After finishing our 1st annual Kick Off meetings with all Cadre team members, I was trying to settle myself down for a night’s rest, but to no avail. It was around 11:00 p.m. on February 1, 2017, and I was almost asleep, when an idea hit me like a bolt of lightning!
A common theme in our Kick Off meetings was about Team Cadre running a relay race and passing the baton from one team member to another. Because of the way our roles are structured, we are all dependent upon one other to make successful staffing matches, just as each member of a relay team must pass the baton to the next runner, and the next and the next, in order to reach the finish line and win the race.
I got out of bed and ordered batons for all of our offices! (In Cadre colors, of course. :o) I thought it would be fun for Team Cadre to pass the baton to each other to continue to reinforce that, in order to be successful, we all need each other. In a relay race, there is no one runner who is more important than the other, just as there is no one person or role in our company that is more important than another. The only way to win the race is to work as a team. (The definition of Cadre is, after all, “a skilled team working together to achieve results!”)
For almost 3 years now, we’ve been passing batons to each other from person to person, from team to team, from front office to back office, and even between offices. (Thanks to technology and clip art! :o)
The gesture of passing the baton has grown over the years and is also used, among other things, to welcome new Cadre team members, to say hello to a team member you don’t often work with and to congratulate a team member on a job well done!
We all depend on each other for our success! No one person can do it alone; we need the team in order to succeed, and passing the baton gives us yet another chance to blend as a team!