- scaling up
The yearly: ultimate energy boost for 2026
By: Sascha MengerinkSascha Mengerink
Sascha is the founder of Great Humans and a culture coach for organizations that want to grow from a strong foundation. He helps founders and their teams make culture concrete and manageable, so that behavior, values, and ambitions align and growth is not a coincidence but the result of sharp choices.
More posts →- Written on October 15, 2025
In short
- The Yearly is the perfect moment to reconnect culture and strategy.
- Not a spreadsheet session, but a strategic ritual that provides direction
- You are building a story that rings true, comes alive, and unleashes energy.
- Not managing plans, but choosing together who you want to be in 2026
- This way, your annual plan becomes not a list of goals, but a shared compass for growth.
The Yearly: the moment to reconnect culture and strategy
Most people look forward to Christmas.
Not us (okay, maybe just a little bit).
We look forward to the Yearly.
The annual moment when leaders of growing organizations look not only forward, but also inward.
Not to fill a list of goals, but to give direction to behavior, choices, and energy.
After all, in a fast-growing organization, you don't build a future on spreadsheets.
You build it on people. On culture. On conviction.
The Yearly is the most powerful moment of the year.
Not only to determine your course, but to strengthen your organization from within.
Culture is not an afterthought. It is your foundation.
Every scale-up changes every quarter.
New people. New propositions. New markets.
What was taken for granted last year suddenly feels uncomfortable.
Behavior that you used to tolerate now works against you.
The team is growing, but is not always on the same page anymore.
And somewhere along the way, you forgot to tell the story again.
That is why the Yearly is so important.
It is time to coordinate together:
What do we stand for?
How do we work together?
Where do we really want to go?
Your culture is the context in which strategy happens.
Without that culture, every annual plan remains a spreadsheet.
With a strong culture, it becomes a story people want to connect with.