2020 in Hindsight by Brian Buck
I recently came across a meme that stated, “I’m beginning to think that the saying ‘hindsight is 20/20’ was actually a message from a future time traveler that we completely misunderstood.” I had to laugh at that one. The reality is that we can never really have a full perspective of our situation until we’re past it, and I know that many of us are very happy to have 2020 in hindsight. But before we completely put it in our past, it’s worth reflecting on it to understand and appreciate its lasting impact on us all. This year’s holiday book is unique. First off, it’s being distributed digitally. With everyone hunkered down in their remote work environments, it just seemed to make more sense to send it out over the interweb than to physically deliver it. Secondly, it’s an interesting retrospective of the year that no one envisioned. We’ve republished each of our blog posts in chronological order. Reading them from start to finish, you can sense the emotion, the concern, the hope, and the false confidence that we all felt during that time. It’s a sobering yet comforting view into the year that we shared. For us at Scotwork North America, 2020 was intended to be the year when we would celebrate our 20th anniversary as a company in the United States and Canada. I was personally excited because it was my first full year as CEO, after taking the reins as interim CEO halfway through 2019. Our team of talented negotiation consultants was excited to build upon the important work that we were doing for our clients. Then . . . COVID-19. Our mission of transforming the way the world negotiates came into 20/20 focus in 2020. The sudden shutdown of the US economy created immediate and pronounced stressors on the hundreds of organizations that we support. We had entered The Age of Disruption: Deals were being renegotiated, postponed, or completely broken. Emotions ran high and we witnessed a tremendous amount of conflict as our clients struggled to resolve it efficiently and effectively. In order to help our community adapt to this “new normal” — learning
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