Lessons from the Olympics

 Michael Phelps a Metaphor for Life…             and how organizations avoid the same fate

   Michael Phelps, with 19 Olympic medals—the most ever one by a single competitor—is arguably the greatest Olympian ever.  Phelps’ Olympic swimming career spans three Olympics, 12 years of his 27 year life. 

   Sadly, the London Games have shown that while still a world-class athlete, Phelps isn’t the swimmer who dazzled viewers in Beijing 4 years ago.  His finish in the butterfly Tuesday of this week exposed him as vulnerable in the event he had won at two previous games.  He led for most of the race but was edged out for the gold by South African Chad le Close by just 0.05 seconds.

   At just 27 years old, Phelps is retiring from competition; there are younger swimmers who are now in the limelight.  In an event like swimming, the speed, strength and endurance required to win favors the young.

   Michael Phelps, retiring from competition, will soon focus on coaching the next generation.  This is the way of life for individuals: The young have the energy for competition--speed and strength—the older have the perspective and wisdom earned by experience. 

  While this dynamic plays out with individuals, organizations avoid the loss of competitive edge by a constant process of reinvigoration and reinvention.  Reinvigorated with young, eager, upwardly mobile talent and reinvented by dynamically responding to changes in the marketplace.  Organizations can, by these processes, be (unlike Olympic athletes) perpetually competitive.   

   But, only if there is an organizational culture that promotes reinvigoration and reinvention: Providing an environment that offers continuous opportunities to grow and learn through frequent changes in roles, responsibilities and projects as well as the strategic vision to change as change dictates. Reinvigoration is the realm of the young and eager; reinvention is the realm of the experienced and wise.

   LaserShip is invigorating.  Our offices pulsate with the energy provided by the many young and eager-for-opportunity individuals who have found their way to LaserShip.  As with our past—and deeply ingrained in our culture—many will quickly rise to leadership roles.  25 years ago, the energy came from drivers recruited into dispatch roles.  Today, the entry level jobs are often freight coordinators who rise to lead, supervise and manage processes and people.  They bring with them the energy to perform, the eagerness to learn and the yearning to belong and advance, thus reinvigorating us from the bottom up.

  LaserShip is inventing.  We continually reinvent ourselves:  Seeing the future of delivery and moving in that direction; spotting new technologies and introducing them to our systems; creating new processes and incorporating them into our procedures; searching our improvements and adapting them to our purposes.

   Michael Phelps has a future; it is just not in competitive swimming.  That is the way of life. 

   LaserShip has a future; it is in the business we have created and recreated.  That is the way of organizations that have created a self-perpetuating mechanism of reinvigoration and reinvention.      

Update: Michael Phelps displayed his professionalism, competitiveness, dedication and sportsmanship by winning additional in the 2012 Olympics making him the greatest Olympic champion of all time.

Honoring Milton Friedman

The Man Who Saved Capitalism

And How It Benefits All of Us

   The 100^th anniversary of the birth of Milton Friedman occurred this week.  You may have never heard of him (he died in 2006), but in the matter of economics and in defending the concept of free people and free markets Milton Friedman is a “rock star.” 

   Through his books and teaching, Friedman a professor at the University of Chicago, reinvigorated the world's faith in capitalism. He discovered, through rigorous science, that free markets work the best to distribute goods, services and wealth, and that we as individuals are best suited to making our own decisions.

   LaserShip has grown in the shadow of Milton Friedman and benefited from influence of his work in explaining and defending free markets and free people.  The success of starting and expanding a business is based on the choices of individuals: 

·       Individuals who freely risk and invest their money, time and effort (stakeholders)

·       Individuals making free choices to “sell’ their labor to whom they wish (employees)

·       Individuals who are free to choose with whom they wish to do business (customers)

 

Classic free market thinking, that Friedman expounded, serves and benefits all the individuals involved in transactions.  Each gives up something but gets something else that is valued more by the recipient: Profits, wages, services/products.

   Our concepts of customer service—pleasing the customer—and innovation that improves outcomes for all come out of Friedman’s explanation of free markets: By necessity, enterprises must focus on the needs of the customer.  Friedman once, humorously, put his thoughts on the subject of pleasing the customer this way:  “If you put the government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.”

  Innovation which advances life and living was, to Friedman, totally dependent on and required freely acting individuals working within a free market system:  “The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.” 

  Beyond all of these benefits, Friedman, perhaps most importantly, believed that the concepts of private property and free markets are what protected free individuals: That free markets (businesses free to enter or leave, produce what the consumer wants, innovate and change as customer demand dictates, keep the profits of their work) were intricately linked with free people (people free to choose where and how to live, where and how to work, what to save or consume).  To Friedman’s way of thinking—and this is important—there could not be one without the other.   

   “It is widely (and wrongly), Friedman wrote, “believed that politics and economics are separate and largely unconnected; that individual freedom is a political problem and material welfare an economic problem….”  However, “history suggests that (economic freedom) is a necessary condition for political freedom.” 

   Without free markets, Friedman reasoned, there is only coercion.  Free enterprise is what creates choices: Individuals making free choices as owners, employees or customers, as to how to invest, where to work or how to spend resources.  “Fundamentally,” said Friedman, “there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion…” or “the other is voluntary co-operation of individuals--the technique of the market place.”

   Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for 1976.  This marked the first sign of the intellectual comeback of free-market economics that had been losing academic, political and popular appeal. 

   In a recent tribute paid to Friedman, the years of 1980-2005 were described as "The Age of Milton Friedman," an era that "witnessed remarkable progress of mankind. As the world once again embraced Friedman’s free market policies, living standards rose sharply while life expectancy, educational attainment, and democracy improved and absolute poverty declined."

Our Higher Purpose

Does LaserShip Have a Higher Purpose?

Our higher purpose is not just what we do that is meaningful for others; it is what, in that process, we create for ourselves.

   Our work is often made up of three types of activities.

·       Moving packages around:  Many of us are involved in the actual physical movement of packages—planning where they are coming from and where they are going, unloading, sorting, routing, reloading and delivering.

·       Moving Information around:  Increasingly many of us move the information about the package movement from one place to another, with some value added.  This includes inputting, monitoring, reporting, explaining, communicating

·       Moving People around:  Directing people on how to sort or where, how and when to deliver. 

   We move packages, information and people around because of our purpose: Providing the final mile in a customer’s logistical supply chain.  We don’t do this for ourselves, we do this for others—and often one step further removed, for their customers.

   Is there a higher purpose in this?  Seeing the higher purpose in these activities can easily get lost    in the sheer volume of packages and details.  

   To see a higher purpose, it is necessary to take a higher level view.  Look at what we do not from our point of view, but from the perspectives of our customer’s and the recipient’s.  While often we are delivering seemingly ordinary household products and purchases, each and every one was saved and shopped for then eagerly selected and awaited.  For our business to business customers we are the final link between two businesses with their own purposes and missions, but one of which is to stay in business—keeping people employed--by having the necessary materials and products available. 

   There is another class of final mile deliveries that we regularly perform:  These are both routed and on-demand deliveries of critically needed pharmaceutical and life science supplies: Prescription drugs, blood supplies, organs for transplant, diagnostic samples and medical equipment.  Each of these deliveries touches someone, somewhere in a meaningful life extending or saving way.

   Even with all of this, there still exists, perhaps, a higher level of purpose.  Beyond the specifics of our deliveries and who we touch with them, at LaserShip we are creating something that we are all a part of, something that we all contribute to and benefit from:  LaserShip itself.

   Together, we are building a human growth machine. 

·                   A place that allows anyone wants to participate the opportunity to learn, grow and advance

·                    A place where everyone has an opportunity to excel

·                    A place that promotes pride, confidence, strength, security, and vitality

·                    A place to grow our skills, our careers our income

·                    A place to develop meaningful relationships

·                    A place of where we find strength in collaborative interactions

·                    A place where we learn how to support each other

·                    A place where each person’s voice adds to what we know and how we perform

·                    A place where the concept of “our mutual well-being” is known, shared and appreciated

·                    A place to share the joys of winning

·                    A place that endures but made stronger by each individual contribution

   Our higher purpose is not just what we do that is meaningful for others; it is what, in that process, we create for ourselves. 

   Our legacy is in ourselves and our organization.  Individually, we are made stronger by each challenge, more skilled with each task, more knowledgeable with each experience and more fulfilled with each collaborative interaction.  Organizationally, each day our combined efforts and results facilitate our growth which makes us more secure allowing us to advance our future investments and create even more opportunities:  Great, enduring and rewarding.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

     Down through the centuries, the meaning of July 4^th

  Creating Culture Out of Mission, Purpose, Values and Goals

Revolutionary history is all around LaserShip.  From just outside Boston where the first gunshots were fired in our Revolutionary War, to Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was adopted, to nearby Richmond where the Revolutionary War ended, to Washington, DC where the founding leaders established the national capital: The original 13 colonies is the backbone of LaserShip’s delivery footprint. 

  What we celebrate tomorrow as “Independence Day” was the July 4^th 1776 adoption by the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, of the final and formal Declaration of Independence.  The declaration was more than a statement proclaiming a split from Britain, it was a document which gave purpose to an effort—the war to secure independence—that had been going on for more than year at that time. 

   The founders, in writing and adopting the declaration, wanted to give to the world, to the residents of the 13 colonies and specifically to the uniformed troops fighting under General Washington, both a full practical explanation as well as the philosophic foundation for their actions. The document spells out the real-world injustices committed by the King of England against the better interests of the colonies; it also puts the whole argument in terms of a visionary and philosophical yearning by humans for fundamental and individual rights…”Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

  The Declaration of Independence, which George Washington ordered read to his troops in New York on July 9^th, 1776, in effect, provided a renewed sense of purpose for the soldiers of the new Continental Army; a renewal which ultimately led to victory in what was an eight year long and difficult struggle to secure the independence of the United States of America.

  The idea of the United States was set in motion by a vision of the founders, and then shared by these forward-thinking men through the Declaration of Independence; it resonated (word of the day) throughout the land made it a shared vision of the new nation leading to a sense of mission to create a living-space based on fundamental Core Values.  

  The declaration infused into our culture most of what we have come to believe and value as a nation. Our noblest ideals and highest aspirations—our beliefs in liberty, equality, and individual rights—came out of the Declaration of Independence.

   Words, after all, have meaning, purpose and longevity when acted upon—they are important to the growth of a strong, positive and meaningful culture. The Declaration of Independence, in effect, is much like current organizational Mission, Value and Goal statements.  These statements, like the declaration, provide a reason for being, why we take certain actions, what those actions should be, what we believe in and what we desire to achieve—they are the cultural touchstones of organizations.  

   As with the Declaration of Independence, businesses find it important to communicate a clear vision from the founders’ perspective, including purpose, value and goals. Purpose defines the fundamental reason why an organization exists. Values define how people are to behave as they work towards the purpose. Goals focus the people’s energy towards accomplishing the purpose. 

   Our purpose at LaserShip is to provide meaningful services that connect people the things they need, to build an organization made up of growing, learning and earning people sharing our long-term outcomes, and to provide a return on the investment made in the company.

  We do this by believing in our ability to create meaningful, long-term relationships with the people we serve and who provide the service by focusing on the Values of integrity, quality and professionalism.   

  Our goals are to grow the business so that we can provide service to more people, be an always improving, challenging and satisfying place to work, and to demonstrate the value of all of it by being profitable.

  “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” and many of us do.  For others who are new or not fully introduced to our culture, it is important that we continue to communicate and demonstrate to all our Mission, Values and Goals. 

  It is not the Declaration of Independence with the soaring rhetoric of its author Thomas Jefferson, but it is our shared purpose, the source of our mission, the foundation of our culture. 

Life, Work and Lessons from Golf

Project Manager Works for LaserShip

But Lives to Play Golf

  In tournament play, LaserShip Project Manager Justin S, doesn’t see the beautiful green of the golf course, there is too much pressure; “you feel under the microscope,” he says, “with hundreds of people watching your every move, ready to praise or criticize your every swing of the club; playing golf, even as an amateur, at the professional level is extremely stressful.”

   It is a lot like the stress felt in our offices each day, observes Justin:  Getting all the packages underway, keeping them moving and the entire effort under the microscope of customers who are quick to either praise or criticize.  

   Although ranked as an amateur, Justin qualifies for and plays tournaments and has earned money from his playing.  He has even reached the regional qualifying tournaments to play in the U.S. Open golf tournament. 

   Playing at a high level—even as an amateur—requires some raw talent, but it also requires an equal amount of work.  Justin has a passion for golf; it is what drives him to leave work and spend the next 4 hours hitting balls. 

   “It is work,” says Justin, “but it is satisfying work especially when reaching the point of overcoming something that has held you back.”

   “When a ball is hit wrong in a tournament,” comments Justin, “two things immediately kick into play:  How do I recover from this, but also, after the fact, how did I get the ball into that situation in the first place.”

    Listening to Justin speak of his golfing experience is to gain insight into our own business. It too is an act of passion, it requires work to improve and when something goes wrong our first impulse must be to recover from it, but also to understand what we did to get so far off course so that we do not repeat the same mistake twice.  

   When Justin was even younger than he is now he learned some important lessons about winning.”   “I was ahead in a tournament, my play was dominant, but in the final three holes I completely blew it,” recalls Justin, “I choked in front of the crowd and my sponsors.  Nothing in life prepares you for the final three holes, you have to experience it and learn from that experience.”

   “I stopped having fun,” remembers Justin of that day.  

    It was his dad who pulled it out of him; he asked Justin:  “Do you still love it.”  

   Justin still did love it, he just needed to get past the experience and learn from it.  “In golf (like other things) you get good by the experience of your failures.  I discovered that when I choked I was just trying not to lose, but what I needed to do was try to win.  You really have to believe that you can do great if you are to win.” 

Be Connected to Our Culture

  The Beginning is So Important

   One of the biggest movies of 2010—The Social Media—tells a very revealing story of the founding of a company: Facebook.  In the factually based dramatization, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, basically takes an idea that others brought to him for his collaborative help in developing, cuts the originators out, recruits some new people to help him and then cuts them out as well when it starts to take off.  (To be fair, there are some redeeming features to the Zuckerberg character portrayed in the movie: For example, being incredibly disciplined, single-minded and focused on one idea.)

  The culture of Facebook, the company, is no doubt only really understood from the inside, but there is a strong probability that the traumatic founding—multiple, multimillion dollar lawsuits involved—has had a profound and lasting impact on the way people behave towards each other. 

   Why is all this important?  Because the culture of a company—and each organization has one—is rooted in its founding and in the beliefs, values and actions of its founders. 

  LaserShip and our culture is exactly that way.  The belief structure of the founding is still our belief structure today.    

   Our organizational culture was formed early on as a reflection of the founder's beliefs. As these beliefs proved to be a successful formula for forming and conducting business relationships, it has remained intact.  It spread slowly, from one generation of employees to the next: What was important to the founders of the company became important to the first generation of employees and managers and the next and next after that.  Overtime, the values of the organization became the corporate culture: How we do things, how we relate to each other.  

  In the beginning, the fundamental driving values were a set of shared beliefs—All of which you today should still find to be prevalent, relevant and actionable:

  

·         Work together

·         All hands on deck

·         Do whatever it takes to get the job done

·         Keep relationships alive

·         Trust each other

·         Do what feels right in your heart

·         Reward performance

·         Teach the next person in line

·         Take care of those around you

·         Give your all each day

·         Make it better tomorrow

·         Be passionate about what you do

·         Show the world your good side

   Eventually, these shared beliefs made their way into five value statements or focuses of the business:

CUSTOMER FOCUS—driven to create satisfied, long-term customers through superior service.

EMPLOYEE FOCUS—driven to recognize, reward and respect the contribution of our people.

ETHICAL FOCUS—driven to demonstrate integrity to customers and employees through honesty and fairness.

QUALITY FOCUS— driven to constantly improve our performance.

IMAGE FOCUS—driven to conduct ourselves in a professional manner.

  These are the values that we (and all of you as you go about your daily work) should be basing your choices and decisions upon.  

   Our values are “contributory values,” because practicing them on a daily basis contributes to achieving our long range goals. Our values are essentially a behavioral guide:  They guide us toward not only what we want to achieve, but perhaps more importantly, how we want to achieve it.   For example, taking care of our customers, being honest with them and providing quality services all contribute to helping achieve our goals of having long-term relationships, being proud of our achievements, generating growth, developing opportunities and increasing prosperity.

   Each of us makes choices each day—how we are going to: Answer the phone, Reply to an email inquiry, Input data that will update customers, Sort packages for delivery, Decide who is allowed to deliver a route…etc.

   All of these are important decisions that you make—and most of them are not constantly observed, monitored and supervised by someone above you.  What guides you as you go through your daily choice making is our culture, our values, our accepted modes of conduct.   

  Each choice you make—and please think about it—should pass the Values Test:  Is this what we want to achieve and is this the way we want to go about doing it?  Does my choice enhance who we are, reflect where we have come from, improve our ability to grow, prosper and provide opportunity?  

   If your daily choices pass the test, then thanks for being connected to our core.

Play Well LaserShip

Making the Vital Connections to People, Processes & Outcomes

LEGO is a visual metaphor, an image that brings forth both understanding and inspiration on a very serious topic: How do we connect our current business problems—the day to day issues each of you deal with—to our established foundation of business practices, goals and values?

What we do today must be linked to our long held purpose and mission. Each of us as we go about our daily tasks need to think about what we are trying to achieve: Our goals are long-term, our mission is to be the best at what we do, our duty to each of us and to the company is to be profitable and our values require all of this to be done while keeping in mind our image of professionalism, quality and integrity.

LEGO building blocks might just help us understand this point. LEGO blocks must fit with and be connected to all others. No one LEGO block is independent of others. LEGO blocks come in various sizes and colors, but in order to construct something each block must fit with the previous one—it must snap into place. To build the next level of a creation the previous and the current pieces of the structure must to be snapped into place and firmly connected; if not, the creation will not be structurally sound, long lasting or look anything like the outcome envisioned.

Just as with LEGO, everything in our business is connected: Connected to our mission, our goals and our values. The concerns of today—such as social media and DPMO concessions, or scanning percentages and driver costs—are connected to each other and to our long-term mission, goals and values.

In order for us to build a sound, lasting structure that looks something like our plan; we must consciously and consistently connect our current problems, solutions and actions to our overall vision of the company.

Social media buzz, for example, is directly connected to individual acts of omission: When we do not snap firmly into place the uniform LEGO, the vehicle signage LEGO, the door tag procedure LEGO or the follow-up communication LEGO we see the negative buzz increase.

Each and every concern/problem/issue of today is a connection issue that LEGO blocks help us visualize, understand and just perhaps solve by consciously making us aware of the impact each unconnected or imperfectly connected LEGO has on the entire structure; if one imperfectly fitted LEGO block fails, the entire structure can come crashing down.

Moreover, all of the issue-of-the-day labeled LEGO blocks are connected (or should be) to the larger structural elements of LaserShip: Growth, Opportunity and Prosperity. Individual, organizational and business growth through (and only through) high service levels and attention to details creates opportunities for us to expand our volume, our markets, our job creation and our career growth which produces profits for the company and prosperity for individuals who make a lasting and recognizable contribution.

The point of the LEGO metaphor for LaserShip is simple: No problem-of-the-day is unconnected from yesterday’s issue or tomorrow’s concern; no task is unconnected from the purpose of the organization; no person employed or contracted is unconnected from the long-term viability and survivability of the company.

Each of us, as a LEGO block, must share the connection to each other; our connection is to our mutual well-being. Each of our actions must demonstrate personal accountability for our own success as well as the success of your team and the entire company; our action must always demonstrate a consideration of the whole not just the parts.

The LEGO block was invented by a Denmark based company. The word LEGO comes from the first two letters of two words in the Danish language—"leg godt:—which means "play-well". Play well for LaserShip means that we have a passion for excellence, that we care about people, processes and outcomes, and that we find joy in both the resulting relationships and the outcomes.

Play Well Today LaserShip

The Ripple Effect

How Many People Does Your Work Touch Each Day

  

At 3:56 a.m. Tuesday morning the XYZ Transportation Supervisor for northern California emailed Cathie H in the Global Critical Deliveries operations center a simple message: “You are awesome.”

  Cathie works 3rd shift for GCD, often with little back-up and with fewer resources; nevertheless she is a problem solver for many of LaserShip’s customers who are relying upon us to get extremely time-sensitive, special treatment shipments  from one place to another overnight.  

   Toiling away at night Cathie is probably unaware of the impact that she has, not only on LaserShip, but on our customers, their operations as well as on the people who depend upon our customers.   The decisions Cathie makes also have an impact (depending on the routing she chooses) on the airlines and the agents across the country who do work for LaserShip.  But it doesn’t stop there, Cathie, based on her decisions and performance, has a huge impact on retained and prospective revenue. 

   There is a ripple effect, an ever widening circle of consequences to everything everybody does.

   We are all Cathie.  Cathie is “awesome,” but not unique.  Throughout the entire company there are replicas of Cathie:  All of the people of LaserShip who are doing their jobs, adding value and making a positive impact, whether they are sorting packages, dispatching drivers, making deliveries, entering data and managing projects.  Going about your job you are having a huge unseen impact on multiple companies and people each day.

   “Cathie,” says GCD’s Vice President, “is a person who has an appreciation for the consequences of her actions; she understands the impact on multiple supply chains down the line if her solutions are not the right ones.”

   To be the “Cathie” in your office, below are a few of the things you can do to increase your ripple effect:

*Have a positive mind-set: Never underestimate the power of enthusiasm in a workplace. Don’t complain when things don’t go your way. *Take pride in the work you do and your passion will not go unnoticed.

*Be accountable:  Don’t make excuses or blame others; be responsible for what you are responsible for.

*Be a Team Player:  To make an impact at work, you have to be able to work effectively with your colleagues. Deliver results consistently and reliably; aim to inspire those you work with by offering and sharing ideas and by being proactive; listen to your customers’ and colleagues' ideas and give positive and respectful feedback; be supportive and share your skills with others on the team.

*Take on difficult assignments: Establish yourself as the go-to person in your office, the individual who is willing to take on the most onerous tasks.

*Manage your time well: Be punctual in all your commitments; learn to prioritize; make to-do lists; meet project deadlines; be considerate of others time. 

*Set the bar high:  Never settle for being ‘good enough.’ Have high expectations for yourself and work hard to exceed them.

   To make an impact at work, you need to be proactive and to keep looking for opportunities to progress; you need to be disciplined, focused and persistent in all that you do; you need to have an “other person” mentality (how does this affect others); you need to be considerate of time—yours and others’; you need to step up and accept responsibility for processes, communications and results; and finally, you need to share the credit for positive things with the entire team.

   As is said about Cathie, “she does so much work behind the scenes we don’t take enough time to thank her for all that she does, for all the people she touches, for all the positive things that result from her actions.”  

Riding the Wave of the Future

LaserShip and Wikinomics

    Collaboration across Boundaries is one of LaserShip’s organizational culture traits.  It describes how “Our organizational and hierarchical lines do not exist to prevent our reaching out to request or give assistance, to offer or receive advice, or to accept or provide feedback that contributes to our mutual success.”  

   Collaboration, trade and the open sharing of ideas, as we have seen (see LaserDay yesterday) are the concepts that have driven the advancement of human and organizations throughout history.  These age-old ideas have received a modern day update with a popular “in” term: Wikinomics.

   What we do, “supply chain logistics” as a network of businesses moving product through connected processes implies a form of cooperation and collaboration and really can be seen as a forerunner of the leading principles of this new field of “Wikinomics” (which describes the effects of extensive collaboration and user-participation on the marketplace and within the business world).

   The use of mass collaboration (the combination and extension of familiar concepts such as teamwork, intra-company cooperation, customer partnerships and end-user relationships) is an extension of the trend to outsources (externalize formerly internal business functions) but has most recently evolved beyond that to refer to individuals who come together and cooperate to improve a given operation or solve a problem.

   This coming together does not just occur in the “virtual” world of online companies and communities or in software development alone but even in traditional industries.  The adoption of collaboration principles in distribution and supply chain logistics is encouraging innovation, coordination and involvement of customers in the value creation process.

  It is worth LaserShip’s effort to understand these emerging trends.  Wikinomics is based upon four essential principles:

·   Openness—Transparent information sharing and an open attitude towards external ideas and resources; this openness is evidence by the creation or adoption of informal networks both inside and outside an organization as well as the willingness to establish new contacts and in sharing resources, information and ideas.

·   Peering—Empowering of employees to embrace team work, self-organization and shared decision-making/problem-solving; static up and down organizational hierarchies are replaced by flat models characterized by ad hoc collaborative forums.

·   Sharing—Sharing all but the most proprietary and strategic processes and information with anyone who can collaborate to accelerate innovation In this way, all players “ride the wave” of new solutions.

·   Boundary-less—Flexible and unstructured approach that ignores internal and external organizational boundaries in order to promote partnerships and collaboration within a company and between suppliers, customers and end-users

  Our Dulles and Miami branches have created a kind of boundary-less, open, sharing and peering collaboration between offices, with Project Managers willing to share ideas and innovations. 

   Our Global Critical Deliveries division, which has a different workflow than our other offices has also created a Wikinomics model:  GCD does not have “a day” in which product coming in completes a work flow and is all delivered by the end of the day; the workflow is around the clock with jobs starting at any time and continuing for an indefinite period until completion through multiple shifts and teams.  By necessity, the recording and sharing of information within GCD must be across shifts and hierarchies (involving management and all others), comprehensive and with peers openly making suggestions and offering ideas.  In many cases, the customers are actively involved in the details regarding shipments along with the airlines that move most of GCD’s shipments, as well as the ground transportation contractors who start and complete the jobs.

   “We have created a mechanism within GCD,” says GCD’s Vice President, “just to facilitate the open free flow of vital information; a mechanism that allows for us to go beyond the nuts and bolts of a job and communicate the thoughts, feelings, experiences of all that have touched a job.” 

  LaserShip has long embraced openness:  Openness to the exchange of ideas, solutions and feedback, with our actions demonstrating approachability, willingness to receive and share the advice and experience of others, and the desire to examine our own actions, performance and results in order to improve ourselves and the company.  Don’t ever doubt LaserShip’s “riding the wave” into the future.