A New Team, Leadership and Culture the Intelligent Way

For me the last two weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Tuesday evening last week we completed the all share purchase of Intelligent Storage Solutions Ltd. (ISS).  ISS is a great, profitable and successful business.  They have unique technical capability and compete with much bigger businesses.  They have great people and a great future.

The last ten days has been quite humbling.  Humbling because I had forgotten what it feels like to be part of a close nit positive team in a creative environment.  Already the new owners and directors of ISS have been welcomed in to the family with open arms.  Already we have formed a new team.  We have formed trusts and even the basis of a business culture.

I can’t tell you how rewarding and exciting this feeling is.  In a furnace of creativity and in just two days we agreed a short, medium and long terms strategy and the tactics we will apply to achieve our set goals.  Already the culture of the business has been established.  It might not yet be fully formed but it’s there and you can feel it.  It’s a culture that includes humour and fun and is fearlessly positive yet doggedly determined.  Some might argue there should be no place for fun in business; I disagree.  I think the more positive a working environment one can create the more the team will perform.  Perhaps not yet Pool Tables and Table Football (we don’t yet have the space that Google has) but the spirit is there already.

Of course there is a need for certain disciplines and a focus on the objectives at hand.  Successful businesses don’t just play; they work hard and to understood focussed objectives. The positive wash-over of fun however pays dividends.

The result of this work? Amazing!! We agreed five new immediate businesses as targets.  By Wednesday we had qualified the prospects, made contact and we have three client presentations arranged and we've already submitted one proposal. Of course that’s a long way to contracts signed but I couldn't have dreamt this progress so fast.  I better go win this work!