Helping people prepare for, find, and keep good jobs is what Goodwill is about.

Hi Everyone –

I have been largely disconnected from work for the last two weeks camping in the Upper Peninsula. The waterfalls, hiking, and campfires were rejuvenating – nature is one way that I recharge so that I can be up for the next challenge. The work of Goodwill went on seamlessly without me, a good sign of strong executive and leadership teams. For as grateful as I am for the ability and resources to take a vacation, I am incredibly happy to be back. I love the work we do, and I am proud of who we continue to become, of our commitment to constant improvement and innovation, and of our dedication to being part of creating a just and equitable world.

The Leadership Team reviewed every one of our 2020 goals last week, celebrating the accomplishment of some, revising others still slated for accomplishment this year, moving some forward to 2021, and eliminating others all together because they are no longer relevant in light of the unexpected impact of COVID-19. Many thanks to that team for keeping their eyes on our goals in spite of the challenges this year has brought. This week marks six months since we closed the stores and much of our programming in response to the pandemic. Many of you were furloughed and all of us from that moment, whether were still working or laid off, began to grapple daily with what the ever-changing information meant for our futures, and for our health and safety. We are not out of the woods, and over the next few months will need to dig even deeper to get through the next phase of this new world in which we find ourselves. We are in the messy middle of this crisis, but as Brene Brown says, the messy middle of any process is what creates all the discomfort we need for learning. It’s dark, we don’t know how long we will be in it, and we have no choice but to move forward, but on the other side, we are determined to be better for what we have learned.

Running away from something for long doesn’t serve us very well. After the initial escape, we spend all of our time looking backwards, and fretting the thing that we are running away from. Instead, we need to discover what we are running towards. This can be what we discover in the messy, dark middle – where do we want to arrive at the end of our anxiety, struggle, and worry? What are we learning right now, in the middle of this challenging space, that can offer us a vision of what we desire to run towards?

Certainly there are things the pandemic has prompted that we will run towards – flexible work schedules, a revised dress code, increased safety measures, a simpler performance evaluation that prompts ongoing conversations.

But we are not only in the dark middle of this pandemic, but also in the dark middle of our country’s history of violent, crushing racism. Too often on this topic, we lead from the place of assuming it can’t be solved – that it is too big, too ingrained, too impossible. We work by fighting against our racist past, thoughts, and beliefs instead of moving toward what we really want to achieve which is ending racism and in fact, ending it in our lifetimes. Justin Michael Williams states: “If we want to have a breakthrough in ending racism, then we need to realize that it’s not going to happen unless we agree on a timeline for ending it. Saying it’s going to end ‘someday’ is not a commitment. But if we put a stake in the ground and say we are going to end it in our generation, possibilities open up. A new reality emerges. Because if we believe it can, we shift the context of the world.” Check out the rest of his blog here: https://www.justinmichaelwilliams.com/blog/

Moving towards something shifts our focus, our intention, and our work, and makes what seemed impossible, possible. We do this all the time and we know it works: we set a goal, we lay out the measures by which we will determine our success, and we set a timeline. In the messy, dark middle, with the things that matter most, we need to set our eyes on the vision of our preferred future and take aim.

My best to all of you –

Jeanette