2022 Letter of Reflection from Erickson CEO, Louise Hendey

Hello to Everyone,

I have been re-reading a book I read many years ago called “The Dalai Lama’s Cat”.  I always find beautiful jewels in that book so let me share one that resonated with me.  I have adapted the allegory  to expand my metaphor, but please enjoy this short and fun story called,  A PROBLEMATIC PILE OF SHEEP MANURE.

Two brothers sharing a home arrived back from work one day to find a huge pile of sheep manure in front of their gate.  They had not asked for it and had no idea where it came from.  "Oh Bollocks" exclaimed the one brother, "I've had the toughest day at work and now this!  I'll bet our neighbor on the farm a few kilometers away did this.  I'm going to dump this manure right back on his front step."  So he fetched a huge wheelbarrow and started pushing it towards his neighbor with the sheep, grumbling all the way.   The second brother stared at this huge pile of manure in front of him and contemplated what he might do with a pile he didn’t need or want.  He looked up and noticed that the sidewalk  right next door was really dry and the grass was dying. He knew his neighbor who was somewhat old and frail but could always be seen pottering around his garden.  “Good idea!” he chirped to himself and off he went to fetch a shovel. He then collected all of the manure that was blocking his gate and spread it across his neighbor’s dying sidewalk grass.  Off he went inside, cleaned himself  up and went to cook dinner for himself and his brother.  He loved to cook and he particularly relished it when his somewhat cantankerous older brother made big happy groans when he gobbled up his food.  Two hours later his grumbling brother came home, covered in manure and even more angry than when he left.  While his older brother complained throughout his dinner about his vexing neighbor, his mind wandered off to the chapter of the book he had read while waiting for his brother to get home, and the phone call he had received from his elderly neighbor so delighted that his lawn would be green again in a few weeks and the progress he had made on his latest artwork….

It’s not hard to deduce the moral of the story.  Life is filled with piles of uninvited manure; problems, twists and turns that we never wanted or saw coming.  We can choose to spend time in the problem, looking for the reason for the situation, grumbling about the status quo and wasting time trying to right wrongs. Or, if we truly embrace solution-focused thinking, we can remind ourselves that every uninvited problem gives us the opportunity to become a “magician for good” and turn the undesirable into something that benefits someone else. When we do this, like the brother in the story, we help ourselves.  We create space for more good and we create capacity to nurture our own well-being.  

It has been a tough year in the coaching industry; in the world.  Most of us have not chosen the external factors we have had to contend with in a post-Covid19 era, all of which have had unwanted effects on our economic and psychological well-being. In our industry, as much as we work with our clients to find their deepest resourcefulness through life’s challenges, it is easy to become our own magicians without a wand, or so to speak. We are human after all. But, these tougher times offer us the opportunity to grow if we lean into the discomfort of that growth. It challenges each of us to dig deeply within ourselves to choose to get busy complaining, or get busy growing. Both take the same amount of energy and, like any law of physics, produce an equal, but opposite effect.

For Erickson as an organization, we have not been immune to the challenges of 2022.  We have had to get busy growing for sure. And, in spite of the environmental challenges, we have had some extraordinary successes.  We launched Erickson+ and the Life Long Learning Academy (in China), creating an ever growing global alumni community who get to continue learning and connecting together. We launched a youthful, modern brand identity, a sparkly new website, and we have had a marketing magic wand with video content, downloadables, and clever analytics that are helping us to understand how and where to develop.  We have also made some system changes, which have been shaky - what migration isn’t’? - but we certainly will see the benefits for long-term global growth as we hope to be able to offer our partners shared services that will optimize growth and reduce costs.  

We have moved more strongly into Asia with new partners in Singapore and Taiwan, as well as expanding our presence in Switzerland, and slowly, but surely France.  Our China team has done remarkably well in spite of a stringent lockdown for most of the year, and again has received accolades as the leading coaching school in China.  

During the year, we saw nearly 600,000 website visitors, excluding partner and China web visits, we trained nearly 4000 new coaches worldwide, bumped up our SEO ranking from the 30s to the 70s and published nearly 1000 social media posts which were shared over 700 times, a nearly 100% improvement from the previous year.  Last but not least, we ended 2022 on a high as we received our Level 1 and Level 2 accreditation from the ICF, which is already reflected on the ICF site, while simultaneously conducting our Level 3 pilot program so that we can apply for this accreditation in early 2023.  We have not been perfect, but that is never the goal.  Progress is.  Collectively, we have expanded how we serve those who want to serve others.  Erickson’s ripples of human transformation continue to roll outwards with gentle but relentless momentum.  

I wonder what we will be saying this time next year about all the progress we would have made in 2023?  Isn’t it exciting to allow our minds to imagine with wild abandon what we might co-create… and then to go out together and create it!

Congratulations on an excellent year.  

And now, to finishing strong and beginning bravely!
Louise Hendey

CEO of Erickson Coaching International