A dear friend and I (Myriam Khoury for those of you who know us both), recently gave a keynote address at a conference for non-profit leaders. The topic centered on bringing strategy to life, and was motivated by a paper that the two of us had written last year called Don’t Let Your Organization’s Strategy Die on the Digital Shelf! We both lean towards a (sometimes healthy and sometimes less so) desire for perfection and I lost track of the number of hours we spent between us: designing; writing; doing a dry run; redesigning (the first version turned out to be less than inspiring!); preparing stunning visuals (that was entirely Myriam); preparing an interactive, technology-dependent section (that was largely me); doing several more practices; and, finally delivering the keynote.
I don’t think this adds up to an unusual amount of preparation for something like this. And we were really pleased with the feedback that we got. What struck me though, was not the amount of work that we put in to prepare, but how many other people were involved in supporting us to get to this point. We often give appreciations to a handful of people but nowhere close to the total number of people without whom we wouldn’t have got to do this. I’m not the first person to think about this. AJ Jacobs relatively recently wrote a book Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey, where he follows the supply chain back all the way to thank every single person who was involved in getting the cup of coffee that he drinks in the morning to his table. There are multiple meditations that invite us to consider how remarkable it is that we exist at all and to express gratitude to all of our ancestors who were involved in pro-creation at the exact moment that would, eventually, lead to us. One of my favorite poets, Rumi writes, “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in one drop”. True. And at the same time, I am also only one drop and when I get to do ‘big things’ it is through the combined effort of multiple other drops, backing me up.
I wanted to take a moment to thank the people who helped in this particular endeavor, as my own gratitude practice. I’ve named a first level set of people who were directly involved – realizing that I could go further and further back (to all the people I have worked on strategy with over the years, my family who nurtured me and provided whatever inputs they did that set me on this path). I put only first names, just in case people don’t want to be called out. But you know who you are.
As I did this it was a really powerful connection of myself to all these amazing people I work/ed with. Which is, I imagine how authors feel when they write acknowledgements and I am now inspired to start paying more attention to their appreciations.
My invitation to others, is to see whether this is an experiment that inspires you too. Pick something that you are proud of. And then map out all those who made it possible. See how it feels. See if there is anything else that you want to do to let them know how the role they played mattered.
This is my attempt to name and at least some of the multiple people, without whom I wouldn’t have had this opportunity or managed to pull it off – and apologies to anyone I missed inadvertently:
– Everyone who was willing to share their insights for the paper – Desiree, Doris, Deborah, Yohannes, Jim, Irakli. And everyone who provided critical feedback – Sasha, Samantha and Shannon.
– The folks who watched Myriam and I practice and gave feedback – Shannon and Carolyn.
– The Nonprofit Association of Oregon – Jim, Sarah, Tia – who not only read our paper but invited us to speak
– Our ‘work friends’ who gave time to allow me to experiment with Mentimeter – Hayley, Kaye, Karen, Cathy, Shayne, Sahar, Sasha – without feeling stupid.
– The fantastic AV folks working the venue who miked us effectively and helped us work everything smoothly.
– While I have many mentors and bosses over the years who have shaped my thinking about strategy over the years there are a few who I wanted to give a particular shout out too – Tom, Nigel, Craig, Carolyn and Neil – thank you for challenging my thinking and helping me to see that what a strategy looks like is far less important than how it is used to shape change.
Above all for this event was the opportunity to work and collaborate with Myriam – her brilliance, creativity, and ability to co-create is truly a delight. Combined with her humor and the storytelling capacity.
And finally here’s a toast to recognizing our place in an ecosystem – and may we contribute to the pinnacle moments of others, just as they contribute to ours.
