WhiteWater’s 2023 Highlights: So Many Thanks to our Team, Clients and Partners for Making Our Successes Possible!

As the end of 2023 draws near, like many of you, we have looked back at the business goals we set for the year. From a quantitative perspective, it was delightful to see what many of you enabled us to achieve: 

• Dramatically growing the impact we had on leaders through our learning and development programs

• Growing with our existing clients while expanding beyond our base

• Developing and launching new programs and services

• Executing our marketing strategy which has grown our brand recognition in such an incredibly competitive market

As you all know from what we share here, and discussed in depth in my book, Get in Gear, we are big fans of quantitative, result-oriented goals. But, looking back on 2023, we’re reminded that many of the best achievements are far more subjective and qualitative in nature. Some of the things I’m more ecstatic about than the quantitative results:

• The impact we’ve had on the leaders we’ve worked with to enable them to challenge their thinking and grow their capabilities.

• …leading to the huge impact they’ve had on their teams by building environments that enabled them to contribute their best and to grow.

• The thousands of folks we’ve met and had the opportunity to connect with and learn from.

• The amazing clients who’ve entrusted us to help them build great organizations and achieve their goals.

• The incredible hard work and fun we’ve had with the WhiteWater team as we continue to grow. It is incredibly humbling, and the greatest treat ever, to work with our team of smart, dedicated folks who are totally committed to our clients’ success.

Here’s a roundup of a few of WhiteWater’s 2023 highlights. 

New Team Members

I am blessed to lead a fantastic team here at WhiteWater, and I was thrilled to see us grow this year by adding new talent to help expand our mission and impact. 

In the spring, we welcomed Fatima Hassan, a recent graduate of the University of New Brunswick’s MBA program, who joined as our content coordinator. Fatima brings incredible positivity and strategy to how we craft and share our content. If you enjoyed any of our LinkedIn posts, newsletters or other stories this year, thank Fatima for getting it out there! 

Out on the other coast, in Portland, Oregon, consultant Darlene Miller joined us earlier this year to facilitate our learning and develop programs and develop custom curriculum. She brings a great sense of humor, energy, and imagination, making her a joy for our clients and team. 

Most recently, we added an operations manager, Jillian Gentlemen, whose dedication and detail orientation provide a vital link between our clients and our team. She is instrumental in building the processes that no one ever sees, but which enable us to scale faster to meet our clients’ needs.

New Change Management Tool

In this era of perpetual whitewater and accelerated change, all of our clients are grappling with how to manage it, but when we looked for the best way to measure leaders’ strengths in this critical area, we came up short. 

In the absence of a robust, reliable assessment tool, we worked with The Aldridge Group to build our own. We launched ChAMP, which stands for Change Approach and Management Profile. 

Huge thanks to Casey Burns and his team at The Aldridge Group, a world-class, boutique firm based in Colorado that builds rigorous yet user-friendly assessment tools backed by leading brain science and psychometrics, who worked with us on this project. The result is a user-friendly, 140-question survey, which takes about 20 minutes. Upon completion, leaders receive a report providing valuable insights into their change management approach and practical ways to leverage their strengths.  

We’ve now taken well over 1000 people through the assessment, and the reviews have been really positive, with everyone finding value in the process. We’re excited to use ChAMP more in 2024 to help more leaders unlock their change management potential. 

New Clients 

Our clients are awesome. They are, without exception, ambitious, forward-looking and bold enough to challenge the status quo. They are our raison d’etre and the reason we’re (usually!) pretty excited to get out of bed in the morning. Our clients trust us with their biggest ideas and challenges, and we don’t take that for granted for a second. 

This year, alongside ongoing projects with long-standing clients, we were thrilled to welcome some new ones onto our roster. On behalf of the WhiteWater family, I thank each of you for granting us the privilege to support your growth and work alongside your leaders and teams to unlock your organization's potential and fuel your growth. 

New Book

As I wrote in a recent blog post, I’ve been hard at work over the past year on a book that’s the culmination of more than 30 years of leading teams and leadership coaching. I’m co-authoring it with Art Smuck, a good friend and longtime colleague whose own leadership journey took him to the CEO role of FedEx Supply Chain. And, we’re being aided by Kate Wallace who is part ghost-writer, part project manager and part kindergarten teacher as she tries to keep Art and me on track!

This book is … different. 

It’s not your average how-to business volume or corporate memoir. It goes a lot deeper, to the very core of what it means to lead and how that ultimately relies on character, caring, integrity and deep respect. I hope to have it in your hands by next year.  

For now, I hope you and your loved ones enjoy some time together over the holidays, however you celebrate them. And I’m already excited to reconnect in 2024 to help more clients create high-performing organizations where people are engaged and empowered to contribute their best.

Before you go, I’d love to know your 2023 highlights. What goals did you hit? What are you looking forward to in 2024?