I Wish I'd Done More

A Letter Of Conviction and Commitment To The Business Owners and Leaders Who Looked To Me For Leadership.

For the past 3 years, I had the fortune to travel across Australia several times and back. I was able to speak to thousands of leaders about why and how to evolve themselves and their businesses to stay relevant in the hearts and minds of the people they choose to serve.

My goal was always to bring humanity back into the workplace. ensure leaders treated their employees as humans with goals, dreams and aspirations first, and employees second.

My desire is to create an evolution at work.

I should’ve worked harder to drive home the message that we are in our generations most uncertain of times, and that predictability is out the window.

I wish I’d inspired more of you to believe that these are the most exciting of times to be in business, because there is no opportunity in predictability, but there is plenty in uncertainty.

My commitment going forward to you is to do much better this time…

I could’ve done a better job articulating the importance of learning from the many cases of disruption that have happened in the past 20 years.

The lessons of what brought even the biggest businesses in the world to their knees.

My conviction going forward is to work with you to embrace the learning and apply it to productively transform your business.

I could’ve shined a brighter light on the dangers of being caught in the paradox of success.

Whatever has made you successful to date, is the very thing that will hold you back from continuing to succeed at the next evolution, because isness is the death of business.

My commitment to you going forward is to keep pushing you through your own barriers.

I wish I challenged you more to affect change so you wouldn’t be at the mercy of the effects of change.

I should’ve dared you to find ways to put yourself out of business before someone (or something) else does.

My conviction going forward is to constantly challenge you and your business model.

I should’ve pressed harder to help you shift gears from a growth mindset to one of evolution. I could’ve gotten you to buy into the fact that evolution should be the natural state of your business.

Just doing more of what you do will make you bigger, but it won’t allow you to evolve to stay relevant in the hearts and minds of the people you choose to serve.

My conviction going forward is to push you to embrace that evolution is the natural state of your business.

I could’ve highlighted the need for you to be more purpose-driven.

I wish I convinced you to fall deeper in love with why you and your business do what you do.

I would’ve helped you see the need to do good first, then make money and do even more good with that money and repeat.

My commitment is to help you to shift away from just a business model and to build a model business.

I wish I had helped you understand how to create guided transformation for your clients to get them to believe that your business exists just for them. To help them fall in love with why you do what you do for them.

If I could’ve helped you fall in love with your clients and become radically client-centric, it would’ve allowed you to go deeper and think about your customer’s customers.

I could’ve shown you the impact of winning their love every day and the power of honoring each one of them.

My conviction going forward is to show you the power of loving your clients.

I could’ve dared you to reach for and be number one in your market, but to always think and act like number two.

I wish I had challenged you more to be the best you can be and to not rest on your laurels.

My conviction going forward is to never let you rest or settle.

I wish I asked you more thought-provoking questions.

I could’ve gotten you to be bold and ask yourself and your business epic questions.

My commitment to you is to drive more epic thinking and epic results for you and your clients.

I should’ve been more committed to preparing you for disruption. Nobody could’ve predicted the scale of this current disruption, but I could’ve better prepared you. I didn’t do enough. I knew that planning to ride the wave isn’t going to cut it.

I wish I’d inspired you to step up and lead the disruption in your industry by disrupting your own business first.

I should’ve asked you to be brave and to take a risk at being the trailblazer in your industry, knowing that you may get arrows in your back, but also knowing you would get the trail named after you.

My commitment is to hold you to account to be different and stand out and to blaze new trails.

I should’ve been more insistent when I asked you to bring humanity and technology together in harmony.

I could have helped you to see how to use and leverage technology to empower humans, not over-power them.

I could’ve done a better job of showing you the benefits of leveraging new technologies to bring your people together.

My commitment is to help you open your mind to other ways of working together with your teams and become even more digital-savvy.

I wish I had done more to help you find the best people to serve your clients through our values and purpose, as our clients deserve our best.

I should’ve been more forthright in openly expressing that we have access to a global talent pool.

My commitment is to work with you to source the greatest talent from across the globe.

I should've pushed harder for you to embrace a new organizational model. I could've been clearer about the power of building an eco-system of networked teams, interdependent, but interlinked... a circle of organizational leadership.

I wish I had helped you to understand that top-down leadership is a thing of the past and all-around leadership is the way forward.

My commitment is to help you build an organizational model where everybody answers to something first (purpose), not someone.

How do I know I could’ve done more?

Well within approximately an 8-week timeframe, one global disruptive force, a pandemic, got you to start accepting and embracing all these things that I have been challenging you to do for the past 3 years.

So I started asking myself, what could I have done differently? What should I have said, or how should I have said it that would’ve made the difference?

I was appealing to your head, your mind and not your heart. This pandemic has spoken to our hearts. It has challenged our humanity, which is challenging our business and economics.

I wish I spoke more directly to your heart…

Perhaps you and I might’ve had time to prepare for this and what is sure to follow after this had I done a better job.

I wish I did more for the thousands of you I’ve been privileged to speak with. The ones that looked to me for leadership guidance and wisdom, over these past 3 years as I traveled this magnificent country of ours.

This time I won’t fall short, or not speak up.

I will have the courage to challenge you, with love and respect again.

I will tell you I love you and I am here to serve.

Dave Clare, CEO & Founder of Circle Leadership
Ambassador (Pacific Region) of the Global Company Culture Association.