As good as it feels to end the old year – for me – it feels every bit as good to begin a new one. Business development organizations like mine live in 12 month cycles and January is always a unique time. We’re looking out over 12 brand new months – a blank canvas – nothing but potential – everyone has the ability to turn those 12 months into a personal and professional victory. As my Dad likes to say at the beginning of every baseball season, “Everyone’s a winner on Opening Day”. I love that feeling and this time of year and it all starts with the Annual Kick Off meeting.
It’s a regular event with most of the organizations I’ve worked for in past and it’s hardwired into everyone’s expectations for the year – a known quantity in terms of content and activity. This was only the second of it’s kind for our group and, in both cases, I’ve approached the day with a bit of trepidation – worried about whether we can deliver a meaningful event and hopeful about what we might be able to accomplish.
Our group of Business Development, Marketing, State & Payer Relations and Business Analytics professionals spent the last two days of last week together at a downtown hotel celebrating last year’s wins, getting to know each other better, aligning on strategy and objectives for the new year and having some fun. I’ll find out how people felt about it over the course of the next two weeks but my sense is that we got the year off to a good start. I saw people laughing, contributing, working hard, enjoying each other and getting ready for another 12 month marathon. Everyone seemed to throw themselves into it – open to anything and everything, ready to make great use of the opportunity and determined to do the work necessary for a strong start to the New Year. I was really proud of our Team and the spirit with which they approached the event. It just reinforced my belief that this is the finest group I’ve ever had the privilege of serving.
As you can tell from the Logo, our theme was Enterprise – the need to work together, across boundaries, aligned and committed to make sure that everything we do over the course of the next twelve months advances the Mission. For a Mission driven organization like ours, this is critical and has to be treated as a non-negotiable. Unless we’re aligned and working together, we only limit the impact we might have and the good we might be able to accomplish. Overall, our Enterprise team seems excited about what 2018 might mean for us and for those that we work so hard to benefit.
So many things to be thankful for in the wake of an event like this – here are just a few:
- All the hard work done by the very small group responsible for delivering the event. I’ve seen how big companies approach events like these – external vendor support, celebrity participation and so very much money. We delivered a fairly elaborate event on a very lean budget, relying on our own talent and with all the planning and production work being done by a small core team – all of whom had full time, demanding day jobs. It’s a testament to what people can accomplish when they believe in what they’re doing and are proud of the organization they serve.
- The good spirit and humility of my peers, who were more than willing to throw themselves into the event, put pride aside and embrace the need to have some silly fun. This is the most committed, principled, good-humored and down to earth leadership team I’ve ever known.
- The full Team – our entire organization – who really do approach every task and every challenge as an opportunity to serve the Mission. I’ve worked with many skilled, motivated and successful teams but never one so guided by priorities external to both themselves and to the organization for which they work.
For myself, I’m thankful every day – at this stage in my professional life – for the opportunity to serve a Mission-driven organization. I’ve been handed many great opportunities and experienced profound professional growth over the course of the last 25 years with several amazing for profit companies and I’m grateful for every one of those years. While the same can be said for my current role – it would be damning with faint praise to do so. As my boss has jokingly stated on several occasions, “it’s gratifying to see that you’ve chosen to do something more meaningful with your talents”. I couldn’t agree more.