The 2012 Summer Olympics have begun, and all of us at O.C. Tanner are excited about the London Games! We fondly recall our singular experience with the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, when we were the manufacturers of the Olympic medals and Team USA rings. Since 2000, we have been honored to donate the team rings for each Summer and Winter Olympics.
O.C. Tanner employees are heavily involved in the design and development of the team rings, and we all feel connected to the athletes. I recently received an email from an employee in our Chicago sales office, which really sums up why we provide the U.S. Olympic team rings:
In 2010, world-renowned innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen shared some powerful words with the Harvard Business School’s graduating class. He has since turned that speech into a just released book, How Will You Measure Your Life? I first read about the speech in a Harvard Business Review article. As a leader myself, it struck a chord.
In his speech, Clayton describes seeing in his mind’s eye one of his managers leave for work one morning with a relatively strong amount of confidence, happiness, and self-esteem. Then he pictures her driving home to her family, 8 or 10 hours later, feeling unappreciated, frustrated, underutilized. He imagines how profoundly her lowered self-esteem and dissatisfaction affects the way she interacts with her own family, perhaps her children. The vision in his mind then fast-forwards to another day, a better day, when she drives home after a long day with greater self-esteem, feeling she has learned a lot, been recognized for achieving valuable things, and played a significant role in the success of some important initiatives. He then imagines how positively that affects her as a spouse and as a parent.
