End of Year Reflections 2021

As we end a holiday season with a yard full of snow, I’m watching the hummingbirds who call our yard home drink their fill multiple times a day from the hummingbird feeder outside our back door. They had a tough week; our normally temperate climate turned bitter cold, atypical for Seattle winters. I spent several nights worried about the birds’ welfare, getting up an hour before dawn to warm up their food and then checking every several hours to make sure it didn’t freeze. This was not a sustainable strategy, but I was able to keep my bird friends alive until ‘the cavalry’ arrived by way of my ‘no task is too challenging’ son and my like-minded husband, who rigged a heat lamp just close enough to keep the food from freezing, but not so close to disturb our feathered friends. Whew, what a relief!

Our year has been a lot like this: watching the seasons change, experiencing circumstances so different from what we expected, adapting on the fly to fit new conditions, and figuring out new ways of doing things to keep our homes, our businesses, our families afloat. And, like my hummingbirds, we await a brighter, warmer, and more comfortable New Year.

 The marketplace has certainly been tumultuous during these pandemic times. At the start of all this craziness, I remember wondering how our company would survive as clients cancelled contracts and our regular partners found ways to move what we did for them in-house. But we ended last year busier than ever, with a market gone wild and new clients asking us for assistance every day.

2021 dawned in one of the busiest times I’ve ever experienced as a communication professional. Thank you to our clients and business partners for sharing this journey with us. We ended the year as we started it, winning dozens of projects with talented teams from around the world. What fun that has been for all of us! We got to help with multiple enormous civil infrastructure projects, transportation projects, hospitals, university buildings and schools, justice facilities, laboratories, and waterfronts. We facilitated partnering for some of the most visible and exciting projects in the US, and we’re poised to work on more in 2022. And we were invited into the leadership teams of utilities and governments across the US as they sought new ways to help the communities they serve. It’s been an honor to work with all of you.

Over the course of 2021, we focused on growing our leadership team and expanding what they can do to serve clients. We ended the year with a full house of talented coaches, strategic planners, facilitators, graphic designers, and proposal managers ready to serve our clients, existing and new. We also expanded more strongly into the public sector, making a significant commitment to serving the communication, training, and planning needs of city, state, and county government. I’m reminded daily how much I really love working with professionals from the public sector who keep our communities running behind the scenes every day.

We also kept adapting our means and methods, learning new and innovative online tools to facilitate teams and processes from across the world and right here at home. While we had so much fun going back to in-person engagement for two short windows of time this year, we are also committed to being able to work virtually as it expands our reach nationally and internationally and delivers efficiencies to almost every project type. Our technical facilitation team has grown to accommodate, and they’re even often called upon to help our clients develop internal ways to work remotely. So, while I hope we go back to more in-person work, virtual is here to stay and will continue to benefit our projects and our clients.

As we leave 2021 and look ahead to 2022, I’m evaluating what I want to leave behind. First is fear of a changing market because I’ve seen how resilient my team is and how they rise to each new challenge. I’m leaving behind a dogmatic attachment to old processes because I’ve seen how we can do better work by thinking and acting differently. Finally, I’m leaving behind prioritizing working harder for working smarter. Over the last weeks of December, I’ve enjoyed sleeping more than I have the entire last year, and I’m realizing, like my hummingbirds, that as busy as we fly back and forth during the day, getting rest at night makes a real difference in my life and my work.

So, what about 2022? As I leave behind three things, I’m going to pick up three more:

Our hummingbirds remind me of the importance of relationships. They’re demanding of time and attention, and unlike people, they’re really clear about what they need, even buzzing the door when they need something. They remind me that I have to put time and attention into relationships to keep them alive. With that in mind, I’m committing 2022 to building stronger relationships, internally with our team and with each of our clients.

I’m embracing kindness. Having watched, often from a front row seat, how ugly some communication between people has become during this pandemic, I’m recommitting my team and myself to communicating with kindness and grace, even in the worst of situations. And as an extension of this, we’re all recommitting to gratitude for all that we have and for the capacity to give back. We’ve been privileged to be able to donate time and resources to agencies focused on ending homelessness and supporting children. That’s something my team and I will continue into this New Year.

And I’m welcoming change, getting comfortable with knowing that whatever I think 2022 will be, it’s going to be different than anything we expect today. But we’re jumping into 2022 with confidence: My team and I are ready: the feeder is full; and like our hummingbirds, we’re ready to fly!