Walk the talk.
💌 Letter #16 – ⏳ 3 min 12 sec
Walk (/wɔːk/)
From Old English wealcan: to move forward, step by step.
Dear you,
It’s cold. Really cold. The kind of cold that gets everywhere, slows bodies down, numbs minds, and sometimes makes it feel like nothing really wants to start. That’s exactly how you described that Monday morning.
First all-hands of the year. The whole team is there. Some coats still on shoulders, a few noses buried in scarves. People are paying attention. You share your wishes. The strategic direction for 2026. The numbers. The big initiatives to launch in your first quarter. You prepared carefully. You wanted this moment to be inspiring, energizing, to “warm up” the team from day one, to start strong.
Forty-five minutes later, about thirty slides in, everyone applauds. And yet, you felt it. Something didn’t quite click. Bodies stay wrapped up. Eyes don’t really light up. As if the room was still cold. Disappointment. A touch of concern.
You wrote to me to step back and reflect. To understand how to handle this back-to-work dynamic. Because whether it’s cold outside or not, it’s hard for you to accept a team that isn’t fully engaged right now. You know that the success of 2026 starts being built in January.
I really like your image of the cold in the room, so let me take it a bit further. The issue may not be about having a team ready to go full speed right away, but about recognizing that, at the very start of the year, they are just coming out of a hibernation. Two weeks of holidays, broken routines, a mental pause. In that context, trying to heat things up too fast may be pointless. You might even be pushing against a normal restart phase that no speech can truly speed up.
Think about a high-level athlete coming back from a break. They don’t start at full intensity. They warm up. They get the body moving again. Otherwise, the effort feels too hard, sometimes discouraging, and can even lead to injury.
So I invite you to focus on what really raises the temperature: movement. A series of small leadership and management moves. Step by step. At this stage, your actions, much more than your words, are what will kick off execution. Start simple. Launch the first step of the plan you just shared. Be on time to meetings. Prepare them. Listen carefully so you can give clear, actionnable feedback.
Nothing flashy. But simple, concrete, repeated management tasks that give real weight to your back-to-work message and align it with the direction you’ve set.
In other words, put talks, pep talks, and strategic talks back in their proper place during this cold restart. In low temperatures, they mostly create fog. What matters now is getting into motion to mobilize your team. Through your attitude. Through your actions in the coming days. Through example.
This week, I believe warmth will come much less from words than from the movement you create. First individual. Then collective. And the first step, as often, starts with you.
Time to walk the talk.
Take care,
Adri
