So, let’s talk about that! It really was a belter of a day. If you’re wondering what a Kick Off day is, whether you should do one at your company, and why I got a bit emotional at ours this year, then read on.
Its origins began when we started to do a Wellbeing Day in January, at the time that everyone felt sluggish and meh. We’d have an offsite, talk about health and nutrition, play some sporty games and set our personal health goals for the year. Which was great in itself; but we know how hard January health goals can be to stick to! So it ended up just being a lovely day out rather than anything that really had an impact throughout the year.
At some point, we started to use it to reflect back on the previous calendar year generally. At that stage our company years ran to the end of June (don’t ask!) and so we were mid-year in terms of forecasts, performance etc. However, since we
merged all four businesses into one we also realigned our company year with the calendar year (which made everything
so much easier) and so those company updates in January became far more pertinent.
Since we launched Verve 2.0 in Jan 2022 our Kick Offs switched to still include some wellbeing and personal focus, but also to have a moment of reflection on the past, and then a really clear, solid discussion of the coming year. This year we took it up a level by sharing our (top secret) 3-year plan too, which was then broken down into 1-year goals, which were then broken down further into departmental objectives.
It takes an awful lot of work and planning to have this info to share, and this level of structure is not my forte; I’m far more a fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal! But the feedback from the team, year after year, has been that they want to know more about our direction of travel so they can get behind it and plan their own direction. This year, our feedback was better than ever as we spent so much time really articulating the goals, our mission and our overall why.
The emotional bit? Well, I always get a bit emotional at these; it could be reflecting on a great year (2021) it could be reflecting on a tough old year (2022) but this year it was reflecting on my own personal journey over the 16.5 years of running my business. Of realising that I’d spent about 16 of those years having no idea what I was doing (I knew how to paraplan; not how to run a business, grow a team, build a culture etc. etc.) and being very honest and transparent about that. I’ve never been a perfect leader, far from it, but I’ve always been an authentic leader, honest about both my strengths and my weaknesses.
This year, I realised that all the things I never knew how to do when running a business - I now DO know! I’ve been through it all. Grown a team, shrunk a team, weathered a pandemic, celebrated wins, supported tragedies, launched new businesses and services, closed businesses and services. They’re all hard-won battle scars but they’re all the experiences that mean I can now, authentically, stand in front of me team and say I’m no longer making it up as I go along. I am setting us an ambitious three-year target, based on knowledge of finance, of our services, of our place in the sector and of our capabilities. And I am damn excited about the future for us 🥳
So that’s how and why we do our Kick Offs. Should you do one? Absolutely. Even if not a full offsite with bespoke branding (cos that’s definitely a Verve thing!) a chance to really articulate to yourself, and your team, your exact direct of travel planned (of course, we never know what’s round the corner, but we can at least have an intended path at the outset) is absolutely crucial to keeping everyone rowing in the same direction and fired up for whatever the next 12 months brings us.
LOADS of stuff for you below; clients can now sign up to our second AI Think Tank (remember, places are limited so get in fast). There’s also some more detail on Kick Off, loads of in person events with
GROW and
Transformation (eek) plus loads of online ones too. It might’ve been a quiet couple of weeks in news-land, but it hasn’t been at Verve!
Have a wonderful weekend all. It was my birthday last Friday and I was gifted a delicious looking
bottle of Cab which I will be consuming as we see out the last of these dark, cosy nights. Spring will soon be sprung!
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