I Resolve Nothing

By Ben Opp, SPHR, HR Hotline & Content Advisor
Published January 7, 2025 

"Portrait of Arnold Schönberg" (1912). Permalink from ÖNB Digital/Austrian National Library.

Every few years on January 1st, I repost my favorite New Year’s Day meme: a portrait of Arnold Schoenberg (the Austrian composer of classical music) bearing the words, “I RESOLVE NOTHING.”

If you aren’t a fan of 20th century expressionist composers, you probably don’t get the joke (and you’re also probably a lot more fun at parties than I am). You see, Schoenberg was a pioneer in what musicologists call atonal music, which bucks the conventions and expectations of the western ear. Instead of going on a harmonic journey and then “resolving” – returning back home triumphantly, like Beethoven or Brahms would do – atonal music leaves home and never returns.

Beyond the nerdy musician humor, I love this sentiment as applied to New Year’s resolutions. Why? Because resolving to do something is worthless on its own. As the saying goes, strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Our professional and personal lives are full, and beyond just resolutions, we need practical, tactical plans and commitments to achieve our goals.

For me, this meant executing a plan this past summer to shift my daily routine and create 45 minutes of protected time every weekday morning for graduate coursework. For you, it might mean carving out one hour a month to upgrade your leadership and management skills. 

We’d love to help you turn that resolution into reality! Join HR Source’s very own organizational development team members, Lauren Soderstrom and Candace Fisher, in the first half of 2025 for a series of eight compact, accessible, and highly actionable one-hour webinars on critical management topics:

• Getting Started with Goal Setting (1/30/25)
• Tackling Tough Talks (2/11/25)
• Communicating Change (2/27/25)
• The Art of Delegation (3/12/25)
• Mastering Behavioral Interviews (4/3/25)
• Diving into DiSC (4/15/25)
• Conflict: Collaboration Over Competition (5/6/25)
• Using CliftonStrengths® to Prevent Burnout (5/21/25)

These sessions are a fantastic opportunity for skill upgrades and leadership growth, especially for department heads, line managers, and supervisors who struggle to break away from their daily responsibilities and attend a longer training class.

This year, don’t make resolutions – take action! Schoenberg would surely approve.