Today was my first day working in an office in more than two years.
A couple of the newer sales reps on my team met for the day. Feeling a bit awkward in an empty bullpen of cubicles, we worked from a conference room in the largely abandoned building that used to have more than a thousand folks buzzing in it every day.
It was eerie.
I’ll admit I probably tried a bit too hard to make sure it was “worth it” in the end. I tried to put together an agenda, produce something tangible, and have a direction to go in moving forward. We toured our new office space, tied up loose ends administratively, and came up with a handbook that should help our baseline effectiveness.
But in the end, I realized that the actual work we did wasn’t the most important stuff we did today.
It occurred to me if we were a team we had to start acting like a team. That meant eating together sometimes. That meant sharing best practices, painful memories, and funny stories. That meant going off on tangents and down rabbit holes.
It meant having a natural conversation.
It meant not talking to faceless initials, nameless avatars, and fake backgrounds.
Sometimes we need to shake things up to remember the most important aspects of our business. And in my case, winning all comes down to the people on my team.
Today of all days, I felt thankful for my little band of pirates.
It was good step towards winning together.
Which in a world of constant change, is something that never goes out of style.
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