The Takeaway—‘We make creative people’s dreams come true’
Colonial Purchasing Cooperative’s annual meeting in late March in Orlando, Florida, eschewed the typical conference program in favor of an open-ended exchange of ideas bandied about during an afternoon of rotating roundtable discussions.
The result was declared a resounding success – “so much better than sitting listening to presentations,” comments Colonial executive director Bryan Ekus, relaying the positive feedback he received from the event’s 60 attendees and board of directors.
Dubbed the “World Discovery Café,” the speed-dating style of hypothetical business topics universal to everyone’s own circumstances allowed participants to freely engage in conversations that reinforced the need to think out of the box.
Colonial board members took the reins moderating the five tables. After a few hours, the moderators summarized for the entire group how members tackled their topics table by table, and they tacked up on the wall the participants’ notes and outlines. Here’s what they come up with:
- Achieving efficiencies in your daily life (Frank Hartwig and Pat Reagan)
The takeaway: Everyone should sometimes take a break, which will result in such benefits as helping you to be smart with your time; organize better, and strike a balance that ultimately makes you more productive.
- Overcoming over work and life things that really suck (Brian Axtman)
The takeaway: Sure, taxes, government regulations and the weather you can’t control but some things you can improve, such as employee engagement, bad attitudes and drama in the workplace. The best way is to get past hard times is by making better decisions, resulting in tackling difficult people with a positive attitude.
- Chinese multinational acquiring your company and plans to discontinue physical media by year’s end (Steve Sheldon) The takeaway: This topic generated a few ironic cheers in the audience during the summary. But aside from the nervous laughter came a realization that our business is built on certain skillsets (e.g., fulfillment, customer service, metallization or plastic molding) easily applicable to other businesses.
- Convincing Apple why it should acquire your company, and separately convincing your daughter to take over the family business (so you can retire) rather than her use lottery winnings to launch a startup (Connie Comeau)
The takeaway: Physical media manufacturers make creative people’s dreams come true. That kind of tugging on heartstrings is built on a history of innovation in introducing new products and services that fulfill market segment needs. In both scenarios, there’s proven value in owning such a business.
- The best way to engage and motivate staff (Tony Van Veen) The takeaway:
An engaged workforce is a motivated workforce, and the best way to accomplish both is to listen, and get to know your employees as human beings. The workers know their jobs better than you do, so don’t tell them what to do. Be transparent in terms of sharing KPIs and topline sales information. Also provide opportunities to give them a sense of ownership.