INSPIRE
“This is our shared work, our collective genius. Each thread a person, each stitch a gift offered to the world.”
– Annie Wheatcraft
Annie, a beautifully creative human who I’ve been blessed to know, wrote those words. She wrote them after our team’s end-of-year gathering… and then she knitted them into a literal tapestry, pinned with cards bearing each team member’s handwriting, and we hung it in our collaborative space.
I still struggle to put into words what that tapestry represents. But I’ll try.
Many months earlier, our team had gathered at the start of the year to name the genius they see in each other, to write stories of love and contribution for teammates. We called it Threads of Genius, a practice of naming the genius we see in each other and reflecting on our love and best selves, and it was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever experienced in a professional setting. We began the year knowing what we each bring. We began the year seen, valued, and deeply connected.
So what do you do when the year comes to a close? You close the loop. You honor what was built.
HONOR
Here’s something the Heath brothers name plainly in The Power of Moments: we tend to be remarkably intentional about beginnings and remarkably careless about endings.
We design onboarding. We plan retreats. We craft kickoffs. But when it comes to endings, the last days of a school year, the close of a major initiative, the final meeting before a team transitions, we tend to let logistics take over. There’s a checklist. Maybe a pizza lunch. And then people scatter.
The problem? Endings are disproportionately powerful. How an experience ends is often how people most powerfully remember it. The Heath brothers call these “defining moments,” peaks and endings that shape the story we carry forward about what something meant.
If that’s true, and the research says it is, then the end of a year is one of the highest-leverage moments a leader has. And most of us are leaving it on the table.
I had a leader ask me recently how to end the year in a more meaningful way. Not in a complicated way. In a worthy way. My answer: make it intentional, make it personal, and make sure it honors both the individual and the collective.
Here’s exactly what that looked like for our team.
The Closing Thread: Honoring Individual and Collective Love & Genius
This works beautifully as a standalone end-of-year or end-of-initiative practice, and it becomes even more powerful when it closes a loop opened earlier, as it did for us.
Step 1: Look Back Together Before the reflection, give your team time to witness what was accomplished. Pull up your strategic plan, your goals, your team documentation, whatever captures the year’s work. Walk through it together. Name the wins, big and small. This isn’t a performance review; it’s evidence of what your team created. Let people sit with the full picture of their collective effort.
Step 2: Thank Each Other Specifically Ask team members to walk around the room and personally thank colleagues for specific contributions of their genius, not general appreciation, but named moments. “I want to thank you for the way you stepped in and contributed during…” This is gratitude made concrete, and it matters.
Step 3: The Card — “I Am Proud of How My Love and Genius Showed Up In…” Give each person a card with this prompt and ask them to complete it individually. This is the personal reflection… a moment to name their own contributions.
Step 4: The Circle and the Thread Gather in a large circle. Invite each person to share what they wrote. As each card is shared, use a thread (we used green, our team’s color) to physically connect the cards, one by one, around the circle. What begins as individual cards becomes a visible, tangible web of connection.
Note: This can be adapted for any team, any size, any end point — school year, fiscal year, major initiative, project close. The prompt can shift slightly to fit your context.
Feel free to copy this Canva card graphic for use with your team!
ELEVATE
When we finished our circle, we were holding a connected circle of green thread and a room full of people who had just heard every single colleague name what they were most proud of. There wasn’t a performative moment in it. Just truth, spoken out loud, witnessed by the people who had lived and created it together.
Annie captured it in a poem. She knitted it into a tapestry. The cards hung on our wall.
But you don’t need a tapestry to make this matter. You only need a circle and a willingness to say: this year mattered, and so did each of you.
As a leader, you design the bookends of your team’s experience. Beginnings get our attention. Endings deserve it too.
How will you weave the ending your team deserves?
If this resonated, I’d love for you to share it with a leader who needs to hear it. And if you try this with your team, reach out… I genuinely want to connect and know how it goes.
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