Joseph’s Farewell
Did you know that 45% of Americans usually make New Year’s Resolutions? Or that the percentage of people in their twenties who achieve their resolution each year is more than double that of people 50 years and older?! How about the fact that ‘quitting smoking’ was 2015’s 7th most popular resolution, and ‘losing weight’ was number one?
However, when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, the most staggering number is 8% – just 8% of people are successful in achieving their New Year’s resolutions!
Hundreds of articles and studies online suggest explanations for this overwhelmingly low success rate. While I am no expert in statistics, New Year’s resolutions or quite frankly, anything, I would like to suggest that one possible explanation is that in our excitement of the year to come, we run to “do”, “improve” and “act”, without first taking the time to reflect on our year and appreciate the accomplishments and struggles of our past year that can help prepare us for the year to come.
As this year comes to a close, so too does my time in TAMID Group as the Chairman of the Operating Board. As I help the new leadership transition into their new roles, I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on what we, TAMID, have accomplished during the last year.
While this past year was no stroll in the park, remarkably, every failure was met with many successes, every challenge met with rewarding experiences, and tough lessons with opportunities for growth.
When I began my term as Chairman of TAMID Group, the organization was growing and expanding astoundingly, but also experiencing a challenging transition. We had just accepted 9 new chapters and were in desperate need for a professional team that could help us grow responsibly. Just as well-grounded roots ensure healthy plants, so too, we needed to make sure that our foundation was reinforced before growing the organization any further.
Since then, we have hired an amazing professional team of 3, and worked tirelessly to reinforce our foundation and enable the organization to continue to flourish. We created the 2.0 version of the nationally standardized education curriculum featuring professionally done workshops and presentations. We launched the first ever TAMID Group Case Competition. We created the 2.0 version of the Fund, featuring a stock simulation contest, a national fund and a pitch competition. We improved the expansion process and created the TAMID Beta program. We launched a monthly TAMID newsletter and weekly blog, and are nearly done with the new website. We initiated TAMID’s first business intelligence, and data collection and analytics system. We strengthened the National Operating Board by adding committees for each operation. We implemented office hours for all National leaders in order to improve communication. We created a conference for newly accepted chapters, not to mention large conferences featuring more than 100 TAMID leaders. We added 6 new chapters and have increased the Summer Fellowship program from 40 participants to 120. And much, much more.
TAMID Group has enjoyed incredible growth over the last few years and will continue to mature into one of the most impressive organizations for college students. In order to reach our potential, it is critical that we all continue to work together. Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”. There will undoubtedly continue to be frustrations in all areas of the organization, but honest communication, patience, flexibility and understanding will transform those frustrations into accomplishments.
Fortunately, moving forward, the organization is in great hands. We are lucky to have excellent leaders and communicators, in Shira and Jordan that will help take this organization to greater heights. As leaders with everyone’s interests at heart and a full picture of the organization from all angles, we can all trust that Shira, Jordan and the professional staff will make the right decisions.
I am fortunate to have been part of this organizations’ wonderful journey, and am grateful to the advisory board, professional staff, operating board members and committees, chapter presidents and alumni for all the amazing work you have done this past year. But most of all, I am grateful to all 1,400 members of TAMID Group, for working hard daily, to make this organization stronger. Thank you for trusting me as your partner this past year. And thank you for challenging me to “do”, “act” and “improve” on a daily basis. And finally – thank you for allowing me to reflect on an amazing year, before we move into 2016.
-Joseph Tuchman