5 Things: Rebooting the Series
And My Journey Back to Corporate
It’s been a year since my last “5 Things” post. That break has given me space to reflect on the kind of work I want to do and the impact I want to have.
As I’ve shared, after years of consulting and short-term contracts, I am back in corporate life. My role is centered on strategy execution, helping leaders across the organization align their work with our bigger goals, translate strategy into action, and adopt innovative ways of working that create the conditions for lasting follow-through.
This is not a step back from entrepreneurship. It is a decision to go deeper. I want to see how change takes root when you stay long enough to be part of the day-to-day reality. Inside an organization, you see where momentum builds, where it stalls, and how people respond to both the pressure and the promise of transformation.
The “5 Things” series will now follow five themes: Progress, Leadership, Ways of Working, Wisdom, and Curiosity. These will be my regular check-in points for exploring how meaningful change happens.
Progress
This is where I check in on the commitments I made to myself and track how they played out in real life. These updates keep me honest, show what’s working, and reveal where I need to adjust. You can think of it as a monthly pulse check on my OKRs, with room for both the numbers and the story behind them.
In June, I returned to something that has always helped me bring structure and clarity to my personal growth: OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). I even shared them publicly for the first time in a LinkedIn post. That was partly to keep myself accountable, and partly to see if others were using OKRs outside of work. The response made me realize there is an appetite for personal OKRs, not just professional ones.
July Objective: Reduce stress and feel more grounded and happy.
Key Result: Improve PHQ-9 score by 25% or more, moving from “moderate” to “none or minimal” symptoms.
Reflection:
I meditated 14 out of 31 days.
I did not manage a dedicated walk every day, but my Garmin logged 10 walks and I averaged 6,300 steps daily.
My PHQ-9 score went from 10 to 3, which is closer enough to a 25% improvement and marks the shift from “moderate” to “none or minimal” symptoms.
The most important indicator for me is that I truly feel more grounded, happier and somewhat less stressed. I’m going to continue this focus for August with the following OKR:
August Objective: Create lasting resilience and groundedness
Key Result: Reduce my average daily stress level from 40 to below 35 (as measured by Garmin)
Action Plan:
Walk daily, averaging 8,500-10k steps
Meditate daily
Leadership
One of my biggest lessons this year is that influence often grows through connection. Building trust, finding allies, and understanding what matters to others creates far more leverage than a formal title.
Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill describes leadership as a form of “social architecture,” emphasizing that effective leaders shape networks of relationships to enable collaboration and innovation
In her book Collective Genius, Hill and her co-authors argue that the most successful leaders don’t rely on formal authority…they cultivate environments where people can co-create and solve problems together.
That perspective feels right. The best change efforts I’ve seen succeed because people with shared goals found each other, backed each other, and worked together over time.
For me, this means focusing less on control and more on engagement. It means showing through actions what is possible, and creating the space for others to step into the work alongside you.
Ways of Working
When people hear “organizational agility,” they often think about frameworks or tools. But agility is really about how people learn, adapt, and work together.
John Kotter’s XLR8 talks about the need for two systems: a traditional hierarchy for stability, and a network that can move quickly to seize opportunities. Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden describe this as “sense and respond” — listening closely to what is happening, testing ideas quickly, and adjusting based on evidence.
You do not need to be an agile expert to start applying this. Involving people early, creating space for cross-team conversations, and building short feedback cycles into everyday work are all practical steps. When people have ownership and clarity of purpose, agility starts to feel less like a process and more like the natural rhythm of the organization.
Wisdom
"The sage does not attempt anything very big, and thus achieves greatness." — Lao Tzu
I keep coming back to the idea that small, consistent actions shape culture more than sweeping initiatives. Listening fully. Inviting someone else’s voice into the room. Choosing to resolve conflict with care. These moments may not be visible on a strategy map, but over time they change how an organization feels and functions.
Curiosity
Here is something I plan to try: after reading something, write it out in your own words as if you were teaching it. Not just a summary, but a clear enough explanation that someone else could understand it.
If you give this a try before I do, I would be curious to hear what you discover.
What’s Next
This series will appear at least once a month, with occasional shorter check-ins or posts that focus on a single theme. My goal is to share honest reflections from the space between strategy and execution, where most of the real work, and real learning, happens.
It is good to be back.