How You End 2025 Will Define Your 2026

As the year winds down, most leadership teams are laser-focused on Q4 outcomes—revenue, profit margins, customer growth, and cost savings.

In the rush to finish strong, your most important asset is pushed to the background: the experience of the people doing the work.

The truth is, metrics will reset in January. But the moment you create—or neglect—will leave a lasting imprint.

Designing Moments that Matter

Moments that matter don’t happen by accident. They’re the in-between moments—the micro-interactions that tell people they matter.

Those moments are intentionally designed by leaders who understand that employee experience is shaped in everyday interactions.

Too often, we assume culture is the job of HR, “good managers”, or quarterly events. But experience design is a leadership responsibility that has to run through the entire organization.

It shows up in:

• A corporate VP who takes time to stop by a warehouse before shift change to say thank you to the individuals working hard, not for the metric, but for the effort.

• A regional manager who invites a field tech onto a regional manager call to amplify their creative solution.

• A senior leader commenting thoughtfully on a team member’s idea or story in a social thread.

• A people leader who gives a handwritten note for a job well done.

• A CEO who tells a story on the intranet or at the town hall about a team that went the extra mile as a genuine reflection of pride.

And they don’t happen by chance. They happen because someone designed them.

Modeling the Moment

When leaders model these behaviors, they set a tone others emulate. It becomes contagious. And that’s how you scale culture. Not through mandates but through modeling.

Employees watch what leaders pay attention to.

If leaders only recognize numbers, employees chase numbers. If leaders recognize effort, learning, and collaboration, employees mirror that too.

Every interaction teaches someone what “good” looks like here. That’s how the invisible fabric of culture is woven—thread by thread, moment by moment.

Architects of Memory: Internal Comms

Internal communication plays a unique role in ensuring these moments don’t get lost in the noise.

When done well, communication becomes a mirror that reflects what matters most —an amplifier that ensures it’s seen, heard, and felt.

• Coaching leaders to show up in digital spaces to comment and connect

• Spot and surface stories that remind employees who we are at our best

• Shape conversation threads that make it safe for employees to celebrate one another, share wins, and see leadership participating authentically.

That’s how to turn culture from concept into an experience.

Leadership Takeaway

As the year winds down and efforts ramp up, consider this: When people look back on this season, what will they remember?

Create space for recognition, storytelling, and reflection. Encourage your leaders to show up visibly in those spaces.

These are the moments that are told at the dinner table. The stories that make people proud stay and make others want to join. The stories that spouses share with their friends that quietly create new customers.

And if moments that matter are neglected, those same dinner-table conversations can become the story that robs an organization of the very progress it’s working so hard to achieve.