A tradition at Costless is our monthly birthday lunch with all the staff who are born in that month. I personally host each monthly lunch as it is a way to connect with staff in small groups. After a full year I have sat once with each and every staff member celebrating in a social setting, a feat that could otherwise become more challenging as our head count grows.
At lunch we
chatted about all sorts of things from "best birthdays ever" to the pain in the
rear of doing laundry. It was even suggested ( by me) that what if we could
install laundry machines at work? Everyone loved the idea. You heard it here
first.
After lunch "Uncle Calvin" gives everyone cash to gamble at the
casino next door.
Awesome is: opening a birthday card and cash falls
out.
If you were to ask one of Team Costless what our focus is for this next quarter - they would tell you "It's our SESAME STREET Theme and it's all about LEARNING!!!!"
What is a THEME you may ask? Instead of running our business year to year or quarter to quarter with a random list of 300 things to do, we pick one over-arching focus around which all our team focuses activities and results.
This year (August to July) our over arching focus is "BUILDING FOR GROWTH." Then we break the year into 3-4 THEMES. Themes are an energizing way to rally the troops and get everyone focused on the same page by reducing our strategic plan to a single-minded focus. It starts with a simple question, "What is the biggest opportunity or challenge facing our business, and how are we going to address it?"
A typical Costless theme consists of:
1. A fun THEME
2. A core focus based off our Current Year Strategic Plan
3. Decorations, Score Boards and Key Performance Indicators KPI's
4. Celebration and FUN at the end.
Here is our current theme 01/12-03/12 :
1. Theme - SESAME STREET
2. Core Focus - It's all about LEARNING
3. Score Boards in each department showcasing the top 3 most important KPI's we want to improve + lots of Sesame Street decorations and even an Elmo waffle maker for the kitchen!!
4. Celebrate with a Beer, Pizza and LASER TAG party!!
Ernie crashed our Theme Roll Out Meeting. He gave everyone rubber duckies.
Even Cookie Monster is involved in our theme and has taken a permanent position in our front office as the new Director of First Impressions.
A tradition at our TROM - "Theme Roll Out Meetings" is our Banner Brain Storming. The question was "what things do you want to learn during this theme? It is an incredibly valuable exercise during each TROM that has uncovered some really great ideas. Our staff holds the keys to our success with all their experience and wisdom - they have fun writing down their ideas.
WHEW - Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?
Whether you think Global Warming is real or some sky is falling fallacy - watch this 30 second video from NASA and make up your own mind. Watch it here.
Don't worry - the video only shows the 9th warmest year on record.
Can you guess what year was the SECOND warmest in history? See here.
I have a feeling 2012 is going to be an incredible year for video and social media.
Never before has the world allowed seemingly ordinary people to become over night sensations. Let's just hope quality reigns supreme and no more "Friday" songs. Here is an incredible video of 5 people singing and playing the same guitar. Watch it here:
Let's hope we see more of this kind of quality in 2012.
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