My hopes and thoughts for 2023 - a letter to my team!

03-Jan-2022

Since last year, I have started to writing a letter to my team as I welcome everyone back to work in the new year, outlining some of my ideas and thoughts on the upcoming year. There are new thoughts as well as some repeat thoughts of last year, and the idea is to help everyone focus on most important aspects of life and work.

Sharing what I wrote this year on LinkedIn. This is a slightly rephrased version of the one I sent internally (to suite the external readers).

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Hello Team,

Wishing you all a very happy new year 2023. I hope, despite a lot of pressure at work, you all managed find your own time and space to celebrate the new year in your own ways.

Year 2022 was challenging in more ways than one, however, upon reflecting on the year, I feel more content and satisfied with all the efforts that were put in by everyone and our continued push to deliver more impact to the organization.?While we had our fair share of learnings & reflections, we celebrated many moments of fantastic success together.??Well done make last year a success!

As we start the new calendar year, I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you all.?

2023 is a new start – what got us here won’t get us where we need to be!

As the calendar year changes, it’s an opportunity for us to clean our slate from past achievements and look at the future in a renewed vigor.?2022 is over and so is our past success and achievements.?We have been fortunate enough to have lot of moments to celebrate and feel successful in 2022 (thanks to your hard work!), but time is now to clean the canvas and paint a new picture for 2023.?We cannot be complacent with our success in past.

It's time for redefining our ambition and pursuing new goals & successes and new learning for 2023.

Be ready for unforeseen and unexpected challenges along the way

We have seen in 2022 how the macroeconomic conditions get turned upside down due to geopolitical situations. Russia-Ukraine war, rising inflation worldwide and challenging political situations across many countries in the world have had a big impact in the way businesses are run worldwide. Almost all business across all sectors have been impacted due to this.

It’s likely that 2023 may bring new and previously unseen challenges in front of us and we will need to be ready to face and overcome them.

We do have two biggest tools that can help here – Our ‘Agility’ and our ‘Entrepreneurial mindset’.???These two qualities that we have carefully cultivated within our teams in past few years are our biggest assets and will help us navigate through the unpredictable landscape that this year may bring to us.

Please do not trade these qualities for anything. We will need to use them a lot this year.

‘Fear of failure’ and ‘Pursuit of success’ are two sides of the same coin – know the key difference

While symptomatically and behaviorally people respond to both similarly, there is a major difference between being driven by a ‘Fear of failure’ vs being driven by ‘Pursuit of success’.??

Fear of failure thinking makes you focus on avoiding mistakes and pushes you to trade on a very careful and a well-travelled path that minimizes the chances of failure. The entire energy goes in avoiding failures and the appetite to take risks & try new ideas and innovations comes significantly down.

On the contrary, the Pursuit of success thinking helps you focus on your goal and impact that you want to achieve while not being specific about the path you should travel to achieve it.?It helps you take new and uncharted paths, try new ideas and innovations that may result into temporary setbacks but will eventually lead you to success.

Personally, I believe a lot in aligning with ‘Pursuit of success’ mindset over ‘Fear of failure’ mindset and I would encourage you all to do so too.?Be brave, take (within reason) risks, try new paths, and expand your horizons.

?‘Shit’ happens - Life isn’t fair and so isn’t work

We all advocate for fairness, for everyone.?But we all know, life is not always fair or kind to us.??The same goes for work and with the kind of things that we do, we experience, and we feel at work.?

Even with honest intentions and efforts by everyone, there will always be moments at work that may stress you, disappoint you or make you question the fairness of the situation.?Despite the best efforts by the leaders and everyone around you, it’s possible that you may experience some of these things.

Like the life goes up and down, the work will also have its own ups and downs. While I am pretty sure we will have another successful year, we will also experience failures, we may take wrong decisions and some things will just go bad.?

‘Shit’ happens and its possible that we will have some bad days at work.

So, if this ever happens with you, know that we are in this together and we will share all good times/ bad times together and overcome them.??Openness, transparency, trust and being intentional of supporting each other are some of our cultural values that can really help us turn any bad situation in a positive way.??I would encourage you to continue advocating and actively practicing them.?

?Finally, do prioritize yourself, your well-being & your mental health

If there is one thing that the last couple of years have prominently taught me, it is that of ‘importance of mental health’ and need of conditioning the mind to cope up with the situation around us.?

How and what we feel, and our emotional state has a strong impact on how we think, how we act and on our physical health.?Like me, I am sure you also have had times last year when the world seems to be fading and nothing goes as per the plan in our life.?I am sure some of you know, I have had times when I felt like giving up as life was getting too much on me.

I am sure this year will bring its own situations, challenges and ups and downs in our lives that will impact our mental health.?Some of them may be completely new and it’s entirely possible that we may not be prepared for those situations and end up feeling lost!

So, if you ever do go through this, please note that ‘work’ should be the last thing in your list of worries.?Please do all the necessary things to help yourself.?Those who are lucky enough to have family and friends, please do bank on them for support.?If you feel like talking to someone at work, please note that I am always available to talk to you.?

Some of the tips that have helped me along the way are,

• Try not to over invest emotionally at work.?Invest in people, not work or products.?Your career and journey are way longer than the project or the team you are in right now.?So, invest in long term relations and help each other grow.
• Have a passion (or a hobby) outside work that you are willing to burn your nights for.?For me, watching Manchester United play football is one such passion. Don’t be surprised if I respond to some chat messages or emails at 2am or 3am.?It’s possible I might be awake watching football.?Thankfully, we are starting to win again so its exciting!
• Take time off.?Do not just book time off to fight stress and refresh your mind, take time off to experience new things too.?I got significantly better in 2022 and took opportunities to wind-down and disconnect from work few times by traveling and locking myself within deep forests of India amongst wildlife, looking for tigers & leopards.

Your mental wellbeing and creating a safe workspace are my responsibilities too and I want you to feel comfortable reaching out to me or your colleagues & friends at work or your people champions should you need any support or help.?

Please do not treat your wellbeing lightly.?When work becomes stressful, please speak out what you feel. You are more likely to get support if you speak out than if you take on the work just on yourself.

I wish you all the good luck for another impactful year, personally and professionally.

?

Happy new year | Feliz Ano Novo |?新年快乐?|????????????????????????? | ?????? ?? ?????????? | ??? ????? ?????? | ???? ????????? ???????? | Feliz a?o nuevo | Frohes neues Jahr!

Best regards,

Swapnil