CEO Corner: My Thought for the Year 2022

WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?

‍

I always start the annual company kick-off in January with my thought for the year. I want to challenge everyone as individuals and as a collective - to get all of us thinking about how we are going to conduct ourselves in our professional and personal lives. If, as a CEO, I believe it is important to bring your whole self to work then it is vital I speak to the whole person, in every individual who works at HeadBox. I want to challenge the 'whole you' not just the ‘work you’.  This is what I shared with the HeadBox team.

So, my thought for 2022 is, simply: ‘Who do you want to be?’ It is inspired by a line from Epictetus: ‘First, tell yourself what kind of person you want to be, then do what you have to do’. The reason I am asking you to think about this is so that you can step towards the person you want to be, the example you want to set for others, and how you want to live your life at work and at home. From this will come your actions and decisions across the year. 

I know who I want to be in 2022. 

I know who I want to be when it comes to HeadBox. I want HeadBox to become the best in the world at what we do. I want to look back on our journey and say we created two amazing software products that left a positive and lasting mark on this industry.

To be the best in the world at something sets out our ambition. That ambition is reflected in our sales target - a fourfold increase on 2021. 

With that type of ambition comes pressure, danger, and a feeling sometimes of being out of our comfort zone. It is going to test us. And so to meet that pressure head-on and achieve our ambitious goals we are going to have to perform at our very best. 

So, what does that take? 

To answer that question, I have turned to Dan Carter - one of the greatest All-Blacks of all time...he talks about high performance and what that means to him. ‘High performance is about performing under pressure - I want that pressure in my life. If I am going through a week and it's all too easy then I know that I am not on the verge of greatness.’

Don't step away from that pressure, that danger, that feeling of being a little uncomfortable, step towards it. 

We can take comfort from our HeadBox values to help us with this, to achieve high performance and I want to remind of us of three of them.

‍

Brilliance 

Brilliance means learning, developing and challenging limits. It means setting the bar higher. We have worked very hard to create a flexible and supportive working environment at HeadBox so anyone can bring their whole self to work. This way, they can bring everything to the table and make great things happen. 

‍

Integrity

Doing what we say we are going to do when we say we are going to do it. It is about being accountable to ourselves and each other. We have a fantastic opportunity in front of us in 2022 - it is there for us to grab it with both hands. 

I want to set the expectation across all teams that when you set out actions they must also 

be set against a time frame. We have to meet our own deadlines and show a sense of urgency to get stuff done. And if we are worried that we can't achieve something important, then we apply the mindset to come together to find a solution that will get it done. 

‍

That which is not good for the hive isn't good for the bee - Marcus Aurelius

‍

Empathy

We will only achieve high performance if we act, think and move as one team. We have to be there for each other. We also have to challenge each other. Great teams are not afraid of difficult conversations because they never lose sight of their common goal. Our mission to bring people and spaces together to make brilliant things happen everywhere is bigger than any one individual. 

Together, let’s apply these values to our choices and actions in 2022, keep stepping towards who we want to be, and how we want to behave and we will together achieve our ambitions.

‍