After twenty years at a company where I built several new organizations, I decided to transition out to launch a new SaaS start-up. In a farewell gathering, a team member of mine at the time, by the name of Stephanie took a moment to share with me the most powerful statement I said to the team regularly. She went onto share that she listened for it every week in our Monday huddle, and carried it with her daily throughout her week. That statement was rather a calling, “Make it great a week!” I shared this statement as a parting gift to my team every week at the end of our Monday huddle.
“Make it great!” is was one of those statements that I refer to as a “calling in” to our values. “Calling in” is an approach to remind our teams, remind our community, or remind our friends that we have a set of values that we share. Calling each other into a shared value versus “calling out” is an invitation, it is a reminder of our promises, and more importantly a reassurance that each of us belong and can contribute to lasting outcomes.
So why did I say and still continue to say, “Make it great a week” instead of the colloquial “have a great week?” I intentionally use that phrase because it as an invitation to each of us that we have the opportunity to engage with anything as something personal, that we should aim higher, and that each of us has a capacity to strive to generate lasting value in any of our interactions.
Each of us have this gift, we are creators and crafters, and we can shape many things in our splash zone. “Make it a Great Day!” is on our walls at The Perch. It is a reminder to our team, but it is also an invitation to our community that we can, and we should as our coffee partners at Cat & Cloud inspire us to: “actively pursue better!”
So…we invite you, we call you into this power and this gift,
Make it Great Day!,
Jacob