Looking back at this year, one of my favourite gatherings was definitely the House of Beautiful Business - an event, a community, a spirit. They describe their philosophy a such: "Soft and tender when business-as-usual is hard and harsh (...) Poetic when business-as-usual is explicit and numbers-oriented (...) Asking beautiful questions instead of having all the answers (...)."
I can subscribe to that. This is why I felt more than happy to moderate a session in cooperation with the Global Peter Drucker Forum as part of their online program and talk about the role of "emotions at work". Even with such a big topic, this felt like one of the most authentic conversations I have moderated this year.
Steven D'Souza delicately as always knew how to make us think about the uncertainty of "not knowing".
John Hagel very wisely pointed out how the one emotion that is dominant for every CEO he ever coached - fear - is limiting us and fiercely called for more "passion of the explorer" instead.
Rahaf Harfoush made us look into the mirror with every one of her thoughtful comments and illustrated how the constant urge to be productive hinders our creativity.
And the ever so critical Otti Vogt asked how we could go deeper in our authenticity and by that connect deeper with others.
In the end, we concluded that at the human core, we are full of contradictions. This is why we need to look at our very own contradicting emotions first and learn to deal with them instead of ignoring them. Because, as Rahaf beautifully put it: "Healed people heal people."
This, for sure, is something to aspire to.
So I let my wish for 2022 be, may we all heal one bit more, and may we help each other with patience and kindness on the path of doing so.