We met Santa Claus for a video shoot at his grotto and wanted to ask him what gifts he has in store for agilists this year… Here you have the full story.

Originally, we wanted to know from Santa Claus what he is planning this year for all the hard working agilists out there. We wanted to capture his answer on video for the whole world to see and apparently spoil the surprise. So we called his assistant to make an appointment. That was already this summer. She told me on the phone that the last few pandemic years had been very intense for Santa Claus and that he was suffering from burnout. This was a shock. For us – to be honest – a world collapsed. Not only were we worried about all the children's gifts for Christmas 2022, but we were counting on getting the answers for agilist that we so desperately wanted to share with the world.

Two months later, it happened – his assistant called us and told us that Santa Claus had just returned ‘hot and bullish’ from a long wellness trip in Fiji and that he would be happy to meet with us to answer our most burning questions. 

We flew to the North Pole to visit him in his grotto. From our childhood we had a clear picture in our mind of what it would look like there. Idyllic with lots of snow, reindeers, right? Oh, were we disappointed when we found his grotto in the wasteland. It was already early November but no snow. What the heck was going on? Santa Claus opened the door for us. We said: “Good afternoon Mr. Claus.” “You can call me Santa,“ he replied. The t-shirt he was wearing said “Plan ahead”. Probably a reminder for him that he should already be in Christmas preparation. The only thing that reminded us of Santa Claus, besides the beard, was his popular red hat he had on. He mumbled that he had recently had a hair transplant and wanted to spare us the sight. Our first question still on the doorstep was, why is there no snow? His answer was sober: climate change.

He invited us into his cozy grotto. We set everything up for the video shoot. Then came the big moment. The question we were waiting to ask for so long: What do you have in store for all the agilists in the world? 

“ahm, um…” he cleared his throat and said, well you know I don’t really know. To be honest I hired a ghost writer some time ago to write down “key points for agilist” and I have no clue what’s written there as I never came around reading it. But maybe I can freestyle something for you? “Yes please!” it burst out of us. We put on a record with some Christmas music to get him in the mood and started our camera. Immediately he was in his element. He talked about how wonderful feedback is for growth, how important it is for leadership to reduce friction, that we should take care of ourselves and take the space we need, and how important he believes it is to speak truth to power.

When we were done, he said, completely out of breath, "Now what are you going to do with it?" We could not give him an answer to that question at that time. But we can give you one today. We turned his 24 short advice videos into an Advent calendar. Every day starting December 1st, you will get your agile dose from Santa Claus. So follow us on LinkedIn to be inspired every day till Christmas. One thing in advance: Santa has a sense of humor.