Missing my FD Centre Mates

I so miss my FD Centre team. I loved building the team and I wondered what would happen when I told them that I was going to leave. Usually you tell people you’re leaving and you’re told ‘Oh, that’s interesting, sorry you are off – bye!”

But when I told the team, the response I got really blew me away. I got so many lovely messages, lots of lovely gifts, kind text messages from people I wouldn’t have expected, some people even saying that they’d love to be doing what I was going on to do.

Those things really mean a lot. I had a fantastic leaving do where everybody came from all over the place - it was unbelievable the number of people who came to my leaving do and said such lovely things and gave me two beautiful Swartz crystal champagne glasses, which I just thought was just beautiful.

Bridges I'll never burn

I was so sad to leave them but I just know that I am in the right place now at Tear Fund. I just know it. But I have a hope that I can find a new connection with all those great people. I don’t know how yet, but I know that I want to strengthen the bridge between my new life and my old colleagues. There’s still business to be done.

Ali

Fuelled by www.Tinderblogs.com

Heroes Throw Down The Gauntlet

Shock of the new

I was chatting the other day with a business friend about Help for Heroes, a charity that’s just come from out of nowhere to becoming one of the most effective in the U.K. Years back, when I was working for Dell Computers, we came in and knocked the socks off IBM and Compaq because they’d just stuck to the ground on which they’d originally built their businesses - Main Frame Computers. Then Dell came along. We were nimble, we moved fast and we knocked the socks off them – taking the rug from under their feet in terms of the PC market.

Wake up call?

I wonder how the old established charities are reacting to the Help for Heroes model. It may be that there’s a certain amount of outdated practice in the charitable sector just like there was in IBM and Compaq. That would mean that those established charities may no longer be the best in class. I think there’s a lot to be said for having people with corporate experience coming into charities and removing any layers of dust that may have settled there. But I’m aware of the debate around whether corporate culture and charitable organisations can push and pull on a two handed saw to good effect.

Heaven on earth?

At the end of the day any organisation has to be able to tell the world what its end goal is. Charities might well be able to demonstrate what they are doing and why they are doing it, but the fact that they’re working on a seemingly never-ending task with limited funds may, understandably have caused them to lose sight of their original goal. But I was pretty taken with Tear Fund’s five year strategy when I looked through it recently. I guess any charity’s ultimate goal would, bizarrely, be to close itself down due to the fact that they’re just not needed any more – job done so to speak. Now doesn't that sound like heaven on earth.

 Ali

Fuelled by Tinderblogs