Leading with Thanks

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving; it’s my favorite holiday. The food, the football, the family and friends. A day each year to take pause and appreciate the blessings of loved ones, community, and good work, is a day well worth celebrating. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by my extended family and good friends. Of course, I also am surrounded by my extended State Street family every day. The people that you work with—sometimes over many long hours and under challenging circumstances—very much become like family and am grateful for these relationships every day.

I’ve often said in meetings and town halls that if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Like many clichés, that saying holds some truth. It doesn’t mean you won’t work hard, or have days or weeks where you feel frustrated, or question decisions being made by others. What it means is finding a sense of purpose—even nobility—in doing good work, in collaborating with colleagues you come to trust and rely upon, in driving results that help makes people’s lives better.

State Street’s purpose—to help create better outcomes for the world’s investors and the people they serve—is, in some ways, an expression of gratitude. Though Thanksgiving comes as a welcome day off, I’d like to take a moment to discuss what it means for executives to lead with thanks.

This Thursday, November 24, I’d ask you to be thankful for the professional opportunities that have come your way over the course of your careers, be they at State Street or elsewhere. I have been fortunate to have worked with some amazing colleagues and leaders all of whom have shaped and influenced me as an individual and as a professional.

I’d ask you to reflect with gratitude upon that teacher, counselor, coach, or mentor who leant you their hand, lifted you up, and dropped some serious wisdom on you when you were younger—words you probably continue to live by, and today share with the next generation of coworkers.?

I’d ask you to think with greatest appreciation about the meaning of home—both personal and professional. In my personal home, my family is everything to me and I cherish every moment we are together. In my business home, I was blessed to enjoy a kind of professional homecoming at State Street—having begun my career here in the late 1980s, then working at several peer competitors and founding my own company, until returning in a more seasoned capacity in the early 2010s.

And I’d ask you to give thanks—to colleagues, clients, and partners—for all we’ve been through together these past several years. At State Street that took the form of some 40,000+ employees worldwide pivoting in March 2020, virtually overnight, to remote work—and doing so in the most graceful, productive, collaborative ways possible to ensure we continued to fulfill our purpose for the benefit of our clients, shareholders, partners, and each other.

There’s another reason to love the fourth Thursday of November. Thanksgiving is unique among holidays insofar as the word is a proper noun and also a verb. That is, its very name asks us to do something—to act!

Giving back is a hugely important part of giving thanks and I am proud to say that this year State Street became an official delegate of the Privilege Project, a non-profit ally network organization that works to harness the power of privilege to include and not exclude.

State Street is a worldwide financial services institution and a G-SIB (global systemically important bank). Simply, there is hardly a geopolitical and/or macro-economic event of any magnitude that doesn’t impact our clients. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, we ramped up our business continuity planning and deepened outreach to clients, regulators, and market counterparties to help them navigate through an extended period of uncertainty. Closer to home, State Street employs roughly 6,400 workers in Krakow and Gdansk, Poland, not far from the border with Ukraine. Our employees were ready to help from day one in ways that extended from organizing refugee relief and humanitarian supplies, to opening their homes and providing shelter to refugees and the displaced. The collective effort, which is ongoing, exemplifies the best of us, and fills me with pride and gratitude.

Being thankful—what a wonderful thing to spend a day thinking about and celebrating!

Smarts, ingenuity, dedication, fairness, tirelessness—all these attributes are essential leadership requirements. Equally so is leading with thanks. Turkey day, and every day.?