By Stacey Slaughter, Chief Executive Officer, NCTI
I am an avid reader. I started studying Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game about two months ago. The timing, now, seems divine. I will not do Mr. Sinek’s premise justice. Just go read it. The belief, however, that organizations need to exist, will only exist for the long term when built around a Just Cause and not a finite project, product offering, or even perspective seems particularly relevant today.
The harsh realities of this pandemic have threatened the fibers of our industry and our economy. As business leaders, it is a daily struggle to not be overwhelmed by the mountains of advice, warnings and in-your-face narratives, while also facing decisions that impact your customers, your employees, and the health of your organization. We need to approach business and leadership differently. We cannot expect to do business the same way we did pre-pandemic. We look to our mission, our core values for direction as the products we delivered or the manner in which we connected with our customers has changed.
NCTI’s mission is to improve the lives of our students and positively impact the people and companies we serve. In the spring of 2020, this means providing support in new and different ways. Meeting our customers where they are to collaborate and overcome obstacles together has charted a new path toward opportunities for all to engage and propel our Industry forward during this unsettled time.
In mid-March, thanks to many of you, we quickly rallied organizational and training leaders for an ad hoc round table at the onset of this crisis. Our goal was to exchange advice and best practices to support and sustain all frontline teams during this pandemic. From it we created a platform to allow the exchange of resources and tools. Users actively contribute and the numbers continue to grow.
We are here to support the industry. You can count on us to be here to help fortify people and organizations as we have done for over 50 years, it just may look a little different in the months ahead. In the meantime, we welcome new and unique ways to work with you and help get you and your employees through these difficult times.
We would like to tip our hats to the technicians braving the “conditions,” while working longer hours to ensure communities are connected. We also give thanks to the care reps who are fielding a much heavier volume of calls, which certainly run the gamut of emotion, from the confines of their homes. We are proud to be part of an industry that continues to have a positive impact during these extraordinary times. Thank you for all you have done, and we pray you remain healthy and safe.