Firmenlauf ’09: Part I/II
And lo, it came to pass that Canooy Mike had a dream and in that dream no less than eight Canooies would cross the finishing line of Firmenlauf ’09 (loosely translated: the Swiss Company Dash) – more or less simultaneously, which at the very least would make for a great photo op, and might even promote team bonding… or something like that.
Alas, it was just a dream and the actual 6km Firmenlauf ‘09 was just three weeks away and Mike had no team.
So he used Email to try to put a team together and after approximately forty-eight hours of waiting had volunteer count of one, which was at least six short of the dream’s requirements.
So he went to talk to his colleagues to seek out the reason for the lack of response. And the reasons were wide ranging, from a supposed lack of fitness to Firmenlauf ‘09 taking place on the day before he or she was due to go on vacation.
Reasonable excuses, but surely not showstoppers, Mike thought. And so he persisted and to cut a long story short he managed to ramp up the total number of volunteers to ten – thus exceeding the dream’s requirement by two. Personal engagement clearly works when it comes to selling a vision (or in this case a dream.)
Things were suddenly looking good. And things got even better when CFO Dirk decreed that Canoo would cover the costs of participation – a bonus the participants hadn’t counted on, and a clear demonstration that management was not only prepared to run the “risk” of supporting a dream, but was prepared to commit resources to the dream’s realisation. CEOs everywhere: Take note.
And then things took a slight downturn when two volunteers pulled out due to client project commitments (the client comes first at Canoo, obviously.) But due to the in-built resource buffer, which consisted of two persons, the dream was still safe and good to go. As Tom de Marco once noted: every project needs slack.
But as luck would have it another two volunteers showed up (now that never happens in a project!) and so we were back to ten Canooies – consisting of seven guys and three girls, none of whom disagree with Mike’s proposed team Motto “Leave no Canooy Behind.” There’s no stopping us now!
And so the big day came and we arrived at the venue of Firmenlauf ’09. So far the only thing the dream had wrong was that it didn’t involve another 1300 runners showing up. This was obviously going to make the goal crossing the finishing line simultaneously rather challenging; especially given that the trail is very narrow at some points, not even allowing for three runners to run abreast, let alone ten!
TO BE CONTINUED…
Top (left > right): Nicolai Kilian, Thomas Ernst, Alberto Mijares, Guenter Losert, Christian Ribeaud;
Bottom (left > right): Sibylle Peter, Susanne Batz, Lais Gemperle, Andrei Socaciu, Mike Mannion
