorby, and the advertising titan, Dan Wieden.
Even with the tough moments, it was also a year filled with deep meaning and connection. We were there for each other. We embraced the idea that everyone is creative. Celebrated the power of constant reinvention. Welcomed CEOs who actually get hired for their people skills. Took time to listen. Stood out, and answered the call to adventure. As we close out the year, we're reflecting on the positives. Below we've rounded up some of the most loved stories from 2022. Thanks for sharing another year with us. Let's do it again next year. |
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| | | Why Digital Transformation Isn't Really Digital
Nearly every organization of size struggles with digital transformation but very few know what it means. People kinda scratch their heads because it’s hard to nail down. “Transformation” is not in our daily vocabulary. Rarely do we get out of bed and say, “I’m going to transform myself today!!!” What people are really talking about, in more everyday language, is “change." And digital change has more to do with people than technology. |
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| | How to be Visionary
Some people wake us up. They challenge us to think differently and challenge the status quo. They make things that previously seemed impossible, possible. They see a different future. We call them “visionaries” when they act on the present to make that future a reality. That’s what Martin Luther King Jr. did, and that’s why he inspires us today. He saw a different future, and he pursued it relentlessly. Isn’t that at the very core of being human - this infinite capacity to challenge oneself, create change, and make a piece of that seemingly impossible dream, a future reality? |
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| | The First Rule of Management is Gold
The wind and the sun are squabbling. They are arguing over who is more powerful. They agree to settle it with a competition. They decide to test their strength by trying to take a traveler’s coat off. The wind tries first. He sends gust after gust of a cold, forceful, and blustering gale at the traveler. His strategy is to try to tear the coat off. The traveler only pulls his coat tighter. The sun scoffs at the wind’s foolishness. It’s her turn. What does the sun do? She sends ray after ray of warm, kind, and loving sunshine at the traveler. What does the traveler do? He takes off his coat. Kindness, gentleness, and sophisticated persuasion win where force, compulsion, and coercion fail. Be the sun, not the wind. |
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| | Follow the Yellowbr... Road to Greatness
Discover the heaviest burden you can bear, then bear it. This idea was recently popularized by Jordan Peterson. This is heroism. And if you catch yourself wishing for ease, remind yourself that ease is a psychological Potemkin village. If it is easy, it probably has already been done. It probably lacks high demand. It probably doesn’t stand out. If it is easy, it means you’re not growing as you pursue it. If it is easy, it doesn’t excite you. It doesn’t excite your team. It doesn’t excite the world. Don’t let ease tempt you. What you gain in ease, you lose in meaning. What you gain in ease, you lose in excellence. |
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| | We Contain Multitudes
Walt Whitman said it best back in 1855: “I contain multitudes.” We all do. We all carry different identities around with us, often in competition with each other. You might be a “Proud Italian” one minute, then a “Proud Democrat” the next. Or “The World’s biggest Elton John fan.” Or a husband. Or a wife. Or gay. Or straight. Or a Wall Street trader. Or a cowboy. Or a steel worker from Pennsylvania. As Balaji Srinivasan says, not only do we have many different identities, our identities have their own hierarchies and one may be more important at one point in time than the other. And this isn't a bad thing. The world is a complex place, and we're complex souls with complex identities solving complex problems. |
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| | More Dancing, Less Box-Checking
Humans by nature have a strong desire to control and predict. We want to know what happens at the end of the story, so we focus on those things we can measure and easily influence. But as Donella Meadows, renowned systems thinker said, “We can’t surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them… We can’t control systems or figure them out, but we can dance with them.” Our lives, our businesses, and certainly our organizational cultures are complex, living systems that are non-linear and oblique. But that’s what makes them meaningful. To change them in any meaningful way requires adaptability, dynamism and as Meadows argues, a fair amount of dancing. |
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| | The Outsiders
The equivalent to Joseph Cambell’s archetypal “Hero’s Journey” in business is the outsider. While all the other execs are doing the same ol’, same ol’ and playing golf, the outsider comes out of nowhere and shakes up the entire industry (both killing the dragon AND getting the gold in a single swoop). Henry Ford. Richard Branson. Jeff Bezos. We all know who they are. Outsiders are complete game-changers but not outliers. Nobody ever gets there alone. |
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| | The Quest for Our Highest Self
Early Eighteenth Century philosopher, Frances Hutcheson, declared that we are moral creatures with the ability to act virtuously because we are hard-wired to do so. Whether we are making a child smile, helping out a tourist with directions, or helping an unemployed friend out with the rent, he argued doing something for others is what really makes us meaningfully and sustainably happy at a biological level. When we talk about “building something”, that is what we’re really after. The opportunity to be a net positive on this Earth and a producer of something meaningful and lasting. |
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| | The Secret Key to Greatness
Nothing happens until someone feels something. Logic, reason, and evidence inform the heart, but it is the heart that decides. People rarely change their minds because they learn something. More often, they change their mind because they feel something new and different. Knowing more doesn’t turn into doing more. But if someone feels more, they’ll do more. Beliefs and visions provide the scaffolding for logic and reason, not the other way around. Beliefs and visions are feelings, not facts. And they propel us forward. They give us a motive. Nothing happens until someone feels something. And ONLY when someone does feel something, can greatness begin to manifest itself. |
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| | Slashing Rules that Don't Matter
In 400 BC, Alexander the Great arrived at Phrygia and stood before the famed “Gordian Knot.” It was prophesied that he who could unravel the knot would go on to rule all of Asia. He struggled with the knot for some time, and it seemed impossible to unravel. But then he had an epiphany. He unsheathed his sword and slashed the knot in half. He won not by rearranging the pieces on the board, but by changing the rules of the game. The entrepreneurial equivalent of slashing the Gordian Knot is not choosing scale or excellence, but innovating ways to scale excellence. Break the rules that aren’t real. |
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| | All the Previous You's
We have an old Gapingvoid line we’re fond of: “At least 10% of my waking hours are spent being mortified of my former self.” It follows a similar vein to British Philosopher, Alain de Botton’s idea that: “Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.” We’ve all been there. Kicking ourselves for our past sins, even if said sins have been long forgotten by everyone else. Marshall Goldsmith, one of the top executive coaches in the world, has this neat idea that instead of beating up our former selves, we should thank them instead. After all, they’re the ones who got us where we are today. Gratitude, not regret. This is an idea we find rather reassuring. |
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| | Show Me the Data
The fictional LA detective, Joe Friday, was famous for saying “Just the facts, Ma’am.” Similarly, in the tech and business worlds, “Show me the data” has become a common refrain. As in, nothing really matters if there isn’t data to support it. But think back to the last time you saw a line go around the block, and ask yourself what the folks were waiting in line for. Chances are, they weren’t in line to download a bunch of facts. They were in line to experience a story. Or a song. Or a preacher. Or a chef. Or a painter. They were in line to experience something unique and wonderful. Yes, data in business is terribly important. But success requires more than just data. Success requires humanity as well. “Man does not live by bread alone” and all that. |
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