When Junior Achievement asked us to sponsor 30 of their 180 participants in an international conference of teens with enormous potential as future business leaders, we wondered about it. After all, we're not a corporate monolith... we haven't changed the world... have we?
But when thirty high achieving kids from all parts of the world descended onto our little haven (of course we had to borrow chairs from every one of our business neighbours), it was immediately clear that we were going to learn something, and that we'd have an opportunity to talk about business production process from a particularly "HyperActive" point of view.
They came ready to play: in suits and ties from Ireland, Africa, Eastern Europe, and other parts of the world. And they brought their "A" game - with piercing questions about how we determine margins; how we control quality and standards in a business that is driven by creativity; how we manage balancing client vision with our own vision as a supplier. Impressive.
And so we talked about Human Resources from our point of view - how the wide range of characteristics of our people come together to form this team - and realized that we were talking about the best practice of integrating personnel on a strengths basis.
And we talked about how we listen to our clients and steadfastly use a process model rather than a "big idea" model - and realized that we were describing an inclusive product development best practice.
And we talked about how we have fun, wear shorts to work in the summer (but keep slacks and a jacket on a hook on our office doors JUST IN CASE). About how we have formed a hockey "cartel" of people in our industry, and play bi-weekly, about how we take time for our kids and family events and make up the time by working evenings, weekends, holidays - and found out that we were describing a corporate culture model that thousands of companies strive for and can't create.
So... these 30 great kids, through the Junior Achievement Conference, reminded us that it's good to revisit how you do business by explaining it, formally and informally, and by including your entire team in the process.
By the way, "Yellow House" - our group of 30 Junior Achievers - was the overall winner, presenting the most excellent business case based on the conference theme "Achieving Your Vision". Our Yellow House managed to beat out 5 other teams which had been hosed at Cognos, CIBC, Chipworks, The Royal Canadian Mint and TELUS.
We highly recommend doing this kind of thing - even if you don't have the chairs. These kids were incredible. For more information - Click Here
Sponsors of the event included CIBC, Chipworks, Cognos, HyperActive Productions, The Ottawa Citizen, The Royal Canadian Mint, TELUS, Carleton University's Sprott School of Business, Enbridge, Lone Star Texas Grill, Dave Smith of The Place Next Door & Nate's, Laidlaw Education Services and inmedia Public Relations.
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Archive:
2009-11-20: "Don't Play Games" - Motorcycle Ride for Dad Prostate Awareness TV PSA
2008-04-07: HyperActive on location - Mars!
2007-06-04: CSA - My Body In Space, Video Podcasts 1-4
2007-05-28: CFIC - Retention Toolkit
2007-03-27: Words of Wisdom
2007-03-12: Some things you can't learn in a classroom
2006-09-19: CANJAC Award Presented to Yellow House
2006-08-15: MikeBlog: Meanwhile in Africa...
2006-06-30: MikeBlog: Keep Your Forks, There's Pie!!!
2006-06-15: HyperNews: Helping Teachers Understand Autism
2006-06-13: HyperNews: Canada Career Consortium
2006-06-06: MikeBlog: To Pay or Not to Pay
2005-09-29: HyperNews: Childrens Wish Foundation of Canada
2005-09-05: HyperNews: Department of National Defense
2005-06-29: HyperNews: Department of Justice
2005-03-29: HyperNews: FINTRAC
2004-10-29: HyperNews: CAREconnects.ca, CARE Canada
2004-10-06: HyperNews: Stock Collection Zambia
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