Closing out the Year and Starting Anew

It’s that time of year when we’re getting ready to close out our fiscal year and start anew. This is always exciting and also daunting as we pursue this year’s goals to be the best we can be as a company.

I’d like to focus this message on culture. We have many leaders in Beacon as we don’t define leadership as having to supervise people. There are layers upon layers of leadership in our company, to include those who lead themselves to great outcomes every day, to those who lead teams and/or projects, and formal leaders who we task to steer us in the right direction.

I have come to learn through the years that the top leadership isn’t really at the top. They are the foundation upon which a culture is built. If we don’t walk the walk, the culture is not based in reality, only in hope or possibly denial. It doesn’t matter what we say, it matters what we do. If we just recite the corporate values but don’t live them, they have no meaning. Senior leadership determines the trust our Beacons have in the company and how motivated and aligned they feel in doing their best every day.

Our senior leadership recently completed a team building assessment to provide feedback on how we work as a team and what our culture looks like. The feedback that we received from the exercise was very gratifying. The assessment indicated that our culture encourages creativity, enthusiasm, optimism, collaboration, and passion. That resonates with me and I hope it does with you. It seems to speak to the message we discovered in our rebranding of Beacon that we strive to provide the opportunity for our Beacons to express their best selves at work. This is how we can sustain the positive attributes of enthusiasm, optimism, and passion within our culture. It was gratifying to know that an objective source validated our belief about ourselves and that our top leadership embraces this.

We know that being able to express your best self brings joy from just doing…not necessarily from any great feat or invention. We all contribute through applying our highest abilities and because of that, we know that we are making a difference.