America was in the middle of the Civil War. In addition to the strife in the country, Longfellow himself had suffered great personal loss. In 1861, he lost his beloved wife in a tragic accidental fire. And at the start of 1863, his son snuck away and joined the Union army against his wishes, risking another life Longfellow couldn’t bear to lose.

With all of these things weighing heavily, he wrote this poem in response to the bells he heard chiming that Christmas Day in 1863:

‍

‍I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

‍

The Christmas bells chimed just like they had every year before, and they sang of “peace on earth, good-will to men.” However, between the war and Longfellow’s deep personal sorrow, this message of peace and good-will felt out of place. It felt like a wasted celebration in such a tumultuous time. It felt like a lie.

So Longfellow’s response is not surprising:

‍

‍And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said:

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

‍

Longfellow couldn’t reconcile what was happening in the world with a seemingly surface-level Christmas celebration. For Longfellow, there was no peace. There was just hate, and there was nothing left to do but despair.

I wonder if any of you this year feel the way that Longfellow felt that Christmas season?

Maybe you’ve put up the tree, you hear Christmas music on the radio, but something still seems off. All of the lights, the wrapping, the cards, and the songs might feel a little like we’re trying to put lipstick on a pig. This world is broken. It’s divided. It’s full of disease and pain and death. It’s full of hate. And if you look around, there seems like there is a lot more despair than peace or good-will.

But Longfellow doesn’t end his poem in despair. He goes on and ends with hope for himself and for us. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

‍

"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

‍

‍Like all of us, Longfellow needed to remind himself of something—the hope of Christmas does not hinge on the state of our present circumstances. The hope of Christmas does not change whether it’s 1863 or 2020.

The hope of Christmas does not hinge on the state of our present circumstances.

Even when it doesn’t seem like it, we all need the reminder that the wrong shall fail and the right prevail. Why? Precisely because of what we celebrate at Christmas.

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

‍

“Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace,

goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:11–14).

‍

My hope for all of us is that we can rest in the hope of the true and glorious meaning of Christmas.

From company parties, to church events, to gatherings with friends, we’re used to being busy the whole month of December. Unfortunately, this year is anything but normal. Most of us won’t be able to celebrate in all the ways we are accustomed to, and without the gatherings, some are finding it hard to get into the “spirit” of things.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve received more than a few calls from friends and fellow business leaders. The situations are different, but their goals are ultimately the same: They are looking for creative ways to honor, celebrate, and unify their teams. They recognize how hard it’s been, and they want to do something impactful. But they can’t have their traditional parties in the middle of a pandemic, and they don’t know how to plan effective meetings to kickoff 2021.

Some of them represent large organizations, and they are asking how ADDO is advising our clients in this season. Others come from small businesses, and they are asking me what I’m doing with our team. If many of my friends and fellow leaders are having this challenge, maybe you are, as well. Below you’ll find our recipe for creating moments that are memorable and impactful. They work for any group. And yes, they even work during a pandemic. In fact, we utilized each of these elements when we put together our ADDO retreat in August of this year.  

1. Personalization:

It’s important to provide a personal piece to each member of your team. At ADDO, we send our team a culture survey. In it, we ask questions that range from the number one place they want to travel, all the way down to their favorite drink from Starbucks. This helps us know them better. How does that play out in creating a personalized experience? When we have a bag of candy and snacks for each person at the retreat, it’s not the same for everyone. Instead, each team member gets some of their favorite candy. It’s small. It’s inexpensive. But it shows we care.  

2. Surprise:

Surprising is all about doing something unexpected. At our August retreat, our team knew we were going to see a movie. But what they didn’t know was that we were leaving to see the movie at 9:30 a.m.! Instead of finishing the full day of meetings with the movie, we flipped the schedule and sat in a movie theater with popcorn and cokes in hand at 10:00 a.m. Surprise can involve an unexpected space, an unexpected schedule, or even an unexpected way to deliver a message.

3. Wow:

My Co-Founder, Garrett Gravesen, always reminds us, “If it’s now WOW, it’s not worth doing!”

What can you do that will make your team say “Wow”?

Going to a movie in the morning: Unexpected. Walking outside to see limousines waiting to take us to the movie: Now that’s wow. But wow doesn’t always have to be expensive. When we were forced to have our retreat in our regular office space, it could have easily felt like another day at work, but our team added extra decor and a balloon arch outside of our door, so we could change the space and make it feel different.

Alright, I’ve got to share one of my favorite ways these three elements came together to create some truly memorable moments for our team. At every retreat, we give awards to members of our team. They are nominated by their fellow team members, and each award represents one of ADDO’s values. To honor our award recipients this year, we utilized Cameo—a service where you can request videos from some of your favorite celebrities!

Noel, who won our Purpose award, has a guilty pleasure of watching The Bachelor. Check out her award shoutout from Bachelor host Chris Harrison.

There were 5 others, but my favorite was for the Passion award. This one might be the most cringe-worthy, but the message to Aaron, from Carole Baskin of Tiger King was priceless!

A surprise announcement with a personalized celebrity shoutout. That’s wow.

People don’t remember days, or even hours, they remember moments.

Why do we focus so much on moments like these? Because people don’t remember days, or even hours, they remember moments. Employ these elements when you are crafting memorable moments for the people you care about.

As she was talking, I realized that our team of high-caliber individuals had everything under control. They do excellent work and, for the most part, don’t need my help in delivering exceptional value for our clients. But there was something else I noticed. There were a few unique areas where my help was most needed, and these areas really had nothing to do with the kind of skill set you might find in a typical job description. They didn’t require a certain level of expertise or experience that I brought to the table. The things our team most needed from me were intangible, things like enthusiasm and commitment to fulfill our mission, even in the toughest of times.

For any of you in leadership, those intangibles matter as much, if not more, than the areas of your work you can easily quantify and measure. Here are the two things our team needed from me. As you read them, I’d challenge you to think about what others (your co-workers, your teammates, your family) need from you.

1. Enthusiasm:

‍Perhaps the most underrated but important thing a leader brings to the team is their enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for the vision and an enthusiastic approach to achieving it. In busy times, anyone working to accomplish something can get bogged down in their own role, so they are looking to the leader to be a source of energy. When you feel neck-deep in deadlines, it’s helpful to have someone remind you that the work you are doing matters!

Perhaps the most underrated but important thing a leader brings to the team is their enthusiasm.

We need to remind ourselves that our teams need the energy we bring. I often forget that everything I do speaks, and how enthusiastic I am about our work has an overflow effect on others.

2. Commitment:

‍The second intangible that I need to provide for my team is commitment. It’s important to know that the leader is all-in, especially when things are tough. A lot of times, the best leaders are not smarter or more skillful than others, but they are the ones who are willing to stick with something when everyone else feels like giving up. They remind the rest of the team to persist in the face of opposition and to trust that the work they are doing will be worth it in the long run. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”

The same is true for the leader.

Whenever I leave the office for an extended period of time—for paternity leave, a vacation, or a holiday—I’m always encouraged by the effectiveness of our team. They are committed to excellence and that doesn’t waver in my absence. They don’t always need my skills and experience, but they need to know they can count on me for these intangibles of leadership—simply because of my position. By the way, others on our team can certainly provide enthusiasm and commitment (and most of them do!), but it has the greatest impact on the success of the team when it comes from the senior-most leader.

What are the intangibles you bring to your team, your organization, or even your family? Make sure you’re providing the things they need from you most.

And this doesn’t include those linked with anxiety, postpartum depression, and bipolar disorder.

Additionally, five percent of people experience seasonal depression every year.

These statistics are staggering; yet, they’ve become even more significant in 2020. Since the start of the pandemic, nearly 30 percent of people say they are currently feeling depressed, and according to a study conducted by the CDC, one in four young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 say they have considered suicide.

Ok, let’s pause for a moment.

Some of you read this blog for leadership insights.

Others of you are looking to improve your corporate culture and develop your team.

Maybe you’re just looking for a feel-good Thanksgiving story this week.

And now you’re sitting here wondering why we are talking about depression.

Here’s why: Thanksgiving—and the holiday season—is a time when many people have a heightened awareness of their deferred dreams and unmet desires. If you’re already clinically depressed, or even just discouraged, this time of year can make it worse. When you add on the heaviness that has come with the events of 2020, this time can be incredibly difficult.

There is no quick or easy fix to depression or despair, and it doesn’t discriminate between people. Wildly successful actors and comedians like Dwayne Johnson and Jim Carrey have both opened up about personal struggles with depression. Even heroes from the Bible weren’t immune to it. There was even a time when Moses asked God to take his life, and David asked himself a question that many of us can relate to:

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?” –Psalm 42

Though Thanksgiving is a time we’re supposed to be grateful, it often reminds us of the things we’ve lost or the things we’ve always wanted. This year, Thanksgiving will feel different for all of us. Maybe you’re not traveling for the first time, or you have fewer people at your table. Maybe you have at-risk family members who are unable to join you or people you’ve lost this year—and you wish more than anything they could be there. It might be something else that’s making this year especially tough. The bad news is that I don’t have an easy solution to lifting this heaviness, but I do have two pieces of advice that may help give you a little help and a little hope:

1. Turn down the noise.

Spend less time with people who discourage you and less time -consuming news and media that gives you anxiety. It’s good to be informed, but it’s important to be influenced by what is true, which brings me to my next point . . .

2. Replace the noise with truth.

Spend more time with the right people, the kind of people who remind you what is true. And spend more time consuming books, articles, and media that help you think about good things and meditate on what is true.

Gratitude is good for us when we are struggling or feeling down.

I know I said that Thanksgiving often reminds us of sad things, and I still think that’s true. But I also know that gratitude is good for us when we are struggling or feeling down. When we focus on what we do have, instead of what we don’t have, we take a small step toward a more positive outlook on life.

But when I walked in the door, it felt a little too much like a hole in the wall—neglected and dirty. There were crumbs on the table, the chairs felt sticky, and trash sat visibly on the floor. And I won’t begin to describe what the bathroom looked like.

It was clear they believed their food was so good that it didn’t matter what the rest of the place looked like. To them, it was part of their charm. To me, it just felt gross. Even though the food was good, it was hard to enjoy it. It was a good reminder for me that everything speaks. When you walk into a business, you’re processing so much more than the product you’re purchasing. You’re impacted by the aesthetic, the cleanliness, the colors, the tone of the person talking to you, and their personal appearance. All of these things are affecting your impression of the organization.

Small things often communicate something much bigger.

Benjamin Franklin famously said, “The handshake of the host affects the taste of the roast.” In other words, a positive or negative first impression can impact a person’s whole experience. If the restaurant is dirty, it’s going to be hard to enjoy their good food. On the other hand, if the restaurant is pristine and the waiter is especially hospitable, the food may even seem better than it really is!

If everything speaks, what are you missing? What are the small things you have overlooked that are communicating something bigger?

In a business, it’s not just about the quality of your product. It’s the way your customer service representatives answer the phone and the speed at which they respond to emails. It’s your team’s attentiveness to guests and hospitality toward everyone who walks through the door. These small things communicate care.

At a church, we can make sure the music is great, the sermon is good, and the production is perfect, but if a guest feels ignored by the person sitting next to them, those other things will be overshadowed. It’s not just about how the service goes or how the church looks, it matters that someone feels welcomed.

At home, you may be great at giving words of affirmation to your spouse, but you often forget to put your dirty coffee cup in the dishwasher in the morning. It’s a small thing, but when you remember to do it, it communicates care. You’re not leaving extra work for your spouse to do for you.

Just to be clear, this blog isn’t about being nit-picky. We should be gracious with one another. We shouldn’t obsess over the small things, but we shouldn’t ignore them either. Small things really can communicate big things.

I’ve heard it said,

“What you’re doing speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

This week, ask yourself what small pieces of your organization have you overlooked? Work to identify the little things in your personal and professional life that are speaking. Are they saying what you want them to say? If not, it’s time to help the little things in your life reflect what you believe.

It was a study-abroad organization. In other words, we created a global travel company that was based on asking people to use their disposable income to take trips to interesting places around the world. And just to clarify, this was started in the middle of the Great Recession, which is now considered the longest period of economic decline since the Great Depression. I distinctly remember people telling us we were crazy.

I’m going to be honest with you: It never occurred to me that it was a bad time to start a company. Want to know the craziest part? The business was successful! As Pearl Buck famously said, “The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation.”

I’m glad I didn’t know any better.

Twelve years later, we are living in the midst of a pandemic. It has been a hard year. Our social lives have been dismantled, our communities feel more divided than ever, and our economy has been uncertain. This season has impacted all of us psychologically, emotionally, and financially. It’s drawn many people to fear. It seems like every week I talk to more people who are basing important decisions on this fear. Surrounded by pundits and prognosticators, they are more focused on their circumstances than their calling. However, this might be the exact time to face your fear head on. I believe there are real benefits to taking on something challenging during a time of adversity. There are benefits to being a recent college graduate at the start of an economic recession, like I was in 2008.

There are even benefits to being a little naive about the potential pitfalls of trying something new.

Now, I’m not going to give you the five steps to pursuing your calling in a pandemic, but I do have one piece of advice for you: turn down the noise. If your newsfeed is keeping you from doing what you need to do, exercise some willful ignorance and turn off your notifications for a while. Sometimes, it’s better to not know any better. Consider this question: What is something you know you need to do, but you’re afraid to do it right now?

Maybe you’ve said something like this:

I’m going to get married once I get this business off the ground.

I’ll have kids once I can afford the perfect house for our family.

I’ll start writing when I can get a little more free-time during the day.

I’m going to start saving money when I get my next raise.

I’ll start giving when I have a cushion in my bank account.

Maybe it’s time to take that first step. There’s never going to be a perfect time to do anything.

If you’re waiting on the perfect time to do something, you will never do what you were created to do.

I believe there is someone reading this today who needs this reminder. It may be time for you to try something new in spite of your present circumstances.

Many are thrilled with the outcome, while millions of others are disappointed—some of them devastated. However, it’s worth noting that some of the ones celebrating this election were crushed in despair by the outcome four years ago. Disappointment. Devastation. Despair. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of having a fatalistic mentality when their candidates lose. We all have this tendency to be overcome by a sense of foreboding, bracing ourselves for what we believe to be the worst possible scenario under a new administration. Republicans react this way when a Democrat wins, and Democrats react this way when a Republican wins.

Just to be clear, I am making this observation as someone who has worked in politics and believes it’s important to be an active participant in the political process. Before you give me the lecture on how important this election is, I’ll remind you that I’ve worked on a presidential campaign, served on the staff of a U.S. Congressman, and spent time helping many others running for office. But far too many people have made politics their religion. This myopic focus on politics causes some to stake so much on it that when it doesn’t go their way, they fall apart. Their hope evaporates, and their happiness erodes.

C.S. Lewis wisely said,

“Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.”

In many ways, 2020 has exposed this tendency in all of us. Maybe it’s not politics for you, but it’s something else you’ve hitched your happiness to that can be taken away from you.

People who have placed their identities in their jobs have lost them.

People who have rested on the stability of their assets have seen them erode.

People who have found satisfaction in their spouses felt the stresses of 2020 threaten to break them apart.

People who found joy in their social calendars saw them obliterated.

People who found security in their health felt it evaporate in the face of a new disease.

Whether it's an election, a relationship, a job, a status, an economic state, or even freedom itself, we should not place our hope in things that can be taken away from us. It is like trying to build a house on shifting sand.

We should not place our hope in things that can be taken away from us.

Ultimately, this is not a post about politics or an election result. Moreso, it’s a reminder to me, and to each of us, to audit the things we stake our lives on. Don’t misunderstand me; these things—an election, our relationships, our jobs, our economic situations—are important. But they can’t be the fixture of our hope, our faith, and our trust. Why? Because they are all things that can change. So then where do we place our hope?

For me, it’s my faith. If everything in my life falls apart, this is one thing I can count on that will not change. My challenge for you today is to make sure you’re placing your faith, hope, and trust in something that will not disappoint you.

I believe everyone needs to be able to answer this question:

What is something that you can stake your life on that will never change?

It’s important to prioritize building a positive culture for your team, even when other pressing matters are vying for your attention.

The concept of culture is a topic I come back to because of questions I’m frequently asked by leaders. I find that people want something tangible and tactical they can do to enhance their culture. I’ve previously explained that culture creators and culture carriers are positive forces who can help build and maintain the culture of your team. But today I’m going to talk about people on the other end of the spectrum—the people who crush your culture.

Will Felps, professor at Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, designed a real-life bad apple experiment to see how one bad team member could affect the performance of the rest of a team. He divided college students into small groups and assigned them a task to complete together. What they didn’t know was that some groups had a bad apple planted on their team—a hired actor who was consciously a downer, a jerk, or a slacker. The study found that the groups with these bad apples performed 30-40% worse than their counterparts. It gets worse. They didn’t just perform poorly, but some of the other members of the group took on the traits of the bad apple. A group with a downer would become more pessimistic as a whole. A group with a jerk would produce more jerks. A group with a slacker would make the rest of the team apathetic.

On the whole, the experiment confirmed that one person can crush the culture of an entire team.

Some of you might be thinking about a person on your team right now. Maybe this is discouraging because you aren’t in a position to remove that person from your team. I have some good news. The experiment conducted by Felps produced one outlier that should give us hope. One group who had an actor playing a jerk was still able to push through to complete the assigned task well. In this group, there was another team member who was a strong leader. Whenever the jerk said something negative, the stronger leader quickly diffused the situation and reminded the team of their collective goal. As a result, the rest of the group chose to follow this leader rather than the bad apple.

So here’s the moral of the story: If there is a culture crusher on your team and you have the power to get rid of them, do it. Stop putting off the tough conversation. Pull the plug for the sake of your team. But not all of us have this kind of power. If you have a culture crusher on your team and you can’t get rid of them, choose to be the leader that your team needs. Be the positive force in your organization. Be the bright spot by reminding your team of your collective vision.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said,

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”

Don’t let one bad apple ruin the whole bunch!

Personally, I’m very excited about family changes in the next couple of weeks, as we’re expecting the arrival of our second child any day now. But I’m also excited about a professional accomplishment. For the second year in a row, out of all of the small businesses in Atlanta, ADDO was named the #1 Best Place to Work! This award is far more special to me than most others.

Here’s the truth: many business awards are based on how well your application was written or if you have a political connection with a member of the selection committee. The Best Places to Work awards are different. These are decided after a third-party organization conducts anonymous surveys of all employees in your business, and then makes the section based on objective and quantifiable metrics. After we won this award last year, I told you that one of the keys to our company culture at ADDO is that we don’t buy cheap toilet paper. In other words, we invest in the small things that show our team we care about them.

Today, I want to share three tactics we’ve focused on during this COVID season that helped make ADDO the best place to work in Atlanta in 2020. These principles will help any person trying to create a positive culture on any team—for your company, for your church, for your community, or even for your family.

1. Transparency:

Many leaders focus only on positivity painting a picture of a brighter future. While those elements are essential, they only help after a leader has defined reality. Said another way, you’ve got to be honest about the situation.

When the pandemic hit, we gathered our team, talked about our financial position, outlined the worst case scenario, and discussed “if this, then that” situations. Too many leaders are afraid of transparency. They are afraid that if they share too much that it will backfire on them. They fear that if the budget is tight, people may grow anxious. Or they worry that in a season of plenty people may feel entitled to a bigger piece of the pie. It’s not that there aren’t potential pitfalls of being transparent. But the benefits to your culture far outweigh the risks. Transparency builds trust, and trust is crucial to healthy culture.

Transparency builds trust.

2. Support:

During this unique season, we explored ways to support each of our team members in a personalized way. As a small organization, I understand it’s easier for us to do this well. The larger the organization, the more challenging it is to support individuals in a personal way. But the reality remains that different people need different things.

For each of our full-time employees, we provide a flexible spending benefit they can put toward what they uniquely need—healthcare, childcare, professional development, or an opportunity to give to a charity they care about. But there are other ways to care for your team members. If you’ve ever had more than one kid, you know your children are different and, therefore, need a different kind of care. Some need words of affirmation while others need more direction. The same is true of different people on your team.

3. Purpose:

This year, we’ve intentionally reminded our team why we do what we do as often as we can. During COVID, a lot of companies threw culture out the window, but at ADDO, we doubled down on it. In times of crisis, culture matters more, not less. When your family faces tragedy, you have to dig in rather than pull back. When your church walks through a tough season, it’s important to remind your members why you exist and what you’re working toward. When your business hits another obstacle, it’s even more important to connect your team’s work to its larger purpose.

In times of crisis, culture matters more, not less.

If this COVID season has distracted you from building a positive culture, it’s time to reorient your focus on what matters. You might be surprised to find that spending more time investing in your team members often increases performance and impacts your company’s bottom line.