I attended a breakfast meeting this morning with my Entrepreneurs Group to listen to Alexander MacDonald (who works for NASA) speak about the future of space exploration….. who's keen on going to Mars then??
Also with him was Sean Gourley, a kiwi now based in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Sean has a PhD in physics from Oxford University, where he studied Nanotechnology to Complex Systems and the Mathematics of War. He has been an advisor to the Iraqi Government, briefed USCENTCOM at the Pentagon, addressed the United Nations in Vienna and dodged checkpoints in Iraq… Impressive to say the least. He has also started a new venture in Silicon Valley called Quid.
I had many takeaways from this morning, but the one that I think related to our business BRAVEday was a fantastic reminder.
In Silicon Valley, Sean's company Quid competes for developers and staff with some of the biggest, well-known names in business; Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like. He said he can't compete on price or salaries with these big companies, but he has a great story to sell and tell.
His remark "the story trumps the money" really hit a chord with me as we continue to build BRAVEday. There is always someone out there willing to pay more for great and engaged staff, as we have at BRAVEday, however if you have a great story, or vision of what you want to achieve or where you are going, it counts for a lot.
Having a clear vision and goals that everyone in your organisation buys into, not only keeps everyone happy, it means everyone is heading in the right direction….when this happens, anything can be achieved.
What's your story?