Turns Out We Were Built For Change

As Americans took time off to celebrate our country’s independence, we enjoyed experiences we haven’t considered for more than a year: a return to in-person gatherings, celebrations, and other activities that inspire us to feel a sense of freedom we’ve all missed.

Looking back on the?way we worked during the pandemic, the common purpose, the accelerated pace of technical innovation, and the insights into each other’s lives, I am awed by the way #GDIT was able to transform?seemingly overnight.?What we experienced and what we learned over the past year should not, and will not, be forgotten.?

When I think back to what feels like a lifetime ago just before the pandemic, GDIT was completing a demanding integration.?The process had been grueling and as it reached its final stages, my leadership team felt GDIT had experienced all the change our employees could handle for the foreseeable future.?

Turns out we were built for change.?When COVID disrupted our well laid plans, employees at every level of the organization moved our business and customers’ missions forward.?The sense of mission drove them to find ways to get the job done even as offices shut down, reporting structures evolved and planning just two weeks into the future seemed like a giant leap of faith.

As a company we were proud to be contributing to the national response, helping our customers at the DoD, CDC, NIH, VA, DHS and state agencies respond to the new public health emergency. We saw how much the work we do matters to the safety and security of this country.?We made a difference by bringing technology to our customers’ mission so they could seamlessly and securely connect and communicate in a suddenly virtual world, and by standing with them when their missions were impacted.

For many GDIT employees, this meant continuing to report to customer worksites to stand alongside our customers in protecting our nation’s critical IT infrastructure. For others it meant learning how to deliver in new ways from a virtual environment that blurred our work and home lives in ways never experienced previously. With three young children at home - and not always out of sight on 24-7 Zoom calls - I began to embrace a level of vulnerability and familiarity I had not considered before the pandemic.?

But even as employees may have had an unexpected insight into my life, I am altogether changed by the insight I have had into theirs. We saw employees struggling with harsh new realities and we made supporting them our top priority. We had illness, and even death, among our team members and staying?connected on?the well-being of our community became a part of our daily leadership discussion.???

When every day suddenly becomes “bring your child to work day” for many employees, it became an organizational imperative that we support our employees, especially their mental health.?Our leaders knew they had to tailor their management style to the unique situations facing their team members. The unacceptable alternative would have been to accept a drain on talent –through distraction, stress or even resignation-- at a time when we needed all hands on deck to meet the unprecedented challenges we faced.???

The pandemic experience also reminded us that our personal lives are not confined to our homes; they include the broader community and world in which we live.?When issues of social injustice and racism in our society became glaringly apparent last summer, GDIT found itself in a place it had not been before—having open conversations about race, discrimination and hatred. This was new and, for many, uncomfortable.?But,?we needed this dialogue. We want GDIT to be a safe place and a source of strength for all employees.??

It was during the pandemic that we re-focused on transforming our culture in a more inclusive?way, working together to create the type?of company?we can all be proud of, one that reflects the wide diversity of our society at large.?Our work continues in earnest.

Summer 2021 is a time when the country looks forward with optimism. And while we hope we?never face another crisis on the scale of the COVID pandemic, from this experience, we have learned invaluable lessons about humanity,?resilience?and the ability to change – lessons we will apply to?the future challenges we will inevitably face.

With grit, determination, empathy and perseverance, our employees rose to the challenge to achieve what we had never thought possible, and I may never be able to adequately express how incredibly proud I am of their accomplishments.?They showed that the speed at which we can change is not defined by what has been asked in the past, but by what is required in the moment and we will never again underestimate our ability to do hard things fast.

The employees of GDIT are formidable and compassionate, and our success comes when we bring both of these qualities to our work.?When we do, the results are truly transformational.?