I had a day off recently, hired a jet ski, and went exploring Sydney’s beautiful waterways for the day. It’s always nice to experience something you wouldn’t normally do to expand your perspective of the world.

Three things have stood out this year that I am confident will remain a huge focus moving into 2023 and beyond.

You can feel the intensity is still there, but the focus is definitely narrowing to the imaginary finish line of that first day of leave.

What can you do today to make next year even better? What is the one singular thing that will impact everything?

The retention and attraction of great talent is a real challenge across almost every industry I work with.

What is interesting is the approaches taken to try and deal with this and how most of these misses tackling the underlying issue.

Newsflash: The products and services you make are of no interest to your customers. Sorry, but it's true. They just don’t care. And if you’re waiting for a witty twist to this tale, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.

In our growth-orientated world, we all keep on wanting more. And in business, one of the levers to grow top-line and bottom-line numbers is to simply charge more. But this behaviour can backfire when it is done without a strategy, or a thorough appraisal of the value proposition.

If we embrace all conflict with gusto, we risk endorsing the wrong behaviour. And if we outlaw it, we risk stifling innovation, progress and healthy open conversation.  

We operate with this bias that complexity makes us look more intelligent and inherently makes things more valuable. I can charge more for something that others don't understand, and complexity is needed for complex problems – right?  

The Columbia disaster was a tragedy that marked the beginning of the end of the Space Shuttle program and the world's only reusable spaceship. And one PowerPoint slide might, just might, have changed that.