We forever have that connection

26 May 2016

Pic David 1
It was July 2 and I awoke from my tent having just competed at Henley Royal Regatta to check my emails and there it was – I was in! Having just completed one journey I was about to embark on another…

When Hyder became part of Arcadis I very quickly became aware of the Global Shapers program and I was determined to be a part of it. The initial three months consisted of a virtual phase where I worked with Caroline and Derek in the US, Aurélie and Anne in Germany, Martijn in the Netherlands, Carol in Manila and Tianshu in China and we quickly became friends while we worked through our tasks set by the organising team. Before we knew it, those three months had disappeared and we were standing together for the first time in Ede, some of us thousands of miles from home, along with the rest of Generation 2015.

When the face-to-face got going I was fortunate enough to be chosen, along with Cary from the US, to lead the #engage workflow where we would lead our ever changing team to look at ways of improving recruitment and retention. At the start of this process I envisaged that the outcome would be my primary focus however that was not the case. Earlier, in the virtual phase, we had looked at our personality types and one of the things I learned about myself is that I can get too fixated on the bigger picture and understanding this was fundamental to the success of the task.

We had a lot of strong personalities in our group and it was important that we set short term goals to ensure we had regular periods of achievement in order to keep morale high. It’s a very tiring four days and the most sleep I got in one go was five hours and so emotions can be all over the place. The hardest part was 24 hours from delivering our ideas. Cary and I were told we were heading in the wrong direction and we had to change it, quickly. The next 10 minutes were, I believe, what made our workflow the great success it was. We got some fresh air and devised how we would deliver the news to our exhausted team. We focused on the positives and the team responded with great enthusiasm and commitment.

I felt so proud when we showed the AGLF what we had done. That enormous sense of achievement, the responsibility placed in my hands, the experience of working with people I now call friends from all corners of the globe, that is what Global Shapers is all about. Now when I travel to our offices around the world and meet my fellows from Generation 2015 we forever have that connection and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

David Ord

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