Growth is a Team Sport

From the Alberta Accelerators, AMII, and Inventure$ by Alberta Innovates to the upcoming ASTech Awards – we can all see that momentum is built, when community comes together. Relationships are built faster when in-person, being present is an investment to connect – with customers, with investors, and with team members – and everyone reaps the rewards.

Alberta’s entrepreneurial tech companies are seeking to grow – investing in employees, and building resilient teams. Once a team can be relied upon, then the CEO can delegate, and seek additional projects, then hire more – resulting in company growth.  Flexibility of in-person vs remote work has greatly increased since COVID – and while that can provide individual value, it takes a commitment from all to recognize that it is everyone’s job to build a strong team. 

I was just at a University Engineering Capstone event and I asked several students – “What would you like to see in your full-time job – remote or in-person work?” These students stated “We were remote while in school during COVID – and found the learning experience was vastly improved when we were in-person together with others. We want to work in-person, we have had enough remote”.

So this is the challenge – we want growth, students/new grads learn more in teams and need the mentorship of senior personnel, but many workers want the flexibility to work from home. No matter the process, the result must be growing strong teams – so that our youth, company CEOs, and customers can count on company and community teams to deliver. And this is something each one of us can do – take the responsibility as a team member to build strong teams in our organization – so that we are not reliant on any single person’s effort, because as a team we will deliver, and support new talent, increase employee and customer retention, and grow our companies, and our community.

Growth is a team sport  – thank you all, we will get there together – and that is the only way we will grow Alberta’s Tech Sector.

See You Soon,

Gail
Gail J. Powley, P.Eng
President, Technology Alberta