When I led my ProVisors ONT meeting last week, we talked about our favorite charities. We are a group of trusted advisors for businesses (commercial bankers, commercial insurance, consultants, attorneys, etc.) yet discussing charities was a great exercise to get to know each other better which also improves our ability to collaborate and do business with each other. At the end of the discussion, we picked a name out of the attendees, and one of us walked away with the money collected for the charity of our choice. The winner gave the money to rescue the animals. Do you know what is meaningful to your colleagues?

I talked about the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research because my dad had Parkinson’s. Although my mom extended his capabilities beyond the typical (for example, kept him walking with help longer than the typical person), it was a great struggle and Parkinson negatively impacted his ability to lead his life. It would be great for them to find a cure and/or to extend the quality of life.

One tip to implement this week:

The tip this week is quite simple. Find out what is important to your colleagues, your boss and/or your employees. Whether or not you can ever do anything to help with these causes, don’t you think it would be good to know what is important to them? I had no idea that some of the folks would pick the charities they talked about even though I have known them for many years. It was good to hear about these worthy causes.

Perhaps it will be a great start to your holiday season to spend a few minutes thinking about this topic….

Looking for more ideas to keep your supply chain connected? Access more tips and resources on my blog. And keep connected by subscribing to my newsletter and email feed of “I’ve Been Thinking…”