Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the fourth issue of CEE News!
It’s that time of the year again. Just after Thanksgiving and a few weeks before Christmas. We can savor the memories of great food shared with family and friends without panicking about what gifts to get for them.
It’s also a good time to pause and look back on the year before diving headfirst into 2016. Before you get caught up in 2016 goals, take some time to deliberately reflect on where you are today. Here are a couple of quick tips to help you do so.
Appreciate the journey. If you’re stressing yourself out with a never-ending list of goals to be achieved, you could be suffering destination disease. You can’t be an effective leader if you’re in a constant state of stress. Do yourself and your team a favor and reflect on the growth you’ve made and relationships strengthened along the way.
Reflect on what went well. Think about your successes and what you can build on the next leg of your journey. Success builds momentum. In his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell suggests that, “Momentum is really a leader’s best friend.” One success follows another which motivates you to achieve more.
Savor the journey and the small wins that got you here today. Doing so will restore your confidence and renew your energy.
Cheers!
Sticky Solutions
Sticky solutions to your everyday business challenges
Queston: I manage a group of people who are mostly around my age, in our mid-30’s. We work long hours together and often go to dinner or drinks after work. Recently, over lunch, an older colleague told me to be careful about making friends with my staff. Am I crossing a line between being a manager and friend?
Answer: There was a time when it was considered best for managers to keep a personal distance from their employees. The school of thought was that friendship was a slippery slope to favoritism. Today, however, we understand that leadership is all about relationships. Leaders who build strong relationships with their team are in a better position to empathize with the needs of their diverse workforce and to handle the dynamic shifts in business cycles.
If you think about it, there are a lot of similarities between being a good friend and a good leader. We all want both friends and leaders who can hold us accountable without being unkind, and with whom we can be honest. We want friends and leaders who genuinely solicit our advice, but who are strong enough to take decisive action. We want friends and leaders that we can confide in and trust, without worrying that they will gossip about us with others.
You don’t have to be bossy or distant to be an effective leader. When you apply the principles of being a trusted friend to your leadership role, you’ll find that the line between friendship and leadership becomes invisible.
Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
This section of the newsletter is where we usually focus on one business that is getting leadership right. This month, we are departing from that pattern to spotlight a group of businesses that chose to do something extraordinary this year – they refused to open on Thanksgiving.
In recent years, Black Friday mania has crept further and further into the Thanksgiving holiday. Some stores open at midnight while others open as early as 5:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Although holiday sales make up the lion’s share of annual revenue for most U.S. retailers, dozens of large brands took a stand for something more important than profits this year. They stood together to reclaim the Thanksgiving holiday. Both employees and customers alike were encouraged to spend the day with family, rather than shoving through crowds for discounted goods.
Among these retail giants, REI went even further to reverse the shopping mania. Not only did the outdoor co-op close their doors on Thanksgiving, but all 143 of their stores remained closed on Black Friday. The company spread the word with its #OptOutside campaign stating, “While the rest of the world is fighting it out in the aisles, we hope to see you in the great outdoors.”
Putting purpose over profit was a risky move. But, by banding together, these companies took a stand for corporate citizenship, and put the humanity back into the Thanksgiving holiday.
Kudos to these big brand retailers.
To see the full list of the stores that remained closed on Thanksgiving, click here.
