Daniel Pink’s book When – The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing explains that beginnings can be an opportunity to be what social scientists call "temporal landmarking." Starting anew with a clean slate has an appeal and a sense of possibility. It helps to explain why, as Pink commented, "New Year's Day has long held a special power over our behavior." He expands on the point:
We turn the page on the calendar, glimpse all those beautiful empty squares, and open a new account book on our lives. But we typically do that unwittingly, blind to the psychological mechanisms we’re relying on. The fresh start effect allows us to use the same technique, but with awareness and attention, on multiple days. After all, New Year's resolutions are hardly foolproof. Research shows that a month into a new year, only 64% of resolutions continue to be pursued. Constructing our own temporal landmarks, especially those that are personally meaningful, gives us many more opportunities to recover from rough beginnings and start again.
I thought a lot about the community associations, businesses, and organizations we worked with in 2024. Almost everyone seems to exhibit common symptoms of what I've come to call Organizational Long
COVID. I think we have yet to comprehend, much less address, new realities and the changing collective landscape of business, social issues, and the workplace. Many of us could use a fresh start in 2025.
Let’s Get Intentional I recently had the privilege to help facilitate a strategic planning workshop for community associations. We had a room full of professional managers and volunteer leaders. Only one participant reported that their association had initiated any level of strategic planning. We spent much of the day discussing ways to elevate thinking above the day-to-day and work towards building an intentional culture.
Without intentionality, we can fall victim to the grind, the speed of life, and the tyranny of the urgent, leaving us exhausted and unfulfilled. Most community associations are so caught up in the day to day they rarely think about their organizational culture. Why not? Time is a critical factor. In-depth organizational analysis is rare. Getting a volunteer board to meet for regular business can sometimes be a challenge. Dedicating more time to discuss values, vision, and mission might seem impractical. Don't let that perception fool you.
You Can See Clearly from Higher Ground When community association leaders and managers invest the time to elevate the conversation, they find that it pays back in time and energy. They create and maintain a healthy, intentional culture in which principled action is cultivated. The application of underlying principles leads to fewer ego-driven opinion battles. There is a context to the conversation. Healthy debate replaces unproductive arguments that suck the life out of everyone involved. They can finally get out of the weeds.
You can consider a hierarchy for decision-making to provide a framework:
Values (The Why – what's important?) drive Vision
Vision (Where do we want to go?) drives Mission
Mission (or Impact, or Purpose - this is what we are about) drives Strategy
Strategy (How do we make this happen?) drives Tactics
Tactics (The day-to-day actions we take)
Flow the hierarchy backward, and it looks like this: Our day-to-day decisions make more sense because we make them in the context of our strategy. Rather
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