I have been blogging about the D&D Advantages and a really cool Advantage is FunTime. Many companies have a social committee or have standard annual outings that are planned and executed by management. Christmas Parties and Golf tournaments are classics. At D&D we have FunTime.

The Past or Status Quo

We have always been a company that worked hard and played hard. Our company Christmas parties were legendary, just ask Jay over at the Queen’s Inn.

We did what most companies do… whatever management decides and whenever management decides to do it. The worst case is for a company to do nothing at all.

We even played with a social committee for a while but that fizzled out. 

The Game Changer

Now D&D management does not decide what we do to build team spirit events.  A few years ago we launched  FunTime. It is a magical thing when people work and have fun together.

How Does FunTime Work?

Step #1 - Someone has an idea and they decide to champion it.

Step #2 – The idea is submitted to management to decide if it is legal and appropriate. This is not always obvious and leads to some great coaching opportunities.

Step #3 – The Champion draws up a budget

Step #4 – The entire company votes on the idea. We use survey monkey.

Step #5 – If it the idea receives a majority approval from at least 1/3 of the employees it is approved.

Step #6 - The Champion organizes and runs the event.

We couldn’t make it much simpler than that.

How is FunTime Funded?

Regular stable funding is allocated to FunTime every quarter. A complete accounting of FunTime is posted on our internal website so that everyone knows how much money is available and how much was spent on past events. In addition to stable funding we top up when company UpTime targets are met. I will talk about UpTime in a later blog. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

Open transparent funding of social events lead people to really take ownership of FunTime activities at work.

Cool Things We Have Done

Blue Jays Baseball – We took a bus and each person brought a guest.

Poker Night – We bought online software and have had our people play from across oceans. This grew into an “Awesome Night of Poker” where we invited customers and suppliers.

Toronto Rock Lacrosse – We took a bus and each person brought a guest. If you’ve never seen lacrosse you have to go.

Golf Tournament – This is an old standby but some of the ideas that have come forward are great. A prize for best dressed, nice!

London Knights Hockey – We got a private box and brought guests.

We had a Toronto Zoo Day – We covered employee’s admission as long as they took pictures for our photo contest.

We had D&D Burger Day – Where ever our people were in the world, we bought the burgers that day. This turned out to be a lot of fun. I was in Virginia that day and thoroughly enjoyed a 5 Guys burger!

My favorite is called Holiday giving. For 2 years in a row the team has voted to give $500 to local families in need through the Salvation Army’s Adopt a Family program. What a great team to do this.

A Great Day

It was a great day when we turned over the ‘team spirit’ budget to the team and let them drive their own ideas. Call or email me and I will be happy to give you more details. mmccourt@ddauto.com

What Does Your Company Do?

Comment or subscribe to the blog to hear more.

About 5 years ago I realized that we had been working diligently at building a great technology business but not any great technology. We didn’t and still don’t have any patents hanging on our walls. We will get there. One of our D&D Advantages is Innovation – Acting on Dreams.

The Story of Omron

I was inspired when hearing the story of Omron and their founder Kazuma Tateisi. Omron is an R&D innovation machine. It is amazing when you look at Kazuma’s life and what he was able to accomplish in some of the most challenging economic and political times in history.

Small Steps

Innovation almost never takes place in one gigantic leap. Television and the internet, these great technological leaps were a long series of small steps. We encourage each member of the D&D team to take small steps everyday.. This way we can stitch our steps together into a pathway toward innovative success.

True Story About Small Steps

A neighbor at the cottage (he’s in his eighty’s) had a large beam dropped off in his yard. I noticed that it was getting closer to his house and one day it was stuck partway in his back door. I went over and asked if he wanted me to get some of the boys from the neighborhood and help him move it He said that it was for the ceiling in center of his living room and ‘no’ he did not need any help. His plan was to move it 3 inches everyday and he had been doing that for a while now. It took 2 more months for him to move it all the way in and up. It looks fantastic! The magic of Small Steps!

Have Your Own Idea

At D&D people are encouraged to take the time and the resources to chase their inspiration. Cool things happen when people are given this freedom. Excitement and camaraderie build as we succeed and fail and then succeed again.

My Favorite Innovation

Right now my favorite innovation is our ”Vision Guided Weld Robot”. We do a lot of work in robotic welding. The biggest issue with robotic welding is consistency of parts and variation in clamp position. We are overcoming this with a 3D vision camera, an industrial PC to crunch the math and any robot our customers choose to use. We have a lot of brain power invested in this and so far it is working great. We are even beta testing with a create client partner now. Great work team.

Why Innovate?

People are naturally innovative and inventive. Give them the tools and a place where they can let their dreams grow. Nurture it and you will be amazed where it leads you.

Are You Chasing Your Great Idea?

“All men dream: but not equally.  Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible”                 T.E. Lawrence

I love that quote!

Are you dangerous?

What are you dreaming?

Comment and let me know. Subscribe to stay posted.

Corporate Networking * Gather – Organize - Maintain

It is important to be ‘top of mind’ with all of your customers and suppliers. Especially when they have the need for your product or service. My process is called the ‘Touch System’. If you want to be consistently ‘top of mind’ you need to build a systematic process.  I’d be happy to share more about how my Touch System works. I have done some group presentations and can do one for your team too.

Gather

The first step is to find all of these people and to build a database full of this information.  Everyone in the company is responsible for gathering contact information whether through emails, vcards or business cards. Whatever works is fine.  We even run a contest and post a graph showing how many contacts each employee has submitted.

Don’t tell anybody but we are thinking about handing out $50 bills. We would give a $50 bill each month to the person who gathers the most contacts for that month.

Organize

Now that you have the contacts and a means to continue aggressively building the database you need a database software package. We use ACT by Sage. Figure out what you want to do with the database and thoroughly research them before you choose. It is possible to switch later but can be a huge pain.  Take the time upfront. We organize our contacts into the following categories:

·         Prospects – These are People with whom you would like to do business

·         Customers – These are People with whom you do some business but not regularly

·         Clients – These are People with whom you do regular ongoing business

·         3^rd Parties – These are People with whom you will not likely ever do business with but could be helpful to your business in some way. Like suppliers.

It’s important to know who is in your database and to group them accordingly so that you treat them properly and personally. Notice that they are all people, not companies.  You can only do business with people.

Maintain

Everyone maintains their contact with people to some degree or other. When you do it systematically, magic happens! I struggled with this systematizing for a while and then the Great Jack Daly gave me a lesson over lunch in Quebec City.  He asked if I truly wanted to keep in contact with these people to help grow my business.  Of course I do. Then he asked me how I could to that without being efficient at it. That is a key point and my game changer.

So, Prospects I reach out to every 4 months. Customers I reach out to every 3 months and Clients I reach out to every second month.  I have 4 groups of prospects so that I am reaching out to a different person in a target company each month. Likewise I have 3 groups of Customers and 2 Groups of Clients. I usually send a joke.  Appropriate, of course.

One of the jokes I sent this month.

A young man looking to get married asked his friend.

 "Every woman I bring home to meet my parents, my mother doesn't like."

"Oh, that's easy," his pal replied. "All you have to do is find someone who is just like your mother."

 "I did that already," he said, "and that one my father didn't like."

Did You Already Get This One?

If you did then you know that you are a person who I value. If you didn’t get it, let me know. I am keenly intent on maintaining a relationship with my important people. 

How do you maintain contact with your important people?